Episode 207
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
NOTE: Jason and I will still cover OF next week, but we wanted to get into Tout Wars this week.
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss some Spring Training news:
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A few weeks back, I dropped some ice-cold water on some of the spring’s favorites just to give us a reality check about their downside. Interestingly enough, the guy I was struggling most to wet blanket is the one who is now dealing with an ailment: Anthony Rendon with his MCL. For me, his checkered health record was the only thing really holding him back as it could cut into his base-stealing production if it was something nagging and obviously something more severe could really take a chunk out of his numbers. Today, I’ll do the same from fast-rising pitchers and ideally, I’ll go beyond health concerns for all three picks as those loom overhead for every single pitcher every single time they throw the ball.
Episode 206
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss some Spring Training news:
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The Rotographs bold predictions are flying off the shelves! And I’m the only one arrogant enough to believe he needs two separate pieces for his. Yesterday I brought you my hitting picks and today come the pitchers. Unfortunately I’ve already lost one that I was really excited about, but I still have five for you:
Episode 205
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss some Spring Training injury news surrounding the AL East (which was purely coincidental that all four items were ALE-related).
*NOTE THERE IS SOME WEIRD ECHOING LATE IN THE EP, NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED THERE*
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It’s Bold Prediction Season here at Rotographs with Zach Sanders and Brad Johnson kicking it off this morning and many more on the way. Now it’s my turn at-bat. I’m obviously looking to strike a balance between realistic and bold. Calling for Stephen Strasburg to win the NL Cy Young isn’t really that bold even though he’s never come close and only has the one season north of 183 innings. He has been an elite-level arm pretty much since joining the league so it isn’t all that bold to essentially say “it all comes together this year”.
Meanwhile, putting Freddie Freeman down for 45 HRs fulfills the bold end of the ledger, but isn’t terribly realistic. First off, is he going to get 45 pitches to hit in that lineup? But more importantly, he hasn’t shown the skill or batted ball profile for that kind of power surge (essentially double his career-high of 23 set in 2012 and matched in 2013) so what’s really the point if it’s just bold for bold sake?
Episode 204
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss some Spring Training injury news surrounding Drew Smyly, Zack Wheeler, and Addison Reed and finish the news by discussing Kris Bryant’s soaring cost.
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Episode 203
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris do their first base preview!! First, they discuss Eno’s AL LABR team as he now battles with two pitching injuries and then they deep-dive into the deepest position on the diamond:
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My Tout Wars evening almost went a very different way on Tuesday night. We had 15 of us gathered for the Tout Wars Mixed Draft and I had the 11th overall pick. This is an OBP league which severely changes the value of some players, so keep that in mind when you’re looking at the draft board. We had to run the draft on RTSports through one of their mock drafts even though the league will be hosted on OnRoto in-season. This caused some issues right out of the gate and nearly set my night down a vastly different path.
On my end, the draft didn’t start at 7:00 PM central as scheduled. There were no sounders and nothing was moving. At about 7:04, it jumped live to the 14th pick and I had been auto’d with Adam Jones. He is an unquestionably great player, but I wouldn’t necessarily take him there in a standard league with AVG and I certainly wouldn’t take him there in an OBP league. He experiences one of the biggest value shifts going from AVG to OBP. He has hit a composite .284 over the last five seasons, ranging from .280 to .287, but an unspectacular 3.9% walk rate leaves him with just a .321 OBP in that same span (.334 high, .311 low). I was pretty livid.
I think the fantasy community at large has successfully rebelled against the word “sleeper” at this point. The major issue being that there isn’t really such a thing given the vast amounts of information freely available to any and all fantasy baseball participants. And yet, when someone says the word, you still have an idea of what they mean. Sure, some have greatly diluted the meaning of the idea by tabbing guys like Nolan Arenado (ADP of 58th overall) or Christian Yelich (84th) as sleepers.
