The Mid-Season episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Ray Murphy

LABR Update

First Pitch Arizona

Strategy Section

• 1st Half Recap
  • 1st Half Studs
    • Pete Crow-Armstrong
      • Regression – Should he / will he be drafted in the 1st round next year?
    • Cal Raleigh
      • Catcher strategy
  • 1st Half Duds
  • All-Star Game
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
  • Shortstops
• 1st Half Takes
• 2nd Half Predictions
• Trading Deadline
  • Should you make fantasy trades in advance of the trade deadline?
  • Should you make fantasy waiver pickups in advance of the trade deadline?
    • Closer speculations
  • How do you handle some active roster decisions and waiver decisions post trade deadline?

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Mid-Season Prospect episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Tim McLeod

First Pitch Arizona

• XFL Auction

Strategy Section

• Prospects
  • When do you activate prospects on your roster?
    • Hitter vs. Pitcher prospects
  • What do you do with prospects on your roster that are not performing (redraft leagues)?
  • When should you pick up prospects off of the waiver wire?
    • What statistics shluld you look at for minor league player prospects?
    • Do you construct your roster differently if you are often picking up prospect speculations?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hitter Prospects
  • Agustín Ramírez
  • Chase Meidroth
  • Roman Anthony
  • Jac Caglianone
• Pitcher Prospects
  • Andrew Painter
  • Joe Boyle
  • Brandon Sproat
  • Jonah Tong
  • Michael McGreevy

Board Bet !

Prospects

• Prospects for rest of season 2025
• Prospects for 2026 fantasy drafts

Waiver Wire / Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Vacation episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Pierre Camus

Strategy Section

• FAAB / Waiver Wire
  • How much time do you spend on preparing for FAAB each week?
    • Do you prioritze leagues that you are doing well in over others?
  • Should you make last minute changes in FAAB, or leave alone?
  • How to decide how much to bid on FAAB
    • Should you look at FAAB on a dollar basis, or on a percentage basis?
    • How to decide the exact figure to bid on FAAB for leagues that employ $1000 of FAAB for the season.
  • What to prioritze in researching / perparing / putting in bids for FAAB?
• Vacation
  • How to manage your fantasy teams if you are on vacation?
  • What instructions should you give to a proxy to help with managing your fantasy teams?
  • How to make decisions if you are the proxy?
• Catcher Strategy
  • Should you spend a lot of draft capital on catchers?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Yusei Kikuchi
  • Ranger Suárez
  • José Berríos
  • José Soriano
• Cold Players
  • Zac Gallen
  • Zach Eflin
  • Bailey Ober

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Overall episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Marc Winokur

League Updates

• GDD
  • Trade!
• NFBC
  • 1st half sucesss

Strategy Section

• NFBC Overall Contests
  • When should you alter your focus from the single league contest to playing for an overall contest title?
    • Does the size of your lead matter?
    • Does format matter – FAAB vs. non-FAAB?
  • Do you alter draft strategy at all due to the overall component of NFBC contests?
• The 2025 fantasy basbeall winning strategy to date
• Are Ohtani/Judge auction bids (i.e. high priced, but high returning players) efficient?

ATC Half Season

• Hits and Misses
  • Luis Arraez value
  • The profitable range of the pre-season auction market for hitters and pitchers

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Andy Pages
    • Who’d you rather?
  • Jesús Sánchez
  • Byron Buxton
• Cold Players
  • Ian Happ
  • Rhys Hoskins
  • Jarren Duran

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The 2nd Month episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Zack Waxman

Draft Champions Podcast

Strategy Section

• NFBC
  • Power players
  • Drafting early vs. drafting late
  • The use of projections
  • ADP
  • Jacob deGrom’s innings for 2025
• Waiver Wire / FAAB
  • General Strategy
  • Putting in the time
  • What to tackle first / how best to use your time?
  • Track remaining FAAB?
  • Allocate FAAB weekly?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Taylor Ward
  • Miguel Vargas
  • Zach Neto
  • Ranger Suárez
  • Will Vest
• Cold Players
  • Kristian Campbell
  • Matt Mervis
  • Francisco Alvarez
  • Brayan Bello

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The 2nd Month episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Chris Welsh

Strategy Section

• Waiver Wire
  • What player level is it acceptable to cut (for underperformance)?
    • Based on time of the season
    • Based on current standing
  • In practice, are player pickups more for the short term or for the long term?
    • Does it differ hittter vs. pitcher?
• Prospects
  • Are prospects good waiver wire investments?
    • What level of FAAB spending should you spend on prospects?
  • Key prospects to know for redraft leagues
    • Now
    • Later in the season

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • James Wood
  • Kyle Stowers
  • Maikel Garcia
• Cold Players
  • Michael Toglia
  • Spencer Steer

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Is It Too Early episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Eric Samulski

Strategy Section

• Is it too early?
  • Is it too early to give up on winning if you are in last place?
  • Is it too early to punt certain roto categories?
  • Is it too early to stop looking at preseason projections?
    • Is it too early to count on year to date stats?
  • Is it too early to take victory laps?
  • Is it too early to trade?

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Byron Buxton
  • Jorge Polanco
  • Jacob Wilson
• Cold Players
  • Eduardo Rodriguez
  • Sandy Alcantara

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Betting episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jennifer Piacenti

GDD Update

Strategy Section

• Sports Betting
  • Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS)
  • Betting terms
    • Money Line
    • Run Line (Spread)
    • Totals – Over/Under
  • Prop Betting
  • Arbitrage

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Pete Crow-Armstrong
  • Alex Bregman
  • Hunter Brown
  • Nick Pivetta
• Cold Players
  • Jordan Romano
  • Devin Williams
  • Yusei Kikuchi
  • Lane Thomas
  • Colt Keith
  • Andrew Vaughn

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Hot & Cold episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Sky Dombroske

Tout Wars Head to Head

• Draft recap
• Strategy & execution
• Hitter vs. pitcher split
• 1st week matchup !

Strategy Section

• What stats do you use to determine if a hot/cold start is for real?
  • Hitters vs. Pitchers
• How long do you play the hot hand?
• When do you bench a cold player?

Hot Players

• Hot Hitters
  • Wilyer Abreu
  • Tyler Soderstrom
  • Kyle Manzardo
  • Spencer Torkelson
  • Eugenio Suárez
  • Otto Lopez
  • Lars Nootbaar
• Hot Pitchers
  • Nathan Eovaldi
  • MacKenzie Gore
  • Casey Mize
  • Shane Baz
  • Luke Jackson

Torpedo Bats

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Cold Players

• Cold Hitters
  • Luis Arraez
  • Rafael Devers
  • Luis García Jr.
  • Triston Casas
  • Michael Toglia
• Cold Pitchers
  • Nestor Cortes
  • Bailey Ober
  • David Bednar
  • Ryan Pressly

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Mailbag

Injury Update

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The Predictions episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Howard Bender

Strategy Section

• Early drafting (January/February) vs. Late drafting (March)
  • Pros & cons, advantages & disadvantages, differences
  • Average draft position (ADP)
• Our player shares in the 2025 draft season
  • Players we drafted early but not late
  • Players we drafted late but not early
  • Our most drafted players
  • Players we didn’t plan to draft, but did
  • Players we planned to draft, but didn’t
• FAAB
  • What are you looking to accomplish in the first FAAB period?
  • How do you evaluate players for the first FAAB period, and early on in the season?
  • How much does a player’s hot performance in the opening week influence your FAAB bidding?

Predictions

• Bold Predictions
  • Player predictions
  • Team predictions
  • Baseball event predictions
• Awards Predictions
  • MVP
  • Cy Young
  • Rookie of the Year
    • Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Playoff Predictions
  • A team unlikely to make the playoffs that will
  • A team likely to make the playoffs that won’t
  • The worst team in baseball
    • Board bet !!!
  • Pennant winners
  • World series winner

Injury Update

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