Putting yourself out there is never easy. To be vulnerable is to be courageous. You are making a bet on your own instincts, your own research, and on your own ability to avoid getting hurt. 

But during the heat of courtship, harsh words may slip out. Your true intentions may be less than pure. Or, more likely as a Rotographs reader, your trade partner is the one who is not pure of heart. They may even be, dare I say, cheating on you. Going behind your back and offering up the goods to any manager with more to give. 

Such is the game we play. 

Heartbreak. Joy. A ring. Regret. There’s no certain outcome at the end of this tug of war we call the love of the game. 

With fall “cuffing” season quickly approaching, those of us who did come together and make trades in the summer are now starting to see if we made the right move. Or if it is all starting to come crashing down. 

For overthinkers, this is a particularly hard time of year.

And in a game full of overthinkers, I find myself right at home. 

This season, I parted ways with Seiya Suzuki at my home league trade deadline, consummating the deal at 11:57pm on deadline night. 

My heart raced with the thrill of the deal. But then, clarity crept in. Without the excitement of the chase, I began to realize exactly what I’d done. 

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This article is going to be most interesting to managers in head-to-head leagues. Adding streaky players that look ready to explode is still valuable for season-long roto and points league managers. But in those weekly matchup leagues, where there are only a handful of weeks left before the playoffs, it really starts to matter.

In this article, I will show you some of this season’s streakiest players, using rolling wOBA and HR totals over six game periods. 

The method to my madness was a bit of a back of the napkin calculation, and one I want to refine this offseason to truly identify streaky players over longer samples than three-quarters of a season. 

But for now, I have rolling wOBA and HR totals over six game periods for hitters with at least 100 plate appearances this season, which amounted to more than 30,000 such periods. I then took the average rolling wOBA and HR totals for each qualifying hitter and the five best rolling periods, before taking the difference between the peak and average for each.

I’ll show you those tables below, before narrowing in on some of the players off of these lists, and who show up a bit further down, who could make for interesting hot streak adds for the home stretch. 

Because at least some of us rostered Brandon Belt in 2018. And those of us who did certainly remember his explosive end of the season. Nine homers in August, nine more in September. 

So, who could be season’s Baby Giraffe?

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It’s Week 19 of the fantasy baseball season. It’s a sprint now. In redraft leagues, whether it’s a head-to-head or season long format, you want pitchers who are going to pitch, and pitch deep into games. 

At the same time, plenty of teams across the majors are winding down their seasons. If a team sold their stars and spare parts, they probably won’t be letting their young arms go deep into starts anymore. And if a team bought, especially if they bought a rental, expect that player to be used. 

In this article, I’m going to look at starting pitchers on teams that are in competitive playoff races that I think are either worth trading for or worth adding, focusing on some recently moved arms and other players who could potentially be available in your league.  Read the rest of this entry »

With the end of the season in sight, it’s time to kick season-long strategies out of the driver’s seat. Slow and steady may win the race if you’re a tortoise, but in fantasy baseball, it’s either sprint or switch over to football. And who even likes football?

When I say sprint, I mean sprint while throwing any and all things that could weigh you down over your shoulder. Especially in 12-teamers and shallow leagues, this needs to be the mindset. Small sample size holding you back? There’s only a small sample size left! Things are going to be random. It’s getting wiggy. 

Hitters have so many days to frustrate you. Owning Gunnar Henderson this season has been like wading into a pool with a freshly made pizza. Like sure, there’s moments you may enjoy, like the pepperoni-and-pineapple sweet 3-5 game with a bomb. But then your hands get wet, you can barely stand, let alone eat your pizza, and Gunnar is in the midst of a 3-43 stretch. Without a steal. 

You get the picture. 

But today, I’m going to focus on starting pitchers. Relievers are more volatile, and if you’re chasing saves in Roto, best of luck and look to Hogan Harris, I guess? But starting pitchers are truly the kings of the small sample size, especially when the calendar inevitably flips to August. 

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If you were excited by offseason rumors of Isaac Paredes to Boston, or about the Red Sox adding Willson Contreras and Caleb Durbin to their right-handed hitter ranks, you should feel good about Curtis Mead. And if you’re anyone else, you’re probably thinking that the Nationals’ new GM Paul Toboni made like a seasoned fantasy manager and sold high on a few months of Mead for five years of team control of Connelly Early, a promising young left-handed starting pitcher.

But it looks like Mead has made some really intriguing changes that give us reason to believe in his growth as a hitter and Fenway might be an ideal new home for him.

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A little over a month ago, I wrote up a handful of hitters that were underperforming their draft cost, were readily available to pick up in most 12-teamers, and why they were primed to break through. 

Looking at underlying numbers from this season and comparing them to last season for struggling players can help identify when a player may be on the cusp of coming on strong after a weak stretch. 

Kyle Stowers was one such player. Coming back from injury, Stowers scuffled through mid-June, with an OPS below .700 and a K% near 30%. But from June 12 on, when I published the piece, he has slashed .261/.341/.521 with seven homers and 23 RBI. He had been squaring up the ball in the weeks leading up to this breakthrough. But without the results. 

Of course, the same process told me to consider Alec Bohm, who is himself rocking on OPS below .700 since I shouted out his hot run at the end of May and into June. I’m no wizard.

But late in the year, hot stretches are incredibly valuable. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that, but it bears repeating. Whether it be in head-to-head leagues, where a hot stretch in the late summer can lift you over opponents, or in season long roto leagues where you find yourself lagging in homers, the hot stretch is like a hot pastrami. Undeniably savory. Perfect. 

Now let’s look at some hitters, focusing on a selection of players rostered at different rates between CBS and Yahoo. Consider these hitters, particularly those in the top tier, options to replace struggling veterans like those that Mike Podhorzer wrote up a few days back. And if you are in a shallower league where these hitters are rostered, consider the art of the deal!

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Buying low and selling high. That’s the classic value proposition we all shoot for in trades. We’re trying to win after all!

It’s hard to win if you aren’t extracting value from your opponents, or at least adding value to your own team via the wire. 

And at this point in the year, with less than 40% of the fantasy baseball season remaining, it’s time to get serious. It’s time to really consider what holding onto struggling stars means for your playoff chances. It’s time for top seeds to load up on upside and injured players that the bubble teams can no longer afford to hold onto. It’s time to sell the young aces that got you here, for shelf stable veterans, or at least for pitchers we trust to pitch into September. 

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Bill Buckner and Steve Bartman know better than most that baseball is a haunted sport. Downright spooky even. Curses range from the Bambino to the Billy Goat to Seattle-area Etsy witches, baseball fans subscribe to and are victims of decades long vexing hexes.

And by baseball standards, the Home Run Derby Curse is akin to the curse of being on the cover of MLB the Show. FanGraphs writers have taken hacks at diminishing this curse over the years, but the popular consciousness still loves to tout it. Their theory is fairly straight forward, relying on the idea that derby participants change their swing to try and win the derby, and can’t find their game swing again in the second half, leading to a slump.

In this article, I’ll seek to answer two questions:

In recent years, has there been a fall off between halves for derby participants?

And is there a way to try and predict who will fall off to help us humble fantasy managers sell high?

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In fantasy baseball, it’s sometimes safest to avoid platoon hitters. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyways. And in many cases, that’s the right advice. 

During drafts, hitters tagged with platoon risk, like Jarren Duran and Oneil Cruz, are often best avoided, as their upside is severely capped. In shallower leagues, when chasing upside and  racking up counting stats is particularly important, they should be especially eschewed. 

But there are formats and circumstances when platoon bats are worthwhile.

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Last week, a trade was accepted in my home league. It nearly split the league in two. 

Jack’s Cool League, the JCL as it’s lovingly known amongst friends, is a home league that is going on 14 years of competition amongst 10 teams, conducted in the endlessly entertaining and frustrating head-to-head categories format. 

As you may have guessed by the name, I’ve been commissioner of the league since its inception. Various rule changes have reshaped strategy over the years. 

We added quality starts. Then OPS. We expanded the default Yahoo lineups to add additional IL slots and NA slots. We increased the active roster size to 25, and then to 26, to keep pace with our colleagues in the majors. We instituted a minimum weekly innings threshold. And moved up the playoffs to end the season before major league teams start resting their stars. And this year, we rebalanced the number of utility and bench slots to try and make streaming starting pitchers more of a calculation. 

The only other change has been moving from the Commissioner having discretion to veto egregious trades to having each team having a chance to cast a vote to veto within a two-day trade review period. 

It is extremely rare for a trade to be vetoed in our league, as I believe it should be, but it has happened. Teams will use their voting power and rally other managers to vote if they feel one team is benefitting so much that it dramatically shifts the balance of the league.  Read the rest of this entry »