What is your strength when it comes to fantasy baseball?

Is it trading? Draft preparation and execution? In-season management? Identifying likely hitter busts? Or spotting that diamond in the rough pitcher? A lot of us seem to believe we’re adept at identifying those pitchers. Does that describe you? I’ll come back to this later.

Please help me out:

Do you think you’re better at identifying undervalued and breakout hitters or pitchers?

— SmartFantasyBaseball (@smartfantasybb) April 26, 2016

You likely have a strength. And you should know what it is. You want to be able to exploit this strength as an advantage.

Assuming you are aware of your “edge”, let’s take a closer look at how it’s very possible you’re use of that strength might actually be putting you at a disadvantage. Read the rest of this entry »

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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Mood:

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Long after last evening’s Bullpen Report published, news broke of Huston Street landing on the disabled list with a strained oblique. Street first felt discomfort while warming up Wednesday and the Angels subsequently called upon right-hander Joe Smith in the ninth frame to convert a save. Smith surrendered a hit, but induced a game-ending double play courtesy of Mike Moustakas to earn his first save of the year on eight pitches (seven strikes).
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• Travis d’Arnaud was placed on the DL with a strained rotator cuff

Returning from the DL after 15 days, d’Arnaud added, is a possibility in his mind. But the Mets are not committing to a timeline, fully aware of how many injuries their starting catcher has suffered in his young career. Among d’Arnaud’s library of past maladies are a partially torn knee ligament, a hyperextended left elbow, multiple broken bones and a concussion. He was hitting .196 through 13 games this season, with zero home runs and one RBI.

“It’s always going to be wait-and-see, but there are two positions where arm injuries can be pretty devastating, and one’s behind the plate,” manager Terry Collins said. “We’ll wait to see, rest him a few days, see how he comes out of that. And then when he starts to rehab back, you’ll see how long it’s going to take. It’s certainly something we’ve got to keep a close eye on.”

It seems like d’Arnaud could be out for around a month.

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Same time next week at 2:00 PM Central!

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A Better Way to Create Optimal Combinations of Players

Many DFS players utilize a fairly unscientific approach to creating stacks (combinations of batters from one particular team) when building lineups. Rather than making educated guesses at optimal combinations though, it’s more effective to approach the strategy from an objective standpoint that accounts for the interdependence between players within the same game. Batters in different spots in the lineup will be affected differently by performances from other batters within the lineup depending on how many slots they are away from one another. Furthermore, one batter’s specific skillsets and projected rates of outcomes like home runs, steals, and strikeouts will affect others with different specific skillsets and projected rates.

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Agenda

1. Rainy Days
2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
3. Daily DFS
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Tomorrow’s Targets
6. Factor Grid

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Episode 145 – Nick The Stick

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

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss the White Sox winning streak, Jose Quintana being much better than just a streamer, the Atlanta Braves power surge, Joe Girardi’s weird opinions on shifting, Matt on the ground with a weather report, seeing upside in the Phillies, sharing a Sklar Brothers bit about the names of the Cardinals outfielders, and being forced into a tough pitching decision by the small slates.

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WAR might tell you otherwise, and won-lost record certainly does, but so far this season, the ace of the Red Sox’s staff has been knuckleballer Steven Wright. Last night, Wright allowed just three hits while striking out seven batters in seven innings. Sure, it was against the Braves, so that might not count, but even before that start, Wright had a 1.40 ERA and had faced the Blue Jays twice and the Astros once in Houston. With all of the problems the Red Sox have elsewhere in their rotation, Wright seems to be earning himself a job for the rest of this season.

This post isn’t about Wright. It’s about the batters who will face Wright. Earlier this week, ESPN’s Eric Karabell wondered on his podcast whether hitters experience a hangover effect in the days after they face a knuckleballer, a question I thought would be fun to try to answer.

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