The Expert League Recap Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Matt Williams

LABR Reacap

• Overall thoughts
• Closer strategy
• When to drop out of bidding wars
  • How much is too much to pay?
  • The economincs of waiting to nominate desired players in the auction
• Nomination strategy
  • Nominate players that you want to buy or players that you don’t?
• Franmil Reyes
• Catcher strategy
• Draft regrets

TGFBI Recap

• Noticeable trends
• Grabbing players earlier than ADP
  • Akil Baddoo
• Big decisions

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It has been a while since I shared thoughts on how I prepare for an Ottoneu auction and my process has changed quite a bit. With the lockout behind us, auctions will be coming up fast and furious in the coming weeks, so now is the ideal time to look at what I am doing to prepare for auctions this year.

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The Relief Pitcher Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guests: Greg Jewett & Eric Samulski

Strategy Section

• General 2022 closer landscape & draft strategy
• FAAB capital vs. Draft captial for closers – which is more efficient?
• Holds / Saves+Holds leagues
• Closer Handcuffs for 2022
  • Giants
  • Padres
• Reuven’s Closer Questions
  • Should you choose closers that are on good teams?
  • Pick closers based on skill?
  • Avoid closers who could be traded?
  • Avoid closer by committee situations?
  • Avoid certain teams all together with lousy players?

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The Starting Pitcher (Part II) Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Nick Pollack

Strategy Section

• Lockout
  • How it affects starting pitcher strategy in 2022 drafts
  • The importance of spring training
• Starting pitcher strategy
  • General – Auction vs. Snake Draft
  • Riskiness in the elite starting pitchers this season
• Sandy Alcantara debate

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The Starting Pitcher (Part I) Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Alex Chamberlain

Alex’s pitch tool

• Comparing players with similar pitches
• Finding undervalued players

Strategy Section

• Pitchers most likely to throw 200 innings in 2022
• Starting pitcher strategy
  • General – Auction vs. Snake Draft
  • Riskiness in the elite starting pitchers this season
  • Two 1As vs. an ace strategy for 2022
• Effect of the Universal DH
  • Pick the AL pitcher over the NL pitcher?
  • Draft a pitcher in a particular division?
• Undervalued prospects & sleeper pitchers
  • Peyton Battenfield
  • Patrick Sandoval

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The Outfield Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jeff Erickson

Strategy Section

• Playing in multiple leagues
  • How does the draft preparation differ between leagues?
  • Knowing the market of each individual league and creating specific game plans.
  • Does strategy alter by playing in multiple leagues?
    • To what extent should you diversify the players taken in each league?
  • Keeping track of multiple leagues in season
  • Waiver wire in season
    • Start with the shallow leagues
    • Using information from leagues with an earlier FAAB time slot for leagues with later ones
  • How to prioritze leagues in late summer
    • Learning from leagues that are lost
• The impact of the current lockout on drafting
  • Closer prices
  • FAAB early season
  • Mono leagues
    • Actuarial goodness for Ariel

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The Auction Strategy Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Glenn Colton

Strategy Section

• Auction Strategy
  • Online auctions vs. live auctions
  • Having a partner in an auction
  • Auction preparation vs. snake draft preparation
  • Scouting prior to an auction
  • Constructing auction values
  • How strict should you be to your values?
    • When should you bid over your values?
  • Hitter vs. Pitcher % split in auctions
  • Closer market premiums in 2022
  • Auction values for unsigned free agents in mono leagues
    • Playing in multiple leagues – hedging bets
  • Constructing market value dollars
    • Converting ADP to dollars
  • Constructing an auction plan
    • Finding the hotspots
• Nomination Strategy
  • Nominating players you want vs. players you don’t want
    • Pacing yourself through the auction
  • Plan A / Plan B nomination
  • Economic Box nomination
  • Blocking a position nomination
• Bidding Tactics
  • Freeze bidding
  • Starting bids for players
  • Incremental bidding vs. jump bidding
  • Bidding on the 9’s, bidding on the 0’s
  • Price enforcing

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The Projections & Corner Infield Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Dan Szymborski

Strategy Section

• Projections
  • What goes into creating a projection system?
  • ZiPS
    • How does ZiPS set itself apart from other projections?
    • How does ZiPS handle multi-year projections?
    • How does ZiPS deal with free agents?
    • How does ZiPS handle rookies?
    • How does ZiPS handle the possible NL Designated Hitter for 2022?
    • How does ZiPS handle uncertain items (nature of the ball, run environment, sticky substances, etc.)?
    • How does ZiPS take into account positions [Question asked in mailbag]?
    • What is new for 2022?
  • Projecting playing time – Should projection systems attempt to do this?
    • ZiPS DC
    • FanGraphs Depth Charts

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The Player Pool & Catcher Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Todd Zola

Todd’s Mastersball Projections

• What’s new?
• Assuming a DH in the National League
• Adjusting for the Camden Yards’ new dimensions
• Adjusting for the Blue Jays irregular home park in 2021

Strategy Section

• Player Pool
  • Starting Pitchers
    • Is there more risk at the very top?
    • Is this the year to wait and grab pitchers in the early middle rounds?
  • Closers
    • Where is the value?
    • How many saves do you really need to be competitive?
  • Corner infielders
    • Bargains in the first base position
      • Pass on top talent?
    • The drop in talent at third base
      • How to attack/address the 3B position
  • Middle infielders
    • Do you need to obtain steals from the middle infield position?
    • Setting hotspot values and budgeting for the middle infield
  • Outfielders
    • At what price points should one purchase outfielders?
      • Early, middle, late, or spread them out?
      • The $1 outfielder conundrum
      • The effect of multiple position eligilibity on the OF pool

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Introduction

In 2018, I introduced a game theory approach for comparing baseball projection systems. Proudly, the original article was nominated for Baseball Article of the Year by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA). Now, just days ahead of the release of the 2022 ATC Projections, the projections comparison article is back for its fourth consecutive year!

The approach used in this article is not the standard projections comparison analysis that most others use. The standard analysis involves calculating least square errors, performing chi-squared tests, or perhaps even hypothesis testing. Some type of statistical measure is used to determine the most accurate projections.

For example, late last year – my fellow RotoGraphs colleague Jeff Zimmerman put out a series of in-depth projection comparison accuracy articles. His study centered around the root mean squared error test applied to all projection sets surveyed. The first installment of this excellent series can be found here.

My methodology does not incorporate a statistical model. Instead, it looks to determine the profitability potential of each projection system by simulating what would have happened in a fantasy auction draft. Instead, it games the projections.

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