I feel like I write up the same hitters every week and they slowly creep over my 40% threshold. Almost all of them are over 95% owned in my 15-team leagues. The deal is that after going over the lineups, there hasn’t been much turnover from the minors. Additionally, not many difference-making pitchers on the wire. It might be time to focus on adding minor league prospects.

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 »

• It’s going to harder for players to be promoted from AA to the major than from AAA.

One other note: As The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported, it will be more difficult for Double-A players to go directly to the majors this year. Triple-A players, operating under similar health and safety protocols as big leaguers, have a clear path to promotion. Double-A players would need to undergo extra steps, including a quarantine period and intake testing.

This news comes into play with Adalberto Mondesi who is in AA. If the information from Rosenthal is true, Mondesi must be a ways off from joining the Royals. Read the rest of this entry »

A while back on Twitter, Razzball’s Rudy Gamble made the following comment in a discussion of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and his high groundball rate.

trying to think of any plus power guys that never figured out how to reduce a ton of GBs.

maikel franco is the only one that comes to mind with hosmer a possible second

— Rudy Gamble (@rudygamble) March 1, 2021

Vlad’s career groundball rate in just 900 PA is 50.5% which would rank as the 5th highest of 75 hitters. Over the same sample, his 118.9 mph Max Exit Velocity is the highest. It’s like he’s been blasting holes in the infield. So coming back to Rudy’s comment, will a power hitter, like Vlad, eventually get the ball in the air. While the answer is some, it’s likely not enough to make a difference.
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Besides a couple of interesting starters (Peterson and Flexon), it seemed like a lot of outfielder musical chairs. Overall, it was a boring weekend for adds and drops. About time.

For this weekly feature, I use the NFBC Main Event because of the number of identical leagues. Additionally, the managers stay engaged longer on the whole since each spent $1700 per team. I tried to find that sweet spot between the obvious and bizarre drops and will focus on players dropped in seven to ten leagues. Previously the number was six to nine, but I adjusted with the Main Event adding four leagues since I did the report. Read the rest of this entry »

7:31	Jeff Zimmerman:

7:32	Jeff Zimmerman:

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It’s official, we are about one week into May and the availability of decent starting pitching has dried up. Also, there aren’t any new bullpens to attack for Saves. With few desirable pitchers available, hitters will be the focus of this report.

One small change I made was that I grouped the catchers together. They just didn’t fit in with the other hitters.

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

• With Pujols being optioned, Jared Walsh can just play first and an outfield spot opens up. Watch the playing time of Taylor Ward and Juan Lagares over the weekend for this open spot.

• José Iglesias (.630 OPS) has moved up to hitting fifth over the last three games.

• Griffin Canning keeps tinkering with his windup.

While Canning presented first-round level production during his days as a Bruin, longtime UCLA head coach John Savage pointed out that Canning would likely alternate between going over his head as he began his windup. Canning has done just that in his short pro career and into his time in the big leagues — once again making the switch to go over his head before his last start. Read the rest of this entry »

Every Sunday, Fred Zinkie and I spend between 30 minutes to an hour going over the three teams we share. The first words out of his mouth this week was, “I think we should add Martín Pérez.” And my first thought was that the smooth Canadian had been drinking a little too much. In classic Fred fashion, he went into detail that while Martin is a subpar pitcher and facing the Tigers who have struggled against left-handed pitching. As a team, the Tigers have a 38% K%, .467 OPS, and 33 wRC+.

I didn’t know how to how to evaluate the results when a pathetic pitcher faces an even more pathetic offense so, considering Fred’s performance history, I let him add away without too much of a fuss. I didn’t have a simple response, but I do now and I should have been suspicious of his proposal. Read the rest of this entry »

7:32	Jeff Zimmerman:

7:32	Jeff Zimmerman:

Read the rest of this entry »

It is getting ugly out on the wire trying to find any servicable roster help. Injuries, moving to and from the alternate site, and platoons make it hard to locate regular contributors, let alone ones that are good baseball players. For those managers in deeper leagues, their rosters may be set for a while until some minor leaguers begin to be promoted.

In the following article, I’m going to at least cover the players in demand 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 »