For all intents and purposes, Jean Segura was a flopapotamus last year, failing to get to any of the previous year’s stats across the board. That includes the all loving steals category. He has gone from 33 in 2016, to 22 last year, to already having 11 in just over 200 plate appearances, which is a phenomenal pace for anyone that bought into him a his ADP in draft season. Eleven steals already leads to a projection of right around 40, and 40 steals is fantastic, as it has only been eclipsed 10 times in the last few years. Which brings back my old standby statement: that steals are a dying breed except for the select few. I fully expect that the Mariners, who currently sit top-6 in MLB in steals, to keep the running game as a a major cog now that Robbie Cano isn’t around showing his elite speed. With Dee Gordon and Segura, the Mariners have a duo of speed that really is unrivaled by other MLB teams. The past week for Jean has seen his total jump from 5 to 11 steals overall. (Coincidence that Cano isn’t in the lineup that he is taking the base rather than trying to get hit over? I think not.) Nothing about that screams coincidence, it would be more of a coincidence for me to casually run into my ex-girlfriend outside the church on her wedding day. So with a slash line of .414/.419/.655 since the removal of Cano, he looks primed to be an even more of a steal threat moving forward. That is also a nod for Dee because the re-invention of lineup changes is the way a team plays. I read that in a fortune cookie just now. So welcome to SAGNOF day, kinda like Rusev day, but with less Bulgarian influence.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Caleb Joseph
I have gone over the preseason, in-season, and shortly in 5-6 months, the postseason love for all things Tim Anderson. No, the another SB dude from the other, other side of Chicago. Which in my mind is a triangle, or from the angle that I am drinking at, it’s a complete hypotenuse. Yoan Moncada over the last 11 days has proven that the Go-Go Sox are in full affect, or flavor. Whatever the millennials wanna call it. Is rad still a thing? Never the who, he has 4 steals over the last 11 games and the propensity, which we thought was potential in the preseason for a lot of the southsiders, is totally a legit thing. The license to steal (like an opposite version of Bond, or a Fredo Bandido of steals) has the Sox players that hit towards the top of the lineup, when on base, gives them full autonomy to take it. And by it, I mean the steal of a bag. Not only do I love it, I would condone a trade for Yoan at some expense that is a sort of overspend. His hit rate screams breakout, and I mean who doesn’t like a screamer. Lets everyone know who is laying down the law. Gives us all a little extra wink-wink. Extra is right! He has hit near the top of the order for days and it should continue. The one thing that bad teams are good at is ulterior fantasy goodies, and steals is definitely one of those stats. So do yourself a favor, go propose to the Yoan owner and say would you have and hold me forever, and ever, and trade me him for a slightly over pay. Your stats won’t hate you in the morning. Let’s see what else is hopping on the good foot and stealing the good things in the saves and steals department. But with charts for her pleasure…or yours.
Picking on catchers in daily roster moves is fun. Here are the SV leaders for steals against this season. Not ever stat is a good stat, especially when you have catchers and the frequency of steals against. It isn’t always their fault, but it is not, not their fault. Ya dig?
Please, blog, may I have some more?The Spring has sprung and real baseball is here! That fake stuff and all its glorious research has come to a head and later this week, that team that you built will go to battle. Don’t go into battle with a little extra ammo in your tool belt though. We all know who the steals candidates are and where to draft them by now. The names are familiar, and if you drafted them, you are hoping the results that they have promised with our expectations. My post this week is instead taking a look at the reflexive of the actual base stealers, and since the end of this week we’ll actually have counting stats, why not look at the pitchers and catchers that have the propensity to give up the most frequent of thievery? It is often a very overlooked facet of the game. We always see the counting stats of the perennial stolen base leaders, but never hear a peep about the pitchers who give up the most, or the catchers that are god awful at throwing them out. I get that other forces of baseball nature encompass both of those factors of caught stealing and pitchers tendencies for base thefts, but if numbers don’t lie, let’s take a look at them and see who has the “better”chance for giving up the stat. So here is this week’s SAGNOF report, basically picking on guys who do nothing but aid us in the stolen base category. Cheers!
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2018 Spring Training Positional Battles: AL East
March 20, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Team Previews | 5 Commentsby: Son
The AL East is “big boy” baseball. Four teams from the division ended 2017 in the top 10 for home runs in all of baseball. The Yankees were first with 241, the Orioles were fifth with 232, the Rays were sixth with 228….Hold up. The Rays? Yes, the Rays. The final team was the Blue Jays with 222. With great power, comes great responsibility. Unfortunatley, there was a lot of DGAF’ing, as the Rays were second in MLB for striking out and the Orioles were eighth. From a pitching perspective, it would makes sense then that three of the teams (BOS, NYY, and TOR) ended top 10 in strikeouts. TB ended 11th. Big boy baseball indeed. To cement the point home, four of the teams (BOS, BAL, TB, and NYY) were bottom 10 in sacrifice hits. TOR was 13th. Small ball, schmal ball. Chicks dig the long ball. Ladies and gentlemen, the AL East.
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Top 20 Catchers for 2018 Fantasy Baseball
January 17, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 199 Commentsby: Grey
After going over the top 10 for 2018 fantasy baseball and the top 20 for 2018 fantasy baseball (clickbait!), it’s now time to turn our lonely eyes to you, Mr. Robinson Chirinos. To paraphrase The Refreshments from their should-be smash hit, Fonder and Blonder, “Who said absence makes the heart grow fonder. Pitches are thrown to catchers, but that doesn’t make my heart grow fonder.” Later in that song, they sing, “I’ll be scratchin’ it down,” which sounds like it applies to all baseball players. Or as the rhyming dictionary has never said, applies to oranges. Any hoo! The projections noted in the post are my own, and I mention where tiers start and stop. I also mention a bunch of hullabaloo, so let’s get to it. Anyway, here’s the top 20 catchers for 2018 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?If you hail from Central New Jersey, sorry. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. Albert Pujols does not represent the 609. If you are a Ludacris fan, sorry. Pujols may or may not have garden hoes in different area codes, but I can neither confirm nor deny it. Rather, Pujols slugged his 609th career home run Friday night. It doesn’t matter that it came off Jeremy Hellickson, who’s allowed the 14th-most home runs this season, and is already the 439th-worst of all time. I was going to go on an epic rant about how all the stories are focused on the fact that he’s tied with Sammy Sosa for the most home runs by a foreign-born player. Who gives a flying F where he was born? Then I started thinking, I wonder which player born in Los Angeles has hit the most home runs. Yet again, I’ve managed to stymie myself. Anyways, who cares that Pujols has a triple slash of .229/.274/.374 with an ISO of .144. Let’s just celebrate the great career he’s had and send him off into the sunset after this season. My self checks to make sure this is his last year…
Please, blog, may I have some more?Because I am always late to the writing party, I figured why not just add another Bryce Harper column, but with a Michael Taylor happy ending. So what’s-his-face got hurt and now Mike Taylor returns from the DL to save the day. Gone one day and BH is now what’s-his-face. It sucks, but injuries happen. That is why waivers and free agent pools exist. So before Taylor inured his oblique in early July, he was on a torrid pace that was making him an asset for fantasy. Now what capabilities will he have with that injured oblique? Since this is the SAGNOF report, we only care about one thing. Increasing his SB total from 10. The thing in his favor is that the Nationals lineup is going to change slightly. Because of the absence of “some guy”. Small ball and base-to-base stuff still wins and it may have to happen without a middle of the lineup thumper (besides Zimmerman). I can’t believe I just called him a thumper, well… suspend disbelief for a minute and just assume I didn’t mean it. Taylor may take a few days to get into the swing of things but Bryce isn’t walking through the door anytime soon, so at-bats and top of the order stuff are coming. Happy SAGNOF’n!
Please, blog, may I have some more? Godley Outadverbs Wrigley & The Cubs
August 3, 2017 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 322 Commentsby: Grey
The Book of Job says, “We will send out at least one email a day to all your contacts whether you like it or not.” Shoot, I immediately see what I did wrong there. I Googled for a Bible quote, and accidentally got an employee handout from LinkedIn. Big bad on me. Yesterday, Zack Godley went 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.86, with this start coming in Wrigley. *gulps* Maybe Godley isn’t an overstatement. His peripherals are gorge too — 9.2 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 3.23 xFIP. Throwing 92+ MPH with a mix of four pitches, and mostly going to Dazzletown with the curve being the pony killer (totally a saying!). “I made you glue!” which is what I shout trying desperately to make “pony killer” a saying. Oh, and all of it is coupled with a 56% ground ball rate. That would be the third best in the majors if he qualified. When there’s nary a starter in sight with a decent ERA, Godley’s otherworldly. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?It’s all fun and games when the lights go off and the special things in life glow under different color light. Laundry detergent, player names, and the puns that are associated with them… and believe it or not a good ole bottle of Hennessy. So now that we have concocted that cocktail and images in your head, let’s move onto the Fantasy Baseball portion of this relationship. That being Marcus Semien. I am going to be the first to admit that I really like the idea of this guy on my team after last season’s output, as he produced 27 HR’s and 10 steals. Not the elite of foot by any stretch of the SAGNOF imagination, but the 27 taters from a middle infield spot takes a lot of gleam off the cube. So why now? Well, his season was derailed by injury and he only still has 86 at-bats on the year. Ignore all the other facets, he is not going to hit for average and not going to score a ton of runs in the A’s lineup, but he has 7 steals in those 86 at-bats. (He only had 10 last year in 586 at bats, remember I just said that.) So he has gone from a once every 60 plate appearances per steal guy to one every 10. I am by far no mathematical genius, but that looks like a gigantic difference. Since he returned from the DL, he is hitting 30 points above his career average, which is only .230, but still, .265 is better then .230. The steals are what we want and that’s why we here. So with the expectations of him not slipping out of the lineup now that he is returned he could easily be a cheap source (8.6% owned in ESPN leagues). With the way that the middle infield spots turn over and the trade deadline around the bend stats at any chance are better then none.
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Please, blog, may I have some more?Yesterday, on the holiest of Hallmark-created holidays and celebrated most of all by Bill Hall, mothers from all different backgrounds came together to put up their feet, sip mimosas and talk about how “The Handmaid’s Tale” could totally happen now with Trump. I’d contend that Hallmark should get a little credit for women’s rights. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Secretary’s Day, “Buy a card just because you love her” Day… Before this, it was, “Do you wanna make this pelt I skinned into a rug or a sweater for little Kevin? What? You’re tired from churning butter? Okay, you can have the afternoon after you make beef and kidney pie.” In honor of Mother’s Day, one of the great lovers of women (who are handcuffed to his bedpost), Aroldis Chapman was diagnosed with rotator cuff inflammation, and will be sidelined for a month. If Dellin Betances is available in your league, can I get into your league? If there’s an entry fee, all the better. You pay it, and we’ll split the cash prizes. I even grabbed Tyler Clippard in one league just in case Betances gets all Cuddle Boy on us. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?If you look around Petco and see Padres fans on the edge of their seats, they’re A) Probably the visiting team’s fans. B) If they are Padres fans, they’re on the edge of their seats because they don’t want to wrinkle the back of their Izod shirt. C) There’s no C. They’re not anticipating Trevor Cahill, because they think Trevor Cahill is the ex-Navy guy who works in their office who they need to fire but are worried he’s going to beat the crap out of them. When they hear Trevor Cahill is a Padres pitcher, their response is, “Ah, Padres, I miss Tony Gwynn.” So, who is Trevor Cahill? He ain’t Luis Severino, I’ll tell you that. I don’t see the upside of Pineda, Paxton, McCullers, Urias or any other sexy AF young starter. As commenter, Bigly Leagues pointed out, Trevor Cahill is:
7th in FIP (2.64)
6th in xFIP (2.83)
8th in K/9 (11.1)
18th in WAR (0.8)
What he didn’t point out is how Cahill is doing it. That’s no critique of BL, it’s not his job to point it out, though I guess he could’ve and saved me the work. C’mon, BL! Cahill’s doing it with the league’s 2nd best curveball. He’s not doing it with his 90 MPH fastball, that’s for sure. He doesn’t even have the world’s best control (3.3 BB/9). The rest of his pitches are mostly basic, which brings me to my problem. If he doesn’t get the curve over, or it’s just not working for some reason, the house of cards is going to fall and Kevin Spacey is going to be talking into the camera about how terrible Cahill looks. I’d own Cahill everywhere to see if he can continue, but I have less confidence in him in away games. That giant safety net in Petco makes everyone a slightly better trapeze walker. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Ohhhhh, an MLB debut on Sunday! Perfect for the Pitcher Profile! Starting the second half with a bang!
Even though he was likely not throwing too many pitches, I decided to take a flier on Dylan Bundy in most of my redraft leagues. He was the talk of the prospect community way back in 2012 where he terrorized the Minors and actually picked up 1.2 innings in the Majors that season, progressing all the way from A ball. Unfortunately, as is the case with a ton of pitcher prospects, injuries reared their ugly head with a TJ surgery and shoulder issues, and he hasn’t pitched 100 professional innings since. I remember going coocoo for Cocoa Puffs for him back in the day, so I was all decked out in my proverbial Bundy gear to prepare for his first Major League start. Here’s how he looked yesterday afternoon at the Rays:
Please, blog, may I have some more?