We all know the story with Juan Francisco. He hits for an insane amount of power, strikes out a ton, and generally does not play great enough defense to warrant regular play. The latter is actually my biggest concern with Francisco. As Brett Lawrie nears full health, the Blue Jays will be looking to find creative ways to get Francisco in the lineup, whether that means Lawrie becoming the regular second baseman or the Blue Jays pulling a Dodger Outfield move on the 1B/DH spot with Adam Lind, Edwin Encarnacion, and Francisco is yet to be seen.
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I’ve mentioned this before, but whenever I’m doing my daily prep I use some baseline projections I calculate from the Steamer RoS projections. Every Sunday I take the updated Steamer RoS projections, run the relevant statistics through the DraftStreet scoring system, and then cut them down to a per-game basis. I use these per-game projections to help me determine value. For starting pitchers, I make daily adjustments for matchups and then compare the adjusted projections to salaries to determine the best value. For hitters, I look at opposing pitchers and Vegas game lines to see which teams might have the best offensive days, and then compare the RoS projections to salaries to determine the best value.

If you’d like to use these projections in the same way, I have provided them after the jump.

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For the past few years, we’ve grown accustomed to a steady diet of high on-base, high-average, moderate power output from Billy Butler. In the early going, 2014 hasn’t been nearly as tasty.

Terrible breakfast puns aside, Butler’s numbers are down across the board, and anyone lining him up in a util slot has got to be concerned. So is Butler a buy low or a guy you should be trying to get rid of?

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There is just so much fun you can have analyzing the batted ball distance leaderboard. The possibilities are seemingly endless and we haven’t even scratched the surface of exactly how we could use this data. But since we know distance is highly correlated with HR/FB rate, we could look at the leaders and laggards to predict who might be in for a surge or decline in their respective HR/FB rates. The key, of course, is that the player maintains a similar batted ball distance. We’re still dealing with a relatively small sample size here, so these potential surgers will only surge if they keep hitting balls as far as they have on average.

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Episode 117

The latest episode of The Sleeper and the Bust is now live! Jason Collette and Nick Minnix discuss players on the mend, players breaking down, changes in starting rotation, 2-start pitchers, and of course, closer craziness.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed.

Thanks to Ian Miller aka Teen Archer, for the new intro music. Approximately 74 minutes of joyous analysis.  

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• If you’re a fan of triple digits flashing up on the radar gun, you were obviously a happy guy today. One day after being activated from the disabled list, Aroldis Chapman made his 2014 debut, striking out the side (around a walk) to nail down his first save of the season. His arm looked no worse for the wear, as he averaged 101 mph with his fastball (touching 102.9). Wow. One thing we didn’t see today was a ball put in play. One potential issue that all pitchers who take liners off the body have to deal with is their reaction to balls hit back up the box. We’ll have to wait at least another outing to see how the Cuban lefty handles it, but if he brings the heat like he did today, having hitters square up pitches to rip back up the middle might be a rare occurrence.

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Did you have a good week? I had a good week. Unfortunately, that week could have been better, and that can sometimes be a frustrating part of daily fantasy, but it’s often a necessary evil depending on your situation in life and general disposition toward risk.

What I mean is, I had a handful of double-ups this week where I scored well enough to place in a tournament setting (not across the board but, generally, they were strong enough to expect a return). So, instead of getting the appreciable payout from a tournament format, I was left with “just” the double-up prize.

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Agenda

1. It’s Mother’s Day
2. DFS Picks
3. Monday Mincemeat
4. Table

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Happy Mother’s Day from everyone here at RotoGraphs, FanGraphs and even NotGraphs. Call your mom right now. Me? I’ll just yell up the stairs at my mom.

On today’s agenda:
1. Welcome back, Chase Headley
2. Rickie Weeks: not a left fielder
3. Thoughts on Erik Bedard
4. The Daily Five

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The Ax Man leaveth. John Axford has (at least for now) been removed from Cleveland’s ninth inning role. So everyone rush to the wire to pick up… wait, is “committee” owned in my league? Axford and his 5.45 xFIP have been touched on a couple times over the past week and little has changed in the peripherals department.

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