You might recall that just three weeks ago, I shared 10 HR/FB rate surgers for 2018. At the time, I was still using my original Statcast-driven xHR/FB rate. Since then, I have developed a new and improved version of the metric, dubbed xHR/FB 2.0. So it’s time to redo the HR/FB rate surgers. A couple of the names are the same as on the original list, but there are some new faces as well.

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Check out the chat below!

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Um…

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First Taste of The Show: Anthony Alford, OF: Perhaps the most athletic player in the system, Alford also has the type of maturity and professionalism that turns very good players into star. The downside to Alford, though, is that he’s been injury prone throughout his career and has a worrisome history of concussions stemming from his days as a star high school football player. Alford, 23, has a great eye at the plate so he should produce excellent on-base averages to help take advantage of his plus speed. He trimmed his previously-hefty strikeout rate in 2017 but it came at the expense of fewer hard-hit balls. He could sell out and hit 20+ homers but he’s probably better off focusing on getting on base and keeping the power more in the range of 10-12 homers per year.

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1/25/18

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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Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• Christian Yelich/Lorenzo Cain solo talk since it was post-recording
• Mickey Moniak’s prospect drop [piece]
• Jack Flaherty’s link to Kershaw [piece]
• Manuel Margot’s (Franco) LA breakout [piece]

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I’ll continue my look at players who our auction calculator and NFBC ADPs (average draft position) disagree on the most. Today, I will examine some top rated arms who have lower ADPs, Jose Quintana, Jeff Samardzija, and David Price than our Steamer projections may suggest. This trio has some common factors they share and some individual traits which could keep owners away.

These three starters really stood out on the rankings page with ADPs over 80 but supposedly top-20 starters. They each share these common traits.

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Over the year or two many people have noted that the Statcast numbers in Comerica Park seem inflated compared to the real world results for the batted balls. From cursory research it appeared that this trend may be focused in right field, but perhaps not. Either way, you see Miguel Cabrera topping the xwOBA leaderboards on Baseball Savant, and xOBA leaderboards on xStats while his true results are lagging behind.

In one hand, that may appear to be a positive sign for a possible recovery, given his down season in 2017. In the other hand, it shouldn’t sit that well. His xwOBA is about 60 points higher than his real wOBA. The xStats fair a little better, and the difference is closer to 40 points. Either way, that is an absolutely enormous discrepancy.

There have been some hints that this effect may be focused in right field, which I noticed with Nick Castellanos. When I tell you something weird is going on in right field of Comerica Park, you might instinctively shed blame on that ludicrously deep right center field fence. I certainly did. That fence is about 430 feet deep and 11 feet high. It is one of the deepest areas in any MLB ballpark, rivaling AT&T Park.

But, I no longer believe that is the explanation. More on that in a moment, first I want to explain my methods. Read the rest of this entry »

We usually try to avoid stepping on each others toes here at RotoGraphs. I’m going to risk a little phalanx* squashing to clarify a few of my opinions about something Jeff Z wrote yesterday. Jeff called for fantasy owners to focus on overall production when drafting their rosters. He’s absolutely right, especially in the current post-scarcity meta. Unfortunately, comments on his article – including from me – indicate that we may have distracted ourselves from the actual theme. So let’s reinforce a few important details.

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Yesterday, I shared and discussed nine fantasy relevant hitters whose Statcast Average Fly Ball Distance (Avg FB Dist) marks surged the most versus 2016. Not surprisingly, every single one of them enjoyed HR/FB rate gains, most of them significant jumps. Now let’s dive into the batters on the opposite end of the spectrum, those fantasy relevant hitters whose Avg FB Dist marks dropped most versus 2016.

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Yesterday, we had a innocuous little trade in the Screw Cancer ottoneu league between one of the new owners and an existing club. The new guy sent $15 Michael Brantley for a $4 Eduardo Rodriguez. Those are two very cut-able players. However, nobody is going to shred your fantasy credentials if you keep them.

A glance into the trade notes reveals why this little detail rated an article – a $2 loan to the new owner of Brantley, to be distributed after the draft. Fine, right? $13 Brantley for $6 ERod smells fine. You see, there’s just one problem with that – offseason loans are specifically disallowed in ottoneu.

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