Matt LaPorta was supposed to take the gig in Cleveland and run with it last year. The much-hyped LaPorta, once the cornerstone of the C.C. Sabathia deal, didn’t do much running in 2010 though. Whether it was his head-brain, hip or foot, LaPorta was banged up for much of 2010 and showed very limited flashes of the power that made him a first-round selection.

Early reports out of camp in 2011 say that LaPorta’s healthy as an ox and ready to start mashing. Manny Acta has praised LaPorta thus far despite limited spring success. Jordan Bastian, the Indians beat writer, wrote a great puff piece and explained away all of LaPorta’s struggles in 2010. It was a mental thing, an injury thing, a fatigue thing and all of these demons have been banished and I’m buying what he’s selling.

Despite posting a .182/.250/.455 slash-line in spring training so far, LaPorta looks to be getting good wood on the ball and he’s apparently got his legs back. LaPorta’s swing lacked authority in 2010 and it manifested itself in every possible way. LaPorta’s walk and strike-out rates were right around where they should be — 11% BB / 22% K — but his underlying plate discipline statistics were terrible. LaPorta’s swinging strike rate was up to 11.5% and a lot of it was courtesy of a 34% O-Swing and a 59% O-Contact Rate.

When it comes to a youngster like LaPorta, I have no problem rationalization away a lot of his failure to injury. There’s no reason that LaPorta should post negative numbers against fastballs considering his swing and raw talent.

LaPorta was knobing almost everything outside and cheating on off-speed pitches. Once the kid knew his power was sapped, he went pull happy. LaPorta, despite his raw power, didn’t hit a single homer to right field last year even though he hit almost 70% of the balls to right field in the air. To left and dead center, LaPorta hit 15.4% and 13.0% of fly balls out of the yard, respectively.

It was just a matter of hitting grounders to left field and flies to right. He was getting under the inside stuff and on-top of the outside stuff and I have no problem attributing that to a hip injury or any other injury that screwed with his flexibility.

Believing all of this allows me to dream big on LaPorta. He’s finally healthy and has his head on right, and all of those seasons in the minors with a SLG% starting with a 0.5 or 0.6 aren’t all that far in the past.

Just wipe LaPorta’s 2010 off the board and project him like a top-notch prospect. You can get a healthy LaPorta on the cheap and once Sizemore is healthy, the Indians line-up will be sneaky-potent.

This is a tough question, for me at least. Here’s another pitcher along with James McDonald that possesses the dreaded ESPN ADP of 260, so he’s definitely available for a flyer in shallow leagues but I’m not sure if he’s worth the risk in deeper leagues.

Drabek definitely has the pedigree: pops posted a 34.3 Career WAR. But it seems as though Baby Drabek has been in and out of the hype-machine on multiple occasions. The stuff’s definitely there (when he’s healthy) as Drabek features a fastball that averages 94mph and touches almost 97mph. Drabek will cut it fairly effectively and tosses in a nice slider for good measure. It was his curveball that posted the positive linear weight in 2010, though. It’s tough to get a handle on Drabek’s off-speed stuff because the PFX system at fangraphs really mixes up his curveballs, sliders and cutters.

All of Drabek’s offerings have great movement, though. The four-seamer is fairly straight, but Drabek will cut and sink his fastball fairly effectively. You can see on the graph just how much movement Drabek can put on all of his fastballs. The graph is done by horizontal movement x velocity to separate the fastballs out. You can see the occasional fastball get confused for a hard change-up, but you can also see just how much lateral movement Drabek has at his disposal without sacrificing velocity. Ranging from the light-blue cutters to the far left side of the dark-green, to the occasional sinker.

When it comes to Drabek’s curve, it’s probably his second best pitch and features great vertical movement and texas leaguers pfx system shows a kid that can make people whiff:

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So why the hell is Drabek posting a 6.35K-per-9 with this kind of arsenal? Well, it appears as though the Blue Jays have handled him with care after his surgery. They’ve yet to really let him loose, and I get the feeling he’s been told to pitch to contact, lower his walk rate, and get guys out.

Yet, despite all of this and a .320 BABIP and 69.3% LOB-Rate, Drabek posted an xFIP of 3.59 in 17 IP in the bigs (small sample size, much?). In AA, Drabek sported a 2.94 ERA but still only managed 7.33 K-per-9.

With Drabek all but assured the 5th starter’s spot, what should we expect in 2011? Fangraphs FANS have Drabek pitching 149 Innings and posting a 4.23 ERA, a 1.32 WHIP and 117K. This seems to be a very safe estimate for someone with Drabek’s tools, especially IP-wise. I think Drabek improves his rate-stats if the Jays let him lose, though. He misses bats, he brings the heat, and he’s got dirty off-speed stuff with a useful change-up. The results have never been there for Drabek, but 2010′s 162.0 IP in AA were the most he’d ever pitched in the minors. He’s been handled very carefully since the surgery and will eventually be let loose.

He’s still a kid with serious injury concerns, but man, I want him on my team when they take the kid gloves off. If you’re eying Drabek on the waiver-wire, don’t take your eyes off his fastball velocity. When he’s healthy, it’s around 93-95. When he’s injured, it drops a couple miles per hour and he’s nowhere near as effective.

James McDonald comes with the pedigree that you’d like to see, but had trouble cracking the Dodgers rotation in 2008, 2009 and 2010 before eventually being shipped off to the Pirates with Andrew Lambo for the rubber-armed Octavio Dotel.

Throughout his minor league career, McDonald showed all the signs you’d like to see in a high-upside arm. At every step of the development process McDonald posted stunning K-Rates that ranged from almost a k-per-IP to almost 12K-per-9. Yet, the 26-year old never really got a shot in Dodger-town.

After arriving in Pittsburgh, McDonald absolutely took off. In 64IP, McDonald went 4-and-5 (with the Pirates!!!) and posted an ERA of 3.52. Digging deeper, we see that McDonald’s xFIP of 4.03 and a FIP of 2.93 to go with his 8.58 K-per-9. Walks have always been the problem with McDonald and he continued to have trouble with them in Pittsburgh (3.38 BB-per-9). That number is manageable considering his K-Rate though: His 2.54 K-to-BB in Pittsburgh was a vast improvement over his 2.00 in 2009 and 1.54 in 2008 with the Dodgers and may be the first true signs of development.

McDonald definitely has the stuff to get batters out. He relies heavily on his fastball that isn’t a make-yah-miss pitch, but gets the job done. Where McDonald shines is his off-speed stuff. McDonald features a looping curveball with drastic vertical movement and a huge speed differential. Batters whiff on the pitch over 13% of the time and only put 9.2% of the curves in play. The bender has been an above average pitch in McDonald’s last couple of years according to fangraphs’ weighted ratings.

Beyond the bender, McDonald features an effective change-up that has more tail than vertical drop but succeeds based on a huge speed-difference and great release point. If McDonald is to succeed as a big-league starter, he’ll have to make sure that he locates the change-up against lefties. In 2010, McDonald did a pretty good job keeping it out of the sweet-spot.

The change-up factors largely in getting McDonalds splits where they need to be. Throughout his career, McDonald’s only notched a 1.59 K:B against lefties (7.70K/9 & 4.83 BB/9) while dominating against righties with a 2.49 K-to-BB (8.16 K/9 & 3.39 BB/9). Strangely enough, these splits are almost mirrored in McDonalds Home & Away splits. It may be a small sample size, but McDonald succeeds year in and year out away from Home.

ESPN has McDonald rated with the dreaded 260 ADP (ie. not drafted) but in deeper leagues McDonald is well worth a look. Here’s a guy that should put up an ERA around 4.00 with almost 8-9 K-per-9 and a mediocre WHIP.

How is that not draftable again? The Pirates should improve on offence with the development of their youngsters and even with 10W to his name, McDonald should be very rosterable.

Rick Porcello just turned 22-years old and he’s already old news. After a disastrous start to 2010, Porcello was sent to the minors and came back very strong even if his 4.00 Post-All-Star Break ERA didn’t tell the whole story.

According to ESPN, Porcello’s ADP is about 223 and Yahoo! has him around 228. At these draft positions, Porcello is an absolute steal. Post All-Star break last year, Porcello posted a 1.16 WHIP, with a .258 BAA. Porcello’s rate-stats are important because he’s an extreme groundball pitcher that rarely tops 5-6K/9 in any given month.

In 2009, Porcello was given the gift of a negative ERA – FIP which allowed him to post a sub-4.00 ERA. In 2010, those tables were turned and Porcello’s ERA lagged well behind his FIP. Porcello’s awful start lead to a season ERA of 4.92 with a FIP of 4.31.

There’s still quite a bit of upside with Porcello though but he’s got to keep those rate-stats real low. It’s not out of the question that Porcello could ink a 1.20WHIP and a 3.75 ERA in 2011. Ricky Porcello still pounds the zone to induce contact and a few more bad, make-yah-miss, pitches might do him some good.

It wouldn’t be out of the question to theorize that 2011 could’ve been Porcello’s first year in the big leagues, but because the Tigers fast-tracked him he’s already got two years of service. There’s still plenty of room for improvement, and I genuinely think that Porcello’s Curveball and Change-Up will continue to improve.

I’m not sure why everyone just gave up on Porcello, I still like dreaming on the kid.

18 Games, 54 ABs and 59 Plate Appearances. I’m not sure if that buys you second base eligibility, but if it does you should probably draft Ryan Raburn and his fire-breathing fists because Ryan Raburn is a WARLOCK (Thanks Charlie, it was nice to see you wearing your old Indians Rick Vaughn get up today)

Some more Charlie Sheen Quotes that aptly describe Ryan Rayburn:

“I’m Bi-Winning. I win here, I win there. Now what?”

“I have one speed, I have one gear. GO!”

“I’ve got Tiger Blood, MAN!”

In response to “…but YOU LOVE TO PARTY?!?!” Charlie Sheen says, “What’s not to love? Especially when you see how I party! It was epic. The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jager, Richards, all of ‘em, look like droopy eyed armless children”

Good Morning America: “One of the women said that she was affraid she’d OD!”

Charlie Sheen: “What’s that got to do with me?!”

Good Morning America: ”You’re showing them the party!”

Anyways, back to Ryan Raburn. Raburn closed out the season hitting .308/.357/.606 in August and .358/.405/.566 in September/October. Raburn seemingly took off when he started getting regular at-bats around late-July.

Even if Raburn doesn’t qualify at second-base in your league, there’s a shot that Carlos Guillen’s current (and future) injuries may allow for him to gain eligibility at some point. As a corner infielder, he should still fall somewhere in the top-25, top-30 which still aint all that shabby.

Is Ryan Raburn For Real, Though?

Well, everything seems to point towards yes. He doesn’t appear to be getting terribly lucky in any regard. Raburn’s BABIP was high at .333, but that’s right around his career average. His flyballs were leaving the yard at an average rate (12.2%) and you can probably expect that rate to continue.

Pitchers will start to pay attention to Raburn’s troubles with the slider, but his success against the other pitches leaves him in a good spot. Raburn’s contact rates are almost across-the-board average which is nice to see from someone that flashed his kind of power.

There’s almost no reason to believe that Raburn’s success won’t continue. Even with a small decline, Raburn will be useful in the fantasy world at second base or in the outfield.

At this point, Rayburn may be more of a sleeper in the outfield than he is at second base. The only thing standing in Rayburn’s way is the plethora of mediocre talent in Detroit. Boesch, Sizemore, Guillen,

Coming into the season, I had a rather unhealthy obsession with three pitchers, each from a different tier: Zach Greinke in the top tier worked out well, Chris Young has dissappointed thus far as a mid-tier starting pitcher, and Rich Hill has found his way back to the big leagues which I’ll deem a rather large success.

This is why I love Rich Hill, just incase you weren’t a fantasi-holic back in 2007:  11-8, 195 IP, 183 K, 3.92 ERA, and a 1.19 WHIP. Unfortunately, Rich Hill lost it in 2008, essentially Rick Ankiel-ing the situation. Rich Hill managed to walk 18 batters in 19.2 IP, yet somehow posted a 4.12 ERA. Injuries and ineffectiveness sent Rich Hill to the minors, where instead of improving he deteriorated into a shell of his old self, walking 28 batters in 26 IP.

An off-season trade to the Orioles and a brief, yet consistently wild, stint in the minors later, and Rich Hill has found himself back in the Show.  Hill’s return to the MLB has more to do with the current state of the Orioles’ pitching than his success in Triple-A.  Yes, Hill did post a sparkling 1.35 ERA in 13.1 IP down on the farm, but he also continued his wild ways, walking 9 batters over that stretch.

I still love me some Rich Hill though, not because he’s a fireballer (he only hits 90mph,) but instead because he’s got one dirty-dirty 12-6 Curveball.

Four starts in, and Rich Hill’s sitting on a 4.15 ERA, a 2-and-0 record, after having faced the Royals, Nats, Blue Jays and Mariners.  While the Blue Jays spanked Hill for 7 Runs (6ER,) Hill’s yet to walk more than 4 batters in a game — Good Start!  What really opened the Fantasy Gods’ eyes was Hill’s most recent start against the best team in the Pacific Northwest — Yooooouurrr, Seattle Mariners. Hill went 7 Innings, holding the Mariners scoreless, while only giving up 2 hits and 3 WALKS! and striking out seven! He did only strike out Beltre x 2 (18% K Rate,) Balentien x2 (24.5% K Rate,) Branyan (30% K Rate,) Rob Johnson (29% K Rate) and Mike Sweeney (13% K Rate,) so it’s really not saying ALL that much, but it’s a start.

Hill’s fastball is sticking around the velocity that made him effective as a Cubbie (89mph AVG, 91 MAX) in his most recent start against the Mariners.  Furthermore, while Hill’s not pounding the zone, he’s close enough on most of his fastballs to warrant a giant exhale:

Location of Rich Hill vs. Seattle Mariners

Against a more disciplined team at the plate, Hill may run into some trouble but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.  For now, he appears to be close enough to the zone, especially when he needs to be, to keep his walk total under 4 batters per 9.  What’s interesting is Hill’s release point — While I didn’t watch the game, I did notice Rich Hill has dropped down to throw an off-speed offering:

Rich Hill's Release Point Vs. Mariners

Rich Hill’s release point is fairly well clustered, and should lend credibility to my man-crush.  When a pitcher loses it, it’s almost always release point / mechanics oriented, at least to start.  In the end, it obviously becomes a mental issue which is often harder to fix, even against lesser competition in the minors.

Hill’s fastball is painfully straight, so he has to rely on changing speeds and locating.  Once Hill starts mixing in his Change-Up and Slider, to previous rates — he should give himself a bit more leeway.

Prior to his Seattle start, Hill averaged a mere 88 mph on his fastball against the Jays and only hit 89mph on four occasios. In the start before that against the Nats, Hill only hit 89mph once and averaged 86.8mph.  This is what makes Hill hitting 90mph against the Mariners on eight different occasions, such a solid indicator of Hill putting it all together.

The days of Rich Hill posting a sub-1.20 WHIP are probably over, and even if they aren’t — it’ll be a pleasant surprise.  However, if Rich Hill can get his BB-per-9 to somewhere around the 3.5 range, he’ll have the potential to be quite effective. Facing the toughest division in baseball on a weekly basis probably won’t help, but it’s not that out there to predict a 4.05 ERA and 1.30 WHIP with 7 K per 9…. is it?

It probably is, but this is why I love Rich Hill.

Just incase you were wondering, the Orioles have Oakland, Seattle, Atlanta, the Mets, Philly, Florida and Washington coming up before they get back into the teeth of the AL EAST.  I’m sure you could find 3 or 4 good starts for Hill in that stretch, with some of them being sans designated hitter.

In 2007, no team had a better lefty/righty one-two punch than Cleveland and their two Rafaels.

The left-handed portion of the equation was Rafael Perez, who dominated in his first full big league season. In just over 60 IP, Perez compiled 1.78 ERA and 0.92 WHIP to go along with his 9.2 K/9 and 4.13 K/BB rate.

From the other side of the mound, Rafael Betancourt was equally as dominant at age 32. Betancourt posted a 1.47 ERA, 0.76 WHIP in nearly 80 IP. Betancourt posted guady strike-out numbers as well, striking out 9.08 batters per 9 while only walking just over 1 batter per 9.

Perez and Betancourt were simply dominant as set-up men for the Tribe and their dominance would continue into 2008, even if their luck drastically changed. Perez, who had posted a .248 BABIP and 84% Strand Rate in 2007;  found his numbers at .313 BABIP and 74% Strand Rate by the time 2008 came to a close. Betancourt regressed in a similiar manner, seeing his .246 BABIP in 2007 translate into a .323 BABIP in 2008. Betancourt’s 2007 Strand Rate of 86.4% also took a mighty hit, as he ended 2008 with a strand rate of a measely 70%.

While both players had great luck in 2007 and terrible luck in 2008, Perez’s skill level remained consistent.  Perez posted a 3.01 FIP in 2007 which only moderately increased to 3.22 in 2008. Betancourt, on the other hand, saw his FIP nearly double from 2007 (2.22 FIP) to 2008 (4.40.)

Thus, one would expert Betancourt to continue a slow age-induced decline while Perez, age 26, to continue his dominant ways. In 2009, this has been half true as it appears as though Betancourt is declining but Perez has been down-right awful.

Other than awful ERA’s, Perez (15.19 ERA / 6.27 FIP) and Betancourt (5.14 ERA / 4.40 FIP) share one devastating trait.  The stuff is still there, but neither one can avoiding walking batters.

Betancourt who owns a career average of 2.29 BB/9 is currently walking twice that number, at 4.50 BB/9.  Perez who’s career average sits just shy of three batters per nine, is currently walking an astonishing 7.59batters per nine.

Betancourt, whose strength has always been pounding the zone with his 92mph fastball, threw less than 60% of his pitches in the strike-zone last year for the first time since entering the league. In 2009, Betancourt’s continued to miss the zone, now throwing less than 50% of pitches inside the strike zone.

Although he doesn’t rely on location nearly as much as Betancourt, Perez has suffered the same fate. Perez has only been able to locate 45% of his pitches inside the zone thus far and needs to be much closer to 50% to be effective.

The PFX Data reveals that Betancourt and Perez both still have their downright nasty stuff.  The sample size is still relatively small, but both pitchers have eclipsed the 200 pitch mark, so it’s not completely useless. Both Betancourt and Perez have actually increased their average velocities, which could well be a result of overthrowing:  Perez is up one full mph across the board, while Betancourt is about half an mph faster than his career averages.

As you can see, Betancourt generally increases velocity as the season progresses. Below is a fastball velocity chart for the last two years, and is courtesy of fangraphs.com. I’d highly recommend checking out all of their graphs and trend-stats.

Rafael Perez’s velocity chart echos the same sentiments:  a slow and steady velocity increase over the course of the season.  It wouldn’t be a stretch to label both Perez and Betancourt as warm-weather pitchers, or second half pitchers.

In addition to the consistent velocity, the movement on both Betancourt’s and Perez’s pitches seems close enough to the mean that drawing any conclusion would be premature.   If you’re interested in this kind of stuff, feel free to scoot over to Perez’s fangraph page or to Rafael Betancourt’s fangraph page. They’ve both lost about half an inch of horizontal movement off their sliders, and you can take from that what you will.

The final piece to this puzzle of ineffectiveness is the hitters that they’re facing, obviously.  Perez has seen his overall Swing-Percentage drop almost 9 pts, from 49 percent to 40 percent. The main component of this decline is Perez’s O-Swing Percentage.  Perez’s swing percentage on pitches outside the zone has dropped from a 2007/2008 average of 35 percent, down to an awful 22.6 percent in 2009. In turn, hitters are making unbelievable contact on the pitches that they do make contact with, both inside (96% Z-Contact / up 10%) and outside of the zone (52% O-Contact / up 12%).

Betancourt is actually inducing more swings, and has returned his  Overall Swing Percentage (57%) to the level of his most dominant years.  Batters are making slightly better contact with all of Betancourt’s pitches, but the percentage falls well within the margin of error at this point.

At this point, Betancourt seems much improved from 2008 although his current ERA of 5.14 and WHIP of 1.64, don’t show it.  With Betancourt’s BABIP sitting at an ugly .364 and his strand-rate at a god-awful 60% — It’s a safe bet to invest in Betancourt to regain his form.  A Strike Out Per Inning, an ERA around 2.90, a 1.20 WHIP. Hopefully his BB / 9 will regress, but many of pitchers have been effective with a 2.00 K:BB ratio.

Rafael Perez on the other hand is a mess.  Perez has a higher ceiling and the potential to be lights out, racking up K’s, HLD’s and great ratios. Until Perez starts finding the strike-zone however, he’ll be useless. Perez’s BABIP is .418 and LOB% is 39.9% but that’s almost expected given that batters are either walking, or crushing a Perez mistake (27% of hits off him are LD.)

I’d venture to guess that Perez is either injured, or out of shape.  Either way, his mechanics are off and it’s going to take a while for him to get back on track.  I’d definitely keep an eye on Perez though, as his ERA is going to take forever to come down and all he has to do is start locating.  If you see Perez go a couple of games without a free pass or you’ve noticed him exhibit better control, snap him up.

The problems unfortunately do not end with Perez and Betancourt, as Kerry Wood (4.50 BB/9, 7.20 ERA, 4.08 FIP) and Jensen Lewis (3.95 BB/9, 5.93 ERA, 8.30 FIP) are both having the same issues. The Indians bullpen has infinite potential, and the back-end of it contains 4 players that are all capable of notching a strike-out per inning.

Until the relievers get their control issues sorted out, I’d be quite worried if I was expecting W’s from any of the Cleveland Indians starting pitchers. With such a small sample size, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the Weather was the prominent factor in the bullpen’s control issues. It realistically could be anything, but it’s definitely an organizational issue.

At the very least, keep in mind that Cleveland has managed to run into all of their opponents at the wrong time. They opened the season in Texas, and went on to play two over-achievers in Toronto and KC. From there, they played New York, KC, MIN, BOS, Detroit and then Toronto again.  The schedule definitely doesn’t get easier with a series against Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Tampa, KC, Cinci, TB, and then NY.  While it’ll be tough for things to get worse for Betancourt, Perez, Lewis and Wood, it’ll probably be just as tough to improve upon their number with their upcoming schedule.

Jose Guillen is bound to be one of the more popular pick-ups on Monday after his 4 RBI Sunday afternoon against Scott Baker and the Minnesota Twins. Over the past week, Jose Guillen’s hit .357 with 3 HR and 10 RBI and has seen his Yahoo! ownership increase to 19% — Yes, Jose Guillen is a bad, bad man.  If you already know Jose’s enjoyable history, you can skip the next couple paragraphs and go directly to his fantasy analysis.

First off, I’ll make this clear: I adore Jose Guillen  because you really have no clue what you’re going to get from him. Much like Milton Bradley, another favourite of mine, you could get anything from an All-Star to an Axe Murderer.

When my girlfriend and I snagged our first ever Major League Baseball, it was Jose Guillen that hung around and signed it.  Later Joey, I jump over cars, Gathright signed it as well. 

The story behind Jose Guillen is a long and complicated one, but he’s been on 9 different teams since he broke into the Majors in 1997 and hasn’t stayed with the same team longer than 2 years.  Guillen was also named in the Mitchell Report, after he allegedly purchased  steroids and HGH from a Florida Pharmacy:

The San Francisco Chronicle published a story linking Guillen to the purchase of more than $19,000 worth of steroids and human-growth hormone between May 2002 and June 2005.

In addition to the steroid use, Guillen’s had more than a couple run-ins with hecklers at the ballpark.  Check out Joey Gathright run in to stop Jose Guillen from more than likely beheading a fan that was heckling Guillen in the Royals home stadium.

Guillen also straight-up bitched Mike Scioscia when his current team, the Washington Nationals, played his former team, the Anaheim Angels, in inter-league play.  Upset at being left off the post-season roster and then traded by the Angels, Guillen told Nationals Coach, Frank Robinson, to ask the umpire to check Brendan Donnelly’s glove for any illegal substances — The ump found pine-tar. Guillen later admitted that he’d snitched, and went on an epic rant about Mike Scioscia being a little bitch:

He was talking to me last year about respect and class and how we have to move on, I don’t care really much about Mike Scioscia.

I have no respect for him any more, because I’m still hurt from what happened last year. Mike Scioscia to me is like a piece of garbage. I don’t care if I get in trouble. He can go to hell.

Finally, in one of my favourite moments of the 2008 season, Guillen went on a profanity laced tirade about his  Royals teammates during a 12-game losing streak:

“Too many fucking babies here. They don’t know how to fucking play the fucking game and win the game right, the way it’s supposed to be fucking played. And that’s the problem here. Now I know why this organization’s been losing for a while. Now I fucking know.”

But you’ve got to love Guillen for standing up for his coach, Trey Hillman. Guillen continued the rant by saying, “He [Hillman] cares more than anyone here about winning, That guy cares. Every single day. It’s killing him. We’ve just got to be smart and know what we need to do to win games. That’s it. There’s too many guys that won’t do this, do that, like they’ve given up, like they don’t care.”

I’m sure plenty of baseball purists dislike Jose Guillen, but you’ve got to admit that he’s entertaining as fuck, and equally as honest.

Jose Guillen’s Fantasy Impact

Prior to today’s home run and 4 RBI effort, Jose Guillen was batting .262 AVG / .326 OBP / .429 SLG, which is in-line with his career averages.

Jose Guillen will never hit for a great average, but .275 is a fair expectation given his track record (.273 Career AVG, .294 Career Max.)  So long as Guillen can maintain a solid average, he’ll help you in 3 of the 5 roto categories without hurting you too much, which is outstanding for a late-round draft pick or waiver-wire pick-up.

After playing 153 Games in each of his last two years, Guillen’s managed to top 95 RBI in both seasons.  Assuming Kansas City’s offense is at least mildly improved, Guillen should also score somewhere between 70 and 80 runs. When coupled with Guillen’s 20-30 HR power, you’ve got yourself a ball player with a fairly high-ceiling.

Plate discipline has never been Guillen’s strong-suit and in the early going he continues to chase pitches out of the zone. Pitchers are either being careful or have caught onto Guillen’s tendencies as he’s seeing a mere 43% of pitches in the zone.  This number should trend upwards to Guillen’s average of 50% even if Guillen refuses to take a walk.

Guillen’s proven the ability to function at a high-level with poor plate discipline, so to predict a drastic decline seems presumptive.  Guillen’s swinging at fewer pitches in general, both inside and outside of the zone.  It’s Guillen’s lack of contact (8% decrease, ) which is probably a direct result of minor injuries, that has rendered him a terrific waiver-wire or buy-low candidate.

Regardless of how it occurs, Guillen should start seeing more strikes and making solid contact as the season progresses.  Guillen will generally have trouble with control pitchers, but if a pitcher makes a mistake like Scott Baker did today, Guillen will make sound contact.

Considering the starters that Guillen has faced (Beurhle, Danks, Floyd, Galarraga, Perkins, Slowey, Purcey, Richmond,  Tallet and Baker, ) it’s no surprise he hasn’t smash-killed the ball to this point.  As Guillen works his way through the harder throwing / mistake-prone pitchers in the league, he should continue to improve across the board.

Guillen will have issues staying healthy, as seen by his recent hip-flexor / groin injury, which will rob Guillen of a lot of his natural (or chemically aided) potency. Although Guillen is generally an ass, he’s also a gamer that’ll play through minor injuries which chip away at his effectiveness.  While this is great for the Kansas City Royals and their 3-year / 36-Million dollar investment, it’s bad for fantasy owners.

If you pick up Guillen, you’ll have to monitor his injury situation fairly carefully.  The pay-off is absolutely worth the risk though as you could be provided with a 25+ HR / 100 RBI season from a free-agent you picked off the waiver-wire.

Mike Cameron’s always been one of the more buzz-worthy fantasy players, at least in deep leagues.  It’s almost impossible to decide whether or not Broken-Headed Mike Cameron (thanks Beltran!), is under-valued or over-valued. The fleet-footed Cameron seems to be a lock for 20 Home Runs and 20 Stolen Bases at this late juncture of his career: In a mere 120 games last year, Cameron decided he’d drop 25 HR and 17 SB on the fantasy community. His numbers could have been eye-popping, if not for a suspension and his knack for batting sub-.250.

Cameron was suspended twenty-five games after his second positive banned-stimulant test.  Stimulants used to be all the rage in the big-leagues, at least until steroids came along. Cameron’s made it very clear that he didn’t test positive for steroids, and blames it on a tainted nutrient supplement (as all athletes tend to do.)

Then there’s that average, that mind-numbingly low average.  Mike Cameron has batted above .270 just once in his career, and it was the same year that Carlos Beltran broke Cameron’s face in late-August.  I have no doubt in my mind that Cameron would have found a way to get that average below .270 had he played the final month of the season. He was sporting a .341 BABIP, afterall.

Anyways, this article is about Mike Cameron, Small Sample Sizes, and Old Dogs Learning New Tricks. Cameron’s seen 325 Pitches this year, of which 144 were balls and 181 were strikes — talk about a small sample size.  Cameron’s seen these pitches over the course of 19 games, and 82 plate appearances.

The question is, can we use these 325 pitches to our advantage when evaluating Mike Cameron, or are we better off ignoring these events and focusing on the previous 10 years of his career?

It depends on whether or not you can teach an old dog new tricks.  Is there any reason to believe that Cameron would become more disciplined at the plate over the course of the off-season?  Players almost never increase their discipline substantially after years of swingin’ away. The majority of readers will view Mike Cameron’s improvements and corresponding .309 average as nothing more than Small-Sample-Size-Magic — Everyone Gets Lucky, Every Dog Has It’s Day.

However, take a look at Cameron’s statistics and you’ll notice a new approach.  I’m not saying Cameron’s going to continue his .309-hittin ways, but Cameron could be primed for another .270+ batting average season.  At .270, Cameron’s stolen bases and home runs are a lot easier to stomach than at .242.

1. Mike Cameron’s increased his walk-rate to 16% having taken 13 walks thus far in 2009.
2. Cameron’s also struck out 13 times, for a K:BB of 1.00 and a K% of 19.1%.  This is a vast improvement for Cameron, whose career average sits at a 27.7% strike-out rate
3. Cameron’s only swinging at 12% of pitches outside of the zone which is reminiscent of his years with the New York Mets, and a sizable decrease from his previous years in Milwaukee (2007-20%, 2008-18%).
4. Of the pitches that Cameron’s swung at outside of the zone, he’s now making contact with 65% of them. Cameron’s unlikely to sustain such a rate, but it’s still an increase from his career 43%.
5. Cameron’s overall contact percentage is up 12% from his career average, which mainly consists of an 11% increase in contact for pitches in the zone. For the first time in Cameron’s career, his 91.6% Zone Contact is above the league average of 88%
6. Cameron’s BABIP of .320, while high, isn’t out of line with his career line of .307.  Cameron recently hit .341 on balls in play with the Mets in 2005, and .325 in 2006 with the Padres.
7. Cameron’s hitting more line-drives (26%) and fly-balls (50%) and less ground balls (23.2%)

All of this has happened in 82 Plate Appearances, 68 At-Bats, and 325 Pitches. Yes, it’s a small sample size and Cameron will probably regress to his true-skill level but all of the indicators for an old-dog learning new tricks are there.  Cameron’s not going to blow anyone’s mind and hit .300, but hitting .270? .275? — Not that much of a stretch.

Cameron’s 25 HR and 15-20 SB become infinitely more valuable if he doesn’t kill your batting average, and what I’ve seen so far may indicate that Cameron’s learned a couple new tricks.  I don’t want to over-value one month of the season, but if you can convince an owner that Mike Cameron’s destined to hit .240 again — Maybe it’s worth pulling the trigger to acquire him.

I’m probably not the only one that’s compared Justin Verlander to a beautiful woman, a woman that’s clearly out of your league. A woman that you bring home for a chandelier rockin’ night of passion only to wake up the next morning and realize that your wallet’s gone, you’re handcuffed to the bed, and your radio’s stuck on the Colin Cowherd show…NOOOOO! TURN IT OFFFFF!

Justin Verlander does one thing extremely well, he throws really fucking hard.  After Verlander No-Hit the Brewers in 2007, Dave Bush had this to say,

I don’t know how else to describe it. A guy throwing 100 mph in the ninth inning with a no-hitter, I’ve never seen that before.

Verlander tantalized us with a stellar 2007 season in which he won 18 games, posted an ERA of 3.66 and struck out 183 batters. Fantasy experts salivated at his potential going into 2008, but those who drafted him were less than pleased with his 17-loss season.

Heading into 2009, if someone told they knew what Verlander was going to bring to the table, they were lying to your face and hopefully you stabbed them.

Until last night, it looked quite clear that Verlander was going to come fairly close to replicating his 2008 numbers, rather than his 2007 season.  Verlander went into the Yankees game with an ERA of 9.00 and a WHIP of 1.72 — Ouch. His strike-out numbers were there (25K/21IP) but Verlander was proned to allowing the long-ball having given up 3 HR in 4 Games.

Then it happened: 7 IP, 7 H, 0 BB, 9K, 0ER against the New York Yankees, none the less.

There’s a lot to take in here, especially for fantasy purposes and I’ll try and keep everything as straight forward as possible. Firstly, Verlander’s domination of the Yankees really wasn’t all that surprising.

Verlander’s Bad Luck

A couple of errors in the Texas game, and another in the Seattle game has resulted in 3 unearned runs thus far for Verlander.  Brandon Inge and Adam Everett are by no means poor defenders, but Everett’s yet to click and is sitting around a UZR/150 of (-27.2).  At the very least, you’d have to imagine Everett’s infield defense would get to about average, even after posting his worst range rating in years (10 – 11 RngR -> 5 RngR.)

Even after last night’s masterpiece, Verlander is still only stranding 50% of batters which is well below the league average of 71%.  Verlander should be sitting somewhere in the low-to-mid-70′s when all is said and done.

Verlander’s BABIP of .408 is what stands out at this early juncture of the season.  Expecting regression at some point seems logical, even if it only regresses to Verlander’s 2008 number of .305

Quite simply, Verlander should have better overall numbers than he currently sports. Verlander’s Fielding Independent Pitching of 3.24 clearly expresses just how well he has pitched.

What’ll Make Verlander Successful From Here On Out?

Verlander has to locate his fastball and curveball — that simple.

It’s clear, at least to me, that Verlander is pitching the same way he did back in 2007. Verlander’s striking out more than a batter per inning, and has gotten his BB/9 back to 2006-2007 levels as it sits comfortably under 3 batters per 9.

When Verlander’s locating his fastball and curveball at above 70-72 percent, he’ll be terrifically effective.   Verlander’s lack of velocity in the LAA game stands out quite a bit, which leads me to believe that he was clearly tweaking something.  Verlander had hit 98-100mph in each of the previous games, and suddenly he lost speed off his FB.  Whatever he tweaked, definitely helped him in the Yankees game.

With Verlander, there aren’t going to be nasty outings, but rather nasty innings.  So long as he locates his pitches, he’s got more than enough pure stuff to notch 8+ K per 9.

Verlander’s price just shot through the roof, but he’s definitely still worth buying at this juncture.  It looks Verlander’s next two starts are against the Indians who are tied for second with 160 strike-outs as a team but are also amongst the lead-leaguers in Home Runs.

If you’re trying to acquire Verlander, this could be one of the bigger risks you’ll take all year.  On one hand, Verlander could strike out 12 Indians no problem, but on the other hand they could go and take him deep a few times.  If the Verlander-Owner in your league is demanding full-price, it’s still worth acquiring Verlander but it might be worth waiting one more start and hoping the Indians take him yard.

The worst case scenario is that Verlander goes another 7-shutout innings, and lowers his ERA to 5.40 on the season.  If the owner doesn’t pay attention, then you should still be able to get Verlander on the cheap.

Here’s something else I picked up, but’ve yet to interpret it.

It appears as though Verlander may just  be throwing a cut-fastball here and there.  He wasn’t throwing them for strikes, but I’ve got a feeling those 5 fastball/sliders in the middle may just be Verlander picking up a cutter.  Of course, Verlander could just be throwing a slider — but either way, it’s nice to see.

Give Dave Cameron’s Article On Verlander a read — I, of course, stumbled on it about 3 minutes ago which makes this article less than relevant.