Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

After watching the Royals only score five runs this weekend and subsequently getting swept by the Athletics I couldn’t help but notice the imperfection of their lineup. I’ll fully admit there is no such thing because luck will play a bigger role from a day-to-day basis, but that doesn’t mean you can put yourself in the best chance to win over the course of a season.

First off, why is Chris Getz still playing every day? He’s a career .253/.308/.315 hitter in nearly 1,400 plate appearances. At this point we know who Getz is. Johnny Giavotella, who has a .323 batting average in nearly 1,100 plate appearances in triple-a, has nothing left to prove at that level and deserves an opportunity to play every day. The biggest reason why Getz is the preferred player is his defense is “superior”, which could be true, but Getz is merely a solid average defender.

What the Royals need is “out of the box” thinking with the construction of his lineup. Why not bat Alex Gordon, their best hitter, second? Why second? Keith Law wrote a great article about how your best hitter should bat second. Basically the two spot has the most impact and value over the course of the season. Eric Hosmer has not lived up the expectations he flashed during his rookie year, but at least he’s getting on-base at a sold clip. Why not bat him leadoff? Either way, Hosmer should not be batting ahead of Salvador Perez.

I love Alcides Escobar. He’s easily a plus defender and has enough contactability to be a solid contributor in a lineup, but there’s no way he should be batting second. I know he had the breakout year last year with a .293 batting average that was hugely BABIP driven. Since 2011 he has an OBP of .307! That’s a player who should be hitting in the eight or nine spot, not second in the order. The reason why he’s batting second is that he’s fast. Having fast runners is perceived to be highly valuable to scoring runs because they can score on a double while standing on first base. Or they can “jump start” an offense by getting on-base and stealing a base. That works if you’re Rickey Henderson or Tim Raines who were extremely fast and had really high career OPBs – .401 and .385 respectively.

Lastly, George Kottaras needs to have more than 15 at-bats. We’re 25 percent of the way through the season and he’s a solid hitter. I saw him single handily win games last year for the Athletics. There have been a few games this year where Yost has allowed Jeff Francoeur (he’s only hitting .231 against righties the past two seasons) to bat at the end of the game against a right handed pitcher with the game on the line.

I picked the Royals to win the division because I liked what Dayton Moore did this offseason, specifically, upgrading the pitching staff. It would be great for baseball and their fanbase if the Royals made the playoffs, but I’m afraid if the lineup continues to be mismanaged the roster is good enough to overcome it.

You can say what you want about Jeff Francoeur as a baseball player, but off the field he’s a cool dude. In 2011 he tossed a ball wrapped in a $100 bill into the bleacher creatures domain (right field bleachers), instructing fans to use it to buy bacon or beer. Bacon Tuesday was born. The next year the very same fans celebrated Bacon Tuesday and Francoeur sent over 20 pizzas to the bleacher creatures. This year he hung out with the bleacher creatures for 30 minutes. Check out the video below.

I hope you all dig the new format of the rankings. Please note the data are season totals as of May 17, 2013.

*Latest Notes: Jake Odorizzi is projected to start on Monday against the Blue Jays. I rank him 86th overall.

Top Starters

Additional Information: Johnny Cueto is expected to come off the DL on Monday. He’s made two rehab starts (eight innings) and has allowed zero walks. A couple of days ago I wrote about Cole Hamels struggles were due not having command of his pitches. A start against the Marlins is too good to pass up. If he continues to struggle in Miami I’m going to start to panic. The Yankees are ranked 26^th in OPS against left handed pitching, Matt Moore is a prime candidate for his eighth win.

Backend Starters

Additional Information: Gio Gonzalez, in his last three starts has a 1.83 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, six walks and 16 strikeouts in 19.2 innings. Now he gets to pitch in the friendly confines of San Francisco. As a starter this year Andrew Cashner has a 2.19 ERA, 1.18 WHIP with nine walks and only 13 strikeouts. If he becomes more aggressive with his plus-plus fastball (he only throws it 51 percent of the time) he would have more strikeouts and could be a top 15 starting pitcher. R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball, in his last start, looked the best it has all year.

Spot Starters

Additional Information: Over his last four starts Dan Haren has quietly a 3.00 ERA, 0.93 WHIP with only two walks in 27 innings. If he’s available in your league go get him. C.J. Wilson is walking 12 percent of the batters, the most in his career since 2008. It’s looking more and more like 2011 is his career outlier and a blend of 2012 and 2010 is more indicative of his talent level. If Bartolo Colon wasn’t pitching against the Astros he would be somewhere in the mid-80s. In his last four starts he has a 7.17 ERA and batters are hitting .314 against him. Beware of Hyun-Jin Ryu at Milwaukee. The Brewers have the second highest OPS in the league against left handers. David Phelps pitched another great game today (May 18) and he’s available in 40 percent of NFBC leagues. On Monday his ownership should be in 90s. After watching Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain get lit up in Colorado, I’m not starting any pitcher in Colorado. Patrick Corbin has an awful matchup in Colorado and a great matchup against the Padres. If you own him, I’d try to sit him.

Proceed With Caution

Additional Information: Ross Detwiler may miss his start with an oblique strain so monitor his situation closely. If he misses his start Zach Duke may be called upon in his stead. Don’t let the 2.03 from Travis Wood fool you. If you start him, you will be sorry. I’m not buying Zach McAllister at all. Other than Detroit and maybe Boston, he hasn’t faced a good offense yet. If you’re looking for a starter that will not crush your ratios then Bronson Arroyo is a relatively safe starter this week.

Avoid

Additional Information: Jarrod Parker pitched his best game last night against the Royals. Do you think the trend continues in Texas? I don’t. After giving up five earned runs in two innings today (May 18) is it possible Roberto Hernandez’s days in the Rays rotation are over? With Chris Archer and Jake Odorizzi wasting away in triple-a I have to believe so. Last year Juan Nicasio had 2.81 ERA abd 1.29 WHIP in four road games. If you’re looking at pitchers this low on the list you will take any positive trend you can find. Corey Kluber is not as bad as the 5.41 ERA would indicate, but two weeks ago he faced Detroit and he gave up eight earned runs in 4.2 innings. 

It was easily Jarrod Parker’s best start last night, but it still wasn’t the Parker we saw last year. At times the changeup flashed plus to plus-plus, but there were times he missed away and outside (of the strike zone) with it. This start was definitely a step in the right direction, but with his next start at Texas I want to see another good performance before I start him.

The best takeaway from Edwin Jackson’s start is he only walked one batter and threw a lot of strikes (68 percent). However, he’s still throwing too many balls in the middle of the strike zone, which is contributed to the two home runs he allowed. He could’ve allowed 1-2 more if the wind wasn’t blowing in. What made me laugh out loud is Matt Harvey made louder contact in his RBI single than Ike Davis has made the past week.

Speaking of Harvey, he got roughed up in the first inning, but proceeded to dominate the next 6.1 innings, retiring 14 in a row at one point. The game plan by the Cubs was to be extremely aggressive, swinging at the first pitch fastballs. After the first inning he made an adjustment and starting throwing curveballs and changeups to begin at-bats.

Tony Cingrani should and most likely be sent down when Johnny Cueto comes off the DL on Monday. There are a lot of things he has to work on. First is maintaining a consistent release point when pitching out of the stretch. Second, he has to learn to start incorporating his secondary offerings more. By now we all know how much he relies on his fastball. He tried incorporating the changeup and curveball more, but he wouldn’t throw it with runners on base. Throughout the entire game batters stopped their swing when they picked up it was a secondary offering. Cingrani is a better option than Mike Leake, but Cingrani has more upside and refining his secondary stuff in the minors will make the Reds better in the long run.

Last, but not least, it’s time to talk about Jeremy Hellickson. The entire game he struggled to find command of his pitches, which almost cost him to give up a six run lead. You would think that he would’ve walked a lot of batters because the lack of command, but it was the opposite. He threw a lot of pitches right down the middle of the plate (heat map below) the Orioles hitters took full advantage. At this point I have no problem dropping him 12-team mixed leagues because except for one start, hitters have made consistent hard contact against him all year.