Free Agent Fantasy Team Update: Relying on Luis Cruz

A short free agent fantasy team update this week.

Scott Feldman was traded from the Cubs to the Orioles, which doesn't change his status on my team.

Wang and Camp were DFA'd, Wang was outrighted, Camp was released. I am releasing Wang myself as well. Luis Cruz and Jeff Francouer signed to the big league team to fill their roster spots. Since we are about 95 games into the season, they both get 199,000 dollars. Manny Ramirez and Kelly Shoppach signed to the minor league team, with David Ross and Ryan Madson released, both on 60 day DLs, and both looking like they won't be back this season.
Kuroda missed a start (really was just pushed back a couple of days), but returned and didn't go on the DL. Roy Oswalt hurt his hamstring and goes to the DL/Minors team. He is a release candidate, but instead I released Ben Francisco instead. I also changed Kevin Slowey back to starter, as he took Nolasco's rotation spot. This should put my MLB team at 23 players.

Scott Baker has started a rehab assignment, which obviously doesn't change his roster designation, but is a good sign.  Ryan Ludwick could be back in August according to reports.


15.4 fWAR: 43.33 wins, 51.67 losses

15.2 rWAR: 43.13 wins, 51.87 losses

-2 WAA: 45.5 wins, 49.5 losses

12.3 WARP: 42.7 wins, 52.3 losses

Instead of a writeup of one of the players, I'll just link to my article on Jeremy Guthrie's struggles from Pine Tar Press.

Free Agent Fantasy Team Update: Kevin Gregg's Success as a Cub

This week's Free Agent Fantasy Team Update contains a lot of roster moves:

Rick Ankiel was DFA'd and then released by Mets, so he is released from my team. I had missed that Dewayne Wise was on the DL, so I moved him to the inactive part of my roster. John Lannan will be back with the the Phillies to start on Monday, so I am putting him back on the big league roster. Shawn Camp was activated from the DL as well, so he moves to the active part of my roster. Thomas Neal was recalled by the Yankees, so he also moves from the minors/inactive part of the roster to the MLB part of the roster. Assuming that he is making league minimum, he is now owed $284,000. Chien Wang was also signed by Blue Jays, so I signed him to big league roster. He will also be owed 284,000 dollars. This puts my payroll at about 100.5 million dollars for the season. This also puts my big league roster at a full 24. It also means I had 2 spots open for my minor league/inactive team, so I signed J.C. Romero and Clay Rapada relievers who signed MiLB contracts in the past couple of weeks. Apparently Travis Ishikawa has exercised his opt-out clause, but that will probably take a couple of days to play itself out, so I am going to keep him on the inactive part of the roster as there was no update at the time of publishing. Now, let's see how my team is doing:

Since about 70 games have been played this season:

12.4 fWAR, 32.98 wins and 37.02 losses

13 rWAR, 33.58 wins and 36.42 losses

10.5 WARP, 32.9 wins and 37.1 losses

.4 WAA, 35.4 wins and 34.6 losses

So the three WARs have congregated to about as close as they have been all year. WAA continues to be the one that rates my team the highest, and I am only above .500 according to that measure.

Since all the roster moves made the post long, I just wanted to take a quick look at why Kevin Gregg may be having more success. My guess was location (as his 2013 stuff is nothing special), so here is his average locations from 2012 and 2013:

 He is keeping the ball lower on average this year, which could really play a role in his success so far. Let's break it down by pitch (MLBAM tags). 2012:

 

2013:

The fastball is clearly more arm side, rather than in the middle of the plate, while his sinker is more glove side. He is also locating the slider and splitter lower in the zone, which, along with moving to the NL Central from the AL East, is probably playing a big role in his success so far with the Cubs.

Free Agent Watch: Chein-Ming Wang

It is now rumored that the Nationals are discussing an extension with Starting Pitcher Chein-Ming Wang. In 62.1 innings with the Nats, Wang had an even 0 WAR. This is after losing the entire 2010 season to injury. In 5 seasons with the Yankees, he posted a 10.9 WAR, making about 10 million dollars in that time (a 917 WASP for a franchise that is notoriously inefficient). His best year was when he put up a 5.4 WAR, but in 2009 he had a terrible -2.1 WAR season. WAR seems either unhelpful, or condemning because he has put up a -2.1 WAR over the past 3 calendar years. Before dissecting his Nationals numbers, it seems helpful to look at his 2011 minor league numbers as he worked his way back to the Majors. In 4 different levels of minor leagues, he threw 28.2 innings. He gave up 2 homers, walked just 4, and had a pretty underwhelming 1.52 PE. In 2011 for the Major League club, he had an extremely poor PE of 4.39 and his TR was a pretty mediocre 8.29. The Nationals defense made him look better than he actually was with a low BABIP and difference of over .50 in FIP. I just don't see how Wang is worth any more than minimum salary, and the Nationals' management is proving to be pretty silly with money.