Author Archive: Paul Sporer

I often rail against fantasy managers who blame their poor season on one player. It’s never just one player, even if it’s your first round pick. I especially get annoyed when these jokers blame guys who most certainly did not kill their season even if one player could make that big of an impact. Adam Jones hasn’t performed like the 15th-best player this year. In fact, he hasn’t even been the 15th-best outfielder, but there is no way that he is why you’re mired in ninth place.

Jones is falling short of his 2014 production in all five key fantasy categories, but we’re talking 14 runs and RBIs, two home runs, four stolen bases, and 12 points of batting average in 23 fewer games (13 of which he can make up if he plays every one of the remaining games for Baltimore). Those deficits aren’t meaningless, but they aren’t season-ending, either, especially since you can’t just expect a player to repeat his previous year’s line. That said, some guys do fall well short of expectations and play a big role in the collapse of a fantasy team.

Often these are injury-related situations where the player simply doesn’t play enough to return even his cost let alone add in a profit. We’re not interested in those guys today. Every team gets hit with some injuries and that’s just part of sports and by extension, fantasy sports. We’re looking for the guys who have played a lot while delivering well under expectations.

Today we’re looking at guys drafted in the top 100 this spring who have been the biggest disappointments to fantasy managers this season. The player must have at least 450 PA which means injury can still be a factor, but that’s enough playing time to outrun or at least offset an injury. Adam Wainwright lasted 25 innings. Corey Dickerson has played 54 games. They have been disappointments, but it’s entirely injury-related. These four guys have been there virtually all year and just haven’t performed well enough to justify their spring cost:

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Episode 280

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris continue their discussion of 25-and-Under players to target for 2016 by jumping into starting pitchers. Of course we couldn’t finish all of them so we’ll do more on Thursday, but we do get into plenty including Noah Syndergaard, Julio Teheran, Michael Wacha, Carlos Rodon, Lance McCullers, and Luis Severino among others.

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Episode 279

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss a group of hitters who have failed to live up to expectation. These aren’t just injury guys, either. Some have dealt with injuries, but all have a substantial amount of playing time and just haven’t done what you’d expect. Names include: Yasmani Grandal, Albert Pujols, Ben Zobrist, Evan Longoria, and Carlos Gomez among others.

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Episode 278

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris offer up their favorite 25-and-under potential keepers around the diamond. These are guys are likely attainable in your leagues, so no Bryce Harper or Jose Fernandez as they are simply cost-prohibitive at their level. These are like Xander Bogaerts, Maikel Franco, Kyle Schwarber, and Kolten Wong among many others.

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Here’s one you haven’t heard before: the baseball season is long. (Who knew?) One potential downside of the six-month grind is that it’s hard to follow everything. My work is baseball – watching it, writing and talking about it – and I still can’t possibly follow everything that is going on in this great game. It’s impossible to miss the historical seasons that Zack Greinke and Bryce Harper are having. Even a breakout season like A.J. Pollock’s is rather prominent. What I find getting lost in the shuffle at times are strong second halves that follow a down or injury-riddled first half.

The underperformance or injury sets the tone for the perception of that player’s season and it can carry throughout the season even in the face of high-end performance refuting the initial look we got at that player. Here are three strong second-half performances that you might be missing:

Travis d’Arnaud [C, NYM]

A solid second half last year plus the rich prospect pedigree of this former first-rounder was enough to make him one of the more appealing C2 options this year sitting 13th among backstops by ADP according to FantasyPros. He came out of the gates firing with a .317/.356/.537 line including 2 HR and 10 RBI in his first 11 games before a fractured right finger sent him to the DL.

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Episode 277

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

IF YOU DOWNLOADED BEFORE 5:40 CENTRAL TIME ON 9/15, PLEASE RE-DOWNLOAD THE NEW, FULL VERSION.

THE PREVIOUS VERSION CUTS OFF AT 5-6 MINUTES. 

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss some possible options for late-season streaming to acquire HRs, SBs, and Ks. Names include Mark Canha, Khris Davis, Jonathan Schoop, Carl Crawford, Jean Segura, Raisel Iglesias, and Taylor Jungmann plus many more.

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Remember April?

How crazy was that month? It seems like ages ago at this point.

It was a month during which Chris Sale had a remarkably misleading 5.32 ERA. Sale was at 2.37 through the first three starts of the season’s opening month before the Twins rocked him for 8 ER in just 3 IP of work. That seemed especially preposterous at the time given the opposition, but now the Twins sit just a game out of the second wildcard spot and while it’s always jarring to see Sale rocked, the Twins being the ones who inflicted the damage isn’t as much of a shock as they’ve now done it multiple times to Sale.

There were also several guys pitching out of their minds in April and as we do in every April likely as a response to a winter without baseball, we got overly excited about some of the performances because they were all we had on the 2015 season. Sure, some guys post a mid-2.00s ERA in April and it’s a harbinger of a Cy Young-level season, but most are just having their best month – a month we wouldn’t notice if it had been June or August.

April gets us drunk on the potential of five more months at this new level. Today, we’re going to look back at five surprise pitching standouts from the month and see how things have gone since the fast start.

Nick Martinez, TEX

April: 0.35 ERA in 26 IP

Since: 5.08 ERA in 95.7 IP

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Episode 276

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette enjoy a Sunday freestyle, touring the day’s slate and discussing what interests them.

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Episode 275

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris try to identify some favorable and unfavorable schedules down the stretch for pitchers you may be streaming from reserve to starting lineup or directly from the waiver wire. Is it time to pick up some of the favorable? Maybe you have one of the unfavorables and it’s time to cut him. We discuss in detail.

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I hope you got your stolen bases in the draft this year. Like saves, stolen bases is often the category that a few teams will leave for in-season management. The ability for one player to make a substantial impact combined with the likely availability of new SB sources throughout the year allows you to allocate the draft day resources elsewhere and adjust via trades or the waiver wire. Sometimes 30-HR guys emerge out of nowhere like Lucas Duda and J.D. Martinez last year (and Martinez was actually just a 30-HR pace, hitting 23 in 123 games), but it’s very rare whereas the wire seems to deliver at least a couple of speed studs each year.

Not in 2015.

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