No big dollar players are available this week. It’s a boring but useful bunch.

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 »

American League

Angels

• Luis Rengifo (.295/.380/.386 with 1 HR and 1 SB) has started seven straight and even hit leadoff on Thursday. He has played three times in the outfield so far.

• I can’t figure out why Jared Walsh (vs RHP) and Matt Duffy (vs LHP) are in a first base platoon. Marsh has been better against lefties than Duffy.

• Tyler Wade doesn’t face lefties.

Astros

• Over the last three games, Jose Siri (.693 OPS), Chas McCormick (.689 OPS), and Mauricio Dubón (.592 OPS) have each started in center field. Read the rest of this entry »

Every week, I try to go through each team’s lineups and when I get to the Rays, I just want to quit. It allows a mess and there needs to be a reason behind the actions. My plan was to just dig in until I found a better answer than a shrug. I feel somewhat confident with my answer, but now need to find and track starters with reverse platoon splits.

I’m going to start with these two guidelines.

1. I ignored the catchers.
2. The following rules can completely go out the window if/when injuries occur. There are always exceptions but most of the ones I found involved an injured player.

With those disclaimers out of the way, here is how the lefty lineup is determined. Read the rest of this entry »

While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even a larger entry fee ($2.5K to $15K). They get 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 five or more of these leagues.

Nolan Gorman (9): Gorman’s talent has been covered by every possible outlet and managers rostering him should not be a surprise. The one item I’m watching is how pitchers attack him. With the 34% K% in AAA, he had to have some huge holes in his swing. He’s only seen 44 pitches so far, a quarter of them have been changeups (18% SwStr% on changeups; 9% overall). One possible explanation is that he can’t hit lefties. He sat against one on Saturday. In AAA, he had a .655 OPS vs lefties and a 1.254 OPS versus righties. It worked out to a 41% K% against the lefties and 31% against righties. The strikeout danger zone is about 30%, though, so even his mark against righties isn’t exactly good. Also note that minor leaguers can’t be picked up in the NFBC until they appear in the majors unless they were drafted and subsequently cut so even these high stakes leagues go through the standard rookie frenzy we see in the Main Event when someone big is called up.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few interesting starters to pair with a couple of rookie promotions. Not a ton going on.

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 »

American League

Angels

• Steady.

• Luis Rengifo (.304/.385/.348) is getting regular playing time at second base while batting mainly sixth.

Astros

• Same guys all the time.

• One of Michael Brantley or Yordan Alvarez is normally the DH with the other in the outfield.

• Over the last ten days, Jose Siri (.675 OPS) has started six times and Chas McCormick (.700 OPS) seven times. Read the rest of this entry »

General

• Yusei Kikuchi was targeted because his fastball velocity was high for a left-handed pitcher.

Kikuchi’s fastball was one of the main draws for the Blue Jays when they signed him, though. A right-hander who averages 95 mph and reaches up to 97 doesn’t raise as many eyebrows, but a starter doing that from the left side certainly does. Kikuchi’s average four-seam fastball velocity ranks him sixth among left-handed MLB starters (min. 25 pitches), and as he continues to see the results, it’s becoming a pitch he wants to throw more and more.

When it comes to fastball effectiveness, I’ve never divided lefties and righties. It’s something I’ll consider in the future. Read the rest of this entry »

While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even a larger entry fee ($2.5K to $15K). They get 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 five or more of these leagues.

Chase Silseth (9): The 21-year-old righty is not the highest touted pitching prospect, but his AA stats (12.8 K/9, 0.85 WHIP, 1.73 ERA) are intriguing. In his first start, he threw six innings against the A’s allowing no earned runs while striking out four and walking two. He only threw 81 pitches over the six innings, so he might not be fully stretched out. One other factor to consider is that he might be a decent groundball pitcher but he’s only thrown 37 professional innings. Read the rest of this entry »

American League

Angels

• Luis Rengifo has started two straight games after being recalled from AAA where he was hitting .313/.384/.525 with 4 HR and 2 SB.

• Andrew Velazquez (.171/.253/.229 with 5 SB) has started 10 of the last 11 games while batting 9th. He might be worth starting this next week against the Texas (5th most) and Oakland (9th) pitching staffs who give up a decent number of stolen bases.

Astros

• Chas McCormick (.239/.284/.386 with 2 HR) is no longer a regular and is back to splitting time with Jose Siri (.207/.270/.310 with 1 HR and 1 SB). Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend, I was trying to decide how much to lean into Oakland’s nine-game week. I didn’t know if just the regulars would start in all the games or should I focus on some of the lesser bats (there are many of them on Oakland). I figured this question would come up several times during the season, so I decided to get an overall view of who sits and plays.

I’ll apologize upfront for most of the article being a big data dump. If anyone is not interested in the numbers, just jump to “Conclusions” for my take on the information. Read the rest of this entry »