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December 1, 2008
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December, 2008
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Monday, June 04, 2007A Look at John BuckPosted by Derek Carty at 5:00pmOn May 28, Kansas City Royals manager Buddy Bell officially announced that he will begin to have catcher John Buck start on days when Gil Meche, Jorge de la Rosa, and Odalis Perez are pitching. On days when Brian Bannister and Scott Elarton are pitching, Jason LaRue will start behind the plate. With the way Buck is hitting, I have a hard time justifying this move, even if Bannister and Elarton like throwing to LaRue better. Elarton is quite possibly the worst pitcher in the league, and Bannister is far from a good pitcher. I doubt having LaRue catching them regularly will make them any better. So how good is Buck? His most noticeable skill, so far, is his power. He had 8 Home Runs coming into today, when he hit 2 off Jamie Shields. HitTracker only has data on 7 of these HRs, so that's what we'll concentrate on. Of those 7 HRs, 6 were measured to have True Distances of 398 or higher. His furthest HR went a True Distance of 432. With the distance he's been blasting these HRs, logic dictates he should also be hitting some HRs that don't go as far. He hasn't hit many of these yet. Actually, he's only hit 1 (383 true feet). That should change as Buck pads his HR totals. Buck's power isn't without precedent. Last year, Buck hit 6 of his 11 Home Runs past 400 true feet and 4 past 430 true feet. One of these HRs went 441 feet, and another went 451 feet. While last year his fly ball rate was 34.7%, this year it has jumped to 47.4%, further validating his power. I definitely expect Buck to continue hitting Home Runs, and possibly at a quicker pace. Buck is also showing decent contact skills. He currently has a .281 Batting Average, .035 higher than his career average. Is this increase for real? While his Contact rate is 76%, similar to its 2005 and 2006 level, his Walk rate has shot up to 13.0% this year; it was 6.5% in 2006. Buck certainly seems to be more selective, and this could explain the rise from a .290 BABIP to a .310 BABIP, and thus the increase batting average. With such a huge increase in his Walk rate, we would expect to see at least a steady Line Drive rate, if not an improved one. 19.8% in 2006, it has dropped all the way down to 12.6% this year. The most likely explanation (aside from the possibility that it is a fluke and will improve shortly) is his increased Fly Ball rate. Going up nearly a dozen percentage points, his other two rates were bound to suffer a little. His Ground Ball rate has dropped about 5 percentage points, to 40%, although a larger drop was, and still is, a possibility. I don't see Buck getting back to a 20% Line Drive rate, but I don't think 17% is out of the question. His increase from a 33.7 AB/HR to 12.5% AB/HR will also help the Batting Average. A BA around .275 seems about right for Buck. So how much playing time should Buck expect to get? Well, thanks to Buddy Bell, we have a good idea about this number. Catching for 3 of 5 pitchers, Buck will be playing in at least 60% of the team's games. There are 162 games in a season, to be divided (roughly) evenly among five starting pitching slots. I know that it is not exactly equal, how a fifth starter isn't used until the middle of April, and so on, but this means each slot should start approximately 32.4 games per season. Right now, Buck is scheduled to catch for three of these five pitching slots, and the three pitchers occupying these slots all have decent job security. Since Buck won't be needing sporadic days off like normal catchers (these off-days are built into his schedule), it is reasonable to expect Buck to start in a bare minimum of 97 games. Now, let's say Sweeney takes even one trip to the Disabled List and stays the minimum 15 days. During this time — on days when Elarton and Bannister are pitching — Buck should be the Designated Hitter, considering his team-leading OPS. That would put him at 103 starts. While this is still lower than full-time catchers, it gives Buck plenty of value. Buck should be owned in all two-catcher leagues, and should be considered in 12-team, single catcher mixed leagues. He should be owned in 14-team, single catcher mixed leagues and in all single catcher AL-only leagues. Bank on Buck for plenty of power and a decent Batting Average. Derek Carty is a student in New Jersey who loves Fantasy Baseball. His articles can also be found at FOX Sports, and he was a contributor at Rotoworld this past season. He was the champion of the FOX Sports Experts Fantasy Baseball League this past year. He welcomes questions via e-mail. Rich Hill: For Real or Fluke?Posted by Derek Carty at 3:44pmAfter his first three starts of the year, Rich Hill had allowed just 1 Earned Run. At that point, many people began to cite Hill's great potential and fantastic start to the year as the reasoning behind a potential ascension to the elite ranks of starting pitchers. A couple of people I know even began to say that Hill would end up a legitimate candidate for the 2007 NL Cy Young award. Hold your horses there... those are some big predictions to make just three games into the season. Well, that was back in April. We're nearly a week into June now, and Hill's ERA stands at an impressive 2.89 and his WHIP at a phenominal 1.03. Is Hill truly becoming one of the elite pitchers in baseball, or is he on the receiving end of some good luck? Let's take a look at some of Hill's critical numbers.
We see that Hill has a good, but not great Strikeout rate. It sits just below 8.00, which provides a lot of value to fantasy leaguers just on its own. His Walk rate has improved from 3.53 in 2006 to just over 3.00 this year, leaving him with a good, but not great, K/BB of 2.63. Seems all of these stats are good, but not great. His ground ball rate isn't good or great. It's up from 30.0% last year, but it is still well-below average. It is unlikely to improve much. A ground ball rate that low should lead to a lot of Home Runs, but as we see Hill has given up a rather average 1.26 HR/9. Because his ground ball rate is below-average, we see that he is giving up a few less home runs than he should be. Now, let's look at his hits and runs. His Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is nearly .080 below average. We can actually see that Hill has the second lowest BABIP in all of baseball among qualified starting pitchers. Hill isn't giving up nearly enough hits, and this is liable to change at any time. When it does, his WHIP should raise significantly. We also see that on the hits (and walks) that he is giving up, a disproportionate number of these batters are never crossing the plate. On average, a pitcher should allow 28% of base runners to score. In other words, he should strand 72% of these base runners. A large variance from this number is an indication of either good or bad luck. Hill, allowing just 17% of his base runners to score, is getting some very good luck, as he seems to be doing with most of his stats. Over time, Hill's HR/9, BABIP, and LOB% will regress towards the mean and his surface numbers will, correspondingly, worsen. Hill is a pretty good pitcher, but he is not the great pitcher that many are heralding him as. He has the potential to one day become a very good pitcher (although the low ground ball rate will always prevent him from becoming one of the absolute best), but for now his fantasy owners will have to settle for just good. If you can trade him for a proven starter such as Felix Hernandez, Curt Schilling, Cole Hamels, Jeremy Bonderman, John Smoltz, or a number of others, do it. Derek Carty is a student in New Jersey who loves Fantasy Baseball. His articles can also be found at FOX Sports, and he was a contributor at Rotoworld this past season. He was the champion of the FOX Sports Experts Fantasy Baseball League this past year. He welcomes questions via e-mail. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
