The best inspiration for an article is one in which you find a meaningful leaderboard, sort away, and identify who doesn’t belong. The surprise of the group, if you will. That player is most certainly going to be fun to discuss! That brings me to Eddie Rosario. If you perform a Statcast search and select only “Barrel” for “Quality of Contact” from August through the end of the season, you will be presented with a leaderboard of top sluggers ranked by number of barreled balls they hit during that time period. The top 10 is littered with your standard who’s who of the game’s best power hitters. Then you get down to #14 and who do you find, none other than Eddie Rosario.

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The projection systems love Miguel Cabrera. To them, he’s a hitter who performed decent in the first half and struggled in the second half. The projections don’t know that he has two herniated discs in his back. Because of the injury, his wOBA dropped from .339 in the first half to .274 in the 2nd half. Using projections, he’s the 54th highest ranked player but owners have pushed his ADP closer to 100th. It’s time to determine why the disconnect.

It was definitely a tale of two halves for Cabrera.

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I had this idea for today’s post – to evaluate my home league roster which includes more keepable players than I can possibly afford. As I prepped the information and tables I would need, the concept began to feel more and more familiar. Sure enough, I wrote about this exact topic for this exact league last March. I thought I had too many keepers then? I was a naive fool.

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Last week, the Cubs signed Tyler Chatwood, who has had the unfortunate luck of spending the majority of his Major League career pitching half his games in the most offense friendly home park. He has still managed to perform respectably given the circumstances, posting a 4.31 ERA and 95 ERA- (5% better than league average where lower is better) over his career, which includes 142 innings with the Angels in his 2011 debut. Now heading into his age 28 season, let’s see how the park factors compare between Wrigley Field and Coors Field and why the move makes him a prime sleeper.

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12/10/17

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 18, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER18!

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• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• Ohtani signing and the impact on fantasy sites (3:00)
• Giancarlo Stanton to the Yankees (33:00)

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12/08/17

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 18, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER18!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• • OHTANI SIGNS WITH LAA!!!
  • Dee Gordon traded to SEA
  • Tyler Chatwood to CHC
  • Mike Minor to TEX
  • Mike Fiers to DET
  • Miles Mikolas to STL
  • Brad Boxberger to ARI

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The hot stove is finally rocking! As I’m writing this, Shohei Ohtani has signed with the Angels. I wrote about him yesterday and even though I was hyping my Mariners pick, you can just ignore that part and focus on the ranking and skills assessment. A bevy of moves with fantasy impact took place yesterday, too!

• Tyler Chatwood signed by CHC to a 3-year, $38 million dollar deal

Chatwood was a buzzy free agent this year thanks in part to Mike Petriello showing how he could be this year’s Charlie Morton. The Cubs snatched him up and while I wouldn’t say $12.7 mil is an overpay, I kinda expected him to be more in the $9-10 mil per year level. Of course, all the teams were aware of the things Petriello covered in his piece already so I’m sure there was some competition that pushed him up to that price. His 3.31 career road ERA has gotten a lot of run, as it’s nearly two runs lower than his 5.25 at home, done mostly at Coors Field. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, The Marlins traded Dee Gordon to the Mariners for three minor league prospects. The trade came out of nowhere since the Mariners already rostered a top second baseman, Robinson Cano. Then it became known that Mariners plan on playing Gordon in centerfield. Having both middle infield and outfield qualifications a couple weeks into the season could move up his average draft position. The question remains though, will Gordon be able to cut in centerfield? Probably.

Gordon’s offensive talent is easy to access. The 29-year-old makes a ton of groundball contact and gets on first base using his speed. Once on base, he uses those legs to steal as many bases as possible. That’s it.

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Unlike many fantasy baseball formats, there really is no offseason in ottoneu. After the season ends there are arbitration allocations to be made, off season trading, and a keeper deadline to occupy the long months between the end of the season and the time auctions occur in the spring. We have posted before on how to get started with ottoneu, but today let’s discuss exactly what you should probably be doing during the ottoneu “offseason”:

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The Reds have enviable outfield depth. Beyond a solid starting trio of Billy Hamilton, Adam Duvall, and Scott Schebler, top prospect Jesse Winker is banging down the door. Winker was superb in a 137 plate appearance trial – enough so that, despite hitting 30 home runs, Schebler’s job is in danger. Winker has only one serious drawback – he’s a ground ball hitter with middling power. He is a high floor, modest ceiling hitter whose profile is helped by his ultra-friendly home park.

Next in line after Winker is Phillip Ervin. The 25-year-old righty profiles as an ideal fourth outfielder, capable of filling in at center field in a pinch or carrying the light side of a platoon. With the right opportunity at Great American Ballpark, Ervin could supply serious fantasy value.

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