Changing a pitcher’s pitch mix seems to be the newest path to success. Having a pitcher utilize his two to four best pitches can help him focus his arsenal for peak results. Finding these pitchers can be a huge advantage and the great and wonderful Eno Sarris used the original work to find Carlos Carrasco. I’m going to step an owner through the procedure using a few examples from the news so they can find their own diamond in the rough.

The basic idea behind changing a pitcher’s pitch mix is to have them throw as many effective pitches as possible. The original studies focused on above-average pitches. This is a simple method and one I use when examining a pitcher. The pitcher’s pitch results can be found by going to their page at FanGraphs, clicking o the Splits tab, then the Pitch Type Splits tab (example).

Read the rest of this entry »

Since NFBC ADP (average draft position) data has been available here at FanGraphs, I’ve kept the weekly values. Here are some biggest ADP movers over the past three weeks who started or ended up in the top-250 picks.

A note to remember is that a move at the top is more important in the steep section of the talent curve instead of later with the talent levels off.

Justin Verlander +2 (37th to 40th)
Zack Greinke +2 (44th to 46th)
Robbie Ray +3 (44th to 47th)
Yu Darvish +2 (50th to 52nd)

The second-tier starting pitchers are dropping in ADP. This drop is not surprising as my podcast mate, Rob Silver has noticed this spending trend away from starters in previous seasons.

I usually find it closer to 68/32 or 69/31 by March.

— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) January 25, 2018

I don’t see either of these pitchers as dropping in value, just the overall hitter-pitcher mix.

Alex Bregman -2 (34th to 32nd)

Owners are liking Bregman more and more. I think he’ll eventually be going in the second round regularly as owner have a “fear of missing out” with him

Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago, many of the best fantasy baseball minds got together for the 15-team mixed LABR draft. While several storylines existed with it, the running joke in the draft chat was it if Mike Podhorzer or Scott Pianowski would blink first and draft a pitcher. Mike did and took Jake Arrieta in the 7th round while Scott held out until the 12th. While these two owners obviously took accumulating hitters to an extreme level, other owners took a more balanced approach or bought into pitching. Finding a hitter-pitcher balance, especially in a draft can be tough to calculate on the fly. The following a simple tool to help with that in draft confusion.

The first concept to understand is that the talent is not evenly distributed. I went over this concept earlier this week showing the non-linear talent drop using auction prices. Using concepts from this analysis can help create a simple framework by giving each round its own auction value. This can be done by going to our auction calculator, entering your league settings, and downloading both the hitter and pitcher values.
Read the rest of this entry »

The lights-out middle reliever is making a huge inroad as being a valuable fantasy asset. Some are throwing nearly 100 innings and with 10 K/9 or better. Along with their great rate stats, they are a cheap option instead of many back-of-the-rotation arms. Al Melchior did a great job highlighting some of these arms this past week. I’m going to take his list and find out when they are going in NFBC drafts and compare them to the starters going around them to find any possible values.

One note to remember is that NFBC drafts are 15-team leagues with 9 pitchers per team with a decent number of pitchers on the bench for streaming. My plan is to acquire one of these non-closing studs and use him as a “streamer” when one of my pitchers has a tough matchup (e.g. road game at Colorado).

Read the rest of this entry »

Major league talent drop is not linear and it shouldn’t be treated as so in fantasy baseball but it does for many owners because we love our simple ordinal rankings. The talent drop from the best shortstop to the 10th is more than the drop from the 10th to the 20th. As soon as an owner moves away from using just rankings and goes to an overall production value they will gain a leg up on the competition. The whole idea can be explained by the talent distribution curve.

The talent distribution curve can be created with auction dollars. Other values can be used such as raw Standings Gain Points. But setting our auction calculator to the standard 12-team roto settings. Here is the talent distribution curve:

Note: While only 276 players are needed for this example, I extended the data out for deeper leagues. For those in 12-team -Only leagues, they will be picking at the 552 mark where the talent really begins to drop.

I’m not even sure if it has a shape. Maybe a sideways ‘S’. There is an extreme drop for about 100 picks and then starts to level off. Owners want to acquire as many players in this first group. In this part of the draft, talent needs to be prioritized over a position since talent differences exist more at this level.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s tough to get excited about this year’s batch of rookie pitchers. One reason is that most of the top arms (Reyes, Gohara, Buehler, Flaherty) have already debuted in the majors. Many of the other top-ranked arms have not pitched in double-A yet.

With this year’s class looking down, there always seems to be a few pitchers who come out of nowhere like Luis Castillo did last season. He wasn’t picked among the top 600 players in NFBC and now he near a top-100 pick. Jake Faria and Dinelson Lamet were a couple other arms who were off owner’s radars. It just takes a pitcher gaining a couple ticks on his fastball or developing a new pitch to shoot up in talent.

I found it best to be aggressive on this these mid-season call-ups. They may be getting promoted because they are ready. Investigate any recent scouting reports and don’t be afraid to roster them if they’re talented.

Read the rest of this entry »

With prospect week happening on the main website, I’m going to look at the hitting prospects ranked by their NFBC ADP (average draft position). This will be the batter’s value just in redraft leagues, not in keeper or dynasty leagues. I’ve included the player’s average, low, and high ADP values along with their Fangraphs prospect ranking.

Ronald Acuna (133 ADP, 88 min, 207 max, #2 prospect)

As the first rookie hitter off the board, his price is just a little too high for me considering the options available after him. He’s a talented ball player who is consistently ranked as either the #1 or #2 prospect in the game. He’s going to be good but how good in 2018 is the question. I have two reservations about him.

First, the no league has had a chance to adapt to his weaknesses and then have Acuna adapt back. Even pitchers found Mike Trout’s “weakness” and he had to adapt. Acuna will need to also. The question will be when the adaptation will occur and how long will it take. Will it happen in the minors and take a couple months? Or will happen in the big leagues and only be a week or two. This adjustment time could really frustrate owners.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s tough to create a perfectly balanced team on draft or auction day. Owners are feeling the push-and-pull of trying to balance all five categories in a roto league. Mid-draft, many owners decide to drop a category with the hope of finding the needed stats on the waiver wire. Knowing which stats can be found can be tricky. By looking back at last season’s Tout Wars leagues, a decent idea of available stats can be determined.

One feature of the OnRoto.com fantasy league website computes the league’s final standings using just the drafted teams (nine pitchers, 14 position players). I took these draft values and compared them to the actual final values for each of the four roto leagues (12-team AL and NL-only and the two 15-team mixed leagues).

Some specific notes on these leagues. First, they are deeper than most leagues so every player who might be good is already owned. As for the timing of the mixed draft (the other three were auctions) happened a few weeks before the other three. Additionally, only the 23-man rosters were used used for the projected standings. Each team had an additional five or six-person bench.

Read the rest of this entry »

Alex Reyes was considered to be a top-5 prospect coming into the 2017 season. Then his elbow gave out and he eventually needed Tommy John surgery. He’s nearing completion of his recovery and the Cardinals are considering when he’ll return and his role.

Wanting to protect their top prospect as much as possible, the Cardinals have set a soft target of May 1 as a likely return date for Reyes. What hasn’t been so explicitly defined, though, is what role he’ll fill upon that return.

Long term, the Cardinals have every intention of using Reyes to anchor their rotation. MLB Pipeline recently ranked Reyes as the seventh-best right-handed pitching prospect, and he likely would have been higher on that list had he not just missed a full season.

But given the recovery process Reyes has undergone over these last 12 months, the Cardinals intend to be cautious in 2018. Their preference, as stated multiple times this offseason by president of baseball operations John Mozeliak, would be to have Reyes first come out of the bullpen.

For fantasy owners, they could take a chance on having an elite arm as a starter or reliever. With so many possible unknown outcomes, the following is a breakdown of 2018 value.

Read the rest of this entry »