Buy Low/Sell High June 25th (Doumit, Drew)

Buy Low: Ryan Doumit

Key Stats:

Pitcher:	BABIP	K/BB	PTO%	qERA	ERA Dif	P/IP
Hitter:	BABIP	P/PA	BB/SO	GB/FB	HR/FB
2008	0.317	3.77	2.44	1.282	23.08%
2007	0.265	3.90	2.53	1.577	17.31%
2006	0.189	3.84	1.64	1.700	20.00%

Ryan has quietly produced at the C position where people are always looking for production. With a BABIP right around the upper limit of the normal range, it appears that he’s due for at worst a very slight production. Each year he his BABIP has improved as well. Overall everything else looks good and indicative that his production will likely stay the same or better.

Doumit, Ryan C PIT for Kendrick, Howie 2B ANA

Doumit, Ryan C PIT for Weaver, Jered SP ANA

Doumit, Ryan C PIT for Kotchman, Casey 1B ANA

Sell High: J.D. Drew

Key Stats: 

Pitcher:	BABIP	K/BB	PTO%	qERA	ERA Dif	P/IP
Hitter:	BABIP	P/PA	BB/SO	GB/FB	HR/FB
2008	0.287	4.16	2.21	1.237	23.73%
2007	0.268	3.94	2.54	1.642	10.38%
2006	0.270	3.97	2.38	1.700	18.18%

After a scorching June, J.D. has started to cool off lately. Looking at his HR/FB%, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to think that he’ll start to regress back towards those 2006 levels. It appears that he has made a slight change in his approach that has him putting more emphasis on hitting the ball on the line or in the air, as his GB/FB ratio is now at a 3 year low. With his cooling off lately, the window may be starting to close. Those who drafted him as a 3^rd OF should look to move him and fill another hole in the team.

Drew, J.D. RF BOS for Sheets, Ben SP

Drew, J.D. RF BOS for Papelbon, Jonathan RP BOS

Drew, J.D. RF BOS for Kazmir, Scott SP TB

Buy Low/Sell High June 24th (Guillen, Lohse)

Buy Low: Jose Guillen

Key Stats:

Pitcher:	BABIP	K/BB	PTO%	qERA	ERA Dif	P/IP
Hitter:	BABIP	P/PA	BB/SO	GB/FB	HR/FB
2008	0.275	3.58	3.00	1.609	17.39%
2007	0.278	3.56	2.26	1.817	17.56%
2006	0.202	3.60	1.79	1.197	13.64%

Jose is one of those quiet producers when healthy, much like Milton Bradley. All of his peripherals above suggest that this is for real and his production can be expected to stay the same. That would put him on pace for about 25-30 HR and 100RBIs, yet you never really know about him. He’s even getting more selective at the plate, which helps your OBP.

Guillen, Jose RF KC for Giles, Brian RF SD

Guillen, Jose RF KC for Johnson, Kelly 2B ATL

Guillen, Jose RF KC for Lohse, Kyle SP STL

Sell High: Kyle Lohse

Key Stats: 

Pitcher:	BABIP	K/BB	PTO%	qERA	ERA Dif	P/IP
Hitter:	BABIP	P/PA	BB/SO	GB/FB	HR/FB
2008	0.279	1.910	25.0%	4.92	-1.285	15.75
2007	0.309	2.14	27.02%	4.84	-0.216	15.79
2006	0.345	2.20	27.39%	4.49	1.340	16.54

Kyle so far has been so extremely luck. Every single metric above says that he is average at best and is only helping in Wins. That however, as we all know, is the least reliable measure of the pitcher. His dominance is at an all time low and his ERA should be about 1.2 points higher than what it is. See if someone in your league is dumb enough/gullible enough to trade for him.

Lohse, Kyle SP STL for Fielder, Prince 1B MIL

Lohse, Kyle SP STL for Quentin, Carlos RF CHW

Lohse, Kyle SP STL for Crawford, Carl LF TB

Brandon Webb PFX

Brandon started off the season extremely well but has since not had results that would please most fantasy owners. Let's look. Again, I only examined the home starts to make sure we get as valid a comparison as possible.

To start off with, his release point his release point appears to be becoming more and more horizontal as the starts progress.

You can see it fairly well in the first one but the second chart you can really see how it progresses more horizontally as each start progresses (the 3rd chart is the 6-17 start). Could this be because of fatigue? What about each pitch type?

It appears that even though the curveball does trend more towards the left, the majority of it is his fastball. Considering the majority of his pitches are fastball, it stands true that if your main pitch differs from normal you will have different results. Looking at the average end speed for each of the pitches what I notice is not the average end speed, it's the decreased difference between his fastball and his off-speed pitches. Less of a difference in end speed means you have to have improved control.


It looks like he does have less control (especially off the inside corner) as the year goes on. He has good control on the outside part of the plate, but on the inside, he's really starting to struggle.
Zooming in a little bit, the picture is a little more clear.

With the zoom in, it is easier to see how his earlier starts he was able to locate his pitches better on both the inside and outside corners.

His movement in the last several starts explain a lot. Looking at the 2nd chart, his changeup's movement has been the same as the fastball. The speed difference wasn't as great as it was earlier so, the fastball basically started to move like a batting practice fastball. Overall, in the chart on the right you notice that there are really only 2 areas where the clusters tend to form. His curveball and the other group which includes his slider, sinker/fastball, changeup.

Looking at how many pitches he threw in each start and the total number of pitches in his home starts:

			date					Total
	04-11	04-22	05-03	05-08	05-15	05-31	06-17
pitch
??	12	0	0	0	11	0	0	23
CH	7	15	11	11	10	6	6	66
CU	27	16	16	13	16	25	13	126
FA	55	62	75	79	69	77	60	477
FC	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
IN	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	4
PO	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
SL	3	2	1	1	5	0	0	12
Total	104	96	103	104	111	108	84	710

There are no astronomically high pitch numbers nor are there any reliance on anything other than his primary pitch.

To me it looks like something has changed ever so slightly in his delivery. I'm not ready to call it fatigue or an injury but something is different. The good news is that right now it looks like it is something that could be fixed but there's no definite timeline or else they would have already fixed it. It is something that we'll have to keep an eye on however.