Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

J.J. Putz blew another save in glorious fashion, giving up a home run to Pablo Sandoval with a runner on second base. It seems as though the consensus amongst fantasy pundits is David Hernandez is the next inline, but I still believe its Heath Bell because he’s “done it before.”

After three solid starts Roy Halladay had a blowup start giving up 8 earned runs, 9 hits, 2 walks and only 3 strikeouts in 3.2 innings. The big issue was command and the quality of stuff. All three home runs came on cutters in the middle of the plate; almost all the contact the Indians put in play was hard and loud. This start also shows how much disparity there between the level of competition between the AL and NL. His next starts are: Miami, @Arizona and Cincinnati. I’m starting him at Miami, but I’m leaving him on my bench after that.

I loved Edwin Jackson’s matchup against the Padres, one of the lowest scoring teams in the Majors (22nd overall). Despite the favorable matchup Jackson got lit up for 8 runs, 11 hits, 2 walks and 8 earned runs. His fastball command was awful, especially to left handed batters, leaving a lot of them in the middle of the zone. So far this season Jackson has the highest strikeout rate of his career (21.7 percent), but also has the highest walk rate (10.8 percent) since 2007. His .444 BABIP is sure to regress and all the underlying numbers support he’s been unlucky. He’s generating the most ground balls of his career (55 percent) and his swing and miss rate is the same as it has been the past four seasons

Jon Lester had his worst start of the year, giving  up 5 earned runs, 6 hits, 2 walks in 6 innings. Another poor start came from Brandon Maurer as he was only able to last 4 innings. Both suffered from poor command, but Maruer’s start was the most concerning as he his fastball velocity was 1 mph lower than all his previous starts. Because the command of his fastball was so poor he tried to take a little off it in order to try to throw strikes, but it didn’t work.

Josh Hamilton went 0-8 and added little hope he’ll rebound. He has a current slash line of .202/.246/.298 for the year and is surely to rebound, right? Odds are we all know about his hot start to begin the year, but his massive slump, which began in June, may have gone unnoticed. Check out his slash from June 2012 to now: .236/.306/.446 with 24 home runs, 4 steals, 74 runs and 80 RBI. Listening to any Angels broadcast it’s obvious as to why he’s struggling; he cannot layoff pitches, especially breaking balls, outside the zone on the outer half. Hamilton is currently seeing the fifth least amount of fastballs in the league. During the same time period as I mentioned earlier (June to now) he has a slash line of .280/.367/.510 against fastballs. With Peter Bourjos on the DL I would move Mike Trout to the leadoff spot and I would bat Hamilton second to try to get him to see more fastballs and better pitches. Will Hamilton rebound? The smart money says yes, but a .260 batting average may be his ceiling.

Jose Fernandez was in and out of trouble throughout the entire game, but the biggest takeaway from the game were two things. First, his changeup looked really good in bursts and was able to strikeout three of the four batters on the changeup. Second, he only threw four innings and 81 pitches. In his last three starts he’s thrown 81, 79 and 79 pitches. It looks as though he may be on a strict pitch count, which will limit his ability to pitch deep enough to earn wins.

Julio Teheran was aided by superb defense and BABIP luck as he allowed ten hits, one walk and two earned runs in 5.1 innings. Even though he allowed ten hits, it could’ve been more as a lot of the contact he allowed found barrels and were squared up. The raw stuff is still there, but he shouldn’t be starting for your fantasy team except for an NL-only.

Matt Harvey had his “worst” game of the year going 5.1 innings with seven strikeouts, seven hits, two walks and one earned runs. Harvey essentially scrapped the curveball, only throwing it 6.6 percent of the time; usually it’s about 12 percent. His fastball command was clearly lacking as he threw a lot of them over the middle of the plate a lot, especially to left handed batters, and found a lot of barrels. If he faced a quality lineup he would have fared much worse. Another major thing I noticed was how much he was sweating as the game went on and it made look uncomfortable. By the fifth inning he completely sweat through his jersey. Maybe this contributed to his lack command?

Justin Ruggiano played six years within the Tampa Rays organization, receiving 207 plate appearances in the Majors. In 2012 he signed a minor league contract with the Houston Astros. He played for their Triple-A affiliate before being traded to the Miami Marlins for minor league catcher Jobduan Morales. The Marlins instantly put Ruggiano on the Major League club and he proceeded to rake, putting up a slash line of .313/.374/.535 with 13 home runs and 14 steals in only 320 plate appearances. Small sample size aside, some fantasy experts considered him to be a fantasy sleeper with 20/20 potential, asserting his season was bonafide  or legit; either adjective works. However, in the preseason I never bought into the fantasy hype because the underlying stats pointed to a big regression. Players with a 26.3 strikeout percentage and .401 BABIP in most cases are bound to regress and so far this season he’s done just that, hitting .215/.271/.392 in 86 plate appearances. Granted, he does have 3 home runs and 3 stolen bases and he has reduced his strikeout rate to 22.1 percent. However, this year his walk rate has decreased from 9.1 percent in 2012 to only 7 percent.

Is there hope he can rebound from his slow start? The underlying statistics indicate he’s getting unlucky. His contact rates are essentially the same, but his BABIP is only .246, so that should improve. It’s still possible he could be a .300 hitter and provide the 20/20 value some predicted. However, from watching him it’s pretty obvious he’s looking to pull the ball on every swing, leaving him vulnerable to pitches on the outer half of the plate, especially to quality breaking stuff (sliders and curveballs). The image below shows the pitch frequency and slugging percentage of pitches with horizontal movement to the outer half of the plate (sliders, curveballs and cutters) in 2012.

Now checkout how he’s faring against the same pitches this year. Pitchers have adjusted and started throwing more pitches with horizontal break out of the zone, his weak spot.

He’s currently hitting .036 on pitches on the outer half of the plate, which means he’ll have to adjust and start hitting more balls to right field. The early indicators suggest he’s attempting to do that. Last year 14.3 percent of hits were to the right field, this year its 18 percent. If he continues to get consistent at-bats he’ll walk into a 15/15 season because the sheer number of at-bats, but at what batting average? Odds are if you drafted him you highly a .280+ batting average is expected, but I’m in the other camp; if I owned him I would be ecstatic if he hit .260, but I would expect a .230-240 batting average.