Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

The match ups and data you see below were pulled Friday afternoon. The data is for the 2015 season. Please be aware the match ups are subject to change. If you have any questions about the rankings hit me up Twitter @MattCommins

These are rankings for the entire week so I give the edge to a lot of fantasy pitchers who pitch twice. Also, the rankings are based on traditional 5×5 categories. I also provide write-ups for a few pitchers. My hope is after you read them you have a better understanding of why I ranked them.

Shane Greene was the fantasy darling to begin the season but after two brutal outings against the Indians and Twins his fantasy stock has decreased. The reason why he’s struggled has been due to lefties — they have a .775 OPS compared to .545 against righties. The White Sox do not have an overly left handed lineup so he could be a sneaky option in DFS, but I’m avoiding him in his start against the Royals.

I watched Mike Foltynewicz’s Major League debut as a starter and I see a future top ten closer. He has the body to hold up for 200-plus innings a year The fastball is an 80 pitch that reach triple digits, but what about the secondary offerings? He throws a couple of variations of the curveball and one of which looks like a slider to me, but the bottom line is they can miss bats. He only threw 3-4 changeups so the sample size is small, but they didn’t look good. The question is the command going to be there to turn over a lineup three times? The delivery has a lot of moving parts to it so it may take awhile for the command to come around (if it ever does). A player comp I’ve heard is Garrett Richards, which makes sense. Since the Braves are going to be bad this year they can give him an opportunity to have 40-60 Major League starts before deciding what he ultimately becomes.

Chris Archer has looked nothing less of fabulous this year. I’ve watched his starts and he has a great chance to finish the year as a top 15-20 starting pitcher (assuming the wins are there). I’ve said for two years if he’s going to take a big step forward the changeup has to improve. Historically he’s been a fastball and slider pitcher, which works great against righties, but not so well against lefties — before 2015 lefties had a .708 OPS compared to only a .549 OPS against righties. This year lefties have a .490 OPS and righties a .432 OPS. I want to see how he fares against lefties in his next 1-3 starts, but a breakout is coming.

Collin McHugh is 14th in the majors (among starting pitchers) in swing and miss strike rate on pitches in the strike zone. Last year he was 17th. Those rates put him in the same class as Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale, Alex Cobb, Zack Greinke and so on.What he’s doing is legit. He’s going to finish the year as a top 20 starting pitcher.

Is it time to worry about Clayton Kershaw? No. The quality of his stuff is still there and his swing and miss rate on pitches in the strike zone is still the same. He currently has a 20 percent HR/FB rate and a .384 BABIP. Both of those numbers are going to positively regress. If you could get him at a discount I would do so in a heartbeat.

I finally gave in and I’m going to give daily fantasy sports (DFS) a shot this year. This is my first year playing so there will be bumps in the road, but if you read my fantasy guide you know I am going to be overly prepared before I do something.

I’m playing at Draft Kings so all of my analysis and picks will be based on their scoring system.

My Strategy

To maximize your scoring potential you need to find pitchers who throw a lot of innings, strikeout a lot of batters and have a good chance for a win. Since you also lose points for hitters reaching base (hits, walks, hits batsmen) you want to avoid high strikeout, high walk pitchers (Francisco Liriano for example). Also, if they’re walking a lot of batters their pitch counts will be high, which means they won’t pitch deep into games.

With hitters you want players who will hit for extra bases because the scoring increases progressively for extra base hit type. Also, there are no penalties for hitters making outs so you can draft a Mike Zunino and not worry so much if he goes 0-4 with three strikeouts. Power is emphasized in the scoring so it’s imperative to find players who are going to hit home runs and make hard contact.

Speed is another way to find easy points at a low cost, but you want to make sure you grab players who have a high stolen base success rate because you lost points for every caught stealing.

Last Note

This is the most obvious thing, but it has to be said. You are responsible for your own lineup. It is your decision to play or not play a specific player or in general. I’m giving the best analysis I can and if you agree then, that’s great. I’m going to be wrong sometimes. In fact I’ll probably be wrong a lot because like I said at the start I am a beginner there’s going to be a learning curve.

My 50/50 GPP Lineup

• P: Scott Kazmir (OAK) vs. C. Lewis (SEA) — $7,400
  
• P: Jose Quintana (CWS) vs. K. Gibson (MIN) — $7,200
  
• C: Evan Gattis (HOU) vs. R. Elias (SEA) — $3,900
  
• 1B: Mike Napoli (BOS) vs. CC Sabathia (NYY) — $3,800
  
• 2B: Jose Altuve (HOU) vs. R. Elias (SEA) — $5,000
  
• 3B: Miguel Cabrera (DET) vs. C. Young (KC) — $5,400
  
• SS: Hidden
  
• OF: Giancarlo Stanton (MIA) vs. J. Williams (MIA) — $5,600
• OF: Hidden
  
• OF: Hidden

I was shocked to see Scott Kazmir’s price point. I have to assume it was an error on DraftKings part or maybe this is a trap game. Either is possible, but Vegas has Kazmir heavily favored so I feel good having him in my lineup. Jose Quintana has not performed up to his standards and the velocity on the fastball is slightly down, but if he doesn’t bounce back against the Twins it may be time to start panicking. In regards to my hitters it’s obvious I’m going with a heavy hitter lineup. Mike Napoli mashes lefties and he’s batting fifth; at his price he was too good to not use.

With 12-13% of the season already in the books some players have not performed up to their draft day value. The question on the minds of every fantasy owner is will these players improve the rest of the season? The following analysis of each hitter is from the point of view of the owner of the hitter. Before I go on it’s important to note we’re dealing with a small sample size and it’s important to continually monitor the status of each player as the sample size increases. Part one can be found here.

Robinson Cano: Sell

If you drafted Cano at the backend of the first round you have to be a little frustrated he’s not hitting for average or for power. He’s too good of a hitter to have a batting average this low, but if you drafted him thinking he’s going to hit 20-plus home runs I would be worried. I didn’t think he was going to hit 20-plus on draft day because the ground ball rate increased almost ten percentage points from the previous year and how he no longer tried to hit home runs – opting to hit the ball in the gaps. This year he’s not turning on inside fastballs, which is an indicator he’s lost a tick on his bat speed. He’s going to be a .300-plus hitter with 12-16 home runs. If you can find someone who is willing to buy low I would consider dealing him.

Albert Pujols: Keep

Pujols has been dealing with hamstring issues the past couple of days and may not come back until this weekend. Despite the injury Pujols should bounce back into the player he was last year. The biggest reason why I believe this is his extra base hit percentage (37.5 percent) is almost identical to last year (38.3 percent). On top of that the walk, strikeout and contact rates are identical to last year.

Chase Utley: Keep

Utley was the 12^th second baseman taken in ESPN drafts, which was too high considering his limited upside and how bad the surrounding talent around him in the lineup. However, if I owned him I wouldn’t worry. If I drafted Utley I was hoping to get at least 10/10 with the upside of 15/15 with a .260-plus batting average. Other than the batting average he’s on pace to provide at least 10/10. The only concerning statistic is the career high ground ball rate, which could be the cause of the low batting average. However, he’s only hitting .231 on fly balls and line drives, which is extremely low – from 2013-14 he hit .462. If he continues to hit the ball on the ground so much his batting average ceiling may be .260 instead of .270-plus the past two seasons.

Adam LaRoche: Sell

The biggest worry I had about LaRoche entering the season was the learning curve he could potential have because he was learning a new league. Maybe that’s why he’s striking out 37.7 percent of the time – by far the highest rate of his career. His contact rates are the lowest of his career. He’s swinging at the same rate (on pitches in and outside the strike zone), but his contact rates are the lowest of career. The most shocking statistic is how much he’s swinging and missing on pitches in the strike zone (13.7 percent SwStr% per FanGraphs). Maybe he’s dealing with vision issues or has lost two ticks on his bat speed, but it looks like he may have a 2013 type of season.

Jayson Heyward: Keep

Even though Heyward has played in the majors the past six seasons its hard to believe he’s only 25 years old (he turns 26 in June) and he has not reached his prime yet. On April 26 it was reported Heyward was dealing with hamstring tightness, which could part of the reason why his BABIP is slow (because he’s not running fast and may not beating out as many infield hits). He’s only hitting .400 on line drives and fly balls, which is nearly 100 points less than the previous three seasons. The batting average will improve.

Carlos Beltran: Sell

I didn’t like the Beltran signing with the Yankees two years ago because of his age and his inability to play defense. With Alex Rodriguez looking like the best hitter on the team means he’s going to be the every day DH. Therefore I expect Beltran to eventually start sitting against lefties, which already dramatically lower his value. What’s most concerning is how much he’s swinging and missing on fastballs. Since we’re dealing with a small sample I don’t want to say his bat speed has dropped a tick or two, but those numbers have me worried.

Marlon Byrd: Keep

Entering the season I thought last year’s 25 home runs and .264 batting average were unsustainable. In regards to the batting average he struck out 29 percent of the time and had a .341 BABIP last year. This year he’s striking out 31.3 percent of the time and his BABIP is only .216. In regards to the power I never bought the 25 considering how low his hard hit rate was and his age. The BABIP should improve, but even if positively regresses to .295 he’s only going to be a .240 hitter with 20 home runs.

Jimmy Rollins: Sell

When you draft a player a player like Rollins who is closer to 40 than 30 you have to be willing to accept a reduction in the players floor. The contact rate is the lowest of his career and the swing and miss rate on pitches in the strike zone is the highest of his career, which are concerning. Most importantly, it looks as though Joc Pederson (I said a couple of days ago Pederson should be leading off) may become the leadoff hitter, which if it continues dramatically lowers Rollins fantasy value. He’s attempted five stolen bases and has been caught twice, which is also concerning. Rollins should hit 12 home runs with 17-22 stolen bases, but it may come with a .220-.230 batting average with only 60-70 runs.