Welcome to the first edition of the deep league waiver wire of the 2019 season! In this weekly column, I’ll present to you two players owned in 10% or less of leagues on CBS that deserve your attention in deep leagues. Sometimes, my recommendations are also worthy of considering in shallow leaguers, which is exciting! I’ll share such thoughts in those situations.
Yesterday, I discussed a bunch of players being picked up by fantasy leaguers across the land in CBS Sports leagues. Although Jeff Zimmerman covered drops yesterday, these were in NFBC leagues, which is no trading, no IL, and usually 15 teams. As such, the formats are quite different than those played on CBS, so we’re going to look at the guys you’re all dropping like hot potatoes. I’m going to ignore injured guys those demoted to the minors and those whose roles were reduced.
What does one post when the sample size is still wayyyyy too tiny to evaluate anything, besides pitch velocity? Opine on what every other fantasy owner is doing, of course! So let’s discuss the most added players in CBS Sports leagues. Are fantasy owners buying the right guy or making a mistake?
Yesterday, I unveiled my bold hitter league leaders, of which I expect to go 10 for 10. The pitching side of the ledger is a bit easier. Given that there is both more luck and factors outside the specific pitcher’s control that shapes his surface results, it’s more conceivable that a non-favorite leads the league in a category.
In an effort to avoid double dipping and naming the same pitcher in two categories, there may have been a slightly better bold choice for a particular stat. Also keep in mind that it is challenging to balance boldness with realistic, considering this requires me to bet against a group of names in which it’s like a 95% lock that one of them wins the category. I eliminated many names that I didn’t think were bold, but maybe you do. I also eliminated names that have no real chance at leading in the category. I decided against a bold wins league leader, because wins are silly and unpredictable. I also deleted my strikeout league leader, because it would seem just about impossible for any non-top projected guy to lead the league.
Every season, in addition to posting my standard bold predictions, I up the ante with my bold league leaders. If you thought nailing a bold prediction was tough, the bold league leaders are even more difficult! Just getting one right is worthy of celebration. Because these are bold, I automatically disqualify players I don’t personally believe would be considered bold or is projected to finish top five in the category. So I challenge myself and it typically causes me to bat .000. This is more for fun and dreaming of what could be than any serious attempt at being right.
We’ll start with the hitting league leaders in each of the five categories, split up by league.
You know the drill. Make them too bold, you’ll end up batting .000. Make them too easy, you’ll get called out for not being bold enough. I’ve always strived to find a happy medium and considering my past results (nearly always getting two to three right), I think I have. Since most of my fellow RotoGraphers have already posted their own bold predictions, I tried to discuss players not already included on previous lists. So as much as I like Ramon Laureano, I don’t need to reiterate Paul Sporer’s bold prediction of a 25 homer and 40 steal season. Here we go…
Almost exactly seven years ago, I shared a study on the predictive value of pitcher strikeout and walk rates posted during spring training. Though most know that most spring training stats mean nothing (somehow, there are still those who think spring stats like ERA actually have predictive value), spring strikeout and walk rates do improve projections when incorporated. That said, we still have the same size issue to deal with, various levels of competition, and pitchers working on things that makes them not the actual pitcher we know them as. With those caveats out of the way, it’s at least worth being aware of pitchers striking out significantly more than projected to.
Yesterday, I identified and discussed 13 starting pitchers the 2019 Pod Projections forecasted a significantly lower ERA than Steamer. Today, I’ll take on the other group — those the Pod Projections are more bearish on than Steamer in ERA. I’ll only discuss those pitchers you truly care about.
Let’s continue our comparison of the 2019 Pod Projections (last year’s most accurate non-aggregate forecasting system!) and the Steamer projections. Today, we move on to pitchers, where I’ll compare our ERA projections. First, it’s worth noting that Steamer is far more pessimistic on ERA than Pod is, so there are more upside guys than downside. It’s not a big deal for fantasy baseball though, as value is driven by projected stats versus replacement. So whether the league ERA is projected at 11.00 and Chris Sale is at 9.50 or the league is at 4.50 and Sale is at 3.00, it doesn’t make a difference from a valuation perspective.
On Saturday, I participated in my sixth Tout Wars AL-Only auction and seventh Tout Wars league. I was coming off a disappointing sixth place performance last year, after winning and setting four records (including most total points and margin of victory) in 2017.
