Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

I’m certain everyone has already given their two cents about Kevin Gausman, the fourth overall pick in the 2012, and how he looked yesterday. As an aside, it’s amazing that he was drafted a year ago and he’s already in the majors. I was impressed with his plus-plus fastball that sat 96-98 mph and touched 99 mph a couple of times. That velocity doesn’t come at the expense of the extra taxation of his arm/elbow/shoulder as his windup and delivery is very easy; it looks like he’s playing catch with the catcher.

He threw an easy plus changeup, slider and curveball. The changeup had good tumbling action, which looked like a splitter. He only threw 5-6 sliders and curveballs, but the slider had good bite to it. The curveball looked the least developed as he threw it as a get me over pitch.

Overall, his stuff is very very good, but he still has a lot to work on with the first being his command. Too often he threw fastballs in the middle of the strike zone (heatmap below). There were times he flashed good sequencing. The at-bat what stood out to me was the at-bat to Jose Bautista in the fifth inning; this is the third time Bautista faced Gausman. The first pitch is a slider down at the knees, below the zone. Guasman follows it up with a great changeup down and on the inside corner for a swing and miss. Then he throws a 97 mph fastball up in the zone that Bautista fouls off. And for the last pitch was a screw you 99 mph fastball up at the letters that Bautista swung and missed. If I could roster him I would because I rather have him than a Jeremy Hellickson, Scott Kazmir or Tim Hudson. In NFBC leagues he’s likely to go for at least Jose Fernandez money, which is too high for me. Even if he stays in the rotation all year, he will most likely be on an innings limit. He’s already thrown 50 innings this year. Maybe he get’s 100-120 more, which is about 14-17 starts.

Despite going 5 for 13 in the Houston Astros series, this isn’t the start of a positive trend for Eric Hosmer. If you want all of hit at-bats you will see three of those hits were fluky in nature. Also, a lot of the contact he made was weak contact in nature.

Fernando Rodney has battled command issues all year. One thing I’ve noticed is he taps his left foot on the ground multiple during his delivery. The problem is the toe taps are inconsistent and causes his mechanics to get out of whack. If you don’t own Joel Peralta already, you should.

Speaking of the Rays, Jeremy Hellickson threw a lot of strikes (69 percent) and limited the walks. The biggest take away was command of the curveball. For most of the year he’s been leaving it up, in the middle of the zone, but he had a good feel for the pitch and threw down in the zone. He gave up too many fly balls (70 percent), but he thew a lot of quality strikes. He’s still not the same pitcher as he was last year, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Francisco Liriano pitched fairly well, throwing a good number of strikes (65 percent), but was aided by his defense and had some luck on his side. There were several hard hit balls that found defenders and there were three remarkable plays by Pedro Alvarez that prevented from the first batters to open each respective inning. Also the poor approach by the Cubs hitters create a lot of easy outs. I’m still not a believer and next week he gets to face Detroit.

Tyler Lyons’ future is probably in the bullpen. His fastball sat 89-91 and touched 92 once or twice. He has an easy and clean delivery that’s conducive to a repeatable delivery, allowing the opportunity to have good command. His best secondary pitch was the slider, which he only threw to righties, which had a nice break. Last night he threw the fastball 88 percent of the time and threw a lot of strikes with it (65 percent), but for one reason or another he was reluctant to use his secondary pitches. Maybe it’s because the Padres poor approach at the plate made it unnecessary to deviate from the fastball.

Jake Odorizzi pitched fairly well in his debut. He’s a four pitch pitcher, featuring a slider, changeup and curveball to go along with the fastball. For the first four innings his fastball sat at 93 with good movement, but towards the end of his outing it was being thrown at 89-90 mph. That said, his last fastball was 93 mph but it was straight as an arrow. The slider looks more like a cutter than a traditional slider with big horizontal movement. To begin the game his command was a little loose; missing with his fastball up in the zone. What I liked the most about the start was he threw up and in to brush back lefties two times on 0-2 counts. That tells me he wants to own the inside part of the plate. Overall, I don’t see a top of the rotation starter, but I do see a pitcher who could have a ten year career in the back of the rotation. His delivery is free and easy, which should help him maintain a consistent release point and command.

Most Cole Hamels fantasy owners who were hoping for the beginning of a turnaround were against the lowly Marlins were disappointed with his performance. To begin the game he was very fastball heavy, which got him in trouble and lead to a run scoring. After the 1.1 innings he started attacking hitters with his changeup and his curveball. Both of the runs he allowed to score came from suspect defensive plays. The first came from Michael Young when he ventured too far off first base to try to get a ground ball Chase Utley easily could’ve grabbed. On the same play Hamels should’ve covered first base, but he didn’t; that base runner ended up scoring. The second came from a misplay by Delmon Young in right field. With a runner on first Ruggiano hit a fly ball off the right field wall. If Young played it correctly the runner doesn’t score. Overall, Hamels pitched a lot better than his previous two starts, but he’s still missing location with his fastball too often; specifically, in the middle of the plate. Hamels says he’s not hurt so if you own him you have to keep starting.

Jeremy Guthrie followed up his four home run outing last week to the Angels with another home run festival. However, this time he only gave up two homers this time around, making him tied in the majors with the most home runs allowed (he’s tied with Matt Cain with 13). The reason for his poor start was he got squeezed more than a few times by the umpire so he was forced to throw less quality strikes. That said, he didn’t adapt and didn’t hit his spots, which is what he needs to do in order to be effective.

Eric Hosmer went 3 for 4, but two of the hits were fluky in nature. One hit was slow ground ball to the second baseman and another was slap swing that bled down the left field line.