As we’ve discussed a few times already this year, knowing when to officially cut bait seems to be a lost art form in the fantasy world. All too often, owners hold onto a sell-high candidate for too long and by the time they get around to shopping him, he’s in the midst of an expected slump and every owner declines to deal because they know you’re going to drop the guy soon enough anyway. Either that or you’ve senselessly fallen in love with the hot start and your false hope causes you to endure weeks of 0-for’s, foolishly thinking he’s going to get back to that early-season dreamland where you first met. Whatever the case may be, it’s important for you to recognize when it’s time to say goodbye to a player as your team will only suffer each and every year until you do. So to help with your fantasy regularity, here’s a few players you should consider dumping to lighten your load. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve received a number of emails over the past two weeks asking about players to either pick up or drop and two catchers who have been the most asked about are Evan Gattis and Ryan Doumit. Each seem to be moving in opposite directions right now, but rather than just keep it limited to personal responses, let’s address each player here so that the public can get involved. Read the rest of this entry »

With the calendar flipping to May, it’s time to re-visit the catcher tiers. When you’re scoping out players to target in trades, this should help guide towards players of similar value/potential. You’re not always going to find owners amenable to trading, so when you’re unable to pry loose your top target, at least you can find someone reasonably comparable. Though the one month is but a small sample size, let’s see which backstops are hottest moving forward and which ones have cooled in value in the fantasy community’s eyes. Again, these tiers are based not just on recent performance, but expected value moving forward as well. Read the rest of this entry »

While you don’t normally put lofty expectations on your catchers to produce big-time fantasy numbers, the slow starts of players such as the Monteros, both Jesus and Miguel, as well as Salvador Perez, have been extremely frustrating for owners thus far. Knowing what they are capable of producing, no one wants to drop them from their roster, but there’s a definite need to pull them from the starting lineup and plug in a more productive option, even if just for a short time. If you have the bench space available to make such a move, then here are a couple of backstops who should be able to help you out. Don’t expect either to be your long term solution, but for right now, they’re worth a look. Read the rest of this entry »

Last summer, Jeff Zimmerman updated the xBABIP formula and provided a spreadsheet calculator to perform the dirty work. So with a month of the season in the books, let’s take a look at the hitter’s who have outperformed their xBABIP marks the most. It would be easy to simply sort by BABIP and note that the .400+ guys won’t maintain that pace, but it’s very possible that their batted ball profile supports a BABIP above .350. You wouldn’t know that without the calculator.

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When he was in the Yankees farm system, Jesus Montero was considered one of the best hitting prospects in the minor leagues. He was strong. He was fierce. He had both the fire and the attitude. The Jesus was good. All that seemed to be missing was the purple leisure suit and the pony-tail. Oh yeah, and a glove. But the Yankees were almost willing to overlook the defensive shortcomings of their rising star if it meant getting that bat into the heart of their lineup. But a need for pitching took precedence and the Jesus was soon headed west to Seattle in exchange for a young, stud arm in Michael Pineda. Read the rest of this entry »

John Buck cannot be stopped. Buck was an afterthought in the mega Blue Jays/Mets deal that sent R.A. Dickey to Toronto, but he’s been the best player early on. In 66 plate appearances, Buck already has 7 home runs, and is hitting .290/.303/.661. Even before Travis d’Arnaud got hurt, there was some question over whether a 32-year-old with a career .236 batting average would keep him in the minors. Based on Buck’s career numbers, nobody expects this surge to last. At the same time, Buck has utilized a different approach to begin the year. And even if it’s just a small sample size blip, it deserves some attention, as it’s already brought him a lot of success.

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The value of a stolen base may vary from daily site to daily site, but on the site where I play my daily cap contests, a steal is worth five points. Throw in the fact that a runner has to get on base to be able to steal another one and a steal becomes worth seven or eight points. And that’s assuming they don’t come around to score or do anything else in their other plate appearances. You could certainly do worse than seven or eight points from a slot. Needless to say, I like guys who can run a little (or a lot) in daily leagues.

In order to be able to better pick base stealers in daily salary cap formats, I decided to look at the pitchers and catchers who are the most and least friendly to base stealers. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, there were exactly three catchers who had at least 15 homers and a .390 on-base percentage: Miguel Montero, Buster Posey, & Carlos Ruiz.

Let’s look at those three again, but with a different number added: Montero (100%), Posey (100%), Ruiz (4.9%). That’s the ownership percentage for each of the trio in ESPN leagues right now, and the difference is clear. One of these things does not look like the others, and that’s obviously because Ruiz was suspended for the first 25 games of the season after testing positive for a banned stimulant. Read the rest of this entry »

While it’s still fairly early, we should probably take a moment and see if we can evaluate some of these early starts to the season, both good and bad. We’ve got a guy like John Buck who is clearly playing way over his head right now and most everyone knows that he is clearly a “find the sucker in your league and sell high to him right away” type player but there are a few catchers out there where the jury is still out. Hot starts, cold starts — which do you believe in and which do you not? Here’s my take on three backstops who you might be wondering about… Read the rest of this entry »