Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

Like most of you I watched the Pirates-Giants game and the brawl in Los Angeles last night. In the past a Pirates-Giants matchup is a game most baseball fans usually skip for another game, but this wasn’t a normal game. This was the major league debut of Gerrit Cole, the first pick overall of the 2011 amateur draft.

Cole threw a lot of fastballs (80 percent) and the plus slider 17 percent of the time. The fastball sat 95-96 mph and touched 99 mph at least three times. The slider, which was thrown in the low to mid-80s had tremendous bite to it. After reading the Baseball America’s 2013 Prospect Handbook I thought the slider would have more velocity. In the book it said the slider was thrown at 88-90 mph, but either way a lot of them looked really good. I didn’t learn a lot about Cole because he didn’t throw a curveball and only threw one changeup; I think that was the Pirates game plan entering the game, to challenge the Giants hitters with his plus-plus fastball. As the game wore on, the Giants hitters adjusted and started to gear up for his fastball, which made him more hittable. If he’s going to have continued success he’s going to need to utilize his secondary offerings more.

Pittsburgh Pirates management has given no indication of what they’ll do with SP Gerrit Cole moving forward, but if you own him in a redraft league, hold on to him, even if he gets sent down because he’s one of the best pitchers they have available. Suppose he gets sent down, he’s the first one who will be called upon if someone gets hurt. All that said, if you could trade him for a top 30-35 starting pitcher go ahead and do it. In most cases all rookies have warming up periods because of the adjustments that are needed after the league has seen you.

Jered Weaver battled two elements yesterday: the weather (rain) and umpire Joe West. Despite the box score Weaver pitched extremely well through the first three innings, when the rain was light, throwing his fastball on the both sides of the plate and commanding his curveball and slider. The home run to Adam Jones was on a hanging changeup to Adam Jones, but after that the hits he allowed were all fluky in nature and one of the runs was aided by Josh Hamilton over running a ground ball. I have yet to mention Joe West’s inconsistent strike zone. There were at least four-five occasions where he called a ball when they were strikes. Even though his fastball sat 86-89 mph Weaver can still be an effective pitcher.

Of course I finally tout Julio Teheran in my starting pitcher rankings and he puts up a stinker. The first run came on a three base error by BJ Upton because he should have caught a ball that was hit at the warning track. The other runs, which came via the home run were both on hanging changeups. What stood out to me was the number of fly balls he allowed. Before the start he generated 44 percent ground balls and 36 percent fly balls, but the start in San Diego he allowed 55 percent fly balls. The fly balls looked more like it was part of the gameplan instead of errors on pitch location so I’m not overly worried. In general Teheran is a strike throwing machine, ranks tenth in the majors (among pitchers with at least five starts) in percentage of strikes thrown. He’s still a top 35-40 starting pitcher.

This is two starts in a row where Matt Moore has not looked good. Yesterday he wasn’t commanding any of pitches for the majority of the games. He did look good in extremely short bursts, but that was far and far between. The Rays commentators noted the Orioles hitters were very comfortable at the plate and they were covering pitches (on the outer half) they shouldn’t. His fastball velocity is down nearly two mph and the performance of his last two starts, makes me believe he’s hurt. If you remove yesterday’s start and look at his seven previous starts he has a 4.78 ERA. 1.63 WHIP with a strikeout rate of only 13.5 percent and walk rate of 12.8 percent. I ranked him 25th in my starting pitcher rankings, but after watching his last start I’ve benched him in all my leagues for David Phelps and Corey Kluber.

Edwin Jackson threw a lot of quality strikes, challenged hitters and looked like the same pitcher last year. The biggest thing I noticed was he didn’t pitch from the stretch when men were on base. With a FIP of 3.39 and xFIP of 3.59 and how he’s looked in his two previous starts you should go get him right now.

In the preseason I wasn’t a believer in Tyler Skaggs because the stuff was still a work in progress. Yesterday I saw him for the first time in about 4-5 starts and he still has to work on refining repertoire. He throws a beautiful curveball, but that’s not enough to get hitters out especially when his fastball sits 88-90 mph. The changeup and two-seam fastball needs a lot of work. Without throwing those for quality strikes it’s making him more hittable. Other than a deep NL-only league Skaggs shouldn’t be owned.