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“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” – Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects. I disagree Mr. Kint. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing 22.4% of ESPN owners that Jarlin Garcia was worth a pickup. 1.09 ERA is the juicy apple. But hidden in plain sight is the 6.27 K/9, 3.55 BB/9, and .151 BABIP. Want me to continue? How about a 95.2% strand rate and 4.57 xFIP? Go farther you say? 36.4% hard contact rate and 8.6% swinging strike rate. More? Damn, no wonder the devil be one productive mofo. Paul Sporer of Fangraphs broke it broke it down last week HERE. Maybe Jarlin is a magician. Maybe Jarlin is a Jedi master. When I look at FanGraphs, the data says that Jarlin is throwing his fastball more, slider less, and changeup more than last year. On Baseballsavant, though, the data says that Jarlin is throwing the fastball more, slider more, and changeup less. He’s even got the internet flabbergasted! Anyways, I’m in agreement with Sporer. I’m not going to write what he said, though. Go back and click on the link. Don’t be a lazy mofo. That’s when the devil pounces. TRASH

Luis Castillo (55% owned – decrease of 16.1%), in the illustrious words of Charles Barkley, has been turrable. It’s never a good thing when the ERA is higher than the K/9 (7.85 vs 7.53). Turrable. 4.08 BB/9? Turrable. But all is not lost. .330 BABIP and 58.1% strand rate portend for some positive regression to occur. What really gets my attention, though, is that the swinging strike is almost 1% higher than last year (13.5% vs 12.6%). Castillo is also getting batters to swing more at pitches out of the strike zone (31.5% vs 28.3%). Now, batters are clobbering the pitches when making contact. According to Baseballsavant, the barrel% has increased 7% from last season and the hard hit% has increased 9%. Brooksbaseball is showing that his fastball is down almost 2mph from last season. A 98 mph fastball allows for one to get away with more mistakes than a 96 mph one. As I’m writing this, Castillo just struck out 7 Brewers in 6 innings of work while allowing 2 earned runs. This could be the beginning of a bounce from the lows. If he’s on the waiver wire, the upside is worth a free scoop. TREASURE

Matt Carpenter (71.9% owned – decrease of 9.7%) makes me want to stick my finger down my throat. I owned him one year in my fantasy life and….now I want to walk into the room where my kids have all their Legos on the floor. With that said, he’s not this bad. C’mon, he’s not hitting .170 all season. The BABIP won’t be .203 all year and he’s still walking at an elite rate. Now, the strikeout and swinging strike rates are both elevated, but they are not at egregious levels. The lowered contact rates are a concern, though. The overall contact rate is down 10%, outside the strike zone is down 12%, and in the zone is down 8%. I’m going to lean on the overall body of work with Carpenter. The line drive rate is at a career high (27.9%) and the hard contact% is still at 37.1%. He’s hitting leadoff or second in the batting order and needs four more games to add 2B eligibility to the already present 1B and 3B. TREASURE