When it comes to fantasy baseball, not all prospects are created equally. In keeper leagues and dynasty leagues it’s important to have strategies around your prospects; you don’t want to just randomly grab a Top 10 or 20 prospect and hope for the best.

Along with skill, knowing a player’s ETA is key. Is the player advanced enough to help in 2016… or is he headed for a 2019 debut? Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is a talented dude but he’s not likely to visit the Great White North until 2020. Chicago (AL) drafted Carson Fulmer in 2015 with the eighth overall pick but he’s considered advanced enough to perhaps help the club in ’17. And then there’s Colorado’s Trevor Story, who is likely to turn the Jose Reyes soap opera and a strong spring into a ’16 starting gig.

As a result, your strategy around acquiring prospects should vary. If you’re grabbing a guy earmarked to help in 2017 or later, you should look at them like a stock — an investment that you hope to see increase in value before you cash out (either by adding to your active roster or by trading for an opportunity to win sooner). You also have to consider if you’re truly committed to a long-range prospect and willing to commit a roster spot to someone who may not help for three or four years — if at all. Prospects with a ’16 or ’17 should be viewed as players that can be valuable (albeit potentially inconsistent) contributors to the current makeup of your roster at a reasonable cost.

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Let us not talk falsely now: Most of us Fantasy geeks know baseball stats better than we know baseball. We understand stats from the inside, but baseball incompletely and from the outside. And since everyone’s got full access to the same full set of stats and the predictions based thereon, we all know or think we know exactly the same things. There’s too much confusion; we can’t get no relief.

But what about the guys who are stat geeks, but also know baseball? Do their direct observations of the game itself, unmediated by statistics, offer a way out of the inferno of stat-geek parity? Do they have an edge over us, or would they have one, if they weren’t generously sharing with us what they see? Read the rest of this entry »

Agenda

1. Are Stacks Too Popular?
2. Daily DFS
3. SaberSim Observations
4. Tomorrow’s Targets –
5. Factor Grid

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Last week, Eno Sarris posted what he called a starting pitching omnibus. He chronicled some thoughts on a handful of pitchers with more volatile stocks in the early goings. It covered a couple of the pitchers I’ll discuss today, sort of by coincidence, sort of by not-coincidence because Eno has hyped these guys since who knows when.

The reason why it is, indeed, sort of by coincidence is because two of the pitchers to follow twirled serious gems last week. And, amazingly, the trio of them all pitch in the same seemingly desolate, perceived-to-be-hopeless part of town. And by “part of town,” I mean Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

Vincent Velasquez, Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickhoff comprise three-fifths of a pitching staff that leads the MLB in WAR, with 2.7. Sure, there was some sleeper hype in the rotation (that happens to be fronted, in name only, by Jeremy Hellickson, by the way), but to expect it to lead all of baseball in anything at any time would have been asking a lot. Yet, here we are, watching the Phillies’ dividends on rebuilding occur in real time. It warrants a dig deeper.

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Episode 137 – The Immortal Trevor Brown

The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss a weird recording schedule, the Patriot’s Day schedule, the uncertainty of Rubby De La Rosa and Arizona’s starting pitcher for Monday, Mike Leake and Asdrubal Cabrera being very boring, the merits of Tony Wolters, and Dylan not drinking coffee even though he clearly needs it.

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It has only been three starts, but already after starts one and two, my FanGraphs colleagues have sounded the alarm bells on Felix Hernandez. Now it’s my turn to speculate after outing number three. I greatly dislike speculating and do my best to avoid temptation. But when the signs are there, it’s difficult to ignore them.

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Today’s Roto Riteup focus on five things: some good, and some bad.

On the agenda:
1. Various News and Notes
2. Streaming Pitcher Options

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4/17/16

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

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette

Let’s talk about:

• Corey Kluber (3:38)
• Matt Moore (17:53)
• Shane Greene (23:50)

Mailbag

• Maxwell: Trading for an SP upgrade (35:10)
• Paul: Selling high on Vincent Velasquez (42:30)
• Salvatore: Sell low on Jacob deGrom (47:20)
• Henry: Replacing Kyle Schwarber via trade (52:50)

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Is there a better time of the year for sports? Baseball’s in full swing, the NBA and NHL playoffs are kicking off, and the NFL Draft is just a couple weeks away.

On the agenda:
1. Homer Bailey is on the way back
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitcher Options

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There were a lot of save opportunities today and the closers (one set-up man) were perfect in converting these saves (or at least when I published this). I won’t get into every save tonight, just the more interesting ones.

Sean Dolittle faced one batter in the 8th inning tonight after surrendering a home run the night before down by a run. Instead of turning to Doolittle for the four-out save, Bob Melvin went to Ryan Madson for the first time since he gave up two runs to the Angels. Madson wasn’t perfect and gave up an unearned run, but he did get himself his third save of the season. Using Doolitle on Friday was not necessarily ideal for Melvin, so there will still be some save opportunities ahead for Doolittle. Doolittle has given up runs in his previous two appearances, so it’s not a rock solid hold on the closer role, which seems to be inconsistent anyway with the A’s using their top relievers in high leverage situations for the most part.
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