With most drafts done, owners will now be looking to the waiver wire to replace players demoted to the minors or on the disabled list. Here are a few guidelines I like to follow when looking to pick up available players.

Be ready for waiver wire bargains.

If there ever was a time of year to actively track the players being released by owners, it is the first couple weeks of the season. Owners will be trying to get daily production from every spot on their team and will be dropping talented players that start the season with limited playing time. Also, they might quickly lose patience with a player that is struggling in his first couple dozen at bats of the season. For example, over at Rotohardball.com, an owner is looking to pick up Mike Napoli who was dropped when another owner decided Anibal Sanchez was more valuable.

Always have a player on your team you are will to part with if an opportunity arises.

At all times, a player on each team needs to be expendable. I usually have this player be an extra outfielder on my bench or a middle reliever I am using to pad my pitching rate stats.

An owner may not specifically need the available player, but the new player could definitely be used in a trade to make a positional upgrade.

Using the above example with Napoli, the owner already has Posada, so a catcher is not really needed. They could use some help in the outfield though. Packaging Napoli and one of your current outfielders to a owner needing Napoli to get a better outfielder. Once the trade is done look over the waiver wire for the player you dropped for the trade. There is a decent chance the player is still available or if not, look for another player to flip.

Have an idea of your waiver wire position, but don’t let it dictate picking up players.

Every owner should be given a waiver wire position after they have finished their draft. What this position means is that if two owners are after the same player, the person highest on the waiver wire will get the player. This time of year, positioning can be important in case someone really valuable hits the waiver wire.

I really feel that unless you are in the first waiver wire position, feel free to pick up whoever you need. Don’t be afraid to go back to the bottom of the priority list. In most instances, I have found that I make it back to the top half of the priority list in just a few days as owners scramble to upgrade their team. If you do have a high position and don’t want to give it up, wait to see if the player passes trough waivers and then try to pick him up. By using this method, you will not lose your waiver wire position and hopefully get the player. Personally, I give up the position and get the player I need.

Well, there were a few strategies I use when dealing with the waiver wire and hopefully you can improve your team with them.

Most fantasy leagues allow owners a few DL spots and now it is time to begin to use those positions productively. For the past few weeks, several players were known to be injured for 2011 season (ex. Adam Wainwright), but they have not yet been placed on the official DL. In the last few days, teams have begun to officially place players on the DL and the list looks to expand a ton in the next few days as the regular season begins. Now is the time to exploit these extra roster spots. Here are a few suggestions for roster management as the DL list expands.

I will be looking at individual names as the DL expands later in the week.

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In fantasy baseball, there are a couple of loopholes owners can abuse and one of my favorites is SP/RP qualified pitchers. These pitchers can be used in either the starting or relief spot and, depending on your league structure, they can be quite valuable. Today, I will be looking at how to use SP/RP qualified pitchers that are going to be used as relief pitchers to start the season.

Basically, they are useful in leagues that have each of the following:

1. Allow daily transactions.
2. Have both SP and RP slots

Here is how to use them.
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For 2011, second base actually seems like a position of depth compared to some other positions such as short stop and third base. The main problem I see with second basemen is that several of the players are qualified at 2 or more positions. Fantasy league managers may look to raid the depth at this position to fill other holes on their roster.

The following is a composite list from all the authors here at RotoGraphs. Here are the second basemen in the order we ranked them and divided into tiers.

Tier 1
Robinson Cano
Chase Utley
Dustin Pedroia

These 3 are for sure the cream of the crop, but each comes with a possible issue. Cano was a stud in 2010, but his low walk rate is a concern because pitchers may expand their strike zones on Cano giving him less good pitches to hit. Utley’s and Pedroia’s wart is their health after spending time on the DL last year.

Tier 2
Ian Kinsler
Dan Uggla
Brandon Phillips
Rickie Weeks
Martin Prado

Of this list Kinsler and Phillips are the most rounded with positive contributions in all 5 categories. Uggla should be great in the counting stats (HR, RBI, R), but his batting average will be a drag. If you draft him, you will want to make sure that you don’t have too many other players with low batting averages (Dunn or Reynolds) to drag down the category. Weeks finally had a healthy in 2011 and he finally showed what he could do. He will probably get drafted too early for my tastes. Prado has decent value, especially for a manger looking for a nice boost in BA.

Tier 3
Ben Zobrist
Kelly Johnson
Brian Roberts
Aaron Hill
Ryan Raburn

This group should all be drafted in any league. The real sleeper for me in this group is Ryan Raburn. He is not available in all formats, but he could be a steal come draft day for owners not looking to fill their 2B needs with him.

Tier 4
Gordon Beckham
Howie Kendrick
Chone Figgins
Neil Walker
Mike Aviles

Each of these players have several bad aspects, but if one or more could put together a good season they could be a top 10 2B at the end of the season. The one person not to forget about is Figgins and his SB. At the end of the draft with your entire team full, Figgins may be a great pickup, even if you don’t need SB. Someone else will later in the season and trade him for voids on your team.

The Rest
Omar Infante
Juan Uribe
Ryan Theriot
Danny Espinosa
Orlando Hudson
Placido Polanco
Sean Rodriguez
Bill Hall
Freddy Sanchez
Reid Brignac
Eric Young Jr.
Clint Barmes
Tsuyoshi Nishioka
Mark Ellis
Carlos Guillen
Alberto Callaspo
Ty Wigginton
Will Rhymes
Alexei Casilla
Dustin Ackley
Chris Getz
Blake DeWitt
Skip Schumaker

This group is pretty ugly, but there are some names I would definitely take a chance with in deeper leagues like Nishioka, Barmes, Young and Infante. The one stat I look for with backup or fill in 2nd basemen (or any player up the middle, CF, SS, 2B and C) is batting average. If the player’s average is higher than your team’s, pick them up for plug and play when other hitters have a day off. Some examples are Polanco, Callaspo, Sanchez and Infante. They will help your team raise its average, while possibly adding to the counting stats. If they have another trait like speed or power, all the better.

Well, there are the 2011 rankings for 2nd basemen here are Rotographs. Let me know if you have any questions on any of the particulars.

Chasing wins in fantasy baseball sometimes seem futile, but if pursued in a logical way, they can be gained. Playing sub-par pitchers may increase win and strikeout totals, but they puts a drain on WHIP and ERA. By looking at the pitcher’s talent level and knowing the offense of the pitcher’s team, the chances of getting a win can be determined. The following are formulas to help estimate a pitchers win total.

First, all the qualified starters that didn’t switch teams from 2010 were matched with their team’s average runs scored per game. Then a linear regression was run comparing the player’s ERA, his run support and his actual winning percentage. The following equation was created:

Projected Winning % = 0.112(Run Support)-0.105(ERA)+0.446
with an R-squared = 0.827

With this equation, the expected number of wins can be estimated with just a couple more pieces of data. First, the number of starts that lead to a decision (win or loss) for games in 2010 was 70% with the bullpen getting the rest. Second, the number of GS will have to guesstimated using playing time projections and injury history. With this information, a projected number of wins can be calculated:

Projected Wins = 0.7 * Games Started * Projected Winning %

Going back over the 2010 numbers, the average difference between the number of games won and the predicted number of games won was 1.89 with a standard deviation was 2.24 wins.

For example, here is how Felix Hernandez’s win total would compare if he pitched for different teams during 2010. He was able to get 13 wins with a 2.47 ERA in 34 games with a team that average scoring 3.13 runs a game. With those numbers, he was projected to win 13.3 games. Now if he played for the Yankees and got their run support (5.23), his wins would have been around 18.9. If he had only got just 4.0 runs of support, he would have been closer to 15.6 wins.

Normally, trying to accumulate wins is a tough proposition. With a little knowledge of the pitcher and his team’s offense, the amount of wins the pitcher gets can be somewhat predicted.

Pitchers can’t control every aspect of the game around them including the the defense behind them. A team’s defense can effect a pitcher’s WHIP and ERA by letting more batted balls turn into hits (increasing WHIP) therefore leading to more runs allowed (increasing ERA). The following is a look at how much a team’s defense could effect a pitcher’s ERA or WHIP.

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Since we are around the halfway point of the season, I have decided to look into which pitchers have ERA’s that differ the most considering their FIPs, xFIPS and BABIP. I used all 3 values helps to find out truly lucky or unlucky pitchers have been this season and the reasons why (i.e. high home run rates or low BABIP).

To start with I took all the pitchers that have pitched over 20 innings so far this season. From this group, I averaged 3 numbers. ERA-FIPs (E-F) is already provided here at Fangraphs. Also, I easily calculated the ERA-xFIPS for the second value.

For the third value, I did a calculation of expect ERA using the batter’s BABIP from this quick calculation of Tom Tango.

The BAPIP ERA formula ends up working out to be:

(((0.300-BABIP)*(Total Batters Faced)) * 0.75) + Earned Runs)/(IP/9)

Explanation of constants (these 2 values can be adjusted if a someone wants to calculate the values themselves):

0.300 = league average BABIP
0.75 = Run value for an extra hit

With all three values calculated, I averaged them into a value determining how much a pitcher’s ERA differentiates from their expected ERA.

I have collected at the pitchers and posted them in this following Google Spreadsheet.

Note: For ease, I will use pERA as the projected ERA considering the pitcher’s FIPs, xFIPs and BABIP

Here are some highlights:

Chad Qualls – (ERA = 8.60, pERA = 4.03) – Chad is by far the unluckiest pitcher so far this season. He has not be exactly lights out, but no pitcher can be good with a BAPIP of 0.468.

Jose Valverde – (ERA = 0.92, pERA = 3.13) – No real surprise that a pitcher can’t mainly a sub 1 ERA. He got to the low ERA with a 0.169 BABIP and giving up only 1 home run so far this season. Jose is actually is striking out less and walking more batters than Chad Qualls.

Tim Hudson – (ERA = 2.30, pERA = 4.04) – Tim’s ERA has been helped in that he has 0.232 BABIP. He has needed a low BABIP since he has not been striking many people at all with a K/9 of 4.5 to go along with a BB/9 of 3.2

Francisco Liriano – (ERA = 3.86, pERA = 2.69) – Most people would complain too much about a starter with a 3.86 ERA, Mr Liriano looks like he should be doing better. He has a great K/9 of 9.8 and BB/9 of 2.5 while allowing only 2 home runs so far this season.

Jordan Zimmermann, Erik Bedard, and Edinson Volquez are looking to finally get their first chance this year to pitch in the majors. Here is a quick look on the status of each one’s return.

Jordan Zimmermann (1% – all owned percentages are Yahoo values) – Tommy John Surgery – Jordan made his first rehab start this past Saturday for the Potomac Nationals where he threw 25 pitchers over 2 innings. His fast ball was measured in the mid-nineties, which is what he threw before the injury. Right now the Nationals are looking to bring him up late August or early September.

With many teams shutting down their pitchers in that time frame, Jordan looks like a good bet to place in a DL spot, if available, to save for the last month of the season.

Erik Bedard (45%) – Labrum Surgery on Left Shoulder – Erik was supposed to make his first start of the season yesterday versus the Royals. Instead he was scratched for inflammation in his shoulder and is now looking to make his first start after the All-Star break.

Labrum surgeries are really tough to come back from and Erik is already running into problems. It may be worth a chance to see if he can come back, but I wouldn’t want to count on it. If you have room, put him on the bench and see how his first couple starts go before starting him regularly.

Edinson Volquez (21%) – Tommy John Surgery – Edinson looks to return to the Reds sometime after the All-Star break. It looked like he may have been able to join the Reds sooner, but lackluster control in his last outing for AAA Louisville has pushed his time table back. In his 5 rehab starts so far this season, he has a 1.88 ERA , 19 strikeouts and 5 walks in 24 innings.

Edinson should be picked up if available in your league. It is even more important if it is a keeper league. He can be a top flight starter and is definitely worth the chance to see if he returns to his previous form.

I have had several discussion in the comment here at Fangraphs that the players we discuss are not available in the reader’s leagues. I decided to look at the percentages owned at ESPN and Yahoo and see how they compare. Also I will look at what size of league in total players on rosters corresponds to what percentage owned.

I have seen some huge discrepancies in the owned percent between Yahoo and ESPN. I took the percentages of the top 250 owned pitchers and hitters. I didn’t match them up, I was more looking at just the percentages. What I found was that there were basically 3 zones of players. Those owned by all teams (>90%), those owned by some teams (more than 10% and less than 90%), and those owned by few teams (<10%). Of the 500 total players 194 were in the top 90% for ESPN and the top 114 for Yahoo. In next bracket of players, ESPN has 107 in that group and Yahoo has 245. ESPN leagues seem to take more top players and then drop off quickly, while more of the middle players are used in Yahoo. This leads to be believe that Yahoo has larger leagues as a rule and the percentage owned will be higher.

The following data is the percent owned for the different sized leagues. The number is for the total number of players (roster size * number of teams).

Total Players Yahoo ESPN
200 – 66% 87.8%
250 – 45% 58.4%
300 – 26% 11.5%
350 – 11% 3.7%
400 – 6% 1.7%
450 – 3% 0.5%
500 – 1% 0.2%

With these numbers and taking into account previous comments, I will write only on percent owned cutoffs for leagues of 300 total players or higher.

I am in a 20 team league, 25 roster spots with 4 DL slots. To say the least, it is pretty deep. When looking for players on the waiver wire, availibilities max out around 2%. When I started in the league, I was one of 4 expansion teams, with the other 16 teams having 9 keeps. Basically the top 144 players were taken before I even began, along with the top prospects like Heyward and Strasburg. Going into the draft, I didn’t know how much to value prospects.

I went in with the keepers(this is pretty sad, I know):

Ryan Doumit
Jose Valverde
Shane Victorino
Chone Figgins
Javier Vazquez
Matt Capps
Chad Qualls
Tim Hudson
Jason Kubel

Here was my plan and the results:

1. I was going to get batters first.

Asdrubal Cabrera
Garrett Jones
Juan Rivera
Scott Sizemore
Travis Snider

2. Go for starting pitchers with issues last year.

Fausto Carmona
Edinson Volquez (took with last pick and moved to the DL)
Ervin Santana

3. Draft a couple of top prospects in the minors, but near the majors. I never trust pitching prospects, so I only took hitters. I wanted to get them somewhat early before there was a run. In the draft, I actually started the prospect run.

Jesus Montero
Mike Stanton

4. Find whatever else I could including any SP/RP qualified relievers because the league has only 3 RP slots and counts holds.

As a whole I am fairly happy with the results of the draft. The season hasn’t gone the best so far though, but it is early.

I am just torn setting up my daily roster that 2 player will probably not be available until later this year at the earliest. It is the whole, “I can do more to win now, but how much will it hurt me in the future.” For now I will just let the 2 sit, but was wondering how other dealt with this issue of how much a keeper’s teams roster is taken up with prospects in order to try to help the team later?