Towards the end of last season, FanGraphs partnered up with SaberSim, a site that provides daily baseball projections by running thousands of simulations of each game every day, utilizing Steamer handedness-split rest-of-season projections as a base. The sim matches up the specific lineup of each team against the pitchers of each opposing team. The simulated games then operate as actual baseball games operate, and each individual plate appearance is simulated until the game is complete, at which point the process is repeated. While the raw projections available on FanGraphs and the SaberSim site itself are helpful in their own right, digging into some of the player and game projections, both for the current day and next, can help illuminate players to target for your season-long and DFS lineups.

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Agenda

1. TDG Leaderboards
2. TDG Invitational
3. Daily DFS
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Tomorrow’s Targets – Nola, Gray, Utley, Rickard
6. Factor Grid

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In a continued effort to not overreact to the first month of games, I’m circling back to an idea I meant to investigate over the offseason, which is hitters who crush certain pitch types. I have a pair of theories related to this research. The first and most obvious one is that hitters who have success against certain pitch types should perform better against pitchers who either rely more heavily on or are most successful when using that same pitch type. The second is that hitters who are more balanced in their performances against various pitch types should be better hitters long term because it prevents pitchers from discovering a hitter’s weakness against a pitch type and throwing more of that type of pitch to him.

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In this episode of OttoGraphs, we discuss some common questions new owners have early in the season, including lineup strategies and how to value free agents in 48-hour auctions. We also talk about some notable performances from the past two weeks, and what they mean for ottoneu owners, before finishing up with a quick guessing game about some of 2016’s worst performers to this point.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/

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Episode 140 – Field Of Streams Nights

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

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Dylan dropping a sad bombshell on Matt with bad timing, the allure of Ricky Nolasco, Matt’s hatred of Jason Castro, comparing Alcides Escobar and Elvis Andrus (and not in a good way), Alex Rodriguez vs. Rich Hill, Matt picking Jimmy Rollins and even trying to bring himself to pick Melky Cabrera, Dylan’s dad’s baseball wisdom, declaring Rich Hill “the Chris Carter of pitchers,” and a guest appearance by the train that runs by Dylan’s house.

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We all know what shrimp is, right? The old walk-off walk, one of the most disheartening ways to lose a game, particularly for a pitcher? Well what, exactly, do we call what happened in the 10th inning in Baltimore last night?

A walk-off passed ball? You’re killing me, Josh Thole. I don’t even know. Is this…prawn? Krill?

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As Ben alluded to last evening, Bryan Price officially removed J.J. Hoover from the closer’s role in Cincinatti this afternoon in favor of a closer-by-committee. Names included in said committee include Tony Cingrani, Blake Wood and former closer J.J. Hoover. Both Cingrani and Wood struggled today at home against the Rockies, surrendering three earned runs on two hits and three walks in just an inning-and-a-third of work. With that said, J.J. Hoover has struggled a bit to start the season — he’s just 1-of-2 in save opportunities with an 11.13 FIP and a 0% K-BB% in 5.1 frames — but, there’s still a chance he earns another save opportunity soon given the others’ struggles and Price’s comments. I still believe it’s worth keeping an eye on Caleb Cotham. I’ll be leaving the chart as Ben set it last evening, so if you’re looking to pull some more of your hair out in an attempt to roster a Reds’ closer, I’d lean Cingrani, Hoover, Cotham then Wood.
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When the Arizona Diamondbacks lost A.J. Pollock for what is very likely going to be the year, panic obviously ensued. Not only did they lose one of the top players in the National League, but they did so without a clear source of secondary offense beyond Paul Goldschmidt. Players like Nick Ahmed and Jean Segura have come through in ways that were not at all expected, but the guy that I’ve been following since before the season started is Jake Lamb. Perhaps more than anyone else, Lamb has emerged as that guy behind Goldschmidt, and is suddenly becoming a viable fantasy option at the hot corner.

In my preseason draft experience, Jake Lamb was a guy who was stowed away on rosters in deeper leagues, or left hanging around in waiver wire limbo altogether until a team was in dire need of a plug-and-play option at third base. Overall, he was largely a guy left off of rosters because of the obvious uncertainty as to what he actually could bring to the table. But as these first couple weeks of the season have worn on, Lamb has provided consistency at the plate to the point where he’s leapt up to no. 2 in the Arizona batting order. This type of production isn’t going to be a surprise for too much longer.

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A few weeks ago, my wife had reached her breaking point. She had spent years living in not so silent frustration and had finally had enough. So one night, after we had put our daughter to bed, she sat me down and we had the talk I had been dreading for as long as I could remember. Read the rest of this entry »

4/20/16

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

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• @sporer
• @doug_thorburn
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette

General Questions:

• What are you looking for in the early season? (6:55)
• We see a lot of comps for velo to their 2015 mark, should we be comparing April-to-April or does it not matter? (10:24)

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