Rain is stupid. OK, not all the time, but it was remarkably stupid last night as it shortened the debut of Chicago White Sox uber-pitching prospect Michael Kopech. The 22-year old flamethrower didn’t return after a rain delay just before the third inning started, but we did get to see 52 pitches as he labored a bit through his two innings. He allowed three hits, but stranded all of them and didn’t walk anybody while tallying four strikeouts.

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It’s crunch time, folks! After the remainder of this week, we have just five left so I put together a quick chart of how many games each team has left. There aren’t massive edges to be gained in the aggregate as it’s just a four game split between the most (Cubs) and fewest (Padres) left, not to mention that the team with the fewest isn’t even that fantasy relevant, but whether H2H or Roto, every little advantage can be useful at this point in the season.

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The term “consistency” is thrown around a lot in fantasy sports, though it lacks a set definition and is often just a nebulous idea rife with recency bias. A few memorable meltdowns? Horribly inconsistent and can’t be trusted! Can’t recall any truly awful starts? So consistent! My impetus for diving into this was a self-check on someone I’ve deemed rather inconsistent this year, Nick Pivetta. Was I just remembering the week-ruining disasters he dropped on my H2H team or is he truly a volatile arm?

I’m looking at starts with a Game Score of 40 or lower as the threshold for inconsistency. The baseline is 50 and there is no way to truly salvage a 40 GS outing. Jon Gray had one with 10 Ks, which is the closest thing to a salvaged 40, but the 6 earned runs and 11 base runners in five and a third all but canceled out the whiffs.

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8/20/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer/Co-Host
• @jasoncollette – Co-Host
• @pitcherlist – Co-Host

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Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles

• Shohei Ohtani throws a bullpen (4:00)

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8/19/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

Yes, 589 was the last pod posted, but 590 is the Justin & Jason pod that will go live Monday AM! 

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• @sporer – Co-Host
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8/17/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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This week’s transcript is now available!

2:16	Paul Sporer: Hello everyone! Thanks for coming out! Lemme throw my DraftKings (not sponsored) league for tonight out there in case anyone wants to join –   Paul Sporer @sporer   Running a 35-person $5 DraftKings game for tomorrow if you’re interested! draftkings.com/draft/contest/… 17 Aug 2018

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8/16/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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• @sporer – Host/Producer

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Steals have become more and more rare these days. The upshot of that is you don’t need as many on your fantasy team to compete, but you still need some! This year isn’t that much different than last as far as SBs, but the top end is down a bit. This time last year, we had three guys with at least 35 SBs (Billy Hamilton 53, Dee Gordon 43, and Trea Turner 35) and this year Turner leads at 32. Last year there were 15 guys with 20+ and 57 at 10+. This year, we have 15 and 52, respectively.

Here are eight superfast guys who could give you a steals boost down the stretch:

Adam Engel OF, Chicago White Sox

Engel’s 30.0 ft/second sprint speed is tied for the third highest in the league behind only Byron Buxton (30.5) and Billy Hamilton (30.1). His stunning defense is earning him some extra playing time with starts in six of the last seven games. While the bat isn’t great (64 wRC+), he has still managed 12 SBs in 330 PA.

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It’s been about a month since the All-Star break and we’ve seen a host of interesting arms put up excellent ERAs. Some of them are just studs being studs (Max Scherzer 1.32, Carlos Carrasco 1.56, Rich Hill 1.78, Aaron Nola 2.16, Trevor Bauer 2.21, and Clayton Kershaw 2.23), but others have come from unexpected sources so let’s look under the hood of those guys to see what’s up.

(listed in ascending order of ERA)

Trevor Williams, PIT | 0.75 ERA, 1.21 WHIP in 24 IP

Williams has the best qualified ERA over the last 30 days (Chris Sale has a 0.00 ERA in that time, but only 17 IP), but there’s nothing supporting it. His insane 98% LOB rate is doing virtually all of the heavy lifting. Obviously, any sustained period of sub-1.00 ERA performance is going to have some outlier metrics involved and it’s usually going to involve a mix of peak skills and good luck, but it ranges from average to truly bleak outside of the LOB rate.

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