While most people spend a lot of their time scouting and researching a lot of these September call-ups, looking for even the slightest bit of fantasy contribution, players that are returning from extended stays on the DL are often overlooked by most owners.  And as often the case may be, plenty of them can still be of valuable service to you in your quest for a championship.  If players were dropped a while ago, chances are, some of these guys have slipped through the cracks and are available to you via the waiver wire.  Here are two who have been recently activated and have fairly low ownership percentages. Read the rest of this entry »

Coming into mid-September, we’re not only seeing late season call-ups but we’re also experiencing players getting shut down for the year not to mention some veterans getting extra rest. This makes it even more difficult to manage your squad in what is hopefully your final charge to the title. The fact is, you probably need an additional position player or two in daily transaction leagues just to help fill out your roster – and you’re going to have to get creative.

Similar to Dan Wade’s post yesterday about microtrends, what I’m looking for is two things in typical Roto league formats and points league formats: I want to maximize my games played and I want to utilize any advantage I can in the match-ups.

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It’s time for another day of deep league waiver wire gems. If you’re in need of a third baseman or corner infielder or desperate for pitching, read on!

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You got the URL for today’s Roto Riteup from a bathroom stall, didn’t you? Any press is good press, I suppose.

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• After his second poor appearance in a row Dusty Baker was concerned with Aroldis Chapman’s velocity down and now the Reds are going to give Chapman a few days off to “rest his tired pitching shoulder.”  Chapman, whose average fastball velocity is 98 mph this year, only hit 96 mph on the radar gun last night. As ridiculous as that might sound for any other pitcher, it is definitely a cause for concern for the Reds. With Chapman resting, Jonathan Broxton received the save tonight and he should be a must add as he is the preferred replacement for Chapman.

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It’s playoff time. Some leagues have been in playoff mode for a week or two, but with under a month left in real baseball’s regular season, the vast majority of head-to-head leagues have hit the final few matches. It’s this time of year that match-ups become exceedingly important when weighing waiver wire moves, especially in redraft leagues, where anyone and everyone is fair game to drop from here on out for the right addition. Note: This does not mean dropping Ian Kinsler (.182/.207/.327 with a single home run, five runs scored, and three RBI since August 26) is a winning strategy, but if he can’t right the ship against the Indians and Mariners, I don’t love his chances to figure it out in the Rangers’ remaining 13 games against the A’s and the Angels. Read the rest of this entry »

Martin Prado has been one of the most versatile and underrated players in baseball over the past few seasons. He’s kind of like the National League version of Ben Zobrist, except with a better batting average. He’s played all over the field, helping the Braves when they’ve needed to fill a hole. Take a look at his games played break down:

1B: 4G, 4GS
2B: 9G, 7GS
3B: 23G, 18GS
SS: 9G, 7GS
OF: 107G, 100GS

He’s eligible at four positions and with one more start at first will have the five pack. While that’s all fine and dandy, I’m most interested in his shortstop eligibility. Before this season he hadn’t played there since 2008, and that was only for 15 innings. He’s been thrust into action with Andrleton Simmons out since July with a hand injury, sharing duties with Paul Janish. With Simmons due back Prado will go back to his normal spot in left field, but that added eligibility will have an impact on his fantasy value for next season.

The crop of elite shortstops is usually thin, and might get thinner if Derek Jeter ever slows down. Adding Prado to the mix beefs things up considerably. According to Yahoo! he’d currently be the sixth ranked shortstop and fifth ranked second basemen. Entering the season Prado was only left field and third base eligible. Picking up two, and possibly three, positions is a huge jump. His bat wouldn’t play as well at first base but his stock rises considerably if placed at one of the up the middle infield positions. One of the more versatile real life players has finally brought that over to the fantasy realm.

When Jed Lowrie went down with a leg injury in July Houston’s shortstop duties were taken over by Marwin Gonzalez. That experiment failed as he’s hit .234/.280/.328 this season and tore a ligament in his left ankle in a freak injury two weeks ago. Before the injury he had been spending more time at third base anyway thanks to the Astros trading for Tyler Greene on August 9th. Since the trade Greene has started nearly every game at short. His average and on base percentage (.229/.274) are actually worse than those of Gonzalez, but he’s slugging an even .400 on the season, and .458 in his time with the Astros.

In other words, he’s not making much contact (the 29.5% K rate shows that) but he’s doing damage when he does. Over the past 30 days he has six home runs and five doubles in 29 games. In 33 games spanning June and July he totaled exactly one extra base hit. He’s always shown decent power in the minor leagues (~15 HR) but that hadn’t come to light at the major league level until this season. His career Isolated Slugging coming into the season was under .100 in 359 plate appearances.

He’s owned in less than five percent of leagues. If you’re looking for a cheap source of power from an unlikely source and position in the stretch run, especially in very deep mixed or NL only leagues, Greene may be your man.

With the season heading into hair-pulling territory, especially for us head-to-headers in the middle of a playoff battle, nothing matters as much as the next matchup. So let’s look at this weekend’s best matchups in each statistical category, focusing on outfielders because they’re the easiest to find and the easiest to plug in. Good luck!

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Just three weeks left to go in the regular season and all that hard work you’ve done over the last five-plus months will have finally paid off, so long as you’re staying on top of things.  And that means making the tough decisions at the end of the year.  Let’s face it…we’ve got great players that just aren’t producing right now and you need to make sure you fill in the blanks with guys who are.  Our own Michael Barr wrote a piece discussing the idea of cutting Brian McCann and then there are guys like Alex Avila who should have been cut even longer ago.  Even Matt Wieters is struggling to keep his average over the Mendoza line for the last 30 days.  If it’s a keeper league, you’ll probably have to bite the bullet.  But if it’s a re-draft league, it’s time to cut the dead weight and get a catcher in there that can help. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes the standings can play tricks on you. You see your team in first, but it’s an optical illusion. You are in seventh but are sure you have the best team.

In my experience, this has always been the domain of match-up leagues, but in my first go-round with the ottoneu FanGraphs Points Leagues, I am learning that I was missing a use case – and now I am hoping to take advantage to secure a championship with a very simple step.

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