On Tuesday, I built a $14 offense using only $1 players from the NFBC average auction values in March. My player pool to choose from for that exercise was 78 players. But what about those that weren’t purchased at all? Surely they could have been had for a buck, too! That group is now my pool to choose from for this thrilling offense. There were a total of 110 players that I have a Pod Projection that weren’t rostered in a single NFBC auction in March. As a reminder, there were 25 auctions run since Mar 1, so this 14-player offense will be solely composed of hitters who failed to be bought in any of them.

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Yesterday, I built a $14 NFBC offense using their average auction values, limiting myself to an entire squad of $1 hitters. Today, let’s now build a $9 pitching staff. I only had 58 pitchers to choose from, but I can guarantee that you will be so jealous of the squad I assembled, you will wish you had done the same in your 15-team league.

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You know what’s fun? Drafting a fake team, selected using values from completed drafts. Several years ago, I debuted a series of posts using NFBC average auction values (AAV). Let’s start that up again as we’re just over a week away from opening day. I’ll start by building a $14 offense. That’s right, 14 hitters, all just a buck each. Isn’t that exciting?! I can only imagine the thrills that will be had choosing between players most fantasy owners have no desire to roster. But think of how amazing your $246 pitching staff would be!

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In this condensed spring training, it’s become tougher to use what we’ve seen so far to make projection adjustments. So really, the only thing I care at least a little bit about right now, besides playing time outlook, is a pitcher’s velocity. Specifically, I care more about increased velocity than I do decreased velocity. While a decline in velocity could signal that something is wrong, it’s more likely the pitcher is just gradually working his way up to his normal velocity and will be fine by opening day. On the other hand, you can’t fake increased velocity and there’s no reason for a pitcher to decide one outing to just go all out for the fun of it. I’m a sucker for velocity jumps, as it very oftentimes coincides with a major breakout. So let’s discuss three velocity surgers so far. Remember, the sample size of pitches thrown is really small, so it’s certainly possible that these averages will come down by the time opening day comes around.

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Yesterday, I discussed six 2021 fantasy breakouts and concluded with a verdict as to whether I believed each was for real or would be a 2022 bust. Today, let’s discuss the 2021 busts. Will they rebound or continue down the path of bustiness?

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It has seemingly been a couple of years since I have published this post, so let’s get back to analyzing some of last season’s biggest breakouts. Four years ago during Fantasy Baseball Week at The Hardball Times, I researched whether last season’s breakouts were solid investments the following year. Spoiler alert: they are actually terrible investments. Of course, that’s as a group. So while in aggregate last season’s breakouts are a bad investment the following year, not every breakout from the previous season is going to fall flat the next season. So let’s discuss some of the big breakouts from 2021 and decide which turn out to be poor investment busts and which end up holding onto their gains.

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For the 10th year, I had the honor of being part of the Tout Wars family of auctions and drafts this past Saturday morning. To ensure the safety and health of all members, we held our auction online for the third straight year. Here’s to hoping that we’re finally all back together in person in 2023! Last year, you might recall that I totally screwed up, making an error during a sudden bout of confusion because of the workaround we needed to create in the auction room to accommodate the “Swingman” role. Thankfully, I did not make such an error this time and I won’t have a stupid regret for the rest of the year!

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Welcome to the 2022 edition of the RotoGraphs Matchmaker Service! No, I cannot find you a date. However, we could hopefully facilitate the marriage of league owner with leagueless owner. If you are seeking an owner to fill your fantasy league or are the owner hoping to be seeked to join that unfilled league, this is your new home.

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The 2022 Pod Projections are now available and include over 550 player forecasts! As usual in my Pod Projection posts, I’ll dive into my projection methodology (detailed in Projecting X 2.0) by sharing my process on several hitters and pitchers.

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The 2022 Pod Projections are now available and include over 550 player forecasts! As usual in my Pod Projection posts, I’ll dive into my projection methodology (detailed in Projecting X 2.0) by sharing my process on several hitters and pitchers.

Read the rest of this entry »