So can we afford to still hold onto Jordan Walden? I drafted him expecting a no2 closer, so am very wary of dropping him to my league-mate vultures too early, and Walden hadnt even blown the 3 saves required to lose your job these days. He’s really not been that bad, so is there much chance he gets the gig back soon?

LOVE this site. Look forward to reading it every morning. I tell everyone about it except for my leaguemates (razzball is my proprietary IP in that context). Sorry for the problems.

And I mentioned his SSS FB/HR rate as evidence that he can still perform well while giving up home runs at a high rate. His strikeout ability is elite, his swinging strike rate superlative, so he can get away with an elevated FB and HR rate. You lack the depth to be doing this and your personality is yuck. Stick to the comments section, troll.

If you don’t think Frieri can look fine with any number of weird peripheral stats in 12 IPs, then I don’t know what to say to you. If I’m evaluating Frier the pitcher going forward, I’ll use his relevant career line, not just this years stats, or 2011′s stats.

Further unless you can be polite and comment rationally, I’m not going to address you further. I’ll forward your comment to Grey and if he wants to replace me he can.

Thanks for reading. I do wish you could act mature.

Frieri’s HR/FB rate is 12% right now and he is doing just fine btw … idiot.

And we are talking about how Frieri will do THIS YEAR, not over the course of his career. If you narrow down FB% and HR/FB to two years, you will find many more short work relievers who come close to matching his batted ball profile (near 50%), and were able to sustain low (under 6%) HR/FB rates for two years straight. Feliz, Chris Perez, RSoriano, Marmol, Madson, KRodetc. Why is KRod not a comparable? both rely on deceptive deliveries … I think you will find a good comp among that group. And if you are forecasting closing ability, you have to take into account how good guys in that group have been.

My big worry with Freiri is his control. My big worry with picking him up is that he will have a very short leash. He fuks up once before racking up 10 saves, it’s back to Walden or Downs.

I have no problem with projections, it’s all a matter of how you qualify them. You don’t qualify yours at all. You state them emphatically. There’s no “I think” or “I’ve misjudged before but here’s how I see it playing it,” or “maybes” or cavaet empors, etc. That would help, especially because you are focused on closers where small sample sizes make stat categories unstable sometimes for the ENTIRE SEASON. You are brave to tackle the Closer Beat, I respect that, but some awareness of the necessity of guess work in forming your opinions would go a long way in my book.

But if you really think you can do this without guesses or hunches, then you may be beyond repair (in my eyes).

Also, you totally found out my goal, to be the Odysseus of the fantasy community and totally piss off Poseidon, who I assume is you….

Frieri:

Of the guys you’ve selected with low HR/FB rates, the lowest GB rate is 40%, that is for Joel Hanrahan, who has changed his approach a bit of late and gotten more grounders. I’ll dismiss Cishek as he has 77 IPs and pitches in a HR squelching park. In addition, none of these guys have career HR/FB rates lower than Rodriguez’s 4.7%. It seems when they get more innings, the HR/Fb rates go to at least 7% and with Frieri giving up way more FBs than your list, that’s a lot more HRs for him. Is it possible for a reliever to throw a season with a 1% HR/Fb rate? Sure. Can he do it consecutively? Sure. Will he consistently do it, no. As Frieri gets more IPs, his HR/Fb rate will climb up, it’s happened for every pitcher you mention. I fail to see anything useful in the relievers you’ve selected and how they pertain to Frieri. Again, the GB and FB rates are vastly different and aside from cherry picking one year of their careers, none had HR/FB rates demonstrably below your 5% hunch when given a lot of innings.

I suppose this falls on me, because i didnt underscore my Frieri point enough: he won’t maintain a 3.6% or 4.8% HR/FB rate in his new situation, he will be worse. I don’t believe I’m in the minority on this. Why do pitchers do better going from the AL to the NL?

Last pt on Frieri: Since 1999, of relievers with at least 80 IPs, Freiri has the highest FB%. Of the pitchers within 10% of his mark, only Bastardo (6.1% HR/FB), Marmol (5.8%), Romo (5.9%), and Jansen (6.4%) have HR/Fb rates anywhere near 5%. In this group of relievers since 99, there are only 22 pitchers with sub 5% Hr/FB rates. That’s 22 out of 633 pitchers. They include Derek Lowe, Joey Devine, clay Hensely, Kimbrell, Axford, Chapman, Medlen, and HRod and then a bunch of guys who barely got to 80 IPs in this span. In short, it’s almost all small sample or extreme GB guys. Yep, it’s all hunches, there’s no data behind anything.

If you care about my track record go and check yourself. I did a number of ROTW on my series for razzball last year and I think they panned out pretty well. In addition, do you not want numbers to back up what I’m saying? You just want nebulous vague words, i.e. hunches? I say Freiri won’t be good, to a reader that might mean a 4.50 ERA, while to me it just means he won’t be Padres good. In addition, a number of web sites and fantasy writers have the “hubris” to provide ROTW projections, its by no means bizarre. Also what makes ROTW projections different from beginning of the year projections? Did you ask Grey how he arrived at his season projections? Or his track record against others?

I do all my projections by hand using some formulas I’ve developed, also a standard practice.

Listen, either you follow my advice and believe it or you don’t. Its a personal decision, but no one is forcing you to. I’ve written for a very long time, I’ve made good and bad calls. So has everyone. What’s your track record of comment predictions? Have you tracked them? Are you pulling them out of thin air?

Do you want “hunch” or statistical prognostication? Seems like you want neither….You say: How do you know Frieri will walk 3.25 per 9, not 2.7? Well how do you know that Pujols is going to be good? How do you know anything? Obviously there’s nothing we know in fantasy 100% but if we cant make predictions or projections, what’s the point?

Again, I’ll ask do you fact check Grey or other fantasy writers in this manner? Or do you just like picking fights and taking one point out of a column and beating it to death. I don’t just write columns in five minutes, I take a lot of time to do it. I’m not “guessing” and pulling things out of the air and you don’t see all the work I put into these. Who would read.edit an 8,000 word column on bullpens? Why you feel the need to insinuate that I’m somehow lackadaisically offering advice is beyond me. It’s insulting and absurd. What do I get out of deciding to work hard for a few years, get to the point where i can write a razzball column and then decide i’m just going to mail it in and give horrible uneducated and unresearched advice? I’m on a long con, you’ve found me out…

Since when is fantasy writing held up to some ridiculous standard that doesnt include “hunches” or projections/predictions? Do you want me to just regurgitate news? What exactly do you want in a fantasy column?

Where do you get your ROTW projections? Pull them out of your hat? How do you know Fieri will walk 3.25 per 9, not 2.7? The difference between a 1.33 and 1.22 WHIP for a closer what, less than a dozen walks/hits, yet you are so sure you know where the balls will land? Why should we trust what you say? How have your projections stacked up against the known predictive engines? You do realize that even guys with the top rated predictive engines don’t dare to proffer ROTW projections with the hubris you do? Mr. Lang, sorry to get on your case again, but you’re asking for it.

FB% doesnt include IFFB%, so your point about Hellickson is moot. He’s also getting an ungodly amount of IFFB this year, which seems unlikely to continue. In addition, I wouldnt compare any starter to reliever. the sample sizes arent even remotely close to draw an accurate picture.

FBs, in and of themselves are generally fine. However, traditionally 10% of one’s FBs leave the park. Last year Frieri had a 3.6% rate, which was largely aided by Petco. Of course he gave up more HRs on the road than at Petco, that’s my point, take him out of Petco and he gives up more HRs, he gives up more HRs, he blow saves, posts worse ERAs/WHIPs, etc.

Comparing Jim Johnson to Frieri is also worthless. They’re different pitchers. Freiri a K/FB guy and Johnson a ground ball guy. They are as different relievers as there are.

Frier has a career 4.70 BB/9 rate. I expect it to be lower this year, but not demonstrably, as he’ll post a 4.25 BB/9 rate. He’s a fine pitcher, but he’s not a lights out reliever unless he’s posting 3.6% HR/FB rates which is near impossible in his current environment.

Basically he’s the same as Jordan Walden, who lost his job after a few bad outings. If you like Frieri wont have similar blow-ups and get a quick trigger if he ever gets the closer role, we’re just analyzing the situation differently.

.170/.169/.408

By the way, when you say, FB, what do you mean? One of the reasons why Hellboy had the outcome he did last year is owing to more than a few of his FB being pop-ups. Here’s the data on FB per OFFB:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/introducing-hr-offb-park-factors/

As you can see, the AL has no monopoly on being HR friendly. And, yeah, he got PETCO, Dodger Stadium and Phone Book (AT&T). He also got Coors and the Snake Pit. Is that any worse than the AL Central folk getting Kaufman, Jacobs and Comerica? If you will look at the table, there are exactly 8 teams in both leagues with an OFFB/HR factor less than 100.

As one otherwise knows, the worst possible line for the pitcher arises from the LD, then comes the GB and trailing the field is the FB (either a pop up or a ball hit to the OF which means a longer distance for the ball to travel leaving the fielder with more time to get in position to make the catch). Anyone who well and truly understands the old high school math word problem concerning Trains A and B leaving the station will instinctively understand why that is so.

H: .195/.306/.314
R: .190/.319/.318

That rather seems to belie the notion that he’s Heath Bell in disguise and protected by PETCO.

man .
never “got” it .
how ignent i is .

He’s not going to repeat a 3.6% HR/Fb rate like he did last season. ROTW, Frieri is a 3.45 ERA pitcher, 1.33 WHIP, 2.30 K:BB rate. That’s nothing special…

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/8599/splits;_ylt=AmBKvi9vxVFqhRbCC4t8fIuFCLcF?year=career&type=Pitching

I still think there’s a 60% chance if healthy and thriving the Royals trade him…

p.s. unless broxton gets hurt , he ain’t going anywhere .
release those handcuffs .

The big concern with Frieri out of Petco is he allows 55%+ of his balls in play as fly balls. In the AL west, he can survive with that an a misicule HR/FB rate. That wont work in the AL. In addition, he walks a lot of batters, his BB/9 rate since 2010 is the 25th worst among pitchers with at least 80 innings. Ask heath Bell how Petco helped mask a poor K:BB rate…

By the way, Frieri came in for two reasons: (1) give him some work (hadn’t pitched since the 12th), and (2) the more Downs pitches per game, the more he becomes available for future games (so keep Downs at 1 IP and give Frieri some work).