During the All-Star break, I polled you fine readers about starting pitchers and your expectations in the second half. Specifically, the poll pitted the 10 greatest SIERA overperformers against the 10 most significant underperformers. I asked you which group would post a lower second half ERA and which range each group’s ERA would fall into. Let’s now review what happened.
Often times, a lesser known hitter makes a name for himself during the postseason over small sample heroics and is then subsequently hyped to oblivion the following season. As you might guess, these hitters sometimes end up overvalued and disappoint their new owners. Remember Randy Arozarena back in 2020?! In 86 PAs, he posted an absurd .515 wOBA, driven by a 52.6% HR/FB rate (not a typo) and .455 ISO, resulting in 10 home runs. He certainly did enjoy a very solid fantasy season in 2021, going exactly 20/20, but was that even enough to breakeven for his owners? I guess that depended on your leaguemates, but I would imagine there were many leagues where his cost became comical.
Aside from rooting for my own teams to finish in a prize spot at the end of season, I also find myself doing a different kind of rooting. That is, I love to see players continue their offensive surges and crashes that could potentially lead to overvaluation or undervaluation in next year’s drafts and auctions. If a hitter has enjoyed a surprising surge, let that continue to ensure my leaguemates will pay through the nose for him! Likewise, if a hitter has suffered a surprising crash, the hope is there’s no turnaround before the season ends as I love to scoop up players coming off down years, as they are typically undervalued.
Are you fighting for a prize finish and have a hole or two on offense you’re dying to plug in the final week? These seven hitters have recently earned regular playing time and could be worth speculating on, particularly in deep leagues.
Yesterday, in an attempt to benefit from every possible advantage as the regular seasons comes to a close, I reviewed a slew of hitters whose teams will be playing in the top home run parks in baseball this week. Let’s now look toward next week so you have some time to plan your roster. Park factors are this year only.
With just two more weeks of regular season action, it’s worth doing the research to benefit from every possible advantage. So today, I’ll focus on hitters playing in the top home run parks in baseball this week. Taking advantage of park factors on a weekly basis always makes sense. However, I typically limit my research to Coors Field, as that’s consistently the most favorable hitting environment in baseball, or at least close to it when it fails to top the leaderboard. As usual, I’ll limit the names to those that are lesser owned (less than 50% owned in CBS leagues).
The year may have changed, but Coors Field remains the premier hitting venue in baseball. I have to go back to 2021 to find the first season it wasn’t the most offense-friendly park in baseball, and even that year it trailed by only two Park Factor points. With only a couple of weeks left in the regular season, taking advantage of scheduling could provide that boost that either gets you into a prize finish or keeps you there. So it’s worth knowing that next week, the Rockies play a six game homestand, which means it’s time to load up on players scheduled to play there!
Gosh, it’s already difficult enough keeping up with playing time changes earlier in the season. It’s even more challenging now with expanded rosters and teams with no shot at the playoffs giving younger hitters a chance, or perhaps more evenly dividing the playing time among multiple players. Unlike any of my teams, many of you are likely fighting for a prize finish, so keeping abreast of all the changes is vital to finishing strong. So let’s discuss four more hitters who are now seeing regular playing time.
The calendar has finally flipped to September 1, which means that teams can now expand their active roster from 26 to 28 players. It’s a fun time for fantasy owners as oodles of new players are recalled, some of whom could make significant impacts over the final month of the season. Let’s review some of those callups, along with some additional names recalled a bit earlier than yesterday.
Not every callup is a top prospect, of course, like some of the names in yesterday’s post. That, however, doesn’t mean that lesser prospects can be ignored. So let’s review another six recently recalled hitters to determine how excited we should be.
