Fantasy Beat – End One Fantasy Season, Begin Another!

For all of you fantasy basketball players, Justin and Trevor talk about players that you can still find on your waiver wire who can help you win your fantasy basketball league. The guys also recap the first week of the 2013 MLB season and talked about which players came up huge. The guys make some serious predictions.

NBA: Carl Laundry, Derrick Favors, Kyle O’Quinn

MLB: Chris Davis, Tyler Flowers, Michael Morse, Josh Hamilton, Giancarlo Stanton, Tyler Colvin, Carlos Marmol, Kyuji Fujikawa, Yu Darvish

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Fantasy Baseball: Early Returns

The 2013 baseball season is finally underway. The story of the first few days of the season is the success of starting pitchers, highlighted by the near run to perfection from Yu Darvish (more on that below). However, that doesn’t mean it’s only been about pitching, there are still some offensive moments of note, so I’ll basically be doing what I often do – rambling without rhythm or reason around the diamond.

The Padres sound like a team that plans on pulling a Medlen with Andrew Cashner. By that I mean it sounds like the Padres will use Cashner out of the bullpen early before slowly transitioning him into the starting rotation. By doing just that they will help to ensure that Cashner is healthy and not overworked in the early going while also helping to limit the total number of innings on his arm (Cashner was limited to 15.1 innings and 2011 and 69.2 last season so it might be a wise decision to try to keep the innings down). For now the Padres will go with Tyson Ross but Cashner could be a starter for half the year if he proves himself to be healthy an effective.

Yu Darvish almost made history last night coming within one out of the 24th perfect game in big league history. The highlights. (1) His first walk free outing in the big leagues. (2) A career-high 14 Ks including strikeouts 14 of the 16 times he reached two strikes on a batter. No pitcher has ever tossed a perfect game in his first outing of the season. One other note. Going back nine starts to last season Darvish has a 2.05 ERA. A fantasy ace is being born folks.

R.A. Dickey walked four batters in his first start with the Blue Jays, something he did only two times in 33 starts in 2012. Dickey allowed four runs, three earned, as he picked up a loss to the Indians. After the game he has a 4.50 ERA and 1.50 WHIP and I hate to tell you that I think he might finish the year with numbers closer to that than the 2.73 and 1.05 marks he posted last season.

Jaime Garcia actually looked pretty good in his first outing holding the D’backs to just two hits and one run in 5.2 innings. I still don’t trust him, and neither should you.

Through two games the Rockies have two fellas who have gone deep twice – Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez. As always, as long as they stay healthy they will be huge performers. Just for the fun of it here are each fellas 162 game averages.

Tulo: .292-29-103-103-12
CarGo: .300-28-98-106-24

Matt Kemp doesn’t have a hit in 5-straight games. I don’t think that streak will last much longer.

Lynn Collins in the movie John Carter… absolutely stunning.

Leonys Martin is starting in center field for the Rangers Wednesday. Martin is sharing time in center with Craig Gentry, but Martin figures to be the lead dog in the race for at-bats. Martin has hit only .193 in 57 big league at-bats, but he’s got skills and killed it last year in Triple-A (.359-12-42-48-10 in just 55 games). There’s a very talented fantasy performer lurking here despite the fact that he is owned in only 49 percent of Fleaflicker leagues.

Happy Birthday Jeff (my brother). We’re two years and two days apart, and even though he is my younger brother I’ve never given him much crap cause he is such a cool dude.

Michael Morse hit two home runs Tuesday night continuing the onslaught of fireworks that occurred in Spring Training. Morse hit .303 with 31 homers in 2011 so we know that he can ball, but let me note a few things you should remember. Morse has had a K-rate over 21 percent each of the past five seasons. He relies on a high BABIP to help him in the batting average category (.344 for his career). Morse also owns a career fly ball rate of 32 percent, about three percent below the league average meaning he just doesn’t hit that many fly balls. He’s always been able to convert a high percentage of those fly balls into homers, his HR/F ratio is 18.6 percent but if that number were to dip even a bit he would have a very tough time pushing 30 homers.

By Ray Flowers

Player Profile: Max Scherzer

Max Scherzer is a flame thrower for the Tigers who has had a difficult time early in his career flashing start to start consistency. That somewhat uneven effort has caused many to not look closely enough at his dynamic right wing. In what follows I’ll hope to be able to make the point that given his draft day cost that he is a hurler you should be targeting for inclusion on your fantasy squad (he’s barely being taken inside the top-20 at the starting pitching position).

REVIEW: 2008-09

Scherzer started out his big league career with the D’backs and over two seasons he was 9-15 with a 3.86 ERA and 1.32 WHIP. He was a huge K arm though with an average of 9.54 punchouts per nine innings leading to a solid 2.86 K/BB ratio.

REVIEW: 2010

Max posted a career best set of ratios in 2010 with a 3.50 ERA and 1.25 WHIP. Oddly, his strikeout ratio dipped to 8.46 per nine though his walk rate continued to dwindle (3.22 per nine after seasons of 3.38 and 3.33).

REVIEW: 2011-12

This is when things started to take off for Scherzer. He won 31 games, more about that below, and he struck out an average of 9.53 batters per nine innings while dropping his walk rate to 2.73 per nine allowing his K/BB ratio to improve to an impressive level of 3.49 (that mark is 16th in baseball among hurlers who tossed 325 innings.).

THE 2012 RUN

In April last year Scherzer went 1-3 with a 7.77 ERA and 2.05 WHIP as batters hit an unconscionable .356 off him. Obviously the regression monster showed his face the rest of the season, and over the final five months of the year he was very, very good. Not just that, he was actually excellent.

Over his final 27 starts of 2012 Scherzer went 15-4, posted a 3.14 ERA, had a 1.16 WHIP, a 11.2 K/9 mark an a 4.34 K/BB ratio. Let’s compare that to the work of Justin Verlander last season.

Verlander: 17-8 (.680 WIN%), 9.0 K/9, 3.98 K/BB, 2.64 ERA, 1.06 WHIP
Scherzer: 15-4 (.789 Win%), 11.2 K/9, 4.34 K/BB, 3.14 ERA, 1.16 WHIP

Amazing how similar the two were in overall value if you remove April from Scherzer’s line, isn’t it?

To sign up for your baseball league this year make sure you check out Fleaflicker.

THE STRIKEOUT

Scherzer isn’t just a dominating K arm, he’s a historically impressive one. Last season Scherzer struck out 231 batters in 187.2 innings. Since he failed to throw even 190 innings the K total hasn’t been viewed by many in the manner it should be cause he didn’t push 250 Ks. So here’s some context to help out.

(1) Only one man in baseball had more punchouts, and that was his teammate Justin Verlander who had 239 in 238.1 innings, or, 50.2 more innings pitched than Mad Max (I told myself I wasn’t going to use that term in this piece but I just couldn’t help myself). Fifty more innings than Scherzer folks. Think about that for a brief moment before moving on to #2.

(2) Scherzer’s K/9 mark was 11.08, the best in baseball. No one else even struck out 10.50 per nine (Yu Darvish was second at 10.40).

(3) Scherzer’s K/9 mark of 11.08 was historically impressive. Among all pitchers who have ever thrown 162 innings in a season, the number of innings needed to qualify for the ERA title, that 11.08 number has only been bettered 18 times – ever (the single season record is 13.41 by Randy Johnson in 2001 when he struck out 372 batters in 249.2 innings).

(4) Scherzer has thrown 804.2 innings in his career and has posted a 9.27 strikeout per nine mark. Among pitchers who have thrown 800 innings in their career that K/9 mark sits at 11th all-time. Eleventh.

The fact is that Scherzer is as dominating a strikeout arm as you are going to find among starting pitchers.

WINS

You all know my thoughts on wins, I don’t pay them much mind since so much goes into them beyond what the pitcher can control, but facts are facts, and the last two years Scherzer has been a big winner. The last two years Scherzer has won 31 games. That total of 31 wins is the 9th best mark in baseball (tied with James Shields, Zack Greinke and Cole Hamels). Max is also one of just 10 hurlers who have won 15 games in each of the past two years.

OUTLOOK

Scherzer is as dominating an arm as there in baseball among starting hurlers. Yes there are some concerns about his ability to bring it start after start, but as I noted above he was pretty much nails after a rough April last year. If he can lock things in for six months, and stay healthy (the team is bringing him along slowly this spring), there’s a very real chance that he could post numbers that can rival those of his more celebrated rotation mate at a greatly reduced cost. Without question the risk is higher with Scherzer than Verlander, but given the draft day cost Scherzer profiles as the arm I would rather target in 2013.

• Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the 2013 BaseballGuys Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide which is now available. Nearly 150 pages of insight to help you dominate the competition in 2013.

By Ray Flowers

Did You Know?

The MLB playoffs are just about ready to get underway, so baseball is on the cusp of starting its “second season.” Before we get there, let’s take a look back at the just completed regular season. I’ve found a few numbers there that are certainly worth taking note of.

How many players in baseball have gone 40-100 the past two years? The answer is one. He’s also the only player who has, obviously, gone 40-100-100. He’s also the only option in the game, redundancy anyone?, who has gone 40-100-100-10 the past two years. The answer is Curtis Granderson. Sure his average dropped to .232, and his OBP fell to .319, and those numbers aren’t good in any world, but he’s as impressive a counting number performer as there has been in baseball the past two years. Granderson is a faster version of Adam Dunn, you’ll just have to learn how to work around his so-so batting average (Granderson has hit .247 the past four years, so you shouldn’t have been shocked to see his .262 batting average from last season fall).

How many pitchers in the AL won 15 games while striking out 200 batters? You’ve got your standard in Justin Verlander (17, 239), and if you thought of Verlander you most likely also also hit on Max Scherzer (16, 231) who also led baseball with a K/9 mark of 11.08 (that mark allowed Scherzer to post the 19th best single season mark in the history of baseball for a pitcher who tossed at least 162 innings). Given that he is starting the AL Wild Card today you probably also thought of Yu Darvish (16, 221) who had a very successful first season in the States even if he walked too many batters (89 in 191.1 innings). Hopefully you also remember the guy who appears to have a strong shot to win the AL Cy Young Award, the man who tied Jered Weaver for the league lead in wins (20), and that is David Price. The Rays’ lefty won 20 games, struck out 205, posted a 2.56 ERA and had a 1.10 WHIP. So here’s the question. Who is the lone pitcher in the AL to win 15 games and strike out 200 batters who I didn’t mention? The answer can be found below.

Brandon Moss had an amazing run for the A’s to close the year that included a .690 SLG over his last 26 games. When the season was over he had accrued only 265 at-bats, but boy did he use them to great effect. Moss was a tremendous weapon for the A’s as he hit .291 on the year with a .358 OBP and .596 SLG. Moss also drove in 52 runners while scoring 48 times as he had a great season for a guy who struck out nearly a third of the time. The most amazing part of his effort? Let’s look to the home run. Moss hit 21 of them in just 296 plate appearances. No player has ever hit more than 21 homers in under 300 palte appearances. The others who have hit that mark are Art Shamsky (1966), Johnny Blanchard (1961), Kevin Maas (1990) and David Ross (2006). How about that?

The most dangerous “pull” hitter in baseball in 2012 was Giancarlo Stanton, and when you read the numbers I’m about to list your eyeballs might fall out of your head. Stanton hit .507 in the 140 at-bats in which he pulled the ball. That’s 71 hits in 140 at-bats folks. His SLG mark was 1.164. His slugging was 1.164. His OPS? Get out the video game. That number was 1.671. Stanton also hit 24 homers in at-bats when he “pulled” the ball. That number didn’t lead baseball though. The leader in “pull” home runs was none other than Mr. Curtis Granderson who had 37 homers in 201 at-bats.

ANSWER: The fifth pitcher in the Junior Circuit to pull off the 15-200 trick in 2012 is a teammate of one of the other four. Still not able to narrow it down? A hint. He struck out 15 batters in his final start of the season. That man is none other than James Shields who won 15 games with 223 Ks. Shields also won 16 games with 225 Ks last season. Why not keep the good times rolling? How many hurlers in baseball have won 15 games with 220 Ks each of the past two years? The answer is two – Verlander and Shields.

By Ray Flowers

Friday’s Follies

Miguel Cabrera is hitting .333 with 41 homers and 130 RBIs. He leads the AL in batting average and RBIs, and is one homer behind Josh Hamilton for the AL HR lead. That’s right folks, he is on the cusp of the Triple Crown. Will he win the award over everyone’s darling, Mike Trout? If late season performance sways voters than he surely will. Since the start of August, here are each man’s numbers.

Cabrera: .360-16-45-35 with a 1.145 OPS
Trout: .274-9-22-38 with a .811 OPS (Trout does have 15 SBs)

Thanks to Elias for this one. Chris Carpenter will be the first pitcher in the history of baseball to make his season debut after his teams 150th game played when that pitcher made 30 or more starts in the previous season. For more on Carpenter see my September 20th Mailbag piece.

Yu Darvish has had an up and down season, but he also has 214 Ks which are the 9th most for any rookie hurler since 1893. Of course he’s not really a rookie since he pitched for five seasons is Japan. Only once in those five seasons did he fail to record 200 Ks (he had 167 in 182 innings in 2009). He had 276 Ks in 232 innings last year for the Nippon Ham Fighters (I’m not making that name up).

I mentioned this at the BaseballGuys Twitter account last night, but for those of you that missed it – Eric Hosmer is on the cusp of something pretty impressive given just how dreadful his overall production has been. Yes he’s hitting .240 with 59 RBIs an a .686 OPS, but did you realize that he is just one homer from a 15/15 season? Those numbers stand out as there have been only 10 seasons of 15/15 by a first baseman in the 21st century with only three first sackers pulling off the trick more than once (Derrek Lee three times, Albert Pujols and Ryan Klesko two times).

I don’t normally look forward to Friday’s like most people do. Why? Because sports never stop. Think of it. When you are heading out to your in-laws for the holiday celebration in the car with the two kids in the backseat yelling, what are you doing? You’re listening to the radio (hence I work all the holidays for Sirius XM Fantasy Sports Radio). Also, what do you do on the weekends? You watch sports. Therefore, it’s pretty obvious what I’m doing on the weekend – I’m working, hard at this point covering the NFL (my Sunday’s start at 7 AM PST when I tweet start/sit for @SiriusXMFantasy on Twitter. The Tweeting ends at 10 A PST, I then watch the games all day, and then do the radio thing at 7-10 PM PST which means my Sunday’s are 15 hours of work. Of course there are worst things to be doing than watching football, trust me I get that, but it’s still a long day). So what I’m basically trying to say is that I do appreciate Friday’s now. Given that I’m in all day Sunday, starting before the sun comes, I had better enjoy my Friday nights cause it’s pretty tough to be focused at 7 AM Sunday if I’m all about getting bombed on Saturday night until 4 AM.

Oh Carlos Quentin, you are killing me in my NL-only league. I know you are always hurt, I knew that when I drafted you, but this is pretty awful my friend. In each of the past three seasons you have hit at least 21 homers while appearing in 130, 99, 131 and 118 games. So I was thinking, on the safe side, 120 games worth of action. With less than two weeks left in the regular season Quentin has hit 16 homers in just 81 games played. Ugh. Too bad too as he’s averaging a homer every 17.6 at-bats after posting a 2009-11 mark of 17.25.

Chris Young is another player killing me in my NL-only league. Young is doing his normal torpedo job in the batting average category with a .227 mark (career .239) and his OPS is .740 (career .755) as expected. However, it’s the counting categories that have been the disappointment. After appearing in at least 134 games each of the previous five seasons, and four times he’s hit at least 148 games played, he’s appeared in all of 96 games this season. After hitting 47 homers the past two years he has 14 this season. After stealing 50 bags the past two years he has eight thefts this year. Let me state it another way. The past two years Young has averaged 24 homers and 25 steals, yeah that’s damn good. This year he has 14 homers and eight steals. That’s awful. He’s also scored 36 runs after posting at least 85 runs in four of the previous five seasons. Unmitigated disaster meet Chris Young.

By Ray Flowers

Daily Joust – Wk 18: Did We Learn Anything?

On Monday each week I take a look at the fantasy baseball game breaking down players who have produced noteworthy performances of late – not just positive outings mind you, but I’ll also delve into some of the players that have been sucking wind of late. Can you use this information to your benefit over at DailyJoust?

To get your daily fantasy baseball fix make sure you head over to DailyJoust.com to set your salary cap club.

GAINERS OF THE WEEK

Yovani Gallardo (+31, $359K)
In three of his last five starts he’s allowed one run, and in four of six he’s allowed one or no runs. Despite that, his ERA has only gone down from 4.14 to 3.92. Why? Because in the other two outings Gallardo allowed 11 runs in 10.2 innings. So is the case with Gallardo. One game he’s great, the next a total disaster. In the end Gallardo is what he is. Check out the numbers for this season compared to his career levels.

2012: 9.00 K/9, 3.59 BB/9, 1.35 GB/FB, 1.32 WHIP
Career: 9.21 K/9, 3.47 BB/9, 1.23 GB/FB, 1.29 WHIP

He may never take the next step to true greatness, but if you run him out there every time he takes the hill the end result will include wins, passable ratios, an a big strikeout total.

Adam LaRoche (+21, $127K)
It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, but we know it to be true. For whatever reason, and there really is no rational explanation for it, Adam is simply a better hitter in the second half of the season. For his career his OPS goes up .129 points after the All-Star Break (.897 to .768). He’s done even better this year. In a mere 24 games LaRoche has gone deep eight times, knocked in 18 runs, scored 15 times, hit .348 and posted a 1.035 OPS, .199 points better than his first half mark. I’m unable to explain how LaRoche continually does it, so I’ll just report that he does, in fact, do it.

Wade Miley (+40, $397K)
His ERA has gone up three quarters of a run over his last six outings, but he’s still sporting a 2.98 mark for the year. Showing few signs of slowing, Wade has allowed three walks in his last four starts while he’s punched out 25 batters, a surprisingly total given his mere 6.75 K/9 mark on the year (the low walk total is expected given his 1.71 per nine mark on the year). His skill set scream out 3.98 ERA not the 2.98 that it actually is, but he has been remarkably consistent this year. He’s also been amazing in four starts during the day with a 4-0 record, 0.36 ERA and 0.67 WHIP.

Chris Tillman (+109, $362K)
The last time he took the hill was a bit rough (5 R in 5 IP), but he’s won each of his last three starts and through five outings he has a 2.70 ERA and 1.31 WHIP. Unfortunately his K/BB ratio is 2.22, pretty much the league average, ditto for his 1.03 GB/FB ratio. He’s also posted a HR/9 mark that is about half of his career rate this year, all of which paints Tillman as a guy who is faring pretty well while at the same time not really deserving of all the success he’s attained.

LOSERS OF THE WEEK

Tyler Colvin, (-28, $55K)
Through 243 at-bats Colvin has been impressive with a .280 average, 13 homers and 43 RBIs. Unfortunately people were expecting a lot more after he hit .339 with five homers and 17 RBIs in June. I warned ya. Did you listen? In 26 games since then Colvin has hit .233, and though he has gone deep five times in that stretch the last time he hit a ball into the seats was July 6th, a full month ago. Colvin  has regressed to being the type of hitter he is – one that can have success if used in the right situation, but not necessarily someone who should be in a fantasy lineup every day without question.

Yu Darvish (-72, $298K)
The good. He’s won 11 games and struck out 145 batters in just 127.1 innings. The bad. He’s walked 70 batters, the fourth worst mark in baseball, an as a result both his ERA (4.38) and WHIP (1.41) are way worse than a league average hurler despite the fact that batters have a very difficult time producing hits off him (his OPS against is just .601). His performance has also taken a decided turn for the worst as he’s allowed 21 runs over his last four starts (spanning 23.2 innings). It’s getting harder and harder to throw him out there unless you are in desperate need of strikeouts.

Jonathan Lucroy (-33, $78K)
People seem to think this guy is Mike Piazza Jr. He’s not. Though he’s hitting .323 with a .920 OPS, he’s hit a mere .200 with a .646 OPS in eight games since he’s been back off the DL. Given that he owns a career .272 batting average and .720 OPS, which hitter do you think he is more likely to be the rest of the way – Mike Piazza or Jonathan Lucroy?

Jarrod Parker (-34, $353K)
Parker has allowed six runs in three of his last 10 starts, and as a result his ERA sits at 3.44, the highest it has been since May 18th. He’s actually done a much better job limiting the free passes as he’s issued just five batters in four games, and he’s also struck out 19 batters in that time. Overall he’s been impressive with that 3.44 ERA and 1.28 WHIP, but it’s fair to question whether or not he is starting to wear down given that he has thrown 130.2 innings this season after tossing 136.1 last season.

DAILY CONTEST

Today you can sign up for the King Arthur’s $50 Free Roll on DailyJoust. No entry free is required to get a chance to play the game and earn your free chance to take home part of the $50 prize pool. All games that start at 7:05 PM EDT or later are open to add players to your daily fantasy baseball squad. So get over to DailyJoust, put together your one day lineup, and get ready to win some free $.

By Ray Flowers

The Fantasy Beat: Players Switching Leagues

Justin Fensterman and Trevor Ray talk about the new players to the AL. Whether they are new to the AL coming from the NL or whether they are rookies, every year AL-Only Keepers leagues are stuck with the tough decisions in ranking the new additions.

Listen to the Audio.

How are these players being valued? Check out what Fleaflicker thinks.