The latest episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Brian Bannister – Director of Pitching, San Francisco Giants (& former major league player with NYM/KCR)

Interview

• Highlight of career
  • Coaching highlight
  • Major league pitching highlight
  • Mets highlight
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Impact on college team
• Analytics
  • Some of the current analytics being used
  • Having a hunch and then researching it when the analytics tools are available
  • Impact on current team
  • Using all of the tools at your disposal
  • Studying the outliers & great players to find success for current players
  • Organizations differ in analytics use
  • What are some analytics used by teams that aren’t available publically?
  • VAA, Seam Shifted Wake, etc.
  • Learning from the uniqueness of players
  • Using analytics to play to a player’s strengths vs. exploiting an opponent’s weaknesses

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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 Closer Rebuttal for 2022 Drafts Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Strategy Section

• Closer rebuttal for 2022 drafts
  • Historical earnings for top closers
  • Early closers may bake in a certain value loss
  • Low historical hit rates for closers
  • Drafting top closers means passing up on valuable players
  • Drafting a starting pitcher instead of a top closer – one less starter to find on the waiver wire
  • Too much uncertainty in bullpens
  • Too much draft capital invested in a one-category player
  • Use a combination of absolute value and relative value

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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 Potential Profit Sources & Middle Infield Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Nando Di Fino

Strategy Section

• Potential Profit Sources
  • Rookies/Prospects
    • Bobby Witt Jr.
    • Oneil Cruz
    • Riley Greene
    • Spencer Torkelson
  • Aging Veterans
    • Charlie Morton
    • Zack Greinke
    • Joey Votto
    • Yadier Molina
    • Adam Wainwright
    • Nelson Cruz
    • Yuli Gurriel
    • Josh Donaldson
    • Charlie Blackmon
  • Down Season
    • Mike Trout
    • Francisco Lindor
    • DJ LeMahieu
    • Gleyber Torres
  • Injury Bounceback
    • Adalberto Mondesi
    • Jack Flaherty
    • Lance McCullers Jr.
    • Luke Voit
    • Ronald Acuna Jr.

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The Closer Thoughts for 2022 Drafts Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Strategy Section

• Closer thoughts for 2022 drafts
  • Don’t play the waiver wire for 2 closers
  • ‘Safe’ closers
  • Economics of closers in drafts
  • Paying up for closers
  • Relative market pricing vs. absolute market pricing
  • The exaggerated case of zigging and zagging
  • Spreading your closer picks throughout the draft
  • Market premium

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

Guest: Jenny Butler

First Pitch Arizona mishaps

Strategy Section

• Playing in the NFBC
  • What is the NFBC?
  • How Jenny got into the NFBC and how you can get your start
    • Tools that a first time player should use
  • Differences between home leagues and the NFBC
  • Differences between standalone leagues and leagues with an overall prize
  • The value of multi-positional players in the NFBC
    • Ben Zobrist tribute
  • KDS selection preferences
• Should we pay the market premium for saves and for speed?
• Roster Construction
  • General principles
  • Should you create a “Do Not Draft” list?
• Draft preparation tips
• Incorporating risk into drafting decisions
• Jacob deGrom – What to make of the current Steamer IP projection?
• Power Drafters
  • Should you incorporate a “deGrom share” into your fantasy portfolio?
  • Should you diversify your player selections on your fantasy teams?
• How to find fantasy baseball sleepers

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

Guest: Frank Stampfl

Tout Wars Congratulations

Strategy Section

• Drafting Strategy based on fantasy format
  • Rotisserie leagues vs. Head-to-Head Points leagues vs. Head-to-Head Category leagues
    • One win vs. full category score
  • Waiver wire leagues vs. Draft Champion/Draft & Hold Leagues
  • Roto leagues vs. Best ball leagues
  • Trading leagues vs. non-trading leagues
  • Deeper leagues vs. shallow leagues
  • 1-Catcher leagues vs. 2-Catcher leagues
  • Large vs. small bench size
    • Having IL slots vs. no IL slots
  • Daily lineups vs. weekly lineups
    • How to best use Shohei Ohtani
  • Overall competition vs. standalone leagues

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