Archive | May, 2011

Robinson Cano sets the pace at second base

By on May 31, 2011 | Comments { 0 }

Entering 2011 there was very little doubt that Robinson Cano was the top second baseman. He was coming off a .319/29/109 season with 103 runs scored and was the only top second baseman that didn’t have serious questions regarding his health.

But even though Cano is setting the pace, just as we all expected, he hasn’t been the first-round performer many pegged him to be. Thus far he’s just the 31st ranked player overall and is batting just .284…and I use the word “just” very loosely here because both of those are still very respectable numbers.

It’s actually quite amazing how much the league’s second basemen are bunched this season. Michael Young is the third-ranked second baseman with a line of 25/.340/3/25/4. Placido Polanco is the ninth-ranked second baseman with an eerily similar 27/.317/3/29/3 line. That’s pretty damn close.

Here’s the rest of the top 15 second basemen after two months of 2011 along with a few notes on guys I feel need noting.

  • Rickie Weeks is rapidly shedding the “injury prone” label that has been justly attached to him for the majority of his career. He’s played in 53 of Milwaukee’s 54 games this season and is on pace for 27 home runs after exploding for 29 last season. Better yet, Weeks is stealing bases again – he’s on pace for 18 after swiping only 11 last season – and has been able to maintain a .282 average for two whole months! His strikeout rate is down a tick from last season, and while his .342 BABIP would be his highest since his .351 mark in 2006, Weeks should continue to not kill you in this category. He’s also tied for seventh in the majors with 37 runs scored.
  • Young has a very handy set of eligibilities (1B/2B/3B), which make owning him even more fun. If you’re like me, you’re starting Young at third base given how shallow that position is, but still waiting for his power to appear. He had 21 homers last year after mashing 22 in 2009, so why’s he stuck at three after two months this season? You can blame his career-low HR/FB rate of 6.3 percent that isn’t doing Young owners any favors given his uber-low 26.5 percent fly ball rate. According to Hit Tracker Online, all three of Young’s homers this season have been of the “Just Enough” variety, which is just enough for me to call into question how much power is left in his bat. I’m not banking of a sudden homer spree from Young and have resigned myself to the fact that we’ll likely see 12 or so by season’s end.
  • I’ve always criticized Brandon Phillips for not being able to hit for a high enough average to justify an early-round pick, but he’s batting .300 so far this season thanks to a career-low strikeout rate (9.4%, career 15.6%) and a not-that-unsustainable .308 BABIP. His power/speed combo thus far is pretty much on pace with what we’d expect so his status as the fourth-ranked second baseman isn’t far from the truth.
  • At this point in his career, it seems as if Ian Kinsler is what Weeks used to be. An injury-prone leadoff type with solid speed and good pop who struggles to hit for a good average.
  • Ryan Roberts batted .313 with five homers and 15 RBI in April but hasn’t fared as well in May, batting just .253 with two homers and seven RBI. He has managed to up his run total from 11 in April to 18 this month, though. Arizona is playing their best baseball in years right now, but who knows how long that will last. When the Diamondbacks cool off, Roberts will probably lose almost all of his fantasy value.
  • Neil Walker has maintained almost the same home run, run and RBI paces as last season, but his batting average is way down thanks to an increase in his strikeout rate and a correction in his BABIP. I don’t think he’s the .296 guy we saw last year, but I do expect him to bat .270-.280 the rest of the way.
  • I keep waiting for Dustin Pedroia to come around but it’s just not happening. His .255 average in April gave way to a .231 mark in May and his strikeout rate is up almost 50 percent from last season (12.6% to 18.0%). He’s still stealing bases and scoring runs, and one would think the rest will come as Boston’s offense has really been on a tear recently.
  • Darwin Barney and Starlin Castro are cut from the same mold atop the Cubs lineup. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like Castro because of how much hype he received entering this season (mainly surrounding his speed) and how one-dimensional he really is. Offensively, Barney can be (and is) the same type of player as Castro but doesn’t have the same kind of hype, so, naturally, I think he’s a solid guy to have on your bench to help when your team really needs a boost in the batting average department but can afford to take a hit in the power categories.
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Albert Pujols checks in as 14th best first baseman of 2011

By on May 26, 2011 | Comments { 1 }

Maybe Albert Pujols is mortal after all. The man who has never batted lower than .312 in a single season is currently batting .261. His previous career worst walk rate was 10.2 percent way back in his rookie season, but thus far he’s only walking 8.9 percent of the time. Pujols has averaged nearly 41 homers and 123 RBI per season for a decade, but through 51 games he’s only on pace for 25 and 83. Could we really see King Albert finish a season batting .261 with 25 homers and 83 RBI?

Forget all of the earthquakes, tsunamis and tornados. Pujols’ sudden decline is the strongest evidence those damn Mayans might be right.

But for every struggling star there’s an equally unexpected positive performer ready to take his place. Below is a list of the top 15 first basemen through the season’s first eight weeks according to Yahoo!

Here are a few of my thoughts on just what’s happened at the game’s premier offensive position:

  • I guess drafting Adrian Gonzalez with a mid-first round pick wasn’t so crazy after all. The power was slow to develop as many expected, but right now he’s the game’s fifth best player with a league-leading 43 RBI and a Pujolsian .340 average. As a Red Sox fan I can attest to the fact that Gonzalez is abusing the Green Monster and that bloated batting average is no fluke. With eight home runs in May alone, Gonzalez has a serious shot at a 40-homer, 140-RBI season that would make even Ryan Howard jealous.
  • Lance Berkman has collected just one home run and three RBI over his last 10 games, but he’s also batted .321 (9-for-28) over that span with 12 walks to just five strikeouts. I’m still on the “sell Berkman ASAP” bandwagon because his age and the lack of a DH in the National League make me wonder how long he can keep this up. People in head-to-head leagues should be very wary of Berkman because of the strong possibility of a poor September when he would have already put 120-plus games on those old knees of his.
  • Joey Votto appears to be more of a 25-30 home run guy and not the 37-homer monster we saw last season. He doesn’t hit enough fly balls (just 31.5% this season, career 34.9%) and his HR/FB rate was insane last year (25.0%). He’s better than what he’s shown thus far, though.
  • I expected to see Mark Teixeira rebound in the batting average department after he batted .256 last year with a .268 BABIP, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Right now he’s batting .253 with a .244 BABIP. Maybe that’s just who he is now.
  • It’s rare to see a player with second base eligibility rank so highly in the first base rankings, but Howie Kendrick is doing just that with an absurdly well-rounded season. Pause for a moment, though. After hitting four home runs in the first eight games on the season, Kendrick has homered just three times in his past 37 games.
  • Gaby Sanchez is the real deal and it’s a crime he’s owned in just 84 percent of leagues. Remember when we all raved about Billy Butler and his ability to hit for a good average with doubles gap power? Butler never cashed in on all those doubles and became a hollow .300 hitter by first base (and now DH) standards. Sanchez hits a good amount of fly balls with a modest HR/FB rate, and while I don’t expect him to become a consistent 30 home run threat, he does a little bit of everything and could be a 100 RBI hitter.
  • Ben Zobrist had 10 of his 28 RBI in one day, meaning he has just 18 in every game that wasn’t on April 28. Regardless, I do still like Zobrist a lot because of his great position eligibility, his ability to score a ton of runs, his high walk rate and his potentially lethal power/speed combo.
  • Kevin Youkilis is really turning his season around. He’s improved his average from .240 to .275 over the last 10 games and is batting .333 with 3 homers, 17 RBI and an OPS of 1.000 in May.
  • I mentioned Howard earlier, but where has the power gone?! He recently went seven games without a hit and, after his game-tying 10th inning blast last night, has just two RBI since May 13 (both solo homers). Thankfully he has hit in five straight games now with three multi-hit efforts and those two solo homers during the mini-streak.

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A Closer Look at David Ortiz's Stellar Season

By on May 25, 2011 | Comments { 2 }

After Boston’s clobbering of the AL-leading Cleveland Indians on Wednesday, Red Sox DH David Ortiz sits at a pretty .303 with 10 home runs. At this point last year Ortiz was batting just .258 with nine homers as he tried to dig himself out of an early-season hole, and remember the awful start Ortiz had in 2009 when he was batting .195 with just one home run through May 25?

We all know Ortiz has the 30-homer power he’s displaying once again, but can he really maintain a .300 average like he did three times from 2004 to 2007? What happened to the guy who batted .264, .238 and .270 over the last three seasons? Is luck the only reason Ortiz seems to be channeling his former (possibly PED-infused) self?

Thus far, no.

If luck was to blame we would expect Ortiz’s BABIP to be somewhere north of .350, not the completely sustainable .299 it currently sits at. Believe it or not, Ortiz’s success is completely the product of his ability to drastically cut down his strikeout rate. Check out his career plate discipline stats courtesy of Fangraphs.com:

Specifically note the number I’ve conveniently circled in red. Somehow, at age 35, Ortiz is posting a career-best O-Contact% (contact rate on pitches outside the strike zone) of 77.5 percent. Only once in his career has he topped 53.8 percent and his previous career high was the 60.5 percent he managed last year. As a result, Ortiz’s Contact% is also a career high and his SwStr% (swinging strike rate) is a career low.

All of this has combined to result in a stunningly low 11.6 percent strikeout rate this season. To put that in perspective, famed contact artist Ichiro Suzuki has a career 9.9 percent strikeout rate. Albert Pujols‘ career mark is 11.2 percent.

Will Ortiz maintain his contact rates thus far? Eh, probably not, but that’s OK. Even if he tails off and his strikeout rate increases, he could still be looking at a .280 average for the season, and a .280/30/100 season would be very valuable.

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Top 20 Unluckiest Pitchers of 2011 According to FIP

By on May 24, 2011 | Comments { 7 }

Yesterday I wrote a short post with a to-the-point finish: trade Alexi Ogando. That prompted an equally short but to-the-point discussion in the comments section about Ogando’s future in the Texas rotation and what players would bring back good value in a trade for Ogando. I’d suggest you check both of them out.

Anyway, the mini-discussion regarding Ogando’s trade value made me wonder who some good pitchers to target would be after the season’s first two months. It’s generally about this time that fantasy managers have formed their opinions about a player’s performance and their likelihood of maintaining it throughout the season, so finding good buy-low candidates can be a boon for your roster as the rest of the season unfolds.

Fangraphs allows us to do this quite nicely with their sortable leaderboards, so when trying to answer this question I went over there and sorted by pitchers who’s FIPs were lower than their ERAs. Then I took a nice screenshot and edited out the unnecessary columns to give a quick, concise snapshot of some of 2011′s unluckiest pitchers according to FIP.

As a side note, Fangraphs is fantastic. Go to them for the stats. Come to us for the analysis.

Here are a few thoughts on some players we see here:

  • I wrote a little blurb about Ryan Dempster after his horrid April 28 start against the Diamondback in which he lasted just a third of an inning and allowed seven earned runs. In that blurb, I had this to say about the Cubs’ starter: “Bench him until he strings together a couple good outings, but really I would say go out and actively trade for him. He will be the Dempster of old in due time.” Little did I know that “due time” would mean his next three starts. Dempster has his walks under control and his home run allowed rates have fallen, too. Despite the hiccup last time out, I remain bullish on him.
  • Often times, when a pitcher has a FIP much lower than his ERA, it’s because his bullpen has been downright atrocious behind him. Each season the league average strand rate (LOB%) is around 72 percent, so it’s not a surprise to see only three of the 20 starters here have strand rates even close to that. Without a solid bullpen behind a pitcher, it’s unlikely that we’ll see them close the gap between their FIP and their ERA because the bullpen will continue to allow inherited runners to score. Despite the usually putrid bullpens in Arizona and Washington, I do like Daniel Hudson and Jordan Zimmermann.
  • Go get Chris Carpenter. His 3.89 ERA in April was OK but not what we expected, and an awful May (6.31 ERA) has completely obscured the solid season he’s having. Despite his superficial May stats, consider his BABIP and strand rate this month: .417 and 58.8 percent. Those numbers have yielded a FIP of 2.94 in May which is just ridiculously unlucky. His walk rate in both months of the season has remained about the same and his opponents’ line-drive rate has actually decreased in May, which really makes you wonder what’s going on with that .417 BABIP. Go get Carpenter.
  • I’d also suggest you make a play for Ubaldo Jimenez. His BABIP is pretty low at .254 and that will probably rise, but his strand rate is pretty terrible and he can’t be much worse than the 5.44 ERA he’s currently touting. His FIP is still pretty unexciting at 4.38, especially given the hype he generated last season, and any success he has going forward will almost solely be the product of an improved walk rate, which currently sits at 5.64 BB/9.
  • My buddy George wrote a post not long ago about why we should buy low on Travis Wood. While the numbers are a little outdated, the logic isn’t.
  • I really like Tim Stauffer. He has great control and a fantastic bullpen behind him. He was also great as a starter at the end of last season, posting a 1.83 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in his seven starts.
  • What can be said about Matt Garza? He has a crazy-high strikeout rate and a crazy-low FIP. Both of those scream “trade for me.” I would issue one bit of caution with Garza, though. His fly ball rate is a career-low 28.3 percent right now. He has never finished with a fly ball rate under 37.7 percent and his career rate is 40.9 percent. That will probably rise at least a little, which will probably mean more home runs, especially considering his unbelievably low 2.4 percent HR/FB rate in a fairly good home run hitter’s park (Wrigley Field). When the home runs inevitably come his ERA will rise accordingly, and that could be a problem for a pitcher with a 1.37 WHIP this year (yes, even if that WHIP is a little high as a result of his .362 BABIP). Just saying…you’ve been warned.
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How long can Alexi Ogando keep this up?

By on May 23, 2011 | Comments { 8 }

John Danks and Alexi Ogando are two very different pitchers heading in very opposite directions. Despite complete games from both, Danks picked up his seventh loss of the season, remaining winless in the process, as Ogando improved to 5-0 during his surprisingly awesome debut season as an MLB starter. Check out the box score from their matchup on Monday night:

How long can Ogando keep up this pace? The 59 2/3 innings he’s thrown this season already top the 41 2/3 innings he threw out of the Texas bullpen in 2010, and he only had three starts in 59 career minor league appearances.

To top all that off, Ogando threw 115 pitches against the White Sox after throwing 116 his last time out against Kansas City.  It was the fourth time he’d thrown at least 100 pitches in a game this season and the third time he’d thrown at least 114. Only once in his nine starts thus far has he thrown fewer than 90.

His ERA currently sits at 1.81 and his WHIP at 0.87. Regardless of how well Ogando pitches from here on out his stats can only get worse which means his trade value can’t be any higher than it is right now. Trade Ogando before the innings catch up with him, especially if you’re in a head-to-head league where a player’s September performance (i.e. playoffs) matters most.

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It's time to sell Colby Lewis

By on May 20, 2011 | Comments { 0 }

Rangers starter Colby Lewis has endured an up-and-down season, or rather a down-and-up season considering his terrible start and sudden surge. As a Lewis owner I was thrilled to finally see the numbers I paid for by drafting him with one of my coveted mid-round picks (14th round, 134th overall to be exact), but don’t be fooled by the shiny facade put up by Lewis’ last four starts. The underlying numbers forecast a fall from grace in the near future.

Opponents Faced

First, consider who Lewis has had success against during his recent stretch: at Oakland (23rd ranked offense), at Seattle (29th), Oakland again at home and at the Chicago White Sox (21st). Not exactly the titans of Major League Baseball. Yes, he did have three road starts, but two of them were in the spacious confines of the Oakland Coliseum and Safeco Field, both notorious pitcher’s parks.

Strikeout Rate and Velocity

Lewis’ K/9 has fallen from 8.78 last season to just 6.29 this year. During his four-game stretch of excellence, in which he’s compiled a stellar 1.67 ERA, his K/9 is just 6.68. Overall his velocity on his fastball is down from 2010 (90.1 MPH to 88.5 MPH) and his swinging strike percentage has fallen as well (9.5% to 8.1%). This velocity chart courtesy of Fangraphs.com clearly shows what I’m talking about.

And I’ll throw this little tidbit in for good measure: if you look closely you can see that Lewis had a slight but noticeable drop in velocity in the second half of 2010. Not coincidentally, at least in my opinion, his ERA in the second half last year was 4.18 versus 3.33 in the first half. I have a hard time believing he’ll return to his velocity from last season without some sort of rest during the year. Maybe that comes at the All-Star break, but maybe it doesn’t. It didn’t help him last year.

Home Run and Fly Ball Rates

Lewis has always been a fly ball pitcher. Last season it didn’t hurt him too much as his 21 home runs allowed weren’t horrible, although his HR/9 did rank a below-average 60th out of 92 qualifying starters (at least 162 IP).

This season his fly ball rate has skyrocketed from 44.9 percent to 52.7 percent and he’s allowed 12 four-baggers already. Yes, his HR/FB rate is up to 13.8 percent, which is a little high, but keep in mind that he does play in Texas, which is the second-best park for hitting homers this season and was ranked seventh-best last season. It’s not surprising for his HR/FB rate to be inflated.

And I know what all you Lewis supporters are thinking right about now: “Yeah, but those numbers are just his cumulative season totals. They’re inflated because of his four poor starts to begin the season. His last four starts don’t show those same trends.”

Sorry, but they do. Lewis’ fly ball rate in May (which encompasses his last three great starts) is 55.1 percent, higher than his 51.0 percent rate in his horrid April. The real difference is that his HR/FB rate has plummeted this month from 20.4 percent in April to 5.3 percent in May. Remember the ballparks he’s pitched in during this stretch? That goes a long way to explaining his HR/FB rate in May.

Walk Rate

This is the one area where Lewis has show significant, non-luck related improvement. His walk rate in April was 3.30 BB/9 and in May it’s been 1.11 BB/9. Perhaps this is the pessimist in me, but I feel pretty confident that he won’t be able to keep up that May rate and a correction will be in order with his end-of-season walk rate probably ending up pretty close to 3.00 BB/9. And remember, more walks equals more free runners on base which equals more free runs on the inevitable home runs that a fly ball pitcher in Texas is going to allow.

Sell Lewis Now

So for of my fellow Lewis owners out there, look at his last four starts like you’d look at a nice paint job on your car; at least it makes things look good on the surface so maybe you can get maximum value when selling. His ERA is finally under 4.00, his WHIP is under 1.20 and he’s back to .500 at 4-4 on the year.

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Russell Martin is (for now) the top-ranked catcher in fantasy baseball

By on May 18, 2011 | Comments { 1 }

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks to the handy Windows 7 Snipping Tool that comes standard on my brand new computer, you’ll be seeing a lot more pictures in the coming days and weeks.

The reason? It can be difficult and/or wordy to explain the fantasy relevance of box scores and stats. Showing nice, simple screen captures of what’s going on with a few quick notes is a lot shorter for me and a lot more convenient for you. At the risk of beating a dead horse, that’s what Charlie Sheen would call “bi-winning.”

As my first project I decided to look at the current top 10 players at each position as we move through the season’s seventh week. Today we look at possibly the most difficult position to forecast: catchers.

Note: The rankings and % Owned for each player are courtesy of Yahoo!

According to Yahoo!’s preseason rankings, there were five catchers ranked inside the top 75 overall: Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, Brian McCann, Buster Posey and Carlos Santana. Because of injury (are we surprised?) we don’t see Mauer in this early-season top-10 list. The other four are mixed in but aren’t doing as well as we’d expect.

In fact, no catcher is really doing that well overall as none of them rank higher than Russell Martin at 117 overall. Martinez is without doubt the best catcher thus far in the season but his cumulative totals are hurt by the two weeks he missed in late April and early May with a groin injury. He’s firing on all cylinders now that he’s back. Over the last two weeks he’s batted .415 (17-for-41) with nine runs, two homers, 14 RBI and a 1.172 OPS, good for 11th best in fantasy over that span.

But Martinez’s success isn’t a surprise. The real surprise is something I touched on about 13 seconds ago: the resurgence of Martin. He’s come back down to earth quite rapidly over the last few weeks, registering just one homer and two RBI in his last 10 games while batting .156 (5-for-32) during that time. Still, his seven homers are the most he’s had in a full season since 2008 and he’s actually on pace for 28 homers and 77 runs. I don’t think he’ll reach either of those totals, probably falling well short of the 28 homers and just short of the 77 runs, but overall that still makes him a legit top-10 catcher. From this day on I’d only take Martinez, Santana, McCann, the struggling Posey and the injured Mauer over Martin.

If anyone in your league is skeptical of Santana’s slow start, now might be your last chance to buy. His average sits at just .233 despite batting .314 (11-for-35) over the last two weeks and his strikeout-to-walk ratio is phenomenal. The power numbers and RBI production will come.

Matt Wieters is starting to get hot again, compiling a seven-game hit streak, but once again there is very little pop in his bat. He has just one extra base hit during that span and isn’t scoring enough runs or tallying enough RBI to be worth pursuing.

What about Alex Avila? I’m very high on Avila this season, but in the interest of full disclosure I did drop him a couple days ago in our Baseball Professor league, however that was more an issue of roster space since I’m blessed enough to own his superior Tiger counterpart, Senor Martinez. I won’t sit here and pretend Avila is some major prospect you need to know, but he’s just 24 years old, has a powerful 5-foot-11, 210-pound frame and has a subtle history of home run power. He hit 12 homers in 93 games at Triple-A in 2009 and went on to hit five more homers in just 29 games in the Majors that same season before slumping some in the power department last season (seven in 103 games with Detroit). This season he’s picked up right where he left off in ’09 hitting six so far. With the proper number of at-bats, which it appears he’ll get, we could see a near-20 homer season and possibly 60-plus RBI. Sadly, Avila bats mostly eighth in the Tigers lineup. Still, I’m a fan.

The last quick note will deal with the most frustrating non-injured catcher to own this season: Posey. Compared to last year, Posey’s strikeout rate has been up in 2011 due to a rough April in which he struck out 17 times and batted just .262. So far in May he’s batting .289 and has struck out just six times compared to nine walks, but he hasn’t gotten an extra base hit yet this month in 45 at-bats and has just three RBI. Generally I’m more concerned with a batter’s approach at the plate than I am with his result because a good approach will eventually yield good results, so be patient with Posey.

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