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

Guest: Jeff Erickson

Strategy Section

• Returning players to active lineups
  • When to return struggling hitters
    • Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
  • When to return struggling pitchers
    • Luis Castillo
  • When to return recovered injured players
  • When to insert prospects
    • Jarred Kelenic
    • Bobby Dalbec
    • Jo Adell
• How to determine when a “hot” waiver wire player is worth a pickup

Cincinnati Reds

• Closer situation
• Nick Castellanos – Where does he rank ROS among outfielders?
• Is Tyler Mahle for real?

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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 »

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 »

Eno Sarris said not to look at HR rate. He said it and I’m going to listen. However, FIP and xFIP are not HR rates, and I’m going to look at that. Too often we assume that others know, or we actually know, what a statistic represents. We hear it, we think it, we know it. But, take a moment with me to reinvigorate our understanding of these two very important statistics.

FIP gives us an idea of how a pitcher performs regardless of who is playing defense behind him. It accounts for strikeouts, walks, hit by pitches, and home runs allowed. FIP gives us a better understanding of how a pitcher is performing than ERA. xFIP tells us all the same but accounts for the volatility of the HR rate. Quoting from our very own FanGraphs glossary, xFIP is:

calculated in the same way as FIP, except it replaces a pitcher’s home run total with an estimate of how many home runs they should have allowed given the number of fly balls they surrendered while assuming a league average home run to fly ball percentage (between 9 and 10% depending on the year).

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The Is It Too Early Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Ian Kahn

Strategy Section

• Is it too early?
  • Is it too early for individual scoring categories to matter?
  • Is it too early to play the matchups based on category standings?
  • Is it too early to punt categories or to alter your pre-season strategy?
  • Is it too early to evaluate how you did at the draft table?
  • Is it too early to cut a player that you spent meaningful draft capital on?

Hot / Cold Starts

• Cold Players
  • Patrick Corbin
  • Luis Castillo
  • Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
  • Francisco Lindor
• Hot Players
  • Cedric Mullins
  • Byron Buxton
  • Jazz Chisholm
  • Matthew Boyd
  • Danny Duffy

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7:32	Jeff Zimmerman:

7:32	Jeff Zimmerman:

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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 »

The one theme I’ve seen this week is fantasy managers cutting bait with some healthy higher-round picks (e.g. David Price, Zach Davies, and Devin Williams). I agonized over Ian Happ for a while this week. The key will be determining if the struggles are random variance or change in talent.

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.
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The pool of desirable starting pitchers has dried up as the breakouts (e.g. Steven Matz and Carlos Rodon) have been permanently rostered. Try to grabbed anyone left to fill your rotation to cycle through for the rest of the season. Bullpens have stabilized and for now, few options are available and desirable.

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 »

Just a few drops I would not have done, but overall, it was a calm, reasonable week. I expect there to be a crazy one coming up when some rookies get the call.

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 »