It seems like a long time since Zack Greinke was a hot prospect who pitched well in his first season in the majors, which makes it surprising that he just turned 23 a few months ago. It remains to be seen whether KC will trust him with a rotation spot this year, but they certainly should considering some of the pitchers they've thrown out there the past few years. I'm leaving out a short stint in the minors in 2004 and in the majors in 2006...neither was long enough to matter.
Year Team League IP BB K
2004 KC AL 145 26 100
2005 KC AL 183 53 114
2006 Wichita AA 105.2 27 94
Overall that looks like a pretty consistent, decent control pitcher. Even his 'horrible' 2005 doesn't look so awful when you ignore his ERA. He's never going to be a star, but he's worth picking up in deeper leagues, and in Yahoo standard leagues he's worth spot-starting against bad teams. Of course my real hope is that KC management still thinks he's got a bad attitude (or whatever it was they said about him) and trades him to an NL team where I'd consider him a major sleeper.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Bob Howry
Bob Howry has been a decent middle reliever for a long time. In fact, at one point he was really good. Then, in 2004 and 2005 he was just ok...not great. After a move to the National League, he was excellent...far better than he's been the past few years. I'm a big believer in the impact of pitching in the AL vs. the NL. I think that not only is the AL tougher because of the designated hitter, but that there's been a fairly big skill gap between the two leagues for the past few years.
Year League Team IP BB K
2004 AL CLE 42.2 12 39
2005 AL CLE 73 16 48
2006 NL CHC 76.2 17 71
So this is a case where a pitcher did better because of moving to the NL and we can expect more of the same in 2007, right? Not necessarily. For relief pitchers, I think the impact of the designated hitter is much less than starters. Even in the NL, relievers aren't facing many pitchers, because typically a pinch hitter is sent up to bat when it's the pitcher's turn. So I don't expect Howry to exactly duplicate 2006, although I do think he'll still be an effective reliever. I think he actually was somewhat unlucky ending up with a 3.17 ERA in 2006, so he could certainly repeat that, even if his peripherals aren't as good this year.
Year League Team IP BB K
2004 AL CLE 42.2 12 39
2005 AL CLE 73 16 48
2006 NL CHC 76.2 17 71
So this is a case where a pitcher did better because of moving to the NL and we can expect more of the same in 2007, right? Not necessarily. For relief pitchers, I think the impact of the designated hitter is much less than starters. Even in the NL, relievers aren't facing many pitchers, because typically a pinch hitter is sent up to bat when it's the pitcher's turn. So I don't expect Howry to exactly duplicate 2006, although I do think he'll still be an effective reliever. I think he actually was somewhat unlucky ending up with a 3.17 ERA in 2006, so he could certainly repeat that, even if his peripherals aren't as good this year.
Relief Wins
The accepted wisdom in fantasy baseball is that its impossible to predict relief wins and not worth the effort to try. There's some truth in that. You can look at all the factors, intelligently project Dan Wheeler to have a 6 wins, and a few bad breaks or lucky bounces over the course of the season can make the difference between him getting 9 wins or 3 wins. That said, in any type of gambling (and that's what fantasy baseball clearly is) you need to give yourself as much of an edge as possible. Ignoring relief wins entirely is passing up one of those edges. There are a number of factors that can help predict the win totals for relievers, and that's doubly true in a daily league where you can look for specific situations conducive to relief wins.
Pitcher Quality - This is an obvious one. A good reliever is more likely to win games than a bad one. However, if all you care about is wins, this is probably less important than you think.
Team Offense - The better the offense, the more likely the team will be able to come from behind and give their relievers wins.
Usage Patterns - How the manager uses his bullpen makes a BIG difference in reliever wins. Some managers use their 2 or 3 best relievers only in tie games or when they're ahead. Relievers on those teams are obviously going to get less wins than on a team where the manager won't hesitate to use his best relievers with the team down a run or two. Other teams (Oakland in recent years is one) will frequently bring in their closer in tie games in the 8th inning...reducing the potential for wins for their setup men.
Availability - This is the first factor that makes reliever wins easier to project in daily leagues than weekly leagues. If the reliever pitched yesterday, he's less likely to pitch today. Since most daily leagues allow lineup changes until right before gametime, you should always be able to bench relievers who pitched the previous day in favor of those who didn't.
Starter Quality - Relievers will generally get less use (and therefore less wins) on days when a good starting pitcher who is likely to pitch into the later innings starts.
Home vs. Away - This is one of the less obvious ones, but makes a fairly big difference for middle relievers. The following example shows why middle relievers will generally get more wins (and losses, but most leagues don't care about that) when they're at home. Game is tied after 5 innings. If the reliever is home, he comes in, pitches a scoreless 6th, and gets credited with the win when his team takes the lead for good in the bottom of the 6th. If the reliever is on the road, his team goes ahead in the top of the 6th (giving the starting pitcher the win), and the reliever only gets credited with a hold for his scoreless bottom of the 6th.
Pitcher Quality - This is an obvious one. A good reliever is more likely to win games than a bad one. However, if all you care about is wins, this is probably less important than you think.
Team Offense - The better the offense, the more likely the team will be able to come from behind and give their relievers wins.
Usage Patterns - How the manager uses his bullpen makes a BIG difference in reliever wins. Some managers use their 2 or 3 best relievers only in tie games or when they're ahead. Relievers on those teams are obviously going to get less wins than on a team where the manager won't hesitate to use his best relievers with the team down a run or two. Other teams (Oakland in recent years is one) will frequently bring in their closer in tie games in the 8th inning...reducing the potential for wins for their setup men.
Availability - This is the first factor that makes reliever wins easier to project in daily leagues than weekly leagues. If the reliever pitched yesterday, he's less likely to pitch today. Since most daily leagues allow lineup changes until right before gametime, you should always be able to bench relievers who pitched the previous day in favor of those who didn't.
Starter Quality - Relievers will generally get less use (and therefore less wins) on days when a good starting pitcher who is likely to pitch into the later innings starts.
Home vs. Away - This is one of the less obvious ones, but makes a fairly big difference for middle relievers. The following example shows why middle relievers will generally get more wins (and losses, but most leagues don't care about that) when they're at home. Game is tied after 5 innings. If the reliever is home, he comes in, pitches a scoreless 6th, and gets credited with the win when his team takes the lead for good in the bottom of the 6th. If the reliever is on the road, his team goes ahead in the top of the 6th (giving the starting pitcher the win), and the reliever only gets credited with a hold for his scoreless bottom of the 6th.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Tim Lincecum
Why are my first posts both guys where I feel like I'm spelling their names wrong every time I type them? Tim Lincecum seems to be getting a lot of hype as a top pitching prospect. The general concensus seems to be that he's got a shot at making the majors out of Spring Training, and that if he doesn't he'll be there by June. That may be, but I'm not really buying the fact that he's ready for prime time. Here are his stats:
Year Team League Age Level IP BB K
2004 Washington NCAA 20 NCAA 112.1 82 161
2005 Washington NCAA 21 NCAA 104.1 71 131
2006 Washington NCAA 22 NCAA 125.1 63 199
2006 Salem-Kzr Nwest 22 A- 4.0 0 10
2006 San Jose Calif 22 A+ 27.2 12 48
I see a guy with a great strikeout rate, but who has had some control problems even against pretty weak competition. Other than his 4 innings at low A ball, he's had a high walk rate everywhere he's been, and in the high minors and the majors I expect this to get a LOT worse. If he sees the majors in 2007, I would keep my distance...I'm expecting a ton of walks...maybe close to one per inning.
Year Team League Age Level IP BB K
2004 Washington NCAA 20 NCAA 112.1 82 161
2005 Washington NCAA 21 NCAA 104.1 71 131
2006 Washington NCAA 22 NCAA 125.1 63 199
2006 Salem-Kzr Nwest 22 A- 4.0 0 10
2006 San Jose Calif 22 A+ 27.2 12 48
I see a guy with a great strikeout rate, but who has had some control problems even against pretty weak competition. Other than his 4 innings at low A ball, he's had a high walk rate everywhere he's been, and in the high minors and the majors I expect this to get a LOT worse. If he sees the majors in 2007, I would keep my distance...I'm expecting a ton of walks...maybe close to one per inning.
Trever Miller
Why am I choosing to write my first player profile on Trever Miller? Well for one thing, I'm pretty confident that he'll spend the whole season below 50% ownership in Yahoo Public Leagues...making him a candidate for selection as a daily or weekly pick on this blog. And also, his 2006 numbers looked pretty good when I was looking through a list of stats. But also, his stats over the past three years raise an interesting question. Here are the stats I care most about:
Year Team IP BB K
2004 TB 49.0 15 43
2005 TB 44.1 29 35
2006 HOU 50.2 13 56
What the heck happened in 2005? It certainly looks like he may have had some health problems that were fixed in 2006. That's not really the question I'm interested in, although I'd be happy to hear if anyone can confirm it. The really interesting question to me is whether players abilities change more during the offseason than they do during the season...whether due to injury, again, increase maturity, playing around with new pitches, or whatever. In other words, if I look at the stats for a group of pitchers, will each pitcher's September 2005 correlate as well with April 2006 as April 2006 will correlate with May 2006? I have no idea of the answer (although I suspect the differences between seasons will be greater), but I'd sure like to know. It would help me know whether a formerly mediocre player starting off the new season with a great K/BB ratio is likely to have really improved or is just on a hot streak. If I have the time, I'll do a quick study on this sometime.
Year Team IP BB K
2004 TB 49.0 15 43
2005 TB 44.1 29 35
2006 HOU 50.2 13 56
What the heck happened in 2005? It certainly looks like he may have had some health problems that were fixed in 2006. That's not really the question I'm interested in, although I'd be happy to hear if anyone can confirm it. The really interesting question to me is whether players abilities change more during the offseason than they do during the season...whether due to injury, again, increase maturity, playing around with new pitches, or whatever. In other words, if I look at the stats for a group of pitchers, will each pitcher's September 2005 correlate as well with April 2006 as April 2006 will correlate with May 2006? I have no idea of the answer (although I suspect the differences between seasons will be greater), but I'd sure like to know. It would help me know whether a formerly mediocre player starting off the new season with a great K/BB ratio is likely to have really improved or is just on a hot streak. If I have the time, I'll do a quick study on this sometime.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Welcome to The Waiver Wire
Welcome to The Waiver Wire. Once the MLB (and fantasy baseball) season starts, the bulk of my posts will be dedicated to helping you pick an undervalued starting pitcher and an undervalued relief pitcher that I expect to perform well each day, and tracking the results of those picks. For those of you in weekly leagues, there should still be plenty of items of interest - fantasy baseball strategy discussion, 'watch lists' of promising players, and maybe even some original research I've been working on. Before the season starts, I'll try to fill you on my strategic approach to fantasy baseball, some specific tactics that I'll be using in our daily selections, and profiling some players that I expect to make use of during the season.
I hope you enjoy the material on the site, and look forward to hearing your feedback!
I hope you enjoy the material on the site, and look forward to hearing your feedback!
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 1990
Free $50 Daily Baseball Data Contest
Welcome to the information page for DailyBaseballData.com's exclusive daily fantasy baseball contest at Fanduel. All information about the contest can be found here, and to contact us with questions or any other issues, you can email alex@fanduel.com.
Contest Duration:
The contest period will last from today (5/17/2010) until Sunday (5/23/2010).
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There are two main criteria for contest eligibility - you must have registered at Fanduel using the affiliate link of DailyBaseballData.com and you must make at least one deposit at Fanduel during the contest period. If you haven't already registered at Fanduel, simply click on any of the links on this web page and then register. If you registered previously, and don't know whether you used the DailyBaseballData.com affiliate link, send an email to alex@fanduel.com with your Fanduel user name, and we'll get back to you with confirmation within 24 hours.
Contest Prizes:
1st Prize: $25
2nd Prize: $15
3rd Prize: $10
Contest Scoring:
Prizes will be awarded to the people who achieve the three highest scores in Fanduel real money contests during the contest period. Each participant will only be eligible to receive one contest prize. If you believe that you've recorded what may be a top three prize, please notify us by emailing alex@fanduel.com with the contest number and your final score. We'll verify all scores prior to awarding prizes.
Other Information:
-We will add $10 to any prize winner's award if they sent us (at alex@fanduel.com) a notification of their high score within 24 hours of it being achieved, so that we can post daily updates of the top known scores recorded by participants.
-Prizes will be deposited into participants Fanduel accounts within two weeks of contest completion(and may then be withdrawn at any time).
-You can enter as many contests at Fanduel as you want during the contest period to try out different lineups in an attempt to record the highest score.
Contest Duration:
The contest period will last from today (5/17/2010) until Sunday (5/23/2010).
Contest Eligibility:
There are two main criteria for contest eligibility - you must have registered at Fanduel using the affiliate link of DailyBaseballData.com and you must make at least one deposit at Fanduel during the contest period. If you haven't already registered at Fanduel, simply click on any of the links on this web page and then register. If you registered previously, and don't know whether you used the DailyBaseballData.com affiliate link, send an email to alex@fanduel.com with your Fanduel user name, and we'll get back to you with confirmation within 24 hours.
Contest Prizes:
1st Prize: $25
2nd Prize: $15
3rd Prize: $10
Contest Scoring:
Prizes will be awarded to the people who achieve the three highest scores in Fanduel real money contests during the contest period. Each participant will only be eligible to receive one contest prize. If you believe that you've recorded what may be a top three prize, please notify us by emailing alex@fanduel.com with the contest number and your final score. We'll verify all scores prior to awarding prizes.
Other Information:
-We will add $10 to any prize winner's award if they sent us (at alex@fanduel.com) a notification of their high score within 24 hours of it being achieved, so that we can post daily updates of the top known scores recorded by participants.
-Prizes will be deposited into participants Fanduel accounts within two weeks of contest completion(and may then be withdrawn at any time).
-You can enter as many contests at Fanduel as you want during the contest period to try out different lineups in an attempt to record the highest score.
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