Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

Yesterday Robert Stephenson, the Reds number one prospect, very quietly had a very good box score against the Rockies at home: 7 IP, 1 ER, 3 K, 2 BB and 3 H. The question how did he earn those numbers? Was he dominant? How did he look overall? Should he be stashed in leagues with a deep bench?

After last nights start Stephenson was sent back to Triple-A so he will not have an immediate impact for fantasy, but with the likes of Jon Moscot and Alfredo Simon in the Reds rotation it’s only a matter of time before Stephenson receives a long look in the majors.

Throughout his professional career Stephenson’s biggest roadblock to success has been command. Since joining Double-A he’s had walk rates no lower than 11.2 percent (which was last year in Triple-A). After watching his start against the Rockies I’m not surprised his walk rates have been that high. Of the 24 batters he faced, eight of them had hitters counts.

The biggest reason why he had so many hitters counts was fastball command. His fastball can top out 97 mph, but when he was throwing the fastball faster than 94 they were mostly for balls. He was able to throw more strikes with a lower fastball velocity.

When he was able to get ahead in the count that’s when he could throw that really good curveball for swings and misses and to generate weak contact. From my noticed there were five swings and misses out of 14-15 swings on the curveball. What was most impressive was the curveball was effective against both righties and lefties. He also featured a split-changeup that showed promise, but he wasn’t able to throw it for strikes so I didn’t a good gauge of how good it could really be.

Bottom Line: Stephenson is going to be in the majors this year. When he arrives is entirely on him. Last year the Reds used nine rookie pitchers (Stephenson was not one of them) so the Reds are not hesitant to use young arms. If he starts to throw strikes consistently he could be up as early as May. If he continues to not throw strikes it could be a late second half call-up.

If he can have a walk rate in the 7-8 percent range he should be an every week starter in 12-team mixed leagues (in most weeks) because he should have plenty of strikeouts and since he pitches in the NL he’s going to face a lot of bad offenses. He hasn’t shown a lot of strikeouts in the majors, but his minor league number suggests there’s a lot of room for improvement. He’s going to be a WHIP and Wins liability, but the strikeout potential is too good to pass up. If he was able to throw 200 innings I think 175 strikeouts is his floor. That may not sound like a lot, but only 26 pitchers had that many strikeouts last year.

If I was in a NFBC league and I had a roster spot to spare I would pick up Stephenson and stash him.

Since the calendar has turned to March now is the time to compare personal rankings/projections with other sources. Two of the starting pitchers I’m more bullish on than everyone is Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard.

When I evaluate pitchers the three biggest data points I review are: strikeout rate, walk rate and ground ball rate. Based on Carrasco’s numbers he’s one of the best pitchers in the majors. However, there are more reasons why he’s my ninth ranked starting pitcher.

The biggest reason why I love Carrasco is the defensive upgrades on the infield. Since he strikes out so many batters he doesn’t allow many balls in-play, but when he does its usually soft contact on the ground. He had the 18^th highest ground ball rate among qualified starting pitchers last year. The Indians defense improved dramatically after shortstop Francisco Lindor and Giovanny Urshela were called up; it also does not hurt Carlos Santana will not be at first base too. After Lindor was called up Carrasco, in 17 starts, had a 3.12 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and a 31.2 percent strikeout rate. Both players will be back (Juan Uribe, another good defender at third base, could also be the starter) and he’s my dark horse for the Cy Young (if he gets lucky with wins).

If Syndergaard played a full season his 27.5 percent strikeout rate would have been the seventh best strikeout rate among qualified pitchers. Also, his 5.1 percent walk rate would tie him for the 12^th lowest. Most importantly, his 14.5 percent hard hit rate would have tied him for the fifth lowest (with his teammate Matt Harvey). To recap, he’s striking out a lot of batters, he doesn’t walk batters and when hitters make contact its extremely weak. On top of that he pitches in one of the best pitcher parks in the majors.

The biggest hesitation is the Mets defense; it could be one of the worst defenses in the majors (assuming Yoenis Cespedes plays the majority of innings in center field). How many games will David Wright play? Asdrubal Cabrera is barely serviceable at shortstop. Even if Juan Lagares were the starting center fielder the outfield defense would be average. *Complete aside, but if Michael Conforto gets off to a slow start I bet the Mets send him to the minors to improve the outfield defense. I wouldn’t be surprised if Syndergaard and the other Mets starters all have ERAs much higher than their FIPs like the Indians last year.

When Ian Desmond signed with the Rangers my reaction was similar to Keith Law’s. I thought the Rangers had plenty of internal options ready to left field (even with Josh Hamilton going on the DL) with Joey Gallo being the most interesting fantasy option. The fantasy takeaway from the signing is Desmond is going to play every day and should be drafted in all formats. The question is what type of numbers will he put up?

Desmond was a 20/20 player for three straight years (2012-15) and was seen as a safe fantasy option heading into 2015. However, he struggled defensively to begin the season as he committed nine errors the first month of the season. It looked as as though he brought his defense to the plate hitting .217/.287/.326 during the first month.

The defense improved as the season progressed but his hitting did not. The next three months after he hit .216/.257/.374. These are arbitrary end points, but he hit .216/.264/.362 for the first four months of the season.

The question is why were his numbers so bad? The three biggest factors were:

1. He struck out 29.4% of the time
2. He hit the most ground balls of his career
3. The hard hit rate was 17 percent, the lowest of his career

The strikeout rate has increased year-over-year for four straight years and last years 28.7 percent swing and miss rate was the 16^th highest among qualified hitters (just ahead of Brandon Crawford and behind Brandon Moss). My takeaway is he’s going to continue to have a strikeout rate, which will limit his batting average upside.

Last year his ground ball rate increased 5.5 percentage points (from 48.7 percent to 54.1 percent). That sounds like a lot but that’s only a difference of 15-20 ground balls. It’s difficult to identify of 2015’s ground ball rate is an outlier or if it’s the beginning of a new baseline. Since the ground ball rate was consistently high every month I’m inclined to believe it’s a new baseline.

The move from Washington to Texas is a positive because Texas is the fifth best hitters park (compared to Washington at 13^th) per Tristan H. Cockcroft. From 2012-15 Desmond had a 17.3 percent HR/FB rate at home compared to 14.9 percent on the road. Playing in Texas probably gives him 1-3 additional home runs. However, the new ballpark may be negated if the hard hit rate doesn’t improve.

Usually when a hitter hits more ground balls the hard hit rate decreases too (because ground balls are usually not hit hard and if the number of them increases it has a bigger effect on the aggregated total).

I’m projecting a .244 batting average with 17 home runs, 70 RBIs, 60 runs and 16 stolen bases, which makes him the ninth shortstop overall. He’ll likely bat 6-7 in the lineup (my projection assumes he bats sixth) so he should have a good number of at-bats with men on-base. I honestly didn’t know what to project for the batting average. He’s striking out more and he only hit more than .220 in only two months last year. Desmond could hit in the .250s but the smart money says that’s unlikely to happen.