This week’s player list is full of bad hitters who are losing playing time or relievers owners threw darts at hoping for Saves. Most of the drops are in some way related to the trade deadline.

For this analysis, I use the NFBC Main Event because of the number of identical leagues. Additionally, the managers stay engaged longer since each spent over $1000 per team. I tried to find that sweet spot between obvious and bizarre and will focus on players dropped in six to nine leagues.
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It feels like a normal mid-season week. Hitters are starting to fall into set production levels. Starters with talent changes are rostered. And teams are trying to determine their most reliable relievers. It doesn’t seem like anyone is available to blow the budget on. Instead, just pick and choose those players to help win this week.

As usual, I’m going to at least cover the players in demand using CBS’s (40% or less initial roster rate) and Yahoo’s ADD/DROP rates. Both hosting sites have the option for daily and weekly waiver wire adds. CBS uses a weekly change while Yahoo looks at the last 24 hours. Yahoo is a great snapshot of right now while CBS ensures hot targets from early in the week aren’t missed. The players are ordered by my preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters.
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Here is a quick look at some of the post-deadline trade lineups. Fantasy managers will need to dive in again on Sunday to see if any additional trends develop.

American League

Angels

• With David Fletcher on the IL and Tommy La Stella traded away, Andrelton Simmons is now leading off.
• With Brian Goodwin traded away, Justin Upton (.542 OPS) is now batting cleanup.
• In his first start, Franklin Barreto (career .560 OPS) is batting sixth.
• Anthony Bemboom (.192/.364/.346) is now the everyday catcher.

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American League

Rangers

• Even before Todd Frazier was traded away, the Rangers were looking at getting Ronald Guzmán more playing time.

Guzmán has been trying for three seasons to seize the Rangers’ first-base job and it has been an elusive pursuit. He was back in the lineup on Sunday after a three-hit game, including a home run, on Saturday night. The Rangers appear to be leaning toward taking another look at Guzmán, which could squeeze Frazier’s playing time.

Guzman has started three straight games and has a 1.367 OPS on the season. For those owners with struggling first basemen (e.g. Votto), he’s worth a gamble.
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I had to stop adding players and start setting my own bids, so this list will likely be incomplete as more trades happen. I think Ian Anderson is the only wallet buster of the week but I’m sure other players will go for decent prices. One item to keep in mind this week is every manager’s FAAB, especially those leading a league. In one of my leagues, the four managers ahead in the standings have $26 … total. Three at $1 and the other at $23. Some game theory can be used at this point … or at least until that absentee manager with a 100% of his FAAB left grabs everyone.

As usual, I’m going to at least cover the players in demand using CBS’s (40% or less initial roster rate) and Yahoo’s ADD/DROP rates. Both hosting sites have the option for daily and weekly waiver wire adds. CBS uses a weekly change while Yahoo looks at the last 24 hours. Yahoo is a great snapshot of right now while CBS ensures hot targets from early in the week aren’t missed. The players are ordered by my preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters.
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The Seattle Mariners traded Taijuan Walker to the Toronto Blue Jays for a PTBNL

With the Mariners, Walker (49% owned in CBS leagues) was riding a .225 BABIP (.282 for his career) to a lower than expected ERA (4.00) and WHIP (1.07). So even before the trade, some regression was expected with his rate stats. Now, he’s going to go pitch in a tougher home park and division. The results could be straight up ugly.

On Toronto, his projected rest-of-season ERA is at 4.85 and WHIP at 1.40. Not good. He was able to suppress his ERA because of his flyball nature (37% GB%) while pitching in Seattle. That advantage is gone but there is hope. His sinker has a better swinging-strike rate than his four-seamer (8% vs 5%) and a better groundball rate (46% vs 30%). He’s going to have to improve in several small ways to maintain anything close to his production so far this season.
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On last October 3rd, I examined how the effects of the Happy Fun Ball could mess with ERA estimator assumptions. I was self-serving in that I wanted to see how the variables in my own ERA estimator (pERA) changed*. Once I had the new constants, I created the valuations, and Randy Dobnak came in with an estimated sub-3.00 ERA ahead of starters such as Carlos Carrasco, Blake Snell, and Shane Bieber. The rankings were there for the public to admire and they were completely ignored throughout draft season.

I probably would have ignored them also if it weren’t for Spencer Turnbull. At the end of the 2018 season, Turnbull had a 6.06 ERA and was on no one’s radar for 2019. But I had his pERA at 2.31 better than both Justin Verlander and Chris Sale. I completely blew off the rankings and paid for it. From the beginning of the season until a shoulder injury in late June, Turnbull had a 2.97 ERA, 9.2 K/9, and 1.29 WHIP. And I had him rostered on no teams.
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Overall

• Here a must-read research article. The author, Harper Wallbanger, examines the usefulness of one month’s worth of xwOBA. He found:

The ultimate takeaway is that it seems like players that underperform their xStats in the first month are good targets to pickup or trade for.

I find this information helpful. StatCast batted ball data just gets thrown in. I swear some analysts have no idea what the information means, they just want to appear all-knowing. This past offseason, I cut down the variables to the few that matter. Now with an x-stat, the usefulness is known, but I’m sure it and other stats will continue to be misused.
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