In the last few days, much of the waiver wire frenzy has been focused on pitchers in general and on Michael Soroka, Nick Kingham and Fernando Romero specifically. If you were able to pick up one or more of these prospects who have just made their major league debuts, that’s a good feeling. If you acquired them without busting your FAAB budget, even better.

Yet while these young pitchers have been stealing the spotlight, a number of more established hitters have been toiling away beyond the gaze of most fantasy owners. Each of the five hitters featured below are owned in fewer than a third of the leagues on CBSSports.com and Fantrax, where deeper leagues are not in short supply. Some of them could provide an upgrade for your deep-league roster right now, while others may be more valuable in the coming weeks and, therefore, are worth a stash.
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One day removed from his first blown save since last August, Craig Kimbrel rebounded by striking out the side punctuating his eighth save this year. Clean innings by closers prove to be ideal along with fantasy owners appreciating Kimbrel’s uptick in velocity averaging 97.5 MPH with his fastball on Wednesday. This save also puts Kimbrel on the precipice of history closing in on being the fastest reliever to 300 saves by games, save opportunities and age. Kimbrel’s converted 299 saves in 329 chances during his career translating to a 90.9 success rate as a closer. He’s also recorded at least three strikeouts in two of his last three outings while rounding into form after an abbreviated spring training.

Putting to rest controversy in the short term in St. Louis regarding which pitcher gets the ninth inning, Bud Norris notched his sixth save of the year by retiring all four hitters he faced with two strikeouts. He’s recorded a win, save or hold in seven of his last 10 appearances along with five straight scoreless outings. Until Greg Holland regains confidence in his fastball, it’s remains Norris as the closer for the Cardinals. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes my eyes sound loud, but I know it’s just because they’re in my head.

AGENDA

1. TDG Invitational
2. First Take
3. Weather Reports
4. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
5. SaberSim Says…
6. I Traded This Guy, Pt 2

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Is this thing on? Mic check… 1, 2, Mic check. “Were Doing it LIVE”. This is my first time here at the Roto Riteup so be gentle. I may not be Justin but I’m pretty sure standard procedure is to use a GIF in the intro…

We're more excited than @JustinMasonFWFB watching Chris Stratton right now pic.twitter.com/On7NmACtyQ

— RotoWear (@RotoWear) April 2, 2018

Am I doing this right?

On the Agenda:
1. Mookie the Great
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitchers

Mookie the Great

Have a day why don’t you Mookie Betts… WOW! Betts, yesterday against the Royals, went 4 for 4 with three solo home runs. Currently, Betts leads the league in home runs, runs, slugging percentage, on-base plus slugging, and is second in batting average. If you can name the five best hitters in baseball and you leave him off the list, chances are you are just wrong. Also if he is not in your top five hitters you should probably consider what other bad life choices have led you to this point.

Various News and Notes

Edwin Encarnacion and his home run parrot got quite the work out against the Rangers. Encarnacion hit two home runs off Matt Moore and then another in the ninth for good measure. Going into the game Encarnacion was hitting just .171 but he made up a ton of ground with just a few swings on Wednesday.

Bryce Harper stole his fourth bag of the season yesterday, tying his 2017 season total. With the wheels in motion for Harper, he is currently on pace for 49 home runs and 22 stolen bases. Four players in major league history have hit 50 home runs and stole 20 bases… Willie Mays (1955), Brady Anderson (1996), Ken Griffey Jr. (1998), and Alex Rodriquez (2007).

James Paxton was almost unhittable on Wednesday night. Yes, technically he gave up five hits but he also was able to get 31 swinging strikes on 105 pitches and a total of 16 punch-outs. When the A’s made contact, which wasn’t very ofte,n it was extremely weak contact. Paxton held batted balls to just 83.6 MPH on average in this one. Think of it this way… Paxton turned a top-five offense in baseball into a team full of Adam Engel’s.

Streaming Pitchers

There is not a ton of streaming options but if you are feeling lucky, Mike Minor against *cough* the Red Sox could be a decent one. Now, wait before you blast me in the comments section or say mean things on twitter (fantasy_keith), hear me out. Boston is probably the best team in baseball but against lefties, they have struck out 25% of the time and hit for a league-worst .202 batting average. Minor on the other hand has managed to keep base runners off the base paths this year (1.14 WHIP) and has a 3.01 ERA in his last 104.2 innings pitched.

My current aim in fantasy baseball is to find instances where player evaluations can be improved. With several prospects recently getting called up, I am trying to answer the simple question: is there any projection information to be gained from being a highly touted prospect. The short answer is yes, but it took me a while to get good results.

I wanted to keep the analysis simple so I used all available Steamer projections which to back to 2010. Additionally, I used Baseball America’s top 100 ranked prospects for that time frame. From these two data sets, I compared the hitter’s projected results to the actual results for their first few seasons.

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Each week through the season, I’ll be looking at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 15% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy pros) and pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

It’s been another week of Fantasy Baseball, and the waiver wire has shifted. Let’s highlight my ten favorites, roughly ordered from top to bottom:

Caleb Smith (Miami Marlins) – This list has plenty of the same names from last week, though I expect there to be more variance as we get deeper in the season as more unpopular entities make changes that few are aware of. Smith could be part of that label after striking out 19 batters in his last two starts, featuring plenty better command of his fastball that we’ve seen before. The question is if there is sustainability here – a 5 ER/6 walk start is still in recent memory – though striking out least seven batters in four of six starts is plenty enough for us to sign up for the price of free.

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The first month of the season is in the books! It was an exciting month with some incredible breakouts like Didi Gregorius being baseball’s best player while Mike Trout and Aaron Judge picked up right where their 2017 seasons left off. However, you might’ve missed some of the good-but-unheralded performances that are still worthy of attention including a veteran catcher raking, an offseason bargain smacking the ball, and a former prospect on the rise.

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When the Cardinals seemingly have one of the majors’ more stable closer situations, you know it’s been a strange night of baseball.

On Tuesday, prior to the Cardinals’ series opener against the White Sox, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak clarified what many suspected — that Bud Norris was back to being the team’s closer, and that Greg Holland would not “be used in the ninth inning at this time.” Given the way the Cardinals’ bullpen situation has played out so far in 2018, it would not have been surprising if Norris then went out and promptly blew a save against the White Sox. Instead, he was called upon to pitch the top of the ninth inning with a one-run deficit, and he tossed a perfect frame that turned into his first win of the season.
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You need help in your deep league. I’m here for you.

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Just a little programming note… I won’t be doing First Take videos on Wednesdays. I’m too busy.

AGENDA

1. TDG Invitational
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. One-sided brawl

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