Disclaimer: these projections are bold (at least they’re supposed to be), and most are made in the context of Ottoneu fantasy baseball.

1) Yangervis Solarte will outscore Rougned Odor in 2016.

Rougned Odor is an extreme talent.  His breakout last year has been well documented, and his .273/.313/.520 slash all but guarantees no one is sleeping on him in drafts this year (his hot spring hasn’t done anything but boost his stock).  But for all the fanfare surrounding Odor, we should remember that his breakout was mostly ignited by an insane June that included a .390 BABIP and a BB/K rate that looks like a big outlier (1.25).  Odor’s July was equally sizzling so this isn’t an attempt to pump the brakes on a great young player except to say that he’s not coming with much of a discount in new Ottoneu auctions this season (~$20).

Looking for another under-the-radar 2B that could really turn a profit in 2016? Enter Yangervis Solarte, one of the few players to rival Odor’s 2nd half breakout and his 80 grade name.  Solarte started 2015 white-hot with a .321/.387/.500 slash and .385 wOBA, but fell off the map in May/June.  Something clicked for Solarte in July, however, as he rolled off three straight months of excellent production (wOBA’s of .353, .348, and .362 in July, August, and September), finishing the 2nd half with a .292/.336/.470 line.  That line isn’t all that unlike what Odor dazzled us with last year, and there may be room for improvement for Solarte because of his excellent contact skills and slightly better walk rates (he also hit much better at home than on the road).

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You have no doubt heard the phrase “playing time is currency” at some point in the last couple of years. I didn’t make it up and I don’t know who did, but it was probably Todd Zola or Ron Shandler because they have all the best catchphrases for fantasy baseball. I use it all the time, though, because it’s true and good to remember. It’s particularly pertinent in this era when PED use is less rampant (not eradicated, but certainly down).

To my mind, staying on the field was biggest advantage to be had by using. Consider that from 1996-2008, we saw an average of about six guys per year play all 162 games, but in the seven years since, that average has plummeted to just two per year with a high of four (2012, 2013, and 2014). Teams aren’t shy about using the disabled list these days, either, so just being in the lineup is a boon for a player, especially in deep leagues.

I think we’ve long known how important it is to roster guys who bat high in the order, but the DFS era has put a fine point on that factor. Combined with the drop in guys logging 162 games, it’s more beneficial than ever to get guys who regularly slot in those top four spots of a lineup – even a modest-to-bad lineup. Of course, those are usually the best guys in the lineup and as such they go in the first several rounds. However, you can still find guys going late in drafts who are slated to bat high in their order. These can be draft day gems just by virtue of that abundant playing time high in an order even if they don’t show any tangible skills growth to justify their slotting. Here are 15 American Leaguers projected (by Roster Resource) to bat in the top four of lineups while going after pick 200 in NFBC drafts:

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I’ve already hit you all with my 10 hot takes for the season, but we’re still a couple Fridays away from firm fantasy stuff for me to write about. So this week, I’ll show you all my final Scoresheet roster with a breakdown, and you can all skewer me for mistakes you think I made. Next week I’ll go over my Ottoneu roster and you can do the same.

I’m sure that’s very thrilling for you.

Here are a few league resources if you’re interested:

Team list and rosters
Draft page
League page

Anyway, earlier in the draft season — Scoresheet is about a month-long draft — I shared the progress I’d made to that point in the season. Well the draft wrapped up within the last few days, and for the most part, I’m happy about the team that I’ve got.

Have a look:

Starting Lineup

C- Yasmani Grandal
1B- Jose Abreu
2B- Scooter Gennett
3B- Trevor Plouffe
SS- Xander Bogaerts
LF- Stephen Piscotty
CF- A.J. Pollock
RF- Jason Heyward
DH- Justin Bour Read the rest of this entry »

3/25/16

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette
• @jeffwzimmerman

Strategy Section

• We deep-dive our Mixed H2H Tout Wars Auction (a brand new format in Tout Wars)
• Tout Wars Rules
• Part 1 of Jeff’s Write-Up
• Tout Wars Auction Boards

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It’s been a weird week for me, delaying this article by four days. I originally intended to have this up by Monday, but a spontaneous — and completely awesome — decision to attend the NCAA Tournament provided the first delay. I got to see Oklahoma/VCU and the historically unprecedented Texas A&M win over Northern Iowa, so I didn’t feel too bad about being a day late.

Unfortunately, I got myself concussed in a fender-bender the next day (not my fault!), and spent the last few days listlessly staring out my window, the owner of a half-working brain. Hopefully, I’ve recovered enough for the following to make sense, but the fact that my 31st birthday looms this coming Monday means I’m in the midst of my annual birthday-related existential crisis, brain injury or not.

Regardless of the circumstances, it’s Bold Predictions time! I did pretty darn well two years ago, but last year my success rate was roughly equivalent to that of the Brooklyn Brawler. (Fun fact: The Brawler briefly performed in WWF as “The MVP” Abe Knuckleball Schwartz, a bad-guy persona used to rile up fans during the MLB strike of ’94.) Let’s turn the clock back to 2014 and get my boldness rate back to the sweet spot.

Here are my ten Bold Predictions for 2016, roughly arranged in ascending order from safest to craziest:

10. James Shields is not a top-65 starting pitcher, despite throwing 200+ innings for the tenth straight year.

How do we value a 34-year-old coming off a season like Shields just had? He logged over 200 innings and made his annual 33 starts, but posted his worst-ever walk rate — and it’s not even close — at 3.60 BB/9. His HR/FB ballooned to another career worst, at 17.6%. Shields also experienced career bests in two areas, strikeouts (yay!) and strand rate (hmm…).

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A week ago, I participated in a new Tout Wars league which is called the Head-to-Head league, but it has a roto component. It was interesting to prepare for a highly competitive league with no previous similar leagues to reference. With the new format, first I had to decide how I would approach the league and second how my opponents would approach it, and how to find some advantages. Today, I will go over the rules and then ask you, our readers, about how you would approach the league. Later, I will go over my approach.

Here are the simplified rules with the full set being available at the Tout Wars website.

Rules Read the rest of this entry »

1) Travis d’Arnaud will be a top-3 catcher in all formats

This prediction relies on d’Arnaud being healthy this season, but if he is I think we could see 25 home runs with 70+ runs and RBI with a .270 average. In 268 plate appearances last season d’Arnaud had a .355 wOBA, not far behind what Kyle Schwarber did (.364 wOBA) in his 273 plate appearances.

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In 2015, just 41 players hit 25 homers or more. Lowering the cut line to 20 homers bumps the total of players to reach that threshold up to 64. As one of the standard scoring categories, homers are desired, but there are only so many dingers to go around. Getting top-shelf power is usually attached to a premium draft selection, but the following three players hit 24 or more homers in 2015 and are being selected after pick 265 on average in NFBC drafts as of March 24th.

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Perhaps you recognize the Factor Grid. It’s an important part of my column – The Daily Grind –  which will return in a little over a week. The grid is a quick look at the most important park factors for a given day – home runs by handedness, weather, and notes on extenuating circumstances (i.e. rain or snow). There are any number of fantasy websites with overcomplicated analysis of daily park factors and matchups – usually behind a paywall. I prefer a simple spreadsheet.

The Factor Grid can be easily used to select hitters in the best offensive venues and pitchers in defense friendly environments. This has obvious use to DFS participants, but it’s also helpful to traditional fantasy owners who like to stream or have a deep bench.

Let’s move onto the grid (or use the link):

The data comes from FanGraphs Guts! I have doubled the park factors so that they’re stadium specific. This introduces some small rounding errors (+/- 1). Guts! has the park factors halved by default so they can be used to transform full season player data. We don’t care about full season applications which is why I’ve doubled them.

I’ve color coded each stadium for a neutral weather day. Green means good for hitters while red is good for pitchers. Eleven stadiums are generally offense friendly, six are mostly neutral, and 10 are pitcher friendly. Progressive Field and Fenway Park have unusual factors which allow them to play are both friendly and unfriendly to hitters based on handedness. Wrigley Field has strong wind effects.

Weather can affect the color coding. As we all know, Wrigley park is very pitcher friendly early in the season due to cold weather and inward winds. Once summer rolls around, the winds blow out and the balls fly. The park will usually be listed as green or red rather than yellow. Particularly unpleasant weather could bump any neutral park down to a pitcher friendly rating. A very fine day could bump a neutral park into the green.

We can use park factors in the offseason too – specifically for players who are changing venues. Last year, I used Josh Donaldson’s move from the Coliseum to the Rogers Centre as an example. We know how that went. This year, Neil Walker is moving from a park with a 76 factor for home runs to a stadium with a 104 factor. Aaron Hicks is swapping Target Field’s 88 home run factor for Yankee Stadium’s 122 factor. Other hitters who could benefit include Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, Mark Trumbo, Brett Lawrie, Austin Jackson, and Jimmy Rollins.

This year, two parks have new dimensions which means that the old park factors can’t be fully trusted. We should see a few more home runs in Miami while the Rockies are trying to cut down on big flies.

That covers the basics. Now, onto questions.

I must be getting old. Or maybe I’m just learning. But I have a confession to make. I’m starting to change my line of thinking as it relates to fantasy baseball player valuations and team construction.

I’ve been obsessed with the process of finding projections, calculating dollar values, and relying almost exclusively on those inputs to guide my draft process. To make matters worse, after already having those thoughts entrenched in my brain, I then read Larry Schechter’s book, Winning Fantasy Baseball.

My process and beliefs sounded a heck of a lot like the ones Larry uses. And he’s arguably the greatest rotisserie player of all time. “All these chumps not calculating player dollar values out to the penny are doing it wrong“, I thought.

Well, I’m starting to soften on that stance. And here’s why… Read the rest of this entry »