Author Archive: Paul Sporer

This is a tough time of the year for fantasy baseball analysts. We’re not even at the end of week two meaning that in most cases the sample sizes are still too small to really be useful. The downside of this is that the fantasy analysis can become lazy as we wait for more data. Too often you see the vague, unhelpful “sell high” tag attached to any mid-rounder who is off to a high start or “buy low” on the star who has two rotten starts on his ledger thus far. But what does that even really mean? It’s so easy to say and so hard to actually execute.

Nobody who spent a top 20 pick on Stephen Strasburg (6.75 ERA in 10.7 IP) is going to move him for Nick Martinez (0.00 ERA in 14 IP). In fact, they probably aren’t going to move him at all (nor should they). You know what’s easy? Me telling you to go sell high on Chris Heston. But it’s also generic and frankly, shitty advice because it offers no insight into what selling high might be, especially because I know full well that unless Teresa Heston (that Chris’ mom, I looked it up) is in your league, you can’t really cash him in for some great return. The rest of your league is just as skeptical about his dubious 0.69 ERA as you are right now.

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Last week I shared my Hitting Portfolio, detailing the hitters I have across my 16 leagues by position. I was going to do the entire portfolio initially, but the hitters ran pretty deep so I decided to split the pitching off as a separate post. Let’s begin with starting pitchers. I have at least 73 starters on one club, 33 of which appear just once. The sheer quantity is inflated by being a part of two draft-and-hold 50 round NFBC leagues. We are digging deep by the end of those so there are some guys who wouldn’t be rostered in a lot of other league formats. But let’s start at the top with the guys I have the most.

I ended up with three pitchers on at least six rosters. All are from the American League which isn’t too surprising since ALers are eligible for 15 of my 16 rosters (while NLers could only hit 12 of the 16) and I’m sure the names won’t come as much of a surprise if you‘ve listened to the podcast or read the SP Guide. So here they are:

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Episode 217

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the injury news surrounding Alex Rios, Rusney Castillo, Ivan Nova, and Drew Smyly. They finish the news discussing the Colorado pen before jumping to their main topic: notable starters. The guys discuss five pitchers of note, including three featured in Eno’s recent piece on Rotographs. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 216

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss the rash of injuries on Sunday and then talk about some of their Week 1 observations and decide if there is enough to change their tune on some guys.

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I play in a lot of fantasy baseball leagues. Like, a lot. I absolutely love the game, can’t resist a challenge, and have a tough time saying no when invited. All of that adds up to a 16-league portfolio when the dust settles. I’m sure some of you are thinking, “well doesn’t every result help and hurt you at this point?” Not quite. Part of that is because I’m a bulk drafter when it comes to “my guys”. There are certain players on both sides of the ball that I really focus on year-to-year and I end up trying to roster them as often as possible provided the format and pricetag are in line to do so.

I obviously can’t just copy the first team across the remaining 15, though, so I do have a shit-ton of different players. In fact, I have 244 different players at least once. A major part of this is because I’m in two NFBC 50-round draft-and-holds and I’ve got a lot of players on both of those teams that don’t show up anywhere else because of how deep we go in that league. As my league count ballooned, I began keeping track of who I have year-to-year to see how my investments shook out against what I believed coming into the season. We’re going to take a look at my portfolio today from the hitter side of things to see how it all turned out.

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Episode 215

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the news, talk about some of the afternoon’s games, and then play a little game called Stash or Trash recording some largely available players off to solid starts.

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We’re two days into the season and we’ve yet to have a day where every team plays so needless to say that waiver wire recommendations aren’t exactly overflowing right now. On the one hand, I generally like to practice patience early on when it comes to the waiver wire. After all, I drafted these players for a reason so I’d like to give them some time. On the other hand, April is a great time to pick up waiver wire guys because if they click, you’re getting virtually a full season of work.

I think too often people get caught up in “waiting for someone better” with their FAAB or waiver priority. If an available player fulfills a need or can improve your team, then invest. Always expecting something better to come down the pike is dangerous. A lot of people have turned their nose up at Jason Grilli, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up as one of the best closers available all year. We don’t know who might be this year’s J.D. Martinez, but I’ve got a handful of hitters to consider early on.

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Hey y’all, I know some of you are seeing the dual-pods in the RG Audio Feed. Here is some info on that. Don’t panic!

Episode 214

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the injury news with Ryan Braun, John Jaso, Jenrry Mejia, and Alex Cobb.

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With rosters set we now know the 25 men populating each National League club and that means we have a firm handle on how each rotation is set up. Throughout spring, there were several battles in the backend of rotations that are now sorted so let’s take a look at some of the fourth and fifth starters who might be ready to deliver more than their rotation spot would suggest.

Backend rotation starters aren’t usually loaded with all-format, all-situation starters, but we know that some will emerge as such. With these three, I think we have no worse than some stream options, but each also carry the upside of becoming full use guys. Well, full use outside of the normal spots where you’d consider sitting any non-ace (i.e. Coors).

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