Author Archive

The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 523 – LABR Pre-Draft Discussion

2/13/18

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

Paul and Jason talk through their strategy heading into the LABR Mixed Draft on February 13th. They pick 14th.

Read the rest of this entry »


The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 522 – Glasnow or Glaslater?

2/12/18

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

During the show, we discussed how their Twitter handle was ThePitcherList while the website was just Pitcherlist.com and literally after we recorded Nick found out that they finally got PitcherList for their Twitter handle so that’s pretty cool! But I wanted to say something in case folks were confused while listening.

Read the rest of this entry »


Paul Sporer Baseball Chat – February 9th, 2018

The transcript from Friday’s chat is below!

3:23

Paul Sporer: Let’s talk some baseball!  

3:24

Dusty: Thoughts on Twins prospect Wander Javier? Do you like his upside?

3:24

Paul Sporer: Oh hey, Dusty

3:24

John: As I’ve started immersing myself in fantasy baseball information, I’ve been surprised to see how low Matt Shoemaker is on everybody’s list. Is it simply the injury risk that has everyone down on him or more based on his talent? Also, would you keep him at $6 in an 11-team $260 AL-only league? Thanks!

3:27

Paul Sporer: It’s definitely the health piece. I think ranks are kinda punting on him until we see him in Spring. I had him 92nd, but I’ll quickly boost him up the list if we see him looking strong in ST

3:27

Lazzaro Da Fietta: What’s up with Wasserman and Puig? Does it usually take something significant for an agency to dump a client, especially a successful one approaching free agency in a couple of years?

Read the rest of this entry »


The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 521 – The Outfield Extravaganza!

2/8/18

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

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

Strategy Section: OF Tiers by ADP (28:40)

We didn’t have a set outline of who to discuss so we ended up just going over the top 80 or so OFs breaking them into groups by ADP.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed. Please rate & review the show in iTunes letting us know what you think!

Approximately 127 minutes of joyous analysis.


NFBC Pitching Sleepers

A couple weeks ago, I used our newly installed NFBC ADP data to pluck out some potential hitting breakouts via Steamer 600 projections. I have some pitchers for you today. Honestly, the pitcher iteration of this isn’t quite as juicy as the hitters. I think it’s because pitchers displaying strong skills are elevated into prominent roles sooner than hitters so there aren’t many guys with mid-3.00 or better ERA projections in a low innings totals. In fact, the projections of the guys I picked aren’t that great, but I’m willing to bet on them as I believe they can outperform the projection substantially. The first three are guys I’m actively targeting in my drafts while the latter three are bigger injury gambles meant for reserve rosters in mixed leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »


Early 1B Rankings with Commentary

With such a solid response to the commentary added to my starting pitcher ranks last week, I want to do the same for the other positions and today I’ve got my first base rankings ready to go. In addition to the commentary, I’ve also highlighted the tier breakdowns as I see them. I didn’t do this with the SPs, but my February update will include that. We are also going to be rolling out our composite rankings in the coming weeks with several Rotographs authors contributing so stay tuned for those. Each colored bar represents the start of a new tier.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. Who is your favorite mid-round target (starting with Santana) at the position?

Read the rest of this entry »


My Dream Legend Hitter List for MLB The Show 18

This is the first iteration of a new regular column here at Rotographs about baseball video games, focused primarily on MLB The Show and Out of the Park Baseball. I’m looking at every other week here to start and then weekly during the regular season. Why video games? Well, because frankly these two games are legitimate iterations of fantasy baseball.

It is different than a 5×5 rotisserie league, obviously, but it’s still constructing teams under a set of parameters in order to be the best. OOTP is a pure sim that allows an incredible level of depth into creating your organization from the ground up. More on that brilliant game in future pieces dedicated to it. MLB The Show is dropping the first trailer for the 2018 version on Monday so I thought it’d be a great time roll out the debut. By the way, I’m looking to name this column so if you have any ideas of what to name a baseball video game piece, drop it in the comments!

Read the rest of this entry »


Paul Sporer Baseball Chat – February 2nd, 2018

Check out the transcript below!

2:29

Paul Sporer: Let’s talk some baseball!!

2:32

James: What do you make of Jose Martinez? Should he get a chance to be an everyday starter?

2:37

Paul Sporer: He smashes the ball and he’s penciled in at 1B right now. I think he’ll get a chance to show how legit ’17 was. I know the Statcast podcast hyped him recently, too.

2:39

Dan: Did Eno make his announcement yet?

2:39

Paul Sporer: Who?

Read the rest of this entry »


The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 520 – Goodbye to Eno

1/31/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 18, 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 SLEEPER18!

Follow us on Twitter

Reminiscing with Eno (0:00)

Strategy Section: Top 100 SPs

Three Eno’s Higher On: (31:00)

  1. Steven Matz
  2. Miles Mikolas
  3. Blake Snell

Three Eno’s Lower On: (46:10)

  1. Madison Bumgarner/Zack Greinke
  2. Chris Archer
  3. Ervin Santana

Make sure you let the closing beat ride out………

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed. Please rate & review the show in iTunes letting us know what you think!

Approximately 61 minutes of joyous analysis.


2018 Top 100 Starting Pitchers – January

I’ve updated my starting pitcher rankings with commentary on the top 100. Beyond the top 100, I grouped guys into tiers. These are the same tiers I used in the Fantasy Black Book (available now!) and different guys within those tiers are definitely comparable to guys found in the Top 100, but it just becomes difficult to differentiate so the Top 100 really focused on the guys I’m drafting/targeting right now.

If you like somebody in one of the lists better than someone I have in the 80-100 range, that totally makes sense. It’s very fluid there, just as it is in the middle grouping of the pitchers ranks (from around 30-75), which I’ve termed The Glob™.  This ranking outlines how I’m attacking The Glob™.

Read the rest of this entry »