Matt Boyd was terrible last year. In fact, let’s just be really honest and acknowledge that he was pretty bad through the first 290 innings of his career with a 5.47 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, and 11% K-BB rate. His best effort through three seasons was a 4.53 ERA and 1.30 WHIP back in 2016. While never a Top 100 guy, Boyd was a prospect of some acclaim and expectations had him becoming a capable backend starter.

He’s starting to meet those expectations with a 3.23 ERA and 1.09 WHIP in 75 innings so far this season. His success has perplexed analysts and fantasy players alike as no one can seem to make sense of how he’s throwing the best baseball of his career despite virtually no change to his base skills. I decided to dive in and see what’s going on.

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Remember Eno Sarris? Yeah, me neither. But I used to co-host the podcast with a guy who liked to talk about infield flyballs or pop-ups and their value for a pitcher. In essence, they are automatic outs. They almost never turn into hits and the rare times they yield a base runner is usually because of an error. Pop-ups are gold for pitchers. After years of thinking that pitchers had zero control once the ball left their hands, we now acknowledge the value of contact management for pitchers. Their arsenal and approach can improve their ability to induce poor, playable contact either on the ground or in the air.

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6/17/18

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

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6/15/18

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

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6/14/18

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

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Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles

• Miguel Cabrera out for the year (4:00)
• Juan Soto just keeps raking (11:15)

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Finding hitters on the wire is always challenging. We know scooping someone with a .500 AVG and a bundle of homers over a 2-3 week sample will come back to earth, but how much? Is it their one hot streak for the year or something more viable? I’ve got three surging bats to look at here. One is just north of 50% because I really wanted to talk about him. Deep leaguers will likely only be able to acquire these guys via trade, but we can dive into the backend of the player pool another time.

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Paul in Justin on a Tuesday… transcript below!

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With a few jobs recently influx (HOU, PHI, STL, TB, NYM, and now BAL w/Zach Britton returning), I figured I’d take a look at where the saves have come from so far. Remember when Kenley Jansen was scary? After allowing six runs through his first seven outings, he has allowed five (three earned) in 23 innings since with 24 strikeouts. Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, and Aroldis Chapman have completely held up their end of the bargain as early closers, but things really branch out from there. Using the NFBC average draft position data (15-team, 30-round drafts), here’s a look at the breakdown:
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6/11/18

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
• @pitcherlist – Co-Host/Producer

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

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6/10/18

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!

Follow us on Twitter

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

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles

• Every pitcher to the DL/hurt (Thor, Ohtani, Strasburg, Tanaka)
• Michael Soroka to start Wednesday

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