Deep League Help- Pena

Chris Carter isn’t the only power hitter on the Astros making some noise early on. Carlos Pena has been splitting time between first base and DH and his game seems to be back on track.

Analysis: It is good to see Chris Carter finally get some love but it did take over two weeks into the season for it to manifest. He’s only available in about 50% of leagues which is still a surprise since he could/should get to 30 home runs this year. Remember, hit he 16 bombs in just 67 games last year with Oakland.

As for Carlos Pena, well… he has kind of faded in recent years and some of it has to do with his BABIP. Pena’s career BABIP is .277 but he’s only averaged .251 over the last three years in Tampa and Chicago. His power is still there, he’s averaged exactly 25 home runs from 2010-2012. But the solid power numbers don’t mean much with a batting average well below the Mendoza Line. Flash forward to 2013 and Pena’s BABIP is up and with it his batting average. Pena has homered in consecutive days and has 9 runs in 15 games this year. He’s available in 90-99% of leagues and should have DH eligibility soon.

 

Lets Speed Things Up

Over the past couple of months I’ve added a lot of new features to FantasySP.  More features means more overhead and the chance that the site can slow down.  The site is meant to be fast and I want to ensure that it stays that way.

Needless to say, it finally got to a point where I felt the site was noticeably slower and needed to be fixed.  In the past week I put new feature development on hold while I addressed optimization and speed issues.

The good news is that there have been numerous improvements to the core infrastructure of the site.  The Fantasy Assistant and page loads in general will be much faster now. Many things behind the scenes have been improved upon that will ensure the site stays fast as it continues to grow in popularity.

Hope you all enjoy the faster site!

Selling High- Jose Fernandez

Miami starting pitcher Jose Fernandez is a twenty year old force of nature but it’s selling time for fantasy owners.

Analysis: Through two starts Fernandez has posted a 0.82 ERA in 11.0 innings pitched with 13 strikeouts and allowing just 5 hits and 3 walks. Fernandez is just twenty but he has elite tier stuff. His fastball averages 94.8 MPH thus far and he also has a plus slider and a solid curve and change. But now we must consider what he’s up against.

Over the last ten years only four pitchers aged twenty or younger have pitched over 130 innings. Of those four pitchers only King Felix recorded an xFIP under 4.25. We must also consider what Jose has done in the minors. He hasn’t pitched in anything above Advanced-A ball which he did last year for 55 innings. He only pitched 134 innings in 2012 and he shouldn’t be pushed much beyond 150 in 2013 if he stays healthy. Miami will be awful this year and he is the future so there is no reason to send him out there thirty plus times.

Fernandez is available in 20-30% of fantasy leagues. If you have him or can pick him up it’s selling time. There is always one owner in every league who falls in love with the idea of what a guy like Fernandez can do as opposed to the reality of the facts.

Major Updates for Fantasy Baseball

The new season of fantasy baseball is here and there has been a huge influx of new users and plenty of bugs to squash these past two weeks.  I have been feverishly working to improve multiple aspects of the site to handle the additional users and additional features.

Many of you have emailed me to provide feedback about bugs and features that you would like improved.  I am reading ALL of it and have been implementing many of your suggestions.

What you see below is just a small list of improvements that have been completed since the start of April:

  • Start/Sit tool, various accuracy fixes for scheduled matchups.
  • Start/Sit tool, user can now specify the start of his fantasy week: Sun-Mon or Sun-Sat.
  • Accuracy fix for player stats to compare this years stats to last years stats. Previously the average and on base percentages were slightly off.
  • Fantasy Assistant & Trade Analyzer, refreshed design for the player popup windows. It is now cleaner, brighter, and easier to read with red buttons for navigation.
  • Fantasy Assistant, there have been numerous improvements to ratings and analysis for players.  Waiver wire suggestions have undergone many updates to further increase their accuracy.  Most notable have been category based waiver wire suggestions.  If you were unimpressed before, then I highly suggest taking another look at the revised suggestions.
  • CBS App Updates & League Updates, There have been a LOT of new users who bought CBS apps and synced new fantasy leagues to the FantasySP website.  I spent the past week refining the update process in order to handle the additional workload.  The update process is finally up to speed and everyone’s leagues should be updating on time and consistently from this point on. Sorry!
  • Various behind the scenes optimizations have been done so things load faster.  Things like the fantasy assistant and Start/Sit tools load a lot faster.
  • Progress has been made with trade suggestions, but it is still not ready for prime time.  Stay tuned for the official release later this month.

Last Call On Jean Segura

Jean Segura is the 11th rated roto shortstop so far this year and there is room for improvement.

Analysis: Segura’s value thus far is heavily influenced by his .458 batting average which is obviously unsustainable. But keep in mind that he hit .304 in Double-A last year between the Angels and the Brewers. His batting average will be a plus this year especially considering his strikeout rate has been low throughout his minor league and major league career.

A huge fantasy strength for Segura is his legs yet he has not stolen a base yet this year. He stole 37 bags last year in 102 Double-A games and expect over 20 stolen bases this year if he can stay healthy. He does have some pop but the home runs and RBI won’t be anything special in 2013. If he can find his way into the two-spot in the Brewers’ batting order his run total could be another fantasy asset.

Jean Segura is available in 35-70% of fantasy leagues which is surprising considering the lack of depth at shortstop year to year in fantasy baseball.