Today I continue on updating my Pod’s Picks, comparing my rank versus the other three RotoGraphers. We moved on to the first basemen this time, of which the consensus rankings were published two weeks ago. I’ll generally only consider those first baseman I ranked within the top 20 for the bullish category and those the rest of the crew ranked in the top 20 for the bearish category.
Injuries are a deep leaguer’s best friend…as long as those injuries don’t occur to your own players of course. As has become par for the course here at the deep league waiver wire, these two recommendations are the latest pair of beneficiaries of the recently disabled.
Rankings lists always result in a firestorm of comments as everyone values players differently. It’s hard enough to do such an exercise in the preseason, but in the middle of the season is even more difficult. How much do you weight such a small sample of performance when you have an entire body of work to analyze from a player? Is the skills change real or just a mirage? So like I did in the preseason, I’m going to compare my updated rankings with the rest of the crew. I removed my rankings from the consensus and then reordered it to get a truer picture of what the other guys are feeling. We’ll start with the catchers. I won’t include everyone, only the noteworthy names.
While I am unsure if Kendrys Morales does indeed have a twin brother, I am sure that he is now the newest member of the Minnesota Twins baseball club organization team. After rumors swirled that teams like the Yankees, Mariners, Rangers, Brewers and Royals had varying levels of interest, the Twins were never mentioned. But perhaps they were the mystery team that was supposedly in the mix.
It’s that time again, updated American League starting pitcher tiers! We’re now far enough into the season where I have to finally take skills changes into serious consideration. Velocity changes are real, as are changes in repertoire and various advanced metrics such as the strike type percentages. While I have sometimes in the past concerned myself with rankings within tiers, I am not doing so anymore. They did begin in descending order of my projected dollar value, but it’s simply not all that helpful to determine whether Tanaka is above or below King Felix at this point. So, consider any pitcher within a tier to be worth within a several buck range of each other.
Today’s edition features another injury beneficiary and a man we had all but forgotten about attempting to make a comeback.
Yesterday, I identified and discussed the five players most added in CBS Sports leagues. So today of course, I’ll check in on those players being dropped. Often I find the dropped players are better than the added players as fantasy owners love to weight the last two weeks of performance infinitely more than the player’s entire body of work. So let’s see if owners are making the right moves when dropping these guys.
I’m back with a second edition of roster trending, checking out some of the players who have experienced the biggest ownership spikes in CBS leagues over the last week. These lists are always interesting and offers an insightful glimpse into the mind of the average fantasy owner. So let’s take a gander at who is being added in leagues and determine whether fantasy owners have the right idea.
Starting pitchers need to be treated like stocks. Perceived value is more important than inherent value. When a stock becomes overvalued compared with your valuation estimate, you sell it, even if the company is a good one. The same goes for pitchers. I’m a fan of Scott Kazmir, think he will remain a good pitcher and solid fantasy option and I continue to be in awe at his career revival. But, it’s time to sell. And that’s precisely what I did yesterday in my local 12-team mixed league.
**Keep in mind that I am typing this before his start last night.
Injuries and demotions are a deep league owner’s best friends, as long as they don’t occur to your players. But really, it’s one of the few ways to improve your roster since trading seems like an impossibility in such leagues. Both players in this week’s waiver wire are the beneficiaries of these two events.
