With the season over, it’s to find out how hitters performed who didn’t let an injury heal and played through the pain. Whether these hitters cause permanent damage to their bodies or pick up bad habits, they continue to underperform their projections. Besides collecting the names myself, I’ve asked for some help (article and Twitter) for this past season’s list.

I first determined the decline in an article covering 2017 to 2019 and have continued collecting names and results (2020, 2021, and 2022). Read the rest of this entry »

• A great article by the Athletic on a player from each team who took a major step forward this past season. For example, here is a bit on Ryan Jeffers reworking his swing.

Jeffers slashed .210/.285/.390 across his first three seasons and then watched the Twins sign free agent catcher Christian Vázquez to a three-year, $30 million contract. His response? He re-tooled his swing and transformed into one of the best offensive catchers in baseball while playing a part-time role, putting up an .841 OPS in 92 games.

Jeffers always showed some pop in his 6-foot-4 frame. But he’s cut down on his swing and miss while increasing his plate discipline. He’s hitting well against both righties and lefties, but as you might expect, he’s doing big-time damage against left-handed pitching.

I can’t do a cut and paste so read it all.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the last half dozen or so seasons I’ve attempted to collect the hitters who have played through an injury this season. These banged-up guys underperformed their projection by ~20 points of OPS the next season. That works out to a 5% drop in production. What I need is help trying to collect all the possible batters while this season is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Here are the names I have so far: Read the rest of this entry »

7:35	Jeff Zimmerman:

Read the rest of this entry »

In the article, I cover the players using CBS’s (about 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 for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: I’m only looking for situations that matter for getting the most plate appearances for next week and next week alone. It’s time to get a little more cut throat.

American League

Angels

6 games

• Jared Walsh has started five straight games after coming off the IL.

• Jo Adell has three starts in a row, all against righties. Read the rest of this entry »

American League

Angels

• Shohei Ohtani did not have the traditional Tommy John surgery.

In chatting quickly with a few people about the description attributed to ElAttrache in the statement, this was not a traditional Tommy John surgery with a reconstruction. It was a repair.

Still won't pitch till 2025, but does speed up the rehab slightly on the hitting side.

— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) September 19, 2023

He should be able to return to the team faster since it’s not the full operation. Read the rest of this entry »

While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with an even larger entry fee ($2.5K to $15K). They were originally named “High Stakes Leagues” and this year there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers are going to try to gain any advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in four or more of these leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

7:31	Jeff Zimmerman:

Read the rest of this entry »

In the article, I cover the players using CBS’s (about 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 for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters. Read the rest of this entry »