This is the 2nd post in a series (Post #1 was about position adjustments) in which I am going to combine my thoughts on category valuation and general fantasy baseball auction value quality checks. Determining how to value a player’s contributions across each statistical category is the fundamental challenge of building a system for ranking/valuing fantasy baseball players […]
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It’s been a long, tough winter (especially for those of you who live in the Northeast), but the wait is almost over. Spring training is in full swing and the regular season is just around the corner. That means, of course, that fantasy baseball draft season is here.
Recently, we’ve attempted to identify the next Corey Kluber and looked at some hitters who displayed above average power and plate discipline over the past couple of seasons. Today, we’re going to focus on relief pitchers. If you’re looking for the latest closer rankings as well as the top handcuff and hold options, check out the Bullpen Report, which provides excellent RP analysis each and every week.
This post will attempt to identify relievers with a very specific profile: power arms with high K-rates. Players who throw hard and miss bats. It’s that simple. Well, mostly. Let’s take a look at the search filters that I used for this exercise:
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We’ve got Grey on location in Arizona! Grey fills us in about rolling with the Razzball crew in Spring Training, including Jack Full of Hate hoping to be Jack Full of Tristan Cockcroft! Too far? Probably! But it’s early in Spring Training and I’m working on the full repertoire! We then roll through all of the early Spring injuries including no Cy for Yu! Then wrap up with a look at the noteworthy performances in the ultimate useless small sample of the first few games through Spring. Here’s the new edition of the Razzball Baseball Podcast:
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Please, blog, may I have some more?Well, there’s one schmohawk post I don’t have to write, right? Stutterer! Yu Darvish left a game the other day with a tight triceps. That’s what the she-dinosaur said! Huh? Then, this past weekend, it was announced he’s a candidate for Tommy John surgery. Stop sullying the word candidate with your surgery, Tommy John! I wonder if the whole -san suffix for names like Daniel-san gets confusing with Tommy John. Thomson John? Tommy Johnson? Thomson Johnson? It’s no secret that I didn’t like Darvish coming into this year. For my foray into pannin’ Asian, too much risk was attached to his arm for where people were drafting him. His NFBC ADP was 43 prior to this news, so you had to start thinking about him in the 3rd round. No thanks, Yu, I said. Of course, when I told you in my top 40 starters post to avoid him, I was beat up in the comments for losing my way. Yu was the greatest pitcher since sliced bread that had a portrait of Hello Kitty on it! Don’t Yu know, Grey?! Yu can strike out so many something-somethings that you should want to bear his children, then one day shout at him in divorce court, “These are all Yus!” I had Yu in a tier named, “Not touching them with a nine-foot pole that has twelve one-inch straws taped to its end.” One person in the comments on the top 40 starters said, “Phil Hughes ranked above Darvish, I’ve seen everything now.” Then there was someone else arguing for Darvish’s dignity like they fought with Darvish in The Great War. I don’t want to say I told you so, but I’m saying I told you so by saying I don’t want to say I told you so. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for fantasy baseball:
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2015 Disgraces and Delights: Outfielders
March 8, 2015 | 2023 Fantasy Baseball | 55 Commentsby: LT Murray IV
Versace’d up from my thong to my neck
Pootie tang with the belt game show some respect.
Greetings! I’m blessed to still be employed by Razzball, going at it like a horny jack rabbit, and it’s a beautiful week to be alive! Unless, of course, you live on the upper east coast, for that looks absolutely hellacious. May the Elder Gods bless you with dry firewood, hot toddies a plentiful, and a bounty of desperate hookers/gigolos working at half price. We’ve finally arrived at the always intriguing OF position, and I for one am ecstatic! In fact, I haven’t been this titillated since Clint Eastwood took his shirt off in The Bridges of Madison County! There’s no time to waste!
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2015 Minor League Preview: Kansas City Royals
March 8, 2015 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 49 Commentsby: Mike
Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America
2014 (8) | 2013 (18) | 2012 (3) | 2011 (1) | 2010 (16)
2014 Affiliate Records
MLB: [89-73] AL Central
AAA: [76-67] Pacific Coast League – Omaha
AA: [53-87] Texas League – Northwest Arkansas
A+: [65-72] Carolina League – Wilmington
A: [57-83] South Atlantic League – Lexington
Graduated Prospects
Yordano Ventura, RHP
The Gist
The Royals went all the way to the World Series in 2014, helped in part by the pitching of rookie Yordano Ventura. He averaged 96 on his fastball, second only to Garrett Richards. The 23-year-old will enter 2015 as the ace of the Royals’ staff. No pressure or anything. Brandon Finnegan, the Royals’ first round pick in 2014, contributed to the major league club as well. While he was impressive in the bullpen, it looks like the Royals will lean towards stretching him out in the minors. Other top prospects in this system will look to “bounce back” either from injury or disappointing performances. If you’re in need of a short-term prospect for this year Terrance Gore is likely to provide some stolen bases, but he’s behind Jarrod Dyson on a crowded outfield depth chart.
From being a consumer of Razzball for a few years, I’m sure many of you already know about OBP or On-Base Percentage league(s). Chances are, if you’re playing in an OBP league, you’re playing with some seasoned teams. The metric has eased into MLB broadcasts and has become an important measurement as to a players overall worth, more so than batting average. However, the player gets on first, whether he leaves the bat on his shoulder or gets plunked, the idea is, it’s just the same as a base knock. If you play in competitive leagues, I advocate changing from AVG to OBP. For me, it increased my understanding of different players who didn’t always get the recognition but are valuable to their teams.
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My love for all things Tribe will probably be the death of my fantasy team but I’m out here not carin. I’m not sure if my Bauer post will come out first or if this one will but I’ve also at this point in late February already completed a draft in which I took Carrasco in the 9th and Salazar in the 16th. What I’m trying to say is Cleveland is going to win 155 games this year so I want every starter on that team. I’m joking of course…about that many wins for the Indians. Or maybe it wasn’t a joke more so than it was hyperbole? I don’t wanna get technical here, let’s just say I literally want every starter they have for various reasons and when you’re going deep like I am with these posts, you sometimes have to scratch beneath the depth chart to see what’s available and what do I see? I see a T.J. House party that just might blow up in the late rounds of your draft. So BYOB and get ready to groove as we see why T.J. might be a solid play by the end of the 2015 Fantasy Baseball season…
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Does anything feel as comforting, yet restricting as a pair of fuzzy handcuffs? They just lack the masculinity that a normal grown man would like to admit…But you sprinkle in the testosterone laced excitement of fantasy baseball, and BOOM. The fellas that we will be examining this week should be drafted in all leagues that speculate in the save department. Note to you, that is every league. You are basically looking for these few outliers to light your path to save endearment. First, pick a closer situation that has one clear cut guy as the fall back option. Second, find a team that looks to be on the right side of standings, which in theory is the left side, because that’s where wins go. Third, you want a team that utilizes a keen sense of relief inevitability, vis-à-vis a manager that likes guys in certain situations; for us, that’s the guys that will be the best shut down reliever not named “closer” in the bullpen. It’s pretty simple math there, no helmet needed or safety strapping cabinets, so you don’t pinch your digits. So let’s have at some of Smokey’s smorgasbord of top guys you should wanna be sniping from other purveyors of the save. Oh and by the way, I am ignoring guys like Wade Davis, Andrew Miller , and Ken Giles because if your league doesn’t draft them, then you should skip baseball and focus on Fantasy Soccer.
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I’ve been playing fantasy baseball since I was 15 back in 1992. If you have access to a calculator, that should tell you how old I am. Back then we had to gather the stats from newspapers, The Bergen Record to be precise, and compile the standings by hand. We had two guys in the league responsible for this awful task, and I was one of them. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, but to look back at it from where we are today with all of the websites and mobile apps we now have that make it so easy, I wonder what fantasy sports will be like in another 20 years. What I’m hoping for is a button that I can press that will instantly taser a player on my team if he does something that I don’t like. Not likely? I didn’t think so, but a guy can dream.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Perhaps your league is just forming, or has been around a few years and has an established core of owners, and you may be mulling some changes in rules. I’d like to suggest adding Quality Starts (QS) + Wins (W) over the simple Wins category in pitching. There are a few reasons for this, but first I would say the “Quality Start” is far from perfect, as it may devalue young pitching that would dominate a game, and the organization is looking to protect the young asset, then pulls the young phenom after 5 and 2/3 innings (a Quality Start requires 6 IP or more with 3 ER or less). There are also times when a pitcher is shelled and bailed out by errors. The “Wins” category can be less reflective of the pitcher’s effort in a positive or negative way depending on if his team scores two or more earned runs a night than league average, or has a bullpen like the 2014 Chicago White Sox. With the flaws in both categories (although I suggest QS as the better of the two on its own), combining the two makes for a more realistic category in my opinion, and let me show you why.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Applying Spring Training Stats To Fantasy Baseball
March 6, 2015 | Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 243 Commentsby: Grey
For my annual Spring Training trip, Sky and JayWrong are joining me in Arizona. Road trip! I leave today and return on Sunday. Of course, JayWrong’s already committed us to a Padres game, and standing outside the stadium to get Padres autographs, and standing outside their hotel to help them with their luggage, and sneaking in to pretend to be chefs at their favorite hibachi restaurant so we can flip a shrimp tail at Kemp. Don’t pull your latissimus dorsi reaching for that crustacean! I believe that was how Flipper injured itself. Any hoo! Baseball, like a flower, blooms in the spring. They also share equally effusive PR people. Just the other day I read about how a petunia’s branches gained 15 pounds and was in the best shape of its life. Sure, it’s always good to look at spring training numbers to give you an idea what you can expect from guys during the season — can I draft Kolten Wong yet?! Players in spring training are facing the top pitchers who are all displaying their best stuff. No one needs time to get warmed up. No one’s trying new pitches or getting a feel for the ball. They are at the height of their game in March. Our former commissioner, Bud, once doffed his toupee and tried to have the World Series played in March. Since these spring training numbers mean so much, I decided to look at some players stats so far:
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