Archive for Arizona Fall League

The Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani is finally coming to MLB (and more specifically to the Angels), and in doing so will become the trailblazer that sets a new expectation for the future of the (possible) “two-way” player.  Because salaries and injuries continue to escalate in the game, a true double threat major leaguer is still hard to imagine in baseball, but if the 23 year old Ohtani does become the first player since Babe Ruth to make a regular impact on both sides of the ball, he will change the landscape of fantasy baseball, too.

Ohtani 😱 pic.twitter.com/YXJJ8954Hs

— Vladimir Guerrero (@VladGuerrero27) December 8, 2017

Read the rest of this entry »

I love going to the Arizona Fall League! It coincides with the Baseball HQ First Pitch Forum conference and it’s my favorite trip every year without a doubt. It’s a handful of regular games, the Fall Stars game, and tons of fantasy baseball talk crammed into four days and three sleep-deprived nights. There’s always a group of elite prospects in the league that garner the attention, but perhaps my favorite part is learning about the guys just below that tier. I got my first exposure to guys like Brian Dozier, Mookie Betts, and Cody Bellinger at the AFL.

I didn’t even know of Dozier when I first saw him and while I did know Betts and Bellinger, it was seeing them firsthand that really sold me. I don’t always land on the next big thing when I’m there. I’ve had plenty of misses in my nine years. I was really excited about Grant Desme and Chris Heisey my first year out there. Desme became a priest and Heisey hasn’t really surpassed a 4th OF role. My hitting favorites over the years include Desme, Heisey, Dozier, Betts, Dustin Ackley, Brandon Belt, Nolan Arenado, Mike Olt, Junior Lake, Michael Choice, Rymer Liriano, Brian Goodwin, Albert Almora, Eddie Rosario, Hunter Renfroe, Gary Sanchez, and Harrison Bader. A decent mix of hits and misses.

Read the rest of this entry »

My review of a recent Ottoneu dynasty prospect draft continues today with highlights from rounds 10 – 12.

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 1 – 3

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 4 – 6

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 7 – 9

This draft should help you “discover” a few prospect names to keep an eye on going forward.  If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.

Before I review my own thoughts on the draft, you should know this Ottoneu league uses the “FanGraphs Points” scoring system based on linear weights, so offense is heavily slanted towards wOBA skills (and speed is almost a non-factor).  We also somewhat arbitrarily removed the Top 12 overall offensive prospects to save them for the standard 40-man auction next spring.  Otherwise, any minor league player without one (1) MLB PA or IP is eligible to be drafted. You can read more about the custom rules of this dynasty league here, and follow along with the draft here.

A few of the prospects below are also featured on the 2018 Top 100 Fantasy Prospects list.

Read the rest of this entry »

This review was written with permission — I asked, not the other way around — and was not reviewed prior to publication.

There exists several gatherings for baseball enthusiasts every year, including, off the top of my head, MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, SABR Analytics Conference, Saber Seminar and Pitch Talks. However, I can’t name many, if any, conferences that cater specifically to fantasy baseball enthusiasts other than First Pitch Arizona (FPAZ). It’s not that the other conferences wouldn’t benefit fantasy baseball players — surely, they share sharp, illuminating content — but they don’t synthesize it specifically for the fantasy baseball experience.

Brent Hershey, general manager of BaseballHQ, invited me to speak on a panel with Greg Ambrosius (National Fantasy Baseball Championship, or NFBC), Dave Potts (RotoGrinders) and Brian Slack (BaseballHQ) about 2017 average draft position (ADP) musings. For an event in its 23rd year, I could find scarcely any reviews of the conference aside from these testimonials.

Accordingly, I thought it would be worthwhile to allow readers to learn (more) about the event. I’ll provide a brief overview of everything and then break down the programming by day, almost like I’m writing in my diary, except without the anxiety and self-doubt.

Overview

FPAZ occurs every year the weekend of the Arizona Fall League (AFL) Fall Stars Game (typically the first weekend of November) in Phoenix, Ariz. Registration costs $249 for early birds and $499 for late birds. The conference spans four days, four nights — for this year, the evening of Thursday, Nov. 2 through the morning of Sunday, Nov. 5 — and includes two tickets (or more, depending on availability) to any AFL games playing that weekend and, once available, all of BaseballHQ’s major publications. It also provides breakfast each morning and a buffet lunch on Saturday on site. Exact programming is liable to change from year to year, but a couple of panels (based on cornerstone BaseballHQ content) likely stay the same. Hotel fare is not covered, but the conference took place at the DoubleTree suites by Hilton, which is where most attendees stayed.

Thursday

Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend, I was in Phoenix for Baseball HQ’s First Pitch forum. It’s an intensive few days of catching up with old friends and focusing on the upcoming fantasy baseball season. There was an underlying theme of the weekend, the fantasy baseball game is being forced to change. Some game facets have experienced some massive adjustments. The following are some of the meta-trends which have quickly popped up over the past few seasons.

Home runs are way up

A few days ago I wrote the following incorrect statement about Carlos Martinez for a 2018 player preview.

His 1.19 HR/9 will likely drop back below the league average.

It was pointed out to me, his home run rate was below league average. I was for sure it was not near 1.20 but I was wrong. Here are the recent league-wide HR/9 values.

2014: 0.86
2015: 1.02
2016: 1.17
2017: 1.27

I remember when the HR/9 hovered around 1.0. Not anymore. Some other pitching stats are feeling the effects of the jump like ERA, but the root cause is more home runs.

Read the rest of this entry »

11/05/17

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 18, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER18!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer

Special Thanks to James Gale who produced the live show in Arizona!

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• Justin Upton back to LAA (1:30)
  • Pursuing Mike Moustakas, too?
• Masahiro Tanaka opts in (6:38)
• Miguel Sano leg surgery (10:06)
• Dustin Pedroia knee surgery (14:55)

Playoff Stock Watch

• Cody Bellinger (17:55)
• Chris Taylor (20:48)
• Gregory Bird (23:52)
• Javier Baez (31:00)
• Charlie Morton/Justin Verlander (36:12)
• Yu Darvish (41:36)

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Game 7 Day!

About a year ago I released my (2017) Top 50 Fantasy Prospect rankings using the Prospect Scorecard to weight a variety of important variables in the context of fantasy baseball.  Today I’m publishing an (early) expanded list of the Top 100 Fantasy Prospects for 2018 for both Ottoneu’s FanGraphs Points leagues (where wOBA is a key measure on offense) and Roto leagues (5 x 5).

A few quick notes before we begin:

• Since “Cost” is league-dependent (auction salary, keeper round, etc.), I’ve ignored it here for simplicity by keeping it constant for every prospect listed. Feel free to use the Scorecard to make changes that reflect true player costs for your league, which will impact these rankings.
• These rankings below are intended to represent the 100 most valuable prospects for fantasy leagues (depending on scoring format).
• It’s quite possible I’m missing an obvious player that should be ranked, so let me know in the comments.  We can discuss the specific rationale for player rankings in the comments, too.  Player ages are current ages.
• For a lot more prospect resources, check out the Ottoneu community.

Here are the (early) 2018 Top 100 prospects for the linear-weights-based FanGraphs Points scoring format (a good proxy for those in OBP leagues):

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I reviewed the results of the first few rounds of a new dynasty league prospect draft.  The review continues today with a quick look at some key selections in rounds 7 – 9.

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 1 – 3

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 4 – 6

This draft should help you “discover” a few names to keep an eye on going forward.  If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.

Before I review my own thoughts on the draft, you should know this Ottoneu league uses the “FanGraphs Points” scoring system based on linear weights, so offense is heavily slanted towards wOBA skills (and speed is almost a non-factor).  We also somewhat arbitrarily removed the Top 12 overall offensive prospects to save them for the standard 40-man auction next spring.  Otherwise, any minor league player without one (1) MLB PA or IP is eligible to be drafted.  You can read more about the custom rules of this dynasty league here, and follow along with the draft here.

Many of the prospects below are also featured on the 2018 Top 100 Fantasy Prospects list.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday I reviewed the results of the first three rounds of a new dynasty league prospect draft.  I’ll continue that review today with rounds 4 – 6, where some deeper, more interesting prospects appear.

Dynasty Prospect Draft Review: Rounds 1 – 3

This draft should help you “discover” a few names to keep an eye on going forward.  If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.

Before I review my own thoughts on the draft, you should know this Ottoneu league uses the “FanGraphs Points” scoring system based on linear weights, so offense is heavily slanted towards wOBA skills (and speed is almost a non-factor).  We also somewhat arbitrarily removed the Top 12 overall offensive prospects to save them for the standard 40-man auction next spring.  Otherwise, any minor league player without one (1) MLB PA or IP is eligible to be drafted.  You can read more about the custom rules of this dynasty league here, and follow along with the draft here.

Many of the prospects below are also featured on the 2018 Top 100 Fantasy Prospects list.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I created a new dynasty baseball league customized around the basic game of Ottoneu.  The more you play Ottoneu the more you come to appreciate how deep the player pool really is, and the longer I play fantasy baseball the more interested I become in the minor league development process.  While there is still plenty of luck involved, the satisfaction of “discovering” the next Rhys Hoskins before everyone else is a feeling that keeps me coming back to the game over and over.

In addition to the standard economics of Ottoneu where each league consists of twelve owners and 480 rostered players (minors and majors), our league will roster an additional 180 minor leaguers (15 extra per team) in an attempt to “develop” successful franchises for years to come.  Since the regular MLB season is wrapping up soon and many fantasy owners are starting to look towards 2018, I thought it might be helpful to review our prospect draft over the next several posts to give you some insight into the valuation of these minor league lottery tickets.  If nothing else, this draft should help you “discover” a few names to keep an eye on going forward.  If you have specific questions about players or the thought process of why they were selected, fire away in the comments section, as I’ve asked each owner in the league to be on standby to provide feedback as we review the rounds.  

Read the rest of this entry »