Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

Michael Wacha looked really good yesterday. His fastball sat 92-93 mph and touched 96 a few times. The money pitch was the circle changeup; it was thrown with deception and has good fade; batters swung and missed 50 percent of the time. What impressed me the most from a fantasy perspective was the 53 percent ground ball rate. I love pitchers who can miss bats and generate a lot of ground balls. In terms of his delivery he puts a lot torque on the elbow right before he releases the ball, which gave me pause. My initial reaction to noticing that could lead to injury concerns … but honestly, anything could lead to injury. He only threw the curveball three times so I couldn’t get a real gauge of the pitch, but if he’s going to make it as a starter he’s going to need to develop that pitch into something more than a “show me” pitch.

Despite the solid box score from Eric Hosmer I’m not impressed as he’s still not hitting the ball with authority.

Despite the great matchup Andrew Cashner let down his fantasy owners. The problem was the feel for the changeup as he left it up and in the middle of the zone too often. He has the raw stuff to be a number 1-2 starter, but he doesn’t have the “I’m a badass” mentality I want to see from a pitcher of that caliber.

Despite having a 1.50 ERA and 1.22 WHIP in Jordan Lyles’ last three games. Having played in the majors since 2011 it’s easy to forget Lyles is only 22 years old. After watching a few of his starts the past two years Lyles doesn’t have overly impressive stuff, but has plus command of his fastball (sits at 89-92 mph) and command of his other three pitches (changeup, slider and curveball). Pitchers like Lyles have ceilings of a number three starter, which he has a really good chance of achieving. However, from a fantasy perspective Lyles isn’t someone you want on your roster besides deep leagues. This year he has a swing and miss rate of 18.2 percent, which ranks 116th overall among starters with at least five starts this year. On the bright side he has a ground ball rate of 50 percent (that ranks 31st overall among starters) he should have lower BABIPs and LOB rates, which will make him a serviceable fantasy spot starter. In terms of his start yesterday, he consistently pitched with men on-base and in scoring position (in five of his seven innings). In one inning the bases were loaded with zero outs and he was able to pitch out it.

I rated Gio Gonzalez as top 7 pitcher in last weeks (for this week) starting pitcher rankings because the improved control he showed the past four starts. However, his control problems creept back up again against the Orioles. The fastball and changeup were consistently thrown out of the strike zone – 56 percent and 88 percent respectively. Every Gonzalez fantasy owner is never going to feel completely comfortable starting him because it appears his command issues are always going to be there. Ryan Zimmerman had another throwing error; every ball hit at him is going to be adventure. I bring this up because this will negatively effect every Nationals pitcher.

Sean Dolittle is one of the five relievers in the majors. In 70.1 innings he has 83 strikeouts and only 14 walks. If were a full time closer he would be easily in the top 3.

Dan Straily had another solid outing against the Giants as he threw any of his four pitches at any time in the count. He threw a lot of quality strikes and pitched to contact; most the of the contact was weak as he pitched inside to both sides of the plate, which induced a lot popups. That said, he’s very fly ball prone and benefits from the A’s ballpark. To begin his career Straily has been very homer pone and in his last two starts he’s started to throw more quality strikes.

I wasn’t overly impressed with Tyler Skaggs’ outing despite the very nice box score. The biggest thing I noticed was he threw the fastball and changeup up in the zone a lot (35 percent of the time). With his fastball sitting 89-91 I don’t know how effective he’ll be in the long term throwing the ball in that location. With a 50 percent line drive rate suggests there was a lot of hard contact, which indicates he got lucky. Despite allowing zero runs he pitched with runners in scoring position 4-5 innings of the six he threw. The curveball looked really good, generating a lot of swings and misses. My only question is how often will be able to throw it before it loses its effectiveness in a game? With a “meh” changeup and average fastball I don’t think he has the stuff to keep hitters off the curveball consistently.