Hitting for the Cycle #28
A Sunday Review - August 21, 2022
📖 What I’m Reading:
It’s Time to Start Making Sharp Decisions - Paul Sporer
As it comes down to the end of the fantasy baseball season, two great points from Paul Sporer in one of his latest article from FanGraphs is be realistic and diligent. Paul lays out simple but effective methods on how to attack the last 45 days-ish of this season. Spending time this weekend on where you are in your league standings can go a long way before it’s really, really too late. It’s not so much that there is no room for error, but that there is really no room to be as hesitant with your player drops. That way you can be focused on the categories that give you the best probabilities to move up in the standings. I appreciated how Paul went through one example discussing the practicality of moving up in the saves category. I found that as a helpful reminder as I look through my own teams this next waiver wire period. Sometimes the best move is to drop players that you would never consider dropping during the season. But, sometimes you need to let go to move forward in life and in fantasy baseball.
🎧 What I’m Hearing:
Wins Above Fantasy - Episode 69: Vinnie Pasquantino's Process & Finding Late-Season Breakouts
[Feel free to insert the juvenile yet appropriate reference to the episode number above from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure scene, and let the air guitars rock out].
Wins Above Fantasy podcast hosts Van Burnett and Steve Gesuele detail some of the underlying numbers that foreshadowed the results of the Vinnie Pasquantino breakout. The two hosts then discuss whether we can try to utilize that same process to identify hitters who could be next to help our fantasy teams this last month and a half. At the 5 minute mark of the podcast, Steve breaks down his FanGraphs hitter custom leaderboard that he used for this analysis, such as BABIP, SwStr%, O-Swing%, contact%, etc. over the last 30 days. I tried recreating that same FanGraphs leaderboard HERE. You can then sort by the thresholds mentioned on the podcast or whatever thresholds you want. Good exercise to setup, and review during the season to see if any surprising names pop up. Van and Steve then further discuss in the podcast a group of hitters that might be able to help your teams rest of season if still available in your leagues.
📊 Metric of the Week:
Left on Base Percentage (LOB%)
Left of Base Percentage (LOB%), also known as Strand Rate (S%), measures the percentage of base runners that a pitcher strands on base over the course of a season. This metric is calculated using actual hits, walks, and runs allowed by a pitcher. At this point in the season, the 2022 average LOB% is 72.4%. So, base runners will score about 28% of the time. Typically, starting pitchers will be hovering around the league average, and the prevailing thinking is that pitchers with a percentage below 65% and higher than 80% will have a higher probability of a rebound or regression towards that average. LOB% correlates well with ERA, and you should typically see a pitcher with a higher ERA along with a low LOB%. Again, like all metrics, one stat does not tell the whole story or always point towards “certainty” that a player will rebound/regress towards the average for this year or next. You can take a look at the FanGraphs advanced pitching leaderboards for starting pitchers with over 50 innings pitched sorted by below league average LOB% HERE. This could be a starting point in looking at these group of pitchers and whether better results are ahead for them in 2023.
💬 Quote of the Week:
“I don’t want a lot of guys like me who played the game. Quite frankly, I want blank canvasses; I want people to come in with new ideas. I don’t want the biases of their own experiences to be a part of their decision-making process.”
- Billy Beane