Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

The table provides an aggregate totals of Wacha’s entire 2013 season in the majors (regular season plus playoffs for a total of 95.3 innings).

He’s primarily a two-pitch pitcher (fastball and changeup) who relied on fastball command to get outs. Even though he only throws two pitches both of them are extremely good. His fastball sits in the 93-95 mph range and can touch 98 mph. Since he’s so tall he has an extremely high release point and gives him a big stride. When you combine these two facts when he throws the fastball (or any pitch) the pitch is going to look two to three mph faster than what it really is because of the downward plane and the deep release point (where he lets go of the ball). He throws a circle changeup with a lot of deception and late fade that is the perfect companion to the fastball.

Don’t get me wrong, Wacha looked really good, but there are red flags. If it wasn’t for the .250 BABIP the 1.04 WHIP would have been much higher. In general I’m not a fan of two-pitch pitchers sustaining elite level numbers because it’s only a matter of time hitters will figure him out. When a pitcher only throws two pitches hitters will have a 50 percent chance of guessing correctly which pitch will be thrown. The biggest red flag is Wacha’s great performance down the stretch and during the playoffs was seen by everyone, which means you’ll probably have to pay full price to acquire him because the hype surrounding him will be a lot higher compared to his young contemporaries (Danny Salazar and Yordano Ventura). That means he will have to hit those lofty expectations in order to get any sort of profit.

If you are looking for his statistical projections please go here and download my latest projections.

It doesn’t take a scout to know why Volquez has struggled for most of his career; it’s the walks and the fact he doesn’t know where the ball is going the majority of time. That said, there is room for optimism as he does have electric stuff and he showed signs of increased control last year as the walk rate decreased a little more than three percentage points. The decreased walk rate is great, but it came at the expense of the strikeout rate as it decreased three percentage points.

He also performs much better in pitcher friendly parks (as most pitchers do). The table below provides a breakdown of his performance in favorable ballparks (i.e. pitcher friendly) versus non-favorable ballparks. Favorable ballparks are defined as: San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Houston, Miami, Tampa Bay, Los Angeles (both AL & NL) and last, but not least Pittsburgh.

The guy we saw in 2008 who posted a 3.21 ERA and 24.6 percent strikeout rate is not coming back, but I believe Volquez does have fantasy value as a streaming option when he pitches at home. That said, every time you start him you’re playing with fire, but last year the Pirates turned around another similar pitcher with electric stuff and control issues (Francisco Liriano). Why can’t they do the same for Volquez?

If you are looking for his statistical projections please go here and download my latest projections.

Before I evaluate Vogelsong’s performance in 2013 I want to discuss what led up to the 2013 season. He pitched 24 more innings in the postseason, bringing his total innings to 213, by far the most he’s thrown in his career. Also, he pitched in the World Baseball Classic. During the season he suffered a fluke injury where he broke his pinky finger on a bunt attempt and missed nearly three months of the season.

Much has been said about the decrease in fastball velocity, which was nearly down 2 mph last year, but I want to focus on his two-seam fastball, which had a 9.5 score in 2012, but had a -9.4 in 2013 (per FanGraphs). For a drop in effectiveness to be that dramatic there had to be something wrong besides a drop in velocity. I’ll also note the fastball score in 2012 (9.5) decreased from 16.3 in 2011 so there was a fairly substantial drop before. Given his age and the workload in the playoffs and before the season he could have been suffering from fatigue before the season began.

Most of the damage imposed on him came from right handed batters; from 2011-12 they hit .231 (with a .272 BABIP) against him, but last year they hit .327 (with a .348 BABIP). He was also unlucky when first pitching to batters. On 0-0 counts he had a .449 batting average against with .396 BABIP and 63 percent ground ball rate, which indicates he was extremely unlucky. Also, with men on base he had .357 batting average against with a .373 BABIP, which is another indicator he was unlucky last year. It’s possible he these numbers were inflated due to poor performance and pitch location, but with the majority of fantasy community quickly writing him off means he could be a great buy low candidate.

Some fantasy owners will simply write him off as a pitcher with limited upside because of the age, decline in velocity and overall mediocre stuff, but for two years he was a top 30 starting pitcher. If I told you could potentially acquire a top 30 starting pitcher for one dollar or in the late part of your draft you would jump at the opportunity. I’m going to target him in all my drafts because I believe he suffered from bad luck and I’m not convinced it’s impossible he cannot return to his former self. And if he does not revert back to form, then it’s an easy drop.

If you are looking for his statistical projections please go here and download my latest projections.