Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

I’ve seen every start of only one pitcher this year and he’s not on the A’s. His name is Jeremy Hellickson. After I was finishing up my work day twitter blew up. So needless to say I had sticker shock when I saw eight earned runs and ten hits in 5.2 innings. In the preseason I loved Hellickson. I targeted him in every draft and “over drafted” him to ensure he was on my team because I thought he would stabilize my team’s ERA and WHIP. After watching yesterday’s start I’m recommending he dropped in all formats. For the first five innings he pitched like vintage Hellickson; trowing the fastball on both sides of the plate; the changeup looked crisp, inducing a lot of swings and misses. Then the sixth inning happened. All of a sudden he lost command of all of his pitches and became extremely hittable. He did suffer 1-2 instances of bad luck, but this was my last straw with him. He was pitching at home, a great pitcher’s ballpark, against one of the worst offenses in the league and he still got lit up.

After a shaky first three batters Jarrod Parker only allowed five base runners the rest of the game (in eight innings). Despite the really good box score his command of the strike zone was loose as it would come and go inning to inning. However, when he was commanding the changeup, especially to lefties, hitters were taking bad swings against it, which means the pitch is really good. Over his last eight starts he has a 2.85 ERA with a 0.99 WHIP so he’s bound to regress because he’s not that good, but if you own him, keep him. You could sell high if you can get a top 25 pitcher for him, but I don’t think you’ll be able to get that on the trade market.

If you haven’t heard by nowTroy Tulowitzki is out 4-6 weeks with a broken rib. I own him in two NFBC Leagues, one of which I’m in first place, and I’m scrambling to find a replacement. Josh Rutledge is expected to be called up to replace him and I’m probably going to use 70-80 percent of my remaining FAAB budget (about $550) to acquire him. Poor defense aside, he’s a top 10 middle infield option because he provides home runs and stolen bases and plays in Coors. Before he was sent down he a top five second baseman on ESPNs player rater. If you can’t get Rutledge you’re going to have to stream middle infield options until he comes back. Jeff Keppinger, in the last three weeks, is hitting3.313. Mike Aviles is another great option as long as Asdubal Cabrera is on the DL. If you’re looking for speed, Jasyon Nix quietly has eight steals this past month.

Since George Brett became the Royals hitting coach on May 30, Eric Hosmer has a slash line of .309/.356/.418. It’s easy to say it’s either a coincidence or a small sample size, but his swings have been a lot better at the plate and he’s driving the ball up the middle and to right field. Check out his hit chart below. He’s still hitting too many ground balls, but I finally have optimism.

Due to work requirements I was only able to catch the end of the Mariners-Astros and A’s-Yankee games, but I did not notice a couple of trends.

First, Tom Wilhelmsen blew his third save in the past two weeks. If you’re a Wilhelmsen owner it’s time to go grab Carter Capps. Wilhelmsen probably has a long leash and will get the next save chance, but since May 29 he has a 14.85 ERA and 2.70 WHIP (6.2 innings). If you have the roster spot, go get Capps.

Grant Balfour, again, came close to blowing another save. Prior to last night he’s almost blown four saves because he allowed fly balls to the warning track or a ball that went over the fence that the outfielder caught. Pitch location has been a big issue for Balfour this year; his walk rate is one percentage point larger and hitters are hitting .202 against him (compared to .160 last year). Balfour has fairly long leash and should remain the closer for awhile because he hasn’t blown a save in 30-31 chances, but he hasn’t looked nearly as good as the box score indicates. I still believe Sean Doolittle is the best reliever the A’s have and should be the next pitcher inline if something were to happen to Balfour. On a side note, f course after I tout Doolittle as one of the five best relievers in the game he allows ten earned runs in eight innings and pretty much making me look foolish.

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.