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.

After missing a little less than two seasons Drew Hutchison was finally healthy and made 32 starts. In late April I wrote, “After watching his start three starts I’m a believer that his raw stuff is good enough that he could be a 200 K pitcher if given the opportunity to start 31-33 games.” He ended up having 32 starts and pitched 184 innings. Coincidently he struck out 184 batters so if he pitched a few more innings my projection would have come true.

In that same piece I concluded my evaluation of Hutchison that he would finish the year with, “At the end of the year he’ll be somewhere near a 3.80 ERA, 1.25 WHIP with 180 strikeouts.” Obviously I was incorrect about the ERA, but he had a 3.85 FIP and 3.82 xFIP so I was definitely on the right track.

The one thing he should try to work on is trying to limit the fly balls. Last year his fly ball rate was 45%, which is high considering the home ballpark is a bam box. If he can lower the fly ball rate to even 40% he’ll have an opportunity to have an ERA in the sub-3.80s. There’s another sign of optimism as his strikeout rate increased month-over-month while the walk rate decreased slightly as the season progressed (image below).

If Hutchison played in a bigger market and in a better pitchers ballpark there would be more talk about him as a potential breakout candidate. He’ll likely be drafted in the 60-70 among starting pitchers (or even later), but he is one of the best candidates to substantially improve in 2015.

My 2015 projection for Hutchison is 200 IP, 3.79 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 200 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.

Before evaluating Justin Verlander’s 2014 season it’s important to remember he had core-muscle repair surgery after the 2013 season began. Therefore, it’s possible he was never 100% last year. This offseason he gets to train and condition himself without any restrictions.

There’s been a lot of hubbub about Verlander’s diminished velocity, but the numbers don’t bear that out. The image below shows his slugging and wOBA against the fastball since 2008.

The first thing you’ll notice is he’s on a bad trend since 2011, but batters were squaring him up at the same rate from 2008 and 2010 and his numbers weren’t as bad as 2014s. Okay, maybe 2008s were, but the average of those seasons were much better than 2014s numbers.

One of the big problems I saw with Verlander was fastball command. The image below shows the percentage of fastballs that were thrown for strikes since 2008. The first thing I noticed was he’s been throwing far less strikes with the fastball and in fact it was nearly at the same level as his 2008 season, which he coincidently had a 4.84 ERA and 1.40 WHIP (those numbers do not look all that different than his 2014 numbers).

Another troubling trend is the overall performance of his secondary pitches (table below). The poor performance could be due to the lack of fastball command, but he lacked command in 2008 and his secondary offerings still missed a lot of bats.

Bad fastball command can put hitters in good hitters counts which means they can sit on the fastball and not chance the curveball down in the dirt. Doug Thorburn wrote that Verlander’s biggest problem has been finding mechanical consistency with his delivery. The numbers don’t look promising, but he’s still in a small class of pitchers who could literally finish the year as the number one rated fantasy pitcher.

My 2015 projection for Verlander is 200 IP, 3.74 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 175 strikeouts and 14 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 biggest question I had about Chris Archer heading into 2014 was would he be able to finally negate lefties. The table below shows his career numbers against lefties.

By looking at the table it looks as though he’s found a way to mitigate lefties. The question how was he able to do that and is it repeatable? Archer is basically and two-pitch pitcher (fastball [four and two seam] and slider). In general, the slider is a divesting weapon against righties because the pitch is thrown down and away from the batter (i.e. away from the fat part of the hitters bat). However, against lefties that pitch is thrown right into the wheel house of a lefties bat. Last year I thought if the changeup improved he could breakout because the changeup is thrown down and away (i.e. away from a left handers bat). Last year he threw his two-seam fastball a lot more to lefties (image below from BrooksBaseball.net) and used that pitch to generate a lot of ground balls and weak contact. Last year his command improved in general. There would be a few starts where he would lose command and not pitch very well, but there were would be other times where he looked amazing. The biggest change from 2013 is he had more amazing starts and less bad starts. It’s not uncommon for young pitchers to be up and down with their command and do not forget 2014 was his first full year in the majors. From the scouting reports I’ve read he has the makeup, athleticism and most importantly, stuff to get even better in 2015. My 2015 projection for Archer is 195 IP, 3.35 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 175 Ks and 12 wins.