Now that the regular season has ended, it’s time to review alllllll my pre-season calls. I’ll start with the granddaddy of posts, one that all RotoGraphs writers partake in — bold predictions. I won’t fully rehash my prediction explanations here, so refresh your memory from my original post. As usual, the hope is to get three of the 10 correct. Let’s see how I did.
For my final post of the 2019 regular season, I leave you with another set of stackable recommendations.
Let’s once again discuss the stackable hitter types to consider against today’s starting pitchers.
For those in daily transaction leagues, streaming hitters is a viable strategy, especially if you’re in a shallow league and have many reasonable options sitting in free agency. Today, I’ll be discussing the pitchers to stream against and why. However, I’m not going to identify specific hitters because I don’t know who’s available in your league. You could use the information I share to search the type of players and determine what, if any, transactions to make.
Every season, there are a couple of hitters who go bonkers over a small sample size over the second half of the season. Because the season ended, there was no opportunity for the hitter to experience any sort of regression, and so we’re left with their bonkers performance to think about all off-season long. What could a full season the following year bring?! While there have been several players who fit this mold this season, Kyle Lewis is the most recent example.
Over the last week and a half, it could pay to stream power, picking up available hitters based on the ballpark they will be hitting in. One homer could be the difference between a yoo-hoo shower and requiring another box of tissues. Yankee Stadium (Yankees), Coors Field (Rockies), and Globe Life Park (Rangers) are three of the friendliest parks for hitting and all inflate home runs. So let’s discuss some lightly owned hitters that should be available to stream when they play in those parks.
After the shocking news broke of Felipe Vazquez’s arrest, Pirates saves will be earned by someone else in the bullpen over the final week and a half of the season. Fantasy owners don’t even have to play in deep leagues to speculate here, but luckily, all the candidates are lightly owned.
Yesterday, I discussed the idea of picking up current dominant relievers in your keeper league who could potentially close next year. Cheap closers are gold in mono leagues, especially if they could hold onto the role all season. Now we’ll flip to the guys who could join the starting rotation next season, but aren’t currently. These are all young pitchers who have posted at least a 25% strikeout rate. The idea here is if you’re in a keeper league, you could pick up these pitchers, some of which have little current season value, for cheap and potentially end up with a starting pitcher heading into the season with solid upside.
If you’re in a keeper league who could potentially keep players picked up through the end of the season, or just enjoy discovering the newest crop of relievers with eye-popping strikeout rates, let’s discuss some possible future closers. I’m basically filtering for non-closer relievers with elite strikeout rates and not-terrible walk rates, suggesting they could become dominant closers in the future, or at the very least, earn some positive value in deeper mixed or mono leagues from their strikeouts and strong ratios alone.
Since pitcher skills seemingly change more frequently than hitters, it’s more beneficial to analyze them over smaller sample sizes than it is for hitters. Normally, I wouldn’t care much for a hitters skills over just 30 days, but for pitchers, there’s a better chance it represents a change in true talent level. So let’s discuss some of the more interesting names appearing on the first page of the strikeout rate leaderboard over the last 30 days. Obviously, this isn’t going to be all that actionable for this season, but it could help shape projections and player values in 2020.
