Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.

Before I started doing any research on Anibal Sanchez the first thing I thought of was he’s always hurt. If you look at his injury history you’ll see the primary cause of his injuries have been due to his right shoulder, which is something you never want to see with a pitcher. Last year he went on the DL twice; once for a blister on his throwing hand and a pectoral strain. Despite the long injury history he has made at least 29 starts in each year from 2010-13.

A big reason why the strikeout rate dropped (from 27.1% to 19.8%) so much last year was due to due to the slider. The table below shows the performance of slider since 2010.

What’s funny is even though the strikeout rate dropped significantly hitters were not making more or harder contact against the pitch. What the data is indicating is he became a pitch to contact pitcher when he threw the slider. This could be more beneficial from a real standpoint, but if he’s not going to miss bats his fantasy viability decreases substantially. The big question is will he revert back to his old slider usage or not. It’s possible the blister he sustained early in the season caused the different usage of the slider, but he sustained that injury in late April. Lastly, his slider usage has not changed in the last five years.

It’s important to remember when he’s healthy he can be one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball. His lengthy injury history concerns me enough that I cannot project more than 170 innings next year. If he’s healthy, and that’s a big if, I believe the strikeout can be in the 20-24% range next year.

My 2015 projection for Sanchez is 160 IP, 3.40 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 140 Ks and 10 wins.

If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.

After the first four months of the season Sonny Gray looked like legitimate top 20 starting pitcher, but in the last two months he faded down the stretch (table below). In fall fairness the August-September data was skewed by a very bad August.

What surprised me about Gray last season was the high walk rate (8.3%). I thought he had impeccable command of the fastball, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, among starting pitchers with at least 25 starts, his walk rate ranks in the bottom 25% of pitchers.

Another trend that caught my eye was he was a much better pitcher on the road than at home (table below), which is counterintuitive because of how much of a pitcher’s park he plays in.

So to recap, Gray has a very confusing profile thus far. He pitched better on the road and was very effective despite walking a lot of batters.

Last year I wasn’t high on Gray entering the 2014 season because I thought the lack of a third pitch would make it easier for opposing batters to figure him out the more times they saw him. For the year he was primarily a two-pitch pitcher but during the last three months he started to incorporate the slider and changeup (image from BrooksBaseball.net).

The next obvious question is how the changeup and slider performed when he started throwing them more the last three months of the season. The table below shows precisely that.

I don’t know what to make of Sonny Gray’s season. He walks a lot of batters, but he misses a lot of bats and generates a lot of ground balls. Since he walks so many batters he’s probably going to regress in 2015.

My 2015 projection for Gray is 210 IP, 3.40 ERA. 1.21 WHIP, 175 Ks and 13 wins.

If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.

Despite having stellar numbers the past two seasons Chris Sale’s ADP was suppressed in 2014 primarily due to injury concerns. The reason for those concerns are because he has a violent deliver, he throws a lot of sliders (this pitch puts more strain on the elbow) and who slight his body is. After two injury free seasons (he had shoulder inflammation in 2013 but never went on the DL), Sale went on the DL for the first time in his career with a flexor muscle strain in his left elbow. Also, this was the first time he has ever experienced elbow issues. He ended up spending 34 days on the DL, missing 32 games. When he came back from the DL he was fantastic, putting up a 2.15 ERA, 0.99 WHIP with 30.8% strikeout rate.

Not only did he put up fantastic numbers, the strikeout rate was the highest of his career as a starting pitcher. The increased strikeout rate came against both lefties and righties. The major adjustment he made was he started using the changeup more (image below from BrooksBaseball.net).

Last year the changeup had 29% strikeout rate compared to a 17% strikeout rate the previous two years. I believe the new strikeout rate with the changeup is repeatable because was throwing that pitch down in the zone more often (from 47.5% to 55.4%). The reason why that’s important is that pitch is at its best when thrown down in the zone.

He got a little lucky with the HR/FB rate because last year was it was three percentage points less than his career rate (7.5% and 10.6% respectively). The fly ball rate increased nine percentage points from last year (32.0% to 40.9% respectively), but since his contact rate was so low he would have allowed the name number of fly balls as 2013. Therefore, he can continue to have a low contact rate he will not allow more home runs if the HR/FB were to regress.

Overall, the big question, once again, with Sale is going to be health. The fact he went on the DL last year should provide enough fear that he should slip in drafts, which could make him a value. The White Sox should have an improved offense, which could help him win more games but my biggest question is will the bullpen hold leads for him? I have doubts about the White Sox bullpen. The signing of David Robertson definitely helps, but whose going to hold leads to get to Robertson? The bullpen is full of unproven guys without much of a track record.

My 2015 projection for Sale is 190 IP, 2.57 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 215 Ks and 13 wins.