FanGraphs+ Player-Profile Game: Question #1
Play the player-profile game every day this week at 11:00am ET. We’re giving away a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ to the first reader who guesses correctly the identity of that day’s mystery player. (Limit one copy per customer).
As Eno Sarris announced earlier today, the newest iteration of FanGraphs+ is now available for the price of a cup of coffee that’s roughly twice as expensive as it ought to be.
As in recent years, we’re celebrating the release of FG+ by way of the player-profile game.
Said game is easy: the author offers the text of an actual player profile from the newest iteration of FG+, being careful to omit any proper names that might reveal the identity of the player in question. The reader, in turn, attempts to identify the player using only the details provided in the profile.
First reader to guess correctly (in the comments section below) gets a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+, worth its weight in whichever precious metal one cares to name.
Today’s entry comes to us by way of the Sarris himself.
Who is it?
What do you get when a pitcher’s flaws are equal to his strengths? You might get something like [THIS PLAYER]. He throws 90% cutters and curves, and by shape and velocity of those pitches, you’d think he was an ace. The 94 mph cutter is six-to-eight inches different from your average four-seamer, horizontally. The 79 mph curve had the second-most drop in baseball in 2014. Considering the general movements and velocities of those two pitches, you might think that he has all he needs to get through the lineup multiple times. The problem is, the two-seamer never took. The change has been okay in small doses, but he doesn’t seem to trust it. And the flaw that is equal to the strengths: he cannot command the ball. Sure, his walk and zone rates approached average last year — and that’s probably why [THIS ONE TEAM] traded for him — but he doesn’t hit the catcher’s mitt even when he’s not walking guys. That’s how his two pitches with good velocity and movement are both sub-par by whiff rates. That’s how a 94 mph cutter and a big old honking curve ball aren’t enough yet for [THIS GUY] to break out. Whether the flaws triumph over the strengths or vice versa is probably up to the coaching staff in [THE TEAM’S CITY]. But at 24 years old, there are only so many more caps that we can write, recommending [THIS PLAYER] as a late-round deep-league sleeper and general pitcher to be aware of. At some point, we have to have faith in one side or the other.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Shelby Miller