Author Archive

The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 805 – Out of Nowhere Breakouts – NL Edition

04/21/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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MAIN TOPIC

  • Atlanta
  • Miami
  • New York
  • Washington
  • Philadelphia

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The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 804 – Seasons that Should’ve Won an MVP or CY

04/21/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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MVP & CY-WORTHY SEASONS DRAFT

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Texas Red Bulls: Fighting for the 2023 Playoffs

In our last update, I reviewed the 2022 playoffs and discussed our World Series win! As we started the 2023 season, I identified starting pitching as the premium need and put up a poll of three starters for us to choose from: 2019 Jack Flaherty, 1987 Bret Saberhagen, and 2007 Ian Snell. I wasn’t terribly surprised by the fact that Flaherty steamrolled with 45% of the vote, but I made an executive decision to keep both him and the last place finisher of the poll, Snell. He only got 20% of the vote, but he was just so cheap at 650 Perfect Points that I felt he was worth holding.

WHERE WE STAND

As of this writing, it’s August 15th, 2023 and our Red Bulls are 65-54, sitting 4.5 games back of the Boston Kkroncs (not a typo) and holding the second Wild Card. It’s been an up and down season. We started 13-16 in April (with 2 games in March) and then ran up an 18-9 record in May, but we’re just 32-29 since with a .560 win percentage in June, .458 in July, and .643 thus far in August (9-5).

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The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 803 – Out of Nowhere Breakouts – AL Edition

04/16/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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MAIN TOPIC

  • American League Breakouts Out of Nowhere (drafted somewhere around 300 or later)
    • Baltimore (9:00)
    • Boston (15:25)
    • New York (20:00)
    • Tampa Bay (25:35)
    • Toronto (30:30)
    • Cleveland (38:20)
    • Chicago (41:37)
    • Detroit (43:43)
    • Kansas City (47:25)
    • Minnesota (52:52)
    • Houston (57:02)
    • Los Angeles (58:50)
    • Oakland (1:02:16)
    • Seattle (1:05:50)
    • Texas (1:10:54)

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Paul Sporer Baseball Chat – April 15th, 2020

The transcript is below, thanks for coming out!

1:30

Paul Sporer: Welcome to the chat. Thanks so much for coming out!

1:33

Nick: When drafting in a keeper where players are kept at various round values, do you just cross the keepers off your list and move the leftovers up? Or do you weight the positions based on who’s left and rank accordingly?

1:33

Paul Sporer: I usually just move the leftovers up and make assessments based on what I have and who’s available

1:37

Nick: Just rewatched game 1 of the ’88 WS, and if you simulated that season 100 times how many times to the Dodgers even make the playoffs, let alone win against Oakland??

1:40

Paul Sporer: That’s a really good question. So much of their excellence came out of the bullpen (5 guys with a sub-2.75 ERA) and RPs are the most volatile. You can actually simulate the 1988 season in OOTP and see how it goes!

1:40

Not Van Lee: How bad do you guys plan to lose to Launch Angle tomorrow?

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The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 802 – Cartoon Character Draft

04/14/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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CARTOON CHARACTER DRAFT

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Texas Red Bulls: 2022 Review and 2023 Outlook

Last time out, we were in mid-August with a remarkably nice 69-46. We finished 27-20, ending atop the division, but as the third-best division winner. Let’s take a look back at the 2022 playoffs and how we are looking as we enter 2023 (which actually started at 9 AM Central this morning, so we’ll be mid-April by the end of this).

PLAYOFFS

The playoffs were a griiiind!

In the division series, we played the 97-65 New Tecumseth Hammers, who also won their division by 5 games. The two teams traded punches, but we came away with a 3-2 series victory (I didn’t get to screenshot all the individual game results, so I apologize for the lack of depth in describing the series. I’ll know better for the future). Onto the LCS, we were set to face the Morrisville Mallards who won the wildcard game after posting a 92-70 record and then also found themselves in a 5-game division series where they edged out the 99-63 West Saint Paul Predators.

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Texas Red Bulls: A Nice Win Total in Early-August

Earlier this week I introduced the Texas Red Bulls. I’m building and managing the team via OOTP’s Perfect Team mode. After an ugly 10-16 start in April, we’re 59-30!! I swear I didn’t just wait until I had 69 wins to write this update! It’s remarkably nice that it turned out that way, but it wasn’t intentional.

AN OVERVIEW

The team is 69-46 as of August 10th, in first place with a 3.5 game lead. We have a +114 run differential which is actually the 2nd-best in the league despite having the 3rd-best record. There’s a team at 76-38 with a +191 and another at 74-41 with a +109 mark (they are 6 games over their Pythag. record). The latest Power Rankings came out two game days earlier and we are third:

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The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 801 – Dontcha Just Hate Casual Weather?

04/09/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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THINGS WE HATE ABOUT SPORTS DRAFT

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Paul Sporer’s Baseball Chat – April 8th, 2020

Chat transcript is below!

1:30

Paul Sporer: Welcome to my weekly chat!! Thanks for coming out!

1:32

Ben: who are your favorite lower tier closers to target for cheap?

1:34

Paul Sporer: Doolittle/Hudson (I like to take both), Kela, and Jimenez are my favorites on the cheaper end

1:34

Chuck Norris: I think we’re going to be OK. I heard Matt Wieters got coronavirus. . . .and now the virus is in 14 day quarantine.

1:34

Paul Sporer: Aww Matt Wieters facts were so fun back when he was supposed to be amazing

1:34

SBDaGOODness: Votto blamed his subpar 2019 on mechanics and process, trying to emulate his 2017

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