Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.

Despite having stellar numbers the past two seasons Chris Sale’s ADP was suppressed in 2014 primarily due to injury concerns. The reason for those concerns are because he has a violent deliver, he throws a lot of sliders (this pitch puts more strain on the elbow) and who slight his body is. After two injury free seasons (he had shoulder inflammation in 2013 but never went on the DL), Sale went on the DL for the first time in his career with a flexor muscle strain in his left elbow. Also, this was the first time he has ever experienced elbow issues. He ended up spending 34 days on the DL, missing 32 games. When he came back from the DL he was fantastic, putting up a 2.15 ERA, 0.99 WHIP with 30.8% strikeout rate.

Not only did he put up fantastic numbers, the strikeout rate was the highest of his career as a starting pitcher. The increased strikeout rate came against both lefties and righties. The major adjustment he made was he started using the changeup more (image below from BrooksBaseball.net).

Last year the changeup had 29% strikeout rate compared to a 17% strikeout rate the previous two years. I believe the new strikeout rate with the changeup is repeatable because was throwing that pitch down in the zone more often (from 47.5% to 55.4%). The reason why that’s important is that pitch is at its best when thrown down in the zone.

He got a little lucky with the HR/FB rate because last year was it was three percentage points less than his career rate (7.5% and 10.6% respectively). The fly ball rate increased nine percentage points from last year (32.0% to 40.9% respectively), but since his contact rate was so low he would have allowed the name number of fly balls as 2013. Therefore, he can continue to have a low contact rate he will not allow more home runs if the HR/FB were to regress.

Overall, the big question, once again, with Sale is going to be health. The fact he went on the DL last year should provide enough fear that he should slip in drafts, which could make him a value. The White Sox should have an improved offense, which could help him win more games but my biggest question is will the bullpen hold leads for him? I have doubts about the White Sox bullpen. The signing of David Robertson definitely helps, but whose going to hold leads to get to Robertson? The bullpen is full of unproven guys without much of a track record.

My 2015 projection for Sale is 190 IP, 2.57 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 215 Ks and 13 wins.

If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.

The big question in the fantasy community is will Andrew Cashner ever provide 30-plus starts in a season? Because if he does he could be a top 10-15 starting pitcher. Last year he missed 76 games due to a strained elbow in May and shoulder inflammation in June.

With any Padres pitcher let’s first look at Cashner’s home-road splits (table below).

In regards to his stuff it can be unhittable in bursts or when he wants to be. By that I mean he’ll go months without throwing his slider, his best secondary pitcher (image below from BrooksBaseball.net). In 2013 he almost completely abandoned the pitch for the first half of the season.

To further expand the importance of his slider the table below shows his performance in the first and second half of 2013. You’ll notice his numbers got vastly better the more he started using the slider.

When looking at his 2014 season there some negative trends. The contact rate rose 1.4 percentage points from the previous year while the ground ball rate (from 52.5% to 48.3%) and the swing and miss rate decreased (from 20.0% to 18.4%).

Cashner is a very intriguing and tempting pitcher because he pitches in Petco Park and has, in bursts, has looked like an ace. Injuries have been consistent throughout his career (he’s had significant shoulder injuries in three of the past four years as well as a strained elbow last summer). He will sporadically not throw all of his pitches (which is probably due to him not being 100%). On top of all that he’s missing fewer bats and he’s not generating as much weak contact.

The shallower the league the more likely I’m going to take a chance on Cashner. Also, if you’re confident in finding pitching on the waiver wire (i.e. Jacob deGrom, Jake Arrieta, Marcus Stroman and etc) then Cashner is well worth the risk because if he does go on the DL you will be able to augment your team with a very good replacement level pitcher.

My 2015 projection for Cashner is 150 IP, 3.31 era, 1.13 WHIP, 120 Ks and 9 wins.

If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.

As of mid-January Tanner Roark is not expected to begin the year in the Major League rotation. This player capsule assumes he will be. Even if he does not begin the year in the rotation he’ll mostl likely spend some time in the rotation because pitchers do get hurt and a lot can happen from January 22^nd until Opening Day; a trade perhaps?

When looking at Roark’s 2014 numbers it’s easy to say he’s going to regress when his strand rate was very high (79.3%), the BABIP is really low (.270), he doesn’t strike batters out and he didn’t’t generate a lot of ground balls. I do agree he’s going to regress and last year will probably be the best fantasy season he will have in career, but he still has value as a streaming option in 10-team mixed leagues.

First, let’s look at the strikeout rate. Before the month of August he had a slightly below average strikeout rate (19%), but it was still much higher than his season total would indicate. The image below shows his strikeout and walk rates by month last year.

If Roark is going to be a successful real life and fantasy starting pitcher it’s going to come down to what kind of pitcher is he? Is he the pitcher who will generate ground balls 50% of the time in 2013 or 40% last year. The main reason why the ground ball rate was lower was due to the performance of the curveball and slider (image below from BrooksBaseball.net).

Since the ground ball rates were so low something must have happened to those two pitches? Maybe he left the pitches higher in the zone? The table below shows the percentage of times the curveball and slider were thrown down in the zone and the ground ball rate of those pitches down in the zone.

After looking at the table it looks like he was extremely unlucky with the ground ball rate last year. Therefore, I expect the ground ball rate to positively regress in 2015. If he’s ground baller he’s should be able to have an ERA less than 3.50 and a sub-1.20 WHIP with a lot of wins.