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 evaluating Justin Verlander’s 2014 season it’s important to remember he had core-muscle repair surgery after the 2013 season began. Therefore, it’s possible he was never 100% last year. This offseason he gets to train and condition himself without any restrictions.

There’s been a lot of hubbub about Verlander’s diminished velocity, but the numbers don’t bear that out. The image below shows his slugging and wOBA against the fastball since 2008.

The first thing you’ll notice is he’s on a bad trend since 2011, but batters were squaring him up at the same rate from 2008 and 2010 and his numbers weren’t as bad as 2014s. Okay, maybe 2008s were, but the average of those seasons were much better than 2014s numbers.

One of the big problems I saw with Verlander was fastball command. The image below shows the percentage of fastballs that were thrown for strikes since 2008. The first thing I noticed was he’s been throwing far less strikes with the fastball and in fact it was nearly at the same level as his 2008 season, which he coincidently had a 4.84 ERA and 1.40 WHIP (those numbers do not look all that different than his 2014 numbers).

Another troubling trend is the overall performance of his secondary pitches (table below). The poor performance could be due to the lack of fastball command, but he lacked command in 2008 and his secondary offerings still missed a lot of bats.

Bad fastball command can put hitters in good hitters counts which means they can sit on the fastball and not chance the curveball down in the dirt. Doug Thorburn wrote that Verlander’s biggest problem has been finding mechanical consistency with his delivery. The numbers don’t look promising, but he’s still in a small class of pitchers who could literally finish the year as the number one rated fantasy pitcher.

My 2015 projection for Verlander is 200 IP, 3.74 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 175 strikeouts and 14 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.

The biggest question I had about Chris Archer heading into 2014 was would he be able to finally negate lefties. The table below shows his career numbers against lefties.

By looking at the table it looks as though he’s found a way to mitigate lefties. The question how was he able to do that and is it repeatable? Archer is basically and two-pitch pitcher (fastball [four and two seam] and slider). In general, the slider is a divesting weapon against righties because the pitch is thrown down and away from the batter (i.e. away from the fat part of the hitters bat). However, against lefties that pitch is thrown right into the wheel house of a lefties bat. Last year I thought if the changeup improved he could breakout because the changeup is thrown down and away (i.e. away from a left handers bat). Last year he threw his two-seam fastball a lot more to lefties (image below from BrooksBaseball.net) and used that pitch to generate a lot of ground balls and weak contact. Last year his command improved in general. There would be a few starts where he would lose command and not pitch very well, but there were would be other times where he looked amazing. The biggest change from 2013 is he had more amazing starts and less bad starts. It’s not uncommon for young pitchers to be up and down with their command and do not forget 2014 was his first full year in the majors. From the scouting reports I’ve read he has the makeup, athleticism and most importantly, stuff to get even better in 2015. My 2015 projection for Archer is 195 IP, 3.35 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 175 Ks and 12 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.

What’s not to like about Max Scherzer? Since 2009 he’s made at least 30 starts every year. In past three seasons he’s averaged 241 strikeouts with a 3.24 ERA and 1.13 WHIP.

One troubling trend is the lower strikeout rate last year compared to 2013. The reason for the lower strikeout rate was because he threw the slider less; instead opting to throw the curveball more. Some fantasy owners may be concerned about the decreased fastball velocity, but it’s important to note his velocity has varied wildly from year to year. Also, a decrease in velocity does not mean it will negatively affect his performance and statistics. Most of the reason why his velocity was “down” was due to the first month of the season. Once the season got going his velocity improved. The last thing I’ll say about his velocity is his max velocity 98.2 mph was on par to the max velocity he’s shown in the past.

Scherzer can be fly ball heavy, but in the last two years he’s been able to limit the HR/FB rate to 7.5-7.6%, which is substantially lower than in the years prior. This indicates he’s figured out a way to limit home runs.

In regards to him landing with the Nationals I couldn’t think of a better situation for him to land in. He leaves the AL, gets the face to the NL East, the worst division in baseball and to a slightly better ballpark. He’s in his prime and is one of the safest bets heading in 2015.

My 2015 projection for Scherzer is 210 IP, 2.95 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 237 Ks and 14 wins.