Hitting for the Cycle #22
A Sunday Review - June 26, 2022
📖 What I’m Reading:
The value of volume - Steve Weimer
Pretty sure I have mentioned about the amazing benefits of having a Baseball HQ subscription (in fact you can purchase a prorated subscription of $40 for rest of season HERE.) This article from first-time contributor Steve Weimer continues to add to the site’s expert analysis and tools I referenced in Hitting for the Cycle #20. Steve is one of the few fantasy baseball players who I hold their analysis and opinion in high regard. Whenever Steve is on a podcast, it's must listen for me. So, it’s fantastic that he decided to write this article on quantifying volume versus quality when assessing your team hitting and pitching categories during the draft and in-season. Everything depends on your teams needs and league context, but one common mantra to be reminded of can be expressed by this late 1980s one hit wonder song by recording artist MARRS.
🎧 What I’m Hearing:
Talking FAAB & Players We Were Wrong About - RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Podcast w/BatFlip Crazy
RotoWire Fantasy Baseball podcast episode from a couple of weeks ago; however, at the 57 minute mark, Scott Jenstad and Toby Guevin discuss a number of players that they have been wrong about so far this season. They review what about their process made them miss or dismiss the information coming from last season into 2022. Some of the reasons they discuss revolve around:
Just plain old overlooking things
Putting too much weight into a particular set of stats
Ignoring certain player profiles in drafts
Dismissing players with prior injury history
Not believing small sample sizes from last year especially from younger players.
In addition, one thing that Toby mentioned on the podcast was his love of the FanGraphs rolling average graphs. This reminded me of the video tutorials he has on his YouTube channel showing you how to use these graphs for both pitchers and hitters to better analyze changes in skill and performance. Very simple and useful to setup which you can check out at these links: Pitcher Rolling Average Graphs and Hitter Rolling Average Graphs.
📊 Metric of the Week:
First Pitch Strike Percentage (F-Strike%)
F-Strike% equals first pitch strikes divided by plate appearances. In general, pitchers who have a higher F-Strike% have good command and lower walk rates. One thing to point out is that F-Strike% includes balls in play (BIP) in the calculation. Meaning, if a pitcher gives up a hit on an 0-0 count, that would be considered a strike and included in F-Strike%. Alex Fast from Pitcher List has been a big proponent of True F-Strike% (TF-Strike%) which removes BIP on 0-0 counts. Here is a list of this years top pitchers for both F-Strike% and TF-Strike% via Pitcher List.
💬 Quote of the Week:
“Enjoying success requires the ability to adapt. Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent.”
- Nolan Ryan