Episode 195
Roto- and FanGraphs contributor Chris Cwik is the guest on this Fantasy Friday edition of FanGraphs Audio.

Discussed:
• The actual value Hector Santiago really has.
• Stats for which sample sizes have reached the reliability threshold — what that means for Justin Upton, Rickie Weeks, Brett Lawrie, etc.
• A Franchise Player Draft for fantasy baseball: would it look different than the one conducted recently by the authors of FanGraphs?

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 48 min. play time.)

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Before R.A. Dickey started throwing a knuckleball, he was on his way out of baseball. As a 30-year old who had seen significant action in the Majors in two seasons, but never action that came with a consistent role, he was fighting for a place at the table. And while he initially didn’t have much success with the knuckler, he stuck with it, crawling to freedom through more than three seasons of Pacific Coast League foulness that I can’t even imagine. Or maybe I just don’t want to picture what happens to a knuckleball in Colorado Springs. In that time, the Rangers, Brewers, Mariners and Twins all gave up on him, but now the Mets are reaping the benefits of their combined patience, as Dickey is in the midst of a career year at the tender age of 37.

One of the toughest things about being a knuckleballer is that sometimes, the ball just won’t dance. In a career that included 463 starts, Tim Wakefield’s longest streak of consecutive starts with four runs or less allowed was 12. Sooner or later, the knuckleball will come through straighter than a Katniss Everdeen arrow, and it is going to be tatered. Dickey is no stranger to this phenomenon, as evidenced by his outing on April 18 in Atlanta. But while Dickey has not yet strung together a 12-game streak like Wakefield, he’s come awfully close. In the past calendar year, Dickey has made 32 starts (dating back to June 11 of last year), and he has allowed four runs or less in 29 of them. In that time, his 3.37 FIP is tied with Johnny Cueto for 22nd-best in the game among qualified starters, ahead of such luminaries as Jered Weaver, Felix Hernandez, Tim Lincecum and James Shields. And as the astute observer will notice, you can even back up four more starts to May 20, 2011, and make that 33 of his last 36 starts allowing four runs or less.

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Since seeing Taijuan Walker last week in Chattanooga, the requests for comparisons between the young right-hander and fellow uber-prospect Dylan Bundy of the Orioles have been coming hot and heavy. The exercise of choosing between the two best pitching prospects in baseball (for me at least) is essentially splitting hairs. Does one prefer velocity or movement? Tall or short? Ceiling or floor? Ask ten industry sources and the vote would likely be split down the middle with each having a perfectly reasonable explanation for wanting one over the other. It’s a scenario where there really is no correct answer, only speculation based on experience and personal preference.

In recent weeks, I’m one of the fortunate few who have seen both Dylan Bundy and Taijuan Walker in person. Reports with video on both are linked below.

Dylan Bundy Report with Video

Taijuan Walker Report with Video

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Kaleb Cowart, 3B, Los Angeles Angels
Current Level: A
2012 Top 15 Prospects Ranking: 2nd
Current Value: Rising

The Angels’ first round pick from 2010, Cowart is enjoying his first year in full-season ball. He’s currently hitting .294 with 24 extra base hits in 57 games. The third baseman started the year with average numbers in April but he heated up in May with 16 extra base hits, including six homers, and a .310 batting average. He also walked 11 times, compared to just four free passes in April. Cowart, 20, has seen his wRC+ jump to 138. A switch-hitter, he’s hitting for average against both right-handers and left-handers but his slugging percentage is .100 higher as a left-handed batter. Cowart is looking like a future impact hitter at the hot corner.

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During Yu Darvish’s first eight starts, he faced eight different teams, making his first regular season start against each of them. His last four starts, however, have been repeat performances, as he’s faced the Mariners, Angels, Blue Jays, and Athletics for the second time. During those four starts, he’s been awful.

May 21st, @ SEA: 4 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 6 BB, 5 K
May 27th, vs TOR: 5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 3 K
June 2nd, @LAA: 6.1 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 7 K
June 7th, @Oak: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 6 BB, 4 K

You don’t need to know much about statistical analysis to know that 18 walks in 20 2/3 innings pitched is not good, and any pitcher issuing that many free passes probably isn’t going to be successful. But, is the recent failure to throw strikes related to opposing batters learning how to approach Darvish after getting an earlier look at him?

That appears to be a fairly popular theory at the moment, but let’s look and see whether the evidence supports the idea. Let’s start with the plate discipline stats, which seem like the most likely place where a change in batter approach would be the most noticeable.

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The Mets have four first basemen in the field right now, or so the joke goes.

Well, David Wright has been a -10 fielder at third for three straight years, but he’s been scratch this year, and the eye test isn’t so harsh on him. Daniel Murphy, listed as a first baseman in our database, faked a decent second base in 2011, but has twice been felled by a perhaps avoidable accident on the turn of a double play. Now both the eye test and his numbers don’t speak well of his work in the middle infield.

But both of these guys will stay at their respective positions for the time being at least, and their long-term futures with the team are up in the air. It’s the two other first basemen on the team that may come into conflict soon. Once interleague play is complete, the Mets will be faced with a bit of a roster crunch with the way Ike Davis and Lucas Duda have been performing.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Three Basically Earth-Shaking Transactions
2. Featured Game: Washington at Boston, 19:10 ET
3. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Three Basically Earth-Shaking Transactions
Here are three transactions from Thursday that shook the planet Earth — owing to their magnitude, one imagines.

Correa Signed
The Houston Astros signed Puerto Rican high school shortstop Carlos Correa with a $4.8 million bonus on Thursday, just days after taking him first overall in this year’s amateur draft, according to the Associated Press.

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It goes without saying that David Ortiz and Justin Verlander are among the most dominant players of their era. The Red Sox slugger has a career .284/.379/.545 slash line and 391 home runs; the Tigers right-hander has MVP and Cy Young Award trophies on his mantel. Their accomplishments have made them household names to baseball fans throughout the country.

Ortiz and Verlander recently sat down — in separate interviews — to answer the same set of questions about how they approach their respective crafts.

——

Is hitting/pitching an art or a science?

David Ortiz: “Hitting is an art. It’s also hard. There are so many things against you. First of all, mentally you have to be 120% positive. You can’t feel like the guy pitching is too great — you can’t overrate him. If I’m facing a guy like Verlander, I tell myself that I’m going to take my chances. A lot of guys think, ‘Oh man, I’m facing Verlander.’ He’s the best pitcher in the game — he’s at least in the top three — but he still has to throw the ball over the plate.”

Justin Verlander: “Pitching is more of an art. There are so many different ways to get the job done. There are so many different pitches and so many different things. When an artist wants to paint a painting, they have all those things in their head that they want to portray on a canvas. It’s the same thing when I’m pitching. I have all these thoughts going through my head about how I want to pitch: which pitch I want to throw here, and why do I want to throw it?”

Can a hitter cover all 17 inches of the plate?

David Ortiz: “If you go up there trying to cover both sides of the plate, you have no chance. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night against the Angels, Hector Noesi served up another home run on an 0-2 count. As a fan, having a pitcher of my team give up one of those is up there with one of the more disheartening occurances in an individual baseball game. The count is as lopsided as it can be in favor of the pitcher. To go from that to the single most hitter-friendly outcome is a jarring, unexpected and sometimes crushing whiplash.

And since I watch* Mariner games and almost only Mariner games, I have a disproportionate sense that every 0-2 home run in the history of baseball have been given up by Mariner pitchers**. Perhaps you feel that way about your team too. But personal observation is a crude and misleading way to go about forming beliefs unless you want to look like a big stupidhead the second you run into a person*** with actual data.

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Episode 194
David Laurila, curator of FanGraphs’ Q&A Series, discusses home runs with Tampa Bay’s Will Rhymes (who has hit one of them in the majors) and Luke Scott (who has hit more than one).

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 14 min. play time.)

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