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

Guest: Frank Stampfl

Strategy Section

• 1st & 2nd Rounds
  • What should you accomplish in the 1st two rounds?
  • Do you need to draft a starting pitcher in the first few rounds of drafts?
  • Overvalued players
    • Should you draft catchers in the first two rounds?
    • Ohtani at 1.1 ?
  • Undervalued players
    • Freddie Freeman’s consistency
  • Players drafted outside the first two rounds, but should be drafted earlier.
  • The Top 3
    • Why Elly De La Cruz should and shouldn’t be considered to be drafted just outside the top 3.
• The ATC Volatility Metrics
• Corner Infield strategy
  • Player pool

ATC Undervalued Players

• Corner Infielders
  • • Vinnie Pasquantino 1B
    • Alec Bohm 3B
    • Yandy Díaz 1B
    • Luis Rengifo 2B/3B
    • Nolan Arenado 3B
    • Andrew Vaughn 1B
    • Michael Busch 1B
    • Ryan McMahon 3B

Injury Update

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

Guest: Erik Halterman

Strategy Section

• Snake Drafts
  • How to generally prepare
  • How has preparation changed over the past five years?
  • Drafting “naked”
  • Drafting early in the season (January) vs. drafting late in the season (March)
  • Create a do not draft list?
  • Draft risky pitchers?
  • Proactive vs. Relative approach
    • ADP Chicken
  • How to use ADP
  • How to handle risk?
    • In the aggregate
    • Per player
      • Risk-adjusted pricing
    • Power drafters (playing in multiple leagues)
    • Binary risks
      • Free agents in mono leagues
• Catcher strategy
  • Player pool
  • The value of catchers
    • Catcher bump

ATC Undervalued Players

• Catchers
  • • Salvador Perez
      • Is Perez worthy of the Hall of Fame?
    • Logan O’Hoppe
    • Gabriel Moreno
    • Austin Wells
    • Luis Campusano

Mailbag

Injury Update

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The Auction Strategy (Part 2) episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Marc Winokur

Auction Strategy Section

• Hitter vs. Pitcher split
  • For valuations
  • For allocations
• Money management in an auction
• In-draft inflation
  • Calculate or feel it?
  • Keeper league inflation
• Endgame
  • How many $1 players should you look to acquire?
  • Is it good to have the hammer?
• Nominations
  • Multi-round plan
  • Nominations are very important
  • Tips
• Bidding
  • Timing, frequency & speed
  • NFBC’s Max Bid button
• Scouting players

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The Auction Strategy (Part 1) episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Marc Winokur

Auction Strategy Section

• Differences between auctions and snake drafts
  • Benefits of auctions
  • Difference in preparation
• Advice for new auction players
• The most important items to keep track of during an auction
• Working with a partner
• How online auctions differ from in-person auctions
• How to construct market values
  • What to do for non-standard formats
• How to construct player values
• How to construct strike prices for buying players

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The Gary Sheffield Jr. episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Gary Sheffield Jr.

Mets & Yankees

• Juan Soto signing
• Who will be playing the corners for the Mets & Yankees in 2025?
• How do the Mets bridge the contract gap with Pete Alonso?
  • Current 1B Market
• Which New York bullpen is currently better?
• Will the Yankees sign more hitters in the offseason?
• What will Marcus Stroman’s role be on the Yankees?
• Will Clay Holmes make it as a starter for the Mets?
• Are the Mets done acquiring starting pitching?
• Will the Mets trade a few of their young prospects to fill needed holes for 2025?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

• Gary Sheffield’s homeruns

Personal Stories

• Stealing bases in the majors
• Hitting batting practice off of Rickey Henderson
• Becoming a Yankees fan
  • George Steinbrenner’s influence
• Becoming a podcaster
• Favorite team growing up

Sleeper MLB team picks for 2025

Where will Roki Sasaki sign?

Injury Update

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The First Pitch Arizona 2024 LIVE! episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guests: Chris Towers & Sara Sanchez

Strategy Section

• Projections
  • Are projections getting more accurate?
  • Are projections more important to use than ever?
  • What blindspots of projections do we adjust for well?
  • Which blindspots do we still not take into account properly?
    • Park factors
  • Prospects – Should we take into account (good) playoff performances?
• Mark Vientos
  • 2025 Ranking
• In-Season
  • When should we pick up “hot” players off of the waiver wire?
  • When should we drop “cold” players off of our rosters?
  • FAAB Spending
    • How to distribute FAAB dollars throughout the season.
• Stolen bases
  • Will the current stolen base landscape / levels continue in 2025?
• Elly De La Cruz
  • Many of us took the “L” on not drafting him in 2024. Was this the right process to pass on him?
  • Was 2024 his ceiling?
  • What kind of regression will he exhibit in 2025?
  • Where should we draft him in 2025 drafts?
• Agree or disagree
  • Luis Arraez will win another batting title in his career.
  • Shohei Ohtani won’t be able to replicate his projdction in 2024.
    • Will pitching hurt his offensive production?
  • Juan Soto will get at least $700m in free agency.

2025 First Round

• Who is a player that will be drafted in the first round of 2025 that is overvalued?
• Who is a player that will not be drafted in the first round of 2025 that should be?

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The Final Two Weeks episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Ray Murphy

First Pitch Arizona

League Updates

Strategy Section

• Final Two Weeks of the Season
  • Is there a limit to who you might sit in the final two weeks of the season?
  • How much should you churn your roster?
  • How much should real life MLB team standings / playoff pushes factor into your roster decisions?
  • Should you take a chance on stashing a returning injured player for the final week?
  • What is the bar for dropping injured or underperforming players?
  • How much should playing decisions be based on year to date stats vs. last 30 days stats vs. projected stats?
  • Gaining points vs. defending points
    • What and when should you emphasize each?
  • FAAB
    • How to allocate your FAAB spending for the final two weeks of the season?
  • Multi-position eligible players
    • How important are they in the final weeks of the season?
    • How to best utilize your roster to take account of them

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Takeaways of the 2024 season

Looking ahead to 2025

• Overall #1 pick choices
• How early should you draft Elly De La Cruz?
• Starting pitching in early rounds

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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

Guest: Matt Martingale

Mets Memories

• How did we become Met fans?
• Our favorite Met games of the 80’s and early 90’s.
• Our favorite Mets announcers of all time.
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Our favorite Mets players of the 80’s and early 90’s.

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The Elias Sports Bureau episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Matt Martingale

LABR League Update

• Recent trade – Ariel gets Josh Bell & Tommy Pham for Harrison Bader and Ryan O’Hearn from Matt

Elias Sports Bureau

• What does Elias do?
• Elias and fantasy sports
• ATC Projections

Strategy Section

• Spring training statistics
  • Predictive value in spring training stats
  • Players who start slow
• Predictive value of spring training manager tendencies

Who’d You Rather?

• C – William Contreras, Willson Contreras, Salvador Perez, Will Smith
• OF – Jarren Duran, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Corbin Carroll, Luis Robert Jr.
• OF – Anthony Santander, Kyle Schwarber, Teoscar Hernandez, Adolis Garcia
• OF – Taylor Ward, Brandon Nimmo, Ian Happ
• OF – Christopher Morel, Giancarlo Stanton, Jorge Soler, Bryan De La Cruz

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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

Guest: Pierre Camus

NFBC League Update

Strategy Section

• Fantasy Owner Disappearance
  • General Ethics
  • Money Leagues vs. Home Leagues vs. Expert Leagues
  • Fantasy Re-Emergence
  • Bottom teams trading late in the season
• Commissioner responsibility
  • When should a commissioner step in?
  • How should commissioners handle absent owners?
    • Should a commissioner set an absent owner’s lineup?
• How to account in FAAB for inactive owners

Who’d You Rather?

• 1B – Paul Goldschmidt, Alec Bohm, Vinnie Pasquantino
• 2B – Jonathan India, Bryson Stott, Ryan McMahon, Luis Arraez
• SS – CJ Abrams, Ezequiel Tovar, Nico Hoerner, Jackson Merrill
• 3B – Ke’Bryan Hayes, Issac Paredes, Jake Burger, Willi Castro

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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