SAGNOF: Johan’s Cousin Danny Rojas Says SAGNOF Is Life

Some shows just have iconic lines that stick with you forever.

“How You Doin?” and “Pivot” from Friends. “There’s Always Money In The Banana Stand” from Arrested Development. “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!” from the great WKRP In Cincinnati. And Of course there’s the highly fantasy relevant “Son Of A Bench” from The Good Place and my roster on Sunday.

One show that seemed to have them hiding around every turn was Ted Lasso. Of course “Believe” was the underlying message of the show, but the character with the line you just couldn’t get out of your head was “Football is life.” Danny Rojas coined and repeated the mantra over and over again, and here at Razzball we believe the same to be true about SAGNOF.

Before I jump into the steals leaderboard and this weeks Speed Dial picks I wanted to take a quick deep dive into Johan Rojas and his SAGNOF chops. Let’s start with the good. He’s available almost every day if you want to roster him when it makes sense only being owned at 2.2% in ESPN leagues. His sprint speed of 29.9Ft/second is tied for 4th in MLB with Elly De La Cruz. (Fine I’ll tell you who is ahead of them….Victor Scott, Bobby Witt and Trea Turner) He has also cut his K-rate in half vs 2023 and doubled his walk rate. Yes, it is a smaller sample size, but he’s over 1/3 of the way toward his 2023 plate appearances already.

Now the bad. He’s hitting 9th when he is in the lineup. The ISO number is sitting only at .070. He has yet to barrel a ball, and the hard hit ball number is at 14.3%. His hit tool is not conducive to making grand improvements here.

If the plate discipline continues to get better, however, his speed will keep his BABIP over .300 and his overall batting average shouldn’t dip below .250 with a chance for better. If you’re looking for a chance for stolen bases when filling a daily roster spot Rojas is always an option.

Here’s the stolen base leaderboard through Tuesday afternoon.

My Pre-season darling Jose Caballero continues to get on base and run. The usual suspects Elly and Acuna had nice weeks to get to the top of the board.

The Speed Dials – We went 1 of 4 last week. Remember these are exact dates to pickup and stream steals guys in daily leagues.  That means we are now 5 for 16 on the season. How many more points would your roto team have with 5 extra stolen bases? Reminder these stats include 2023 and 2024 data.

Rockies vs Padres – Wednesday April 24th

Brenton Doyle – To this point in the season Doyle has only stolen two bases. They are going to come as he has the 27th best sprint speed in MLB. He will face off against Matt Waldron and the Padres. Waldron has allowed 100% of the baserunners attempting to steal succeed and it isn’t a small sample size with 10 stolen bases allowed. That is good for .166 SB/IP. His catcher will likely be Kyle Higashioka tonight in Coors as Luis Campusano has gone the last two days. Neither of them is good at throwing out runners, in fact Campy hasn’t thrown out a single one since the start of 2023, and Higashioka is only successful 15% of the time. Rockies gonna run tonight.

Red Sox vs Guardians – Thursday April 25th

Ceddanne Rafaela – Going back to the well here with Rafaela vs the Guardians.  He is tied for 20th in MLB sprint speed, but due to his lack of getting on base has only stolen two bags so far. He will look to get on base and run vs Triston McKenzie. TMac has allowed three steals already this season and is giving up a crazy .265 SB/IP the last two years with a 100% success rate against. Small sample size due to his injury last year, but teams are giving anyone and every one the green light against him. It doesn’t matter whether it is Bo Naylor or Austin Hedges behind the dish as both are below MLB average at throwing out runners. If Ceddanne gets on he’s going.

Brewers vs Yankees – Friday April 26th

Blake Perkins – Firstly all bets are off if Yelich is back in the lineup for the Brewers. Perkins has been great filling in, but all good things must come to an end. Speaking of good things, Perkins is Tied for 17th in Sprint speed at 29.6 Ft/Second. He’s been a little lucky getting on base in 2024, but while the luck is holding up let’s ride it and try and get another steal from him. He will face Luis Gil who in a small sample size this year has allowed both base stealers against him to succeed. Austin Wells and Jose Trevino are both catchers to run against in the bottom half of the throwing rankings.

Rangers vs Reds – Saturday April 27th

Leody Taveras – Taveras has struggled a bit to get on base to start the year, but his Walk and K-rates look good so he should start getting on base at a higher clip. His sprint speed is 29.1 Ft/second, but his SB Success rate doesn’t quite reflect that at 76.2%. He will be opposed by Hunter Greene who while he strikes out a lot of hitters also allows a lot of traffic with a 1.30 WHIP. Greene has allowed six stolen bases already in 2024 and 22 over the last two years even with the injury last season. That’s good for a .158 SB/IP which isn’t good.  It doesn’t help that Tyler Stephenson only throws out 13% of runners behind the plate. If Tavaras isn’t in the lineup feel free to plug in Travis Jankowski for him if he’s the one in the Rangers lineup.

As always, if you’re looking for anything further out for next week where we don’t have exact pitching match-ups hit me up here or on Twitter @TheGreatKnoche