Author Archive: Paul Sporer

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

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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!

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• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer/Host
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Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles

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

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Transcript is live!

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6/7/18

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
• @RotoGut – Guest Vlad Sedler

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Even as the samples grow larger, pitchers are always changing making it the most volatile market in the fantasy game. This volatility is exacerbated by the tightening talent pool, no doubt due in part due to the ability of teams and players to analyze all aspects of pitching and continually tweak a pitch here or alter mechanics there to unlock a pitcher’s full potential. Following pitchers closely and staying up on those changes is part of the fun of this game.

There is also just the natural ebbs and flows of a season.

Over the course of 30 starts, a guy will have his A+ stuff for 10 starts and then be lucky to have even a single reliable pitch in 10 others leaving those middle 10 to decide their fate. Even the best get knocked around a couple times per year, don’t freak out. Meanwhile, fourth-fifth starters usually end up with 12-15 good starts over the course of a season, even if it’s a 4.75 ERA kind of season, so be careful diving headfirst if it’s the same profile posting outlier numbers. I’ve got 119 guys ranked for June and then the injured guys on their own.

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We’ve entered an era where we can no longer just completely ignore Rockies starting pitchers. OK, if you’re in a 10-team league, you needn’t give them a ton of attention, but anything beyond that probably has at least a couple of their guys rostered as spot starters. Perhaps most surprising is the fact that their perceived best has been their outright worst with Jon Gray posting a 5.68 ERA and 1.48 WHIP in 65 innings, though his base skills are also the best of the bunch with a 20% K-BB rate (he’s best among their SPs in both components, too). Yet the less-heralded Kyle Freeland has performed much better across the board (3.48 ERA, 1.23 WHIP) and remains much more available across the main fantasy outlets.

Should we chase Gray’s gaudy skills or settle for the staid workhorse-like profile of Freeland?

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Watch the early innings of a Michael Fulmer start and you’ll see a damn fine 25-year old power arm evolving into one of the game’s quality workhorses. Keep watching, though, and you’ll find him unrecognizable by the sixth inning. Fulmer has consistently melted down in the latter innings of his starts, yielding a ghastly 4.73 ERA and 1.37 WHIP in 66.7 innings. Fulmer actually posted a 2.76 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in April with a lot of the damage coming in his lone blowup outing at Cleveland (3 IP, 9 R… 6 of them earned), but has allowed fewer than three runs just twice in his last seven. The sixth inning has become a clear point of demarcation between Good Fulmer and Bad Fulmer.

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6/4/18

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

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

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The Main Event:

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