The Starting Pitcher Episode (Part I) of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Paul Sporer

Strategy Section

• How many pitchers will throw 200 innings in 2021?
• Pitcher ramp up from the 2020 short season.
• Pitchers returning from injury (Chris Sale / Noah Syndergaard / Luis Severino)
  • How do you project innings for 2021?
  • How do you assess their fantasy value?
  • What leagues are these players more (or less) valuable?
• Super Elite Pitchers (Jacob deGrom / Gerrit Cole / Shane Bieber)
  • How far should the trio be pushed up in drafts?
  • Which hitters should be drafted ahead of the super elite starters?
    • Does the format make a difference?
• Pitching Strategy in 2021 – Snake Drafts vs. Auctions

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

Guest: Derek Carty

Strategy Section

• The key components of what goes into a credible set of player projections.
• Incorporating the 2020 short season into 2021 projections.
• THE BAT vs. THE BAT X

ATC Projections

• Overview of ATC
• New for ATC – Inter-Projection Volatility

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

Guest: Todd Zola of Mastersball, ESPN & RotoWire

Park Factors

• What are park factors, and how they are calculated? What do they capture?
• The effect of the humidor.
• Park factors for unknown situations.
• Park factors for free agents.

Projections

• How projections are treating the uncertainty surrounding the DH (for the National League) in the upcoming season.

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

Guest: Wayne Randazzo – The Voice of the New York Mets

• Broadcasting in 2020
• Lindor/Carrasco trade
• Pete Alonso/Dom Smith and the Designated Hitter
• J.D. Davis/Brandon Nimmo as starters
• Trade for George Springer?
• Edwin Diaz, Seth Lugo & the bullpen
• Minor League prospect impact for 2021
• Steven Matz
• Most underrated player on the ball club
• Most exciting moments of Wayne’s broadcasting career

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

Guest: Randy Dobnak, Starting Pitcher on the Minnesota Twins

Interview

• The current offseason
• The affect of COVID on minor league players
• Innings limits in 2021
• Innings per start trends
• Players & Social Media
• The impact of fans
• Pitching coaches

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

Guest: Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN

Strategy Section

• How to use and adjust projections
  • What are the key adjustments that are most often made?
  • When should you diverge from projections?
  • How to adjust player rankings.
  • How to stress test playing time.

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

Guest: Ian Kahn of RotoWire

Strategy Section

• Trading
  • Trading Philosophy – Dynasty & Redraft
  • 2 for 1 trades – Is it best to acquire the best player in the deal?

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

Guest: Eno Sarris of The Athletic

Strategy Section

• Roster construction in roto snake drafts
  • What matters more at each pick – 
    • Value or category balance?
    • Stability or upside?
• KDS – Kentucky Derby Style Preferences 
• The Case for An Ace
• Relievers
  • Should you be drafting middle relievers in 2021?
  • Should we still be drafting closers early on?

ATC Projections

Command+

Mailbag – The team answers Twitter comments and questions.

Injury Update – Reuven gives us the injury updates.

Follow us on Twitter

• Ariel Cohen (@ATCNY)
• Reuven Guy (@mlbinjuryguru)
• Eno Sarris (@enosarris)
• Beat the Shift Podcast (@Beat_Shift_Pod)

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Many thanks to Derek Carty of RotoGrinders for his assistance on this article, and for his player notes on a few 2020 player projections.

In my previous article, 2020 Projection Systems Comparison – A Game Theory Approach, I compared several excellent projection systems in terms of fantasy baseball profitability for 2020. It was not the typical statistical comparison, rather – I used a game theory approach. This was the third such annual article that I had put forth in evaluating projection systems.

Earlier this year, Derek Carty unveiled a new version of his already excellent THE BAT projection system. The new system is called, THE BAT X. The major innovation of THE BAT X is that it incorporates Statcast data into the fold. You can read more about THE BAT X works in Carty’s introductory article found here on the pages of FanGraphs.

I have typically evaluated THE BAT within my 2020 Projections comparison. With this season (despite the short duration) as the inaugural run of THE BAT X – Derek asked me to take a deeper look into how his new projection system had performed. To do this, I went back and revisited the same game theory methodology applied to THE BAT X. The initial results look very promising for the young system.

In this article, I will go through what had changed between THE BAT and THE BAT X as far as the game theory simulations. For a few of the largest and most impactful player performance differences, I will also include some analysis from Derek Carty himself as to why THE BAT X made those adjustments. Read the rest of this entry »

Introducing the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Throughout the year we will be discussing various topics such as drafting methods, hotspot drafting, auction strategy, game theory, risk/reward and return on investment. We will be doing data driven deep player dives. We will reccomend waiver wire players to consider rostering and we will provide key injury updates with timetables.

The focus of this podcast is on strategy.

We will answer questions such as: What types of players should you avoid in the first round? How should you deal with risk in drafting? What is the right amount of draft budget to spend on pitchers vs. hitters? How much FAAB should you spend in your first month? What should you budget for the last month? Should you bid more FAAB on prospects, on hot players or on relievers? What is the optimal way to trade in a league? How to know when to bench a player? When do you cut a player? What key metrics let you know when to add a player? What are the best metrics to look at? And much much more.

The Beat the Shift Podcast has joined FanGraphs.

Who are we, and what is the show about? Find out more on this teaser episode of Beat the Shift.

Follow us on Twitter

• Ariel Cohen (@ATCNY)
• Reuven Guy (@mlbinjuryguru)
• Beat the Shift Podcast (@Beat_Shift_Pod)

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