Author Archive: Vlad Sedler

There’s no such thing as a perfect fantasy draft. Even national contest winners in fields of 3,000 teams will have drafted several busts or players who haven’t earned their value. We can still win our leagues despite making tons of mistakes in our draft. In fact, there will be leagues won by teams that drafted two busts in the first two rounds — the 2026 top 24 has been historically bad. A drafter could have started with Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh, but could have a monster lead on second place if they drafted Dillon Dingler, Jordan Walker, Miguel Vargas, Jacob Misiorowski, Cam Schlittler, and FAAB’d Jacob Latz, Parker Messick, Liam Hicks, and Kody Clemens.

Last week, I discussed Raleigh and the biggest busts on every AL team. You’ll note that some of my selections were players with a 200+ ADP. I didn’t want to force early-round busts just for the sake of it, especially for teams whose highest-draft-capital players were within a reasonable range of returning their fantasy value. That will be the case again for the NL group. An example for this week is Trea Turner. Though he ranks 91st on the 12-team Fantasy Player Rater and is not returning full value on his ADP of 27, Turner has been healthy all season, earning nearly $12 to date. He has scored 90 runs with 17 HR and 18 SB, and I would not consider him to be a bust.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every Monday, this column will break down the most popular waiver wire and free agent acquisitions from the weekend. I dig into the top adds on the ever-popular Fantrax and in the NFBC Online Championship (OC), a national mid-stakes contest with 240 total leagues of 12 and a six-figure grand prize. Reviewing player adds between the two should provide us with a well-rounded perspective and barometer of the fantasy baseball marketplace.

Read the rest of this entry »

After the home run on Wednesday and this, perhaps Vladdy is getting his mojo back…

On the Agenda: 

1. Quick Hits
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitchers

Read the rest of this entry »

Brother Luis Luis Luis!

He sure does look good in orange.

On the Agenda: 

1. Quick Hits
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitchers

Read the rest of this entry »

There is no such thing as the perfect fantasy draft. Even national contest winners in fields of 3,000 teams will have drafted several busts or players who haven’t earned their value. We can still win our leagues despite making numerous mistakes in the draft. In fact, leagues will be won this year by teams who may have even drafted two busts in the first two rounds — the 2026 top 24 has been historically bad. A drafter could have started with Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh, but could have a monster lead on second place if they drafted Dillon Dingler, Jordan Walker, Miguel Vargas, Jacob Misiorowski, Cam Schlittler and FAAB’d Jacob Latz, Parker Messick, Liam Hicks and Kody Clemens.

Though in-season free-agent pickups will not always save us, take a look at my worst of four NFBC Online Championship (OC) drafts, a 12-team national contest:

Read the rest of this entry »

Every Monday, this column will break down the most popular waiver wire and free agent acquisitions from the weekend. I dig into the top adds on the ever-popular Fantrax and in the NFBC Online Championship (OC), a national mid-stakes contest with 240 total leagues of 12 and a six-figure grand prize. Reviewing player adds between the two should provide us with a well-rounded perspective and barometer of the fantasy baseball marketplace.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rumbling, bumbling, stumbling…Zac Veen tumbling

On the Agenda: 

1. Quick Hits
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitchers

Read the rest of this entry »

Well done, Mr. Schwarber

That’s 40 or more home runs in four of his last five seasons. Schwarber and Aaron Judge are tied with the most homers (227) since 2022.

On the Agenda: 

1. Quick Hits
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitchers

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the fourth and final installment of the Outliers series. In mid-April, I introduced the process of reviewing matchups and schedules in three-week windows to identify team offense outliers. The basic premise is that rest-of-season (ROS) analysis has high margins of error and that it is better to compartmentalize fantasy decision-making into shorter timeframes. At that time, the Chicago White Sox and New York Mets were highlighted as positive offensive outliers. Over the next 3.5 weeks, the White Sox scored the fourth-most runs and ranked top three in ISO and wRC+, while the Mets were a huge letdown. In mid-May, the featured offenses, based on matchups, were the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants. The Rangers’ schedule helped them to score the 12th most runs over those weeks. The Giants, who were the worst offense in the Majors at that time, took advantage of their incredible schedule and turned into the best offense in baseball over the next month: third in runs and first in ISO, SLG, and wRC+. In mid-June, I recommended targeting hitters from the Athletics and Colorado Rockies due to their advantageous “on-paper” schedule. From June 11 through July 5, the Rockies were the most productive offense in baseball, averaging a league-best 6.43 runs per game, with the highest ISO (.233), and the only offense with a .500+ slugging percentage. The Athletics were seventh in total runs (118) at a rate of 5.36 per game, despite being without Brent Rooker.

This final review of a 3.5-week window will take us through Sunday, September 20. Technically, we could extend this through the final week of the season, but it’s better not to, as teams will be shutting down players and playoff teams will be resting some of their players. First, let’s review how pitching staffs have performed over the last six weeks and highlight the potentially fruitful matchups which should lead us to our offensive outliers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every Monday, this column will break down the most popular waiver wire and free agent acquisitions from the weekend. I dig into the top adds on the ever-popular Fantrax and in the NFBC Online Championship (OC), a national mid-stakes contest with 240 total leagues of 12 and a six-figure grand prize. Reviewing player adds between the two should provide us with a well-rounded perspective and barometer of the fantasy baseball marketplace.

Read the rest of this entry »