American League

Blue Jays

• Nate Pearson pitched with a hernia this year and he’s still being considered as a starting pitching option.

Former No. 1 prospect Nate Pearson is meeting with a doctor today to assess whether he’ll need a procedure to address a sports hernia he pitched through in 2021, though Atkins said the big right-hander felt strong physically as the season ended. Atkins also said that he envisioned an “extended outing, closer to a starter look” for Pearson in ’22.

“We have to factor in workload, factor in development and doing what’s best for him,” Atkins said. “It’s just too hard to say exactly what it will look like, but on the spectrum of things, I hope it looks a lot more like a starter than a reliever, but we’ll be open to all roles and all ways to have him help us win.”

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With the season just over, I’d like some help collecting information on the hitters who played through a 2021 injury. First, I’m not looking for those who may have struggled because of COVID-19 complications but played through a physical injury.

The information can help fantasy managers help point to why a hitter may have struggled when they begin their 2022. Also, my research has shown that these hitters see a production decline that can be incorporated into projections. It’s one offseason data point to have available going forward.

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American League

Angels

• Matt Thaiss is moving back to catcher.

Maddon reiterated Thursday that the organization views Thaiss as a catcher in the long term. He threw out 21 percent of 28 would-be base stealers this season, and registered five passed balls in 461 1/3 innings behind the plate.

He’s currently working with Angels catching coach Jose Molina, and Maddon said the reports back have been positive. Thaiss didn’t single out any one thing he needed to improve, but said he’s worked on just being able to handle the duties the position requires in a competitive game.

He might be a nice draft-and-hold dart in the later rounds. I could see him being the backup. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I wrote about the replacement level hitters in the NFBC 12-team Online Championship (OC) and the 15-team Main Event (ME). In the comments, Joe Wilkey asked:

There are a couple of good questions here, so it’s time to start working through them. I’ll start with “Is batting average unpredictable?” Yes, with any given player’s actual range being unacceptable for a fantasy manager. Looking back at Steamer Projections (2010 Steamer to 2021), I found the standard deviation for the difference between the projected and actual batting average. Read the rest of this entry »

In most weekly leagues, the ability to add and drop players is gone for this season. Since there are no more moves, I’m going to analyze the most added and dropped players in NFBC’s Main Event and Online Championship with the main goal to create a composite replacement-level player.

For reference, the Online Championship (OC) leagues have 12 teams while the Main Event (ME) has 15. Both of the leagues require 23 starters each week with 7 bench spots (no IL spots). At all times, 360 players will be rostered in an Online league and 450 in a Main Event league. The reason I decided on the two NFBC formats were:

• The data is freely available.
• The information is from several leagues (43 Main Events, 199 Online Championships) with the same ruleset.
• The leagues remain competitive longer since there is decent money on the line.
• With two formats (12-team and 15-team), a comparison can be done on the different player pools.

I know at times we may seem a little NFBC centric here at Rotographs. Now, if some other platform had the ability to select a league type and make available all the adds and drops, I’d use them. The NFBC is the only platform that offers this service. Read the rest of this entry »

7:32	Jeff Zimmerman:

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Congrats for making to the season’s end and hopefully I’ve been of some help during the season. I’ll see everyone next season. -Jeff

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

American League

Angels

• Brandon Marsh has led off seven of the last eight games.

• Luis Rengifo (.261/.300/.391 over the past two weeks) has started 12 straight games.

• Phil Gosselin has started seven straight (.266/.322/.375 with 7 HR and 3 SB) while batting third or fourth.

• Jack Mayfield (.215/.278/.441 with 10 HR and 2 SB with the Angels) has started 23 straight games. Maybe a power-only option in deeper leagues.
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After more than two days of pouring over pitcher batted ball data, I better write something before I am fired. In the end, I found nothing groundbreaking. Popups and groundballs good… everything else (i.e. line drives and flyballs) is bad. The change I’d recommend going forward is to move to a more granular grading of batted to bins, like barrels, based on outcomes. Read the rest of this entry »