Fantastic Thoughts: "Trade for Aaron Harang. No, seriously."

With approximated 20% of the season in the books, it's time to start sizing up your fantasy roster.  Many owners, at this juncture, make one of two mistakes:

1.) Because they are sitting at the bottom of the table, they decide to punt, either completely abandoning their team or, in keeper leagues, starting to play exclusively for next year.

2.) Because they've gotten off to a hot start, they superstitiously sit on their roster, denying any potential for improvement.

With so much season left, it's pretty much guaranteed that you've got a hot streak and a cold streak still in front of you, perhaps a prolonged one.  If you do get hot after a bad start and you end up finishing in second or third place, you're going to really regret unloading Placido Polanco for a prospect in May or sitting on Chris Davis when you could've picked up Brennan Boesch.  Similarly, if you blow that double-digit lead, your decision to stubbornly stick with Ben Sheets could really burn you.

At this point, you're looking for the classic "buy low, sell high" candidates.  Below, I'll provide you with some of my favorites, but first let me offer some strategies for identifying your own:

BABIP:
Batting Average on Balls in Play is the Hansel of statistics.  It's so hot right now.  It's main benefit is identifying "luck" on both sides of the ball.  If a hitter has a BABIP way higher than his career norms, he's finding holes at an unsustainable rate.  Everything is dropping in.  If his BABIP is unusually low, he's probably hit his fair share of "at 'em" balls and could be due for a hot streak.  For pitchers, the opposite applies.  High BABIP suggests bad luck, low BABIP suggests the potential for regression.

FIP:
Fielder Independent Pitching measures outcomes that a pitcher can "control."  That is, strikeouts, walks, and homers.  The resulting number looks like a standard ERA.  So, what we can do is compare the FIP, which judges exclusively the pitcher, to the ERA, which is effected by several other factors.  Over time, these numbers will tend to move toward each other.  In 2009, no team had a separation between ERA and FIP of more than half a run.  So, when you see disjunctions of a run or more, you can assume that pitcher is getting burned either by bad defense or bad luck.

Game Logs:  
This is the most effective, but also the most time-consuming method for analyzing players.  At this point in the season, one bad week for a hitter or one bad outing for a pitcher can have a dramatic effect on their ratio statistics (AVG, OPS, ERA, WHIP, etc.).  It's impossible to check these for every player, but for those who you're considering adding, dropping, or trading, it's a must.

HR/FB:
Another stat that goes both ways.  HR/FB works best for veteran players having out of character years because, like BABIP, it's most effective when judged against career norms.  For a hitter, a significantly higher HR/FB rate might suggest inflated power numbers, gained either by playing in homer-friendly parks or just catching some breaks down the lines.  For pitcher, a high HR/FB rate suggests, again, some bad luck or, perhaps, a flurry of unfavorable matchups.

K/BB:
As those who visit the Hippeaux consistently are probably already aware, this is probably my favorite catch-all statistic on both sides of the ball.  In the early going, a particularly high strikeout rate (for a hitter) worries me, because it means he has much less chance for positive outcomes (because getting lucky pretty much requires that you at least put the ball in play) and is thus more susceptible to extended cold streaks.  A low walk rate, although not as detrimental, also limits the opportunity for things like runs and stolen bases, so I'm particularly aware of it in relation to top of the order/speed type players.  On the flip side, a low strikeout rate limits a pitcher's ability to get out of tough situations and makes him more enslaved to his defense.  Therefore, it you're considering a low strikeout rate pitcher (there are plenty of good ones), you should pay close attention to the team behind him.  A high walk rate, particularly in combination with a low strikeout rate, makes run-scoring situations significantly more frequent.

Now, for the cast of the Bi-Lo All-Stars...

So Far, So Good

In a somewhat unusual feat of good judgment, the sportswriters have made three excellent selections for the major 2007 awards thusfar. Only Dustin Pedroia was an easy choice, as AL Rookie of the Year. Pedroia led all qualifying AL Rookies in Average, Slugging, OPS, Doubles, and Runs Scored. He was second in Hits and OBP, and fifth in RBI. Pedroia's case is certainly somewhat aided by his postseason performance and his position in one of the league's best lineups, but there are glaring holes in the campaigns of all the other logical candidates. Delmon Young led AL Rookies in RBI with 93 and Josh Field led in Home Runs with 23, but both struggled with the strikezone, accumulating over 125 strikeouts apiece and OBPs under .320. That said, I bet Boston would trade Pedroia straight up for either one of them, in a heartbeat.

It seemed likely, when Colorado advanced to the postseason and then to the World Series, especially, that their lauded shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki, was inevitably boosting his Rookie of the Year chances. Thankfully, Ryan Braun's gaudy regular season numbers were too much to overlook. Here's how the two broke down:

Tulowitski: .291/.359/.479 104R 177H 24HR 99RBI 7SB

Braun: .324/.370/.634 91R 146H 34HR 97RBI 15SB

Tulowitzki hangs with Braun in the counting stats because he had two more months in the majors. If we extrapolate Braun's stats to match Tulowitski's plate appearances, he would have approximately 120 R, 45 HR, 130 RBI, and 20 SB. In other words, he'd be running a step ahead of Holliday, Fielder, and Rollins in the MVP race.

While I'm sympathetic to the opinion that Tulowitski's excellent defense at a critical position (compared to Braun's sub-par defense at third base) helps his cause, I think Braun's counterargument is that he hit third in Milwaukee's lineup from the moment he reached the bigs. While Tulowitski's slumps were chastened by the fact that he hit in front or behind that quartet of Holliday, Helton, Atkins, and Hawpe, it was Braun who was the picture of consistency in Milwaukee. Along with Prince Fielder he compensated for the up-and-down performances of J. J. Hardy, Corey Hart, Bill Hall, and Rickie Weeks, by churning out an OPS above 900 in every full month after he arrived.

It was also a tough choice between C. C. Sabathia and Josh Beckett. Sabathia would surely be willing to trade his hardware for Beckett's World Series ring. Unfortunately, that is sort of what it came down to. Sabathia made four more starts and pitched forty more innings than Beckett during the regular season, perhaps his fatigue contributed to his lackluster playoff performances against Boston. However, he carried his team down the stretch, going 6-1 with a 2.48 ERA in August and September. Beckett didn't exactly coast, going 7-2 with a 3.01 ERA, but he did take one less turn in the final two months, pitch twelve fewer innings, and delivered 59 fewer pitches. He also was allotted five days rest before each of his last three regular season starts. Very likely two more quality starts could have made the difference for Beckett as a Cy Young candidate, but it also may have prevented him from racking up four wins and 35 Ks in 30 innings in October.