Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 4/6/19

FanGraphs | Devan Fink: José Ramírez was worth a whopping 8 fWAR last season, just a tick behind Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. Yet he’s hit .170/.298/.279 over his last 40 games, and he’s had issues with hard-hit rate and his inability to pull the ball as usual. The Indians shouldn’t be shaking in their boots, but if it continues, it could be another question mark on an already-hamstrung roster.

The Ringer | Michael Baumann: It’s heading into week two, so which of the poor-performing contenders should we be worried about? The Yankees have been slammed with injuries; the Red Sox starters have imploded; the Cubs look like a tail spin; the Indians have Francisco Lindor out of commission. But for the most part, it’s still very, very early. The benefit of many good teams under-performing is, well, they all kind of are, so there’s not much of a hole to dig out of.

ESPN Insider | Dan Szymborski ($): Even though ZiPS establishes median projections, there are still some players with very wide error bars. There’s Bryce Harper on the high-end side, who could be a three-win or a ten-win player, or Shane Bieber, where ZiPS three-year projections show him as a front-line starter down the road, or Clayton Kershaw, where the question mark has been injuries.