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Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings.

Pardon me for no Thursday board. I was light on sleep Wednesday night and then crashed after my morning stream. I will have some comments in the morning on Friday’s star-studded board.

• Any Tigers fan who boos Skubal tonight is a stone cold loser. He was traded and it’s not like he demanded to be moved. Anything but overwhelming love for him would be really out of pocket to me.
• McClanahan catches a hot hitting SDP team (9th wOBA vL in L30) but after 5 scoreless on 74 pitches last time out – his 2nd start off the IL – I’m confident installing back into every lineup.
• The erosion of the Nationals offense has been a tough watch. Trades of Curtis Mead and Luis Garcia were one thing, but then James Wood’s injury and the absolute worst month of the year for CJ Abrams has them sitting just 26th in wOBA versus over the last month and down to 14th on the season. The 4th for the year going into August! I say all that and Eury was just fine against them last time out (5 IP/1 ER/3 BB/4 Ks) but there’s a chance for a big outing for sure.
• Classic TJ returner season for Jones. RIGHT when you get comfortable with them as a must start, they hit the rug pull! After a nasty July, Jones has made it 5 IP just once in 4 August tries, was pasted for 8 ER v. NYM, and was lucky to survive LAD with 4 IP/2 ER given his 5 BB. Predictably, it’s been spotty command and control behind his struggles with a 14% BB rate and 2.3 HR9 over his L4. Like I said, classic TJ returner! All that said, though, and he’s still catching a relatively high slot in the 3-x tier as a trip to STL provides a good chance to get right. Another major struggle here would make him a tough start anywhere next week, though. (Note: he was moved down from 8th to 12th after the original post).
• I remain terrified of anyone pitching in Sacramento but Lopez has simply been far too good over his L7 to sit anywhere: 2.36 ERA/1.05 WHIP/22% K-BB in 39 IP, including 4 home starts.
• 2 great, 2 awful starts for Mize with SDP so far, including an early departure after slipping down the stairs between innings and rolling his ankle in his last one. He’s said to be recovered from that and ready to go today, but with a tough matchup on tap, I can see some skips… especially if you’re protecting ratios and a Dud would really hurt you.
• Brown certainly hasn’t been the frontliner we expected for a while now, toting a 4.41 ERA/1.41 WHIP combo over his L9 with a paltry 7% K-BB. He’s allowed multiple BB and 1 HR in each of his L5, too, thus taking him out of any must-start status. I still have a hard time getting away from him in deeper formats, but 10-team managers shouldn’t feel obligated to run him.
• It’s only 1 spot, but Painter should be ahead of Bradford on matchup alone, especially as Bradford has been “meh” lately while Painter is surging: 3.62 ERA/1.06 WHIP/14% K-BB. He did suffer a Dud at MIN thanks to a 4-run first inning but he stabilized and dropped four strong IP after that and then bounced back in the next start (his most recent) for his best start of the year: 7 IP/1 ER/0 BB/8 Ks.
• Sandoval rebounded from his Dud at PIT with 5.7 IP/2 ER/2 BB/6 Ks v. SFG, but it was his 6th straight game with at least 2 BB. This ostensibly should be a good matchup for him despite heading to NYY. Their lefty-laden lineup should play into Sandy’s strengths, despite what a disgusting .586 BABIP vL has done to his numbers this year. That’s clearly small sample flukiness to me so I’m willing to run him in some spots tonight.
• I would still be pretty nervous to run Anderson or Sugano, but they are catching their otherwise tough opponents at the right moment with LAD 25th and ATL 29th in wOBA vR over the L30 days.

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Earlier this week, some of you joined me on a jaunty little trip down through Fantasy Seasons Past, stopping to admire some of the plucky league winners that never seemed to amount to much afterwards.

From Nolan Jones who burned you the next year to Shed Long who you can only remember fondly, there have been league winning hot hands for as long as there has been fantasy baseball.

This year, shouldn’t you be the one to add the league winning Joe Schmo? Or should I say, “Schwindel”?

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Jaiden Tripi-Imagn Images

While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even larger entry fees ($2.5K to $15K). They are named Elite leagues (previously called High Stakes Leagues), and there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers try to gain every advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in five or more leagues.

Batters

Andrés Chaparro (6): While Chaparro will always start against lefties, he began getting starts against righties. Coming into Sunday NFBC FAAB periods, he started in five of the last seven games against righties, three as the DH. Then CJ Abrams got hurt, and Abrams took over the DH duties. Chaparro has no fantasy value sitting on the bench.

Talent-wise, Chaparro is all power (8 HR in 150 PA) with his bat speed improving every season (72.4 mph to 73.3 mph to 74.6 mph). He’ll provide no speed, but for teams needing home runs, he was worth the gamble.

Rafael Flores Jr. (5): Flores has been great at filling in at catcher for Endy Rodriguez. In 24 games, the 25-year-old has 6 HR and .262 AVG. I’m a little worried his batting average could take a hit since he has some swing-and-miss in his game (30% K%, 68% Contact%). He’s not stealing bases, but he’s a catcher, so the lack of speed is expected.

He’s been able to get in some additional at-bats with seven games at first base. For teams needing a catcher replacement/improvement, add Flores.

Trevor Story (5): Story is expected to come off the IL any day now and rejoin the Red Sox. Before going on the IL (hernia), he was batting .206/.244/.303 (32% K%) with 3 HR and 4 SB. He’s been horrible in his rehab (.160/.192/.160) with his Average Exit Velocity down 2.2 mph.

Fantasy managers are probably dreaming back to last season when Story had 25 HR and 31 SB. I’m not sure that production is coming back for the 33-year-old.

Carlos Cortes (5): Coming into the week, the Athletics were scheduled to face all six righties (five now), so streaming the strong-side platoon bat was a solid idea.

The 29-year-old started the season off great, but has struggled in the second half (.788 OPS in 1H, .601 OPS in 2H). His strikeout rate has doubled from 13% to 25%.

Starters

Kade Anderson (9): In Anderson’s debut, I wanted to see what our STUPH models thought of this repertoire. It wasn’t good with a 5.07 botERA (similar to his 4.78 xFIP) and 87 Pitching+. For his pitches, the models loved the slider, were OK with the fastball, and hated the change and curve.

One interesting note from the start: he moves around on the pitching rubber depending on the handedness of the hitter.

He dominated lefties (33% K-BB%) but not righties (6% K-BB%) in the start, but the numbers were swapped in AA (41% K-BB% vs RHH, 25% K-BB% vs LHH). He’s an add, but may not be the league savior some managers hoped for.

José Urquidy (7): Before Urquidy’s Monday start, he had 11 K and 0 BB over his last two appearances (9 IP). Managers hoped he had righted his ship and bought in on a two-start week. They paid for it with 5 ER, 4 BB, 6 H, and just 2 K in 3 IP.

His fastball velocity dropped under 92 mph and is the second straight drop (93.7 mph to 92.5 mph to 91.8 mph). I know he’s locked in for this week, but I don’t trust him until he regains the velocity and strings together a few good starts. His usefulness this season might be over by then.

Randy Vasquez (5): Over his last six appearances (30 IP), he has a 2.76 ERA (4.79 xFIP), 0.73 WHIP, and 3.3 K/9. That’s right, just a 3.3 K/9. This week he faces the Pirates.

Over those games, he made a couple of changes. He finished dumping his curve (11% SwStr%) and threw his four-seamer (8% SwStr%, 31% GB%) and sinker (4% SwStr%, 48% GB%) the same amount after relying on the four-seamer during the season. These are small changes and his talent level hasn’t budged.

David Peterson (5): Since joining the Cubs, Peterson has been a solid 4.00 ERA talent (3.93 ERA, 4.10 xFIP, 4.74 botERA). While there are ups and downs, Peterson always regresses to the 4.00 ERA mark.

Blade Tidwell (5): The right-handed Tidwell is great against righties (24% K-BB%) and horrible against lefties (1% K-BB%). This week, he faces the Diamondbacks, who struggle against righties this year (89 wRC+, second lowest in the league).

The problem with Tidwell is that he’s just fastball/slider and doesn’t have a good pitch to get lefties out. He’s thrown a change 29 times this year, and it hasn’t generated one swing-and-miss.

He might not be worth starting next week against the Pirates since they crush righties (109 wRC+ vs RHP). The next week, he is  streamable against the Cardinals (94 wRC+ vs RHP).

Relievers

Justin Martinez (4): There is no clear closer in Arizona and there never will be (h/t to Frank Stampfl).

Rico Garcia (4): Garcia got the last Save in Baltimore, so desperate managers need to take a chance.

Hot Right Now (HRN) is a weekly Ottoneu feature focused on popular players currently being auctioned or players who you should think about auctioning in your Ottoneu leagues. Even if you don’t play Ottoneu, we’ll be highlighting players you should be looking at in deeper and keeper formats. In this feature, we will break down players into two sections:

1. Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
2. Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP over the last 14 days who are also rostered in 80% of leagues or less.

The RotoGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.

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Thanks for coming out!!

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This is the fourth and final installment of the Outliers series. In mid-April, I introduced the process of reviewing matchups and schedules in three-week windows to identify team offense outliers. The basic premise is that rest-of-season (ROS) analysis has high margins of error and that it is better to compartmentalize fantasy decision-making into shorter timeframes. At that time, the Chicago White Sox and New York Mets were highlighted as positive offensive outliers. Over the next 3.5 weeks, the White Sox scored the fourth-most runs and ranked top three in ISO and wRC+, while the Mets were a huge letdown. In mid-May, the featured offenses, based on matchups, were the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants. The Rangers’ schedule helped them to score the 12th most runs over those weeks. The Giants, who were the worst offense in the Majors at that time, took advantage of their incredible schedule and turned into the best offense in baseball over the next month: third in runs and first in ISO, SLG, and wRC+. In mid-June, I recommended targeting hitters from the Athletics and Colorado Rockies due to their advantageous “on-paper” schedule. From June 11 through July 5, the Rockies were the most productive offense in baseball, averaging a league-best 6.43 runs per game, with the highest ISO (.233), and the only offense with a .500+ slugging percentage. The Athletics were seventh in total runs (118) at a rate of 5.36 per game, despite being without Brent Rooker.

This final review of a 3.5-week window will take us through Sunday, September 20. Technically, we could extend this through the final week of the season, but it’s better not to, as teams will be shutting down players and playoff teams will be resting some of their players. First, let’s review how pitching staffs have performed over the last six weeks and highlight the potentially fruitful matchups which should lead us to our offensive outliers.

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Building on my piece a couple of weeks ago on the normalization of Z-O, it felt like there was a lot more left on the bone in terms of finding out if permanent changes to a hitter’s approach are possible, and if so, how long does it take for a new baseline to be established? In the first piece, we followed up on a discussion on X between redsoxstats and Eno Sarris, and introduced Z-O as a metric and the stickiness of it as a metric for plate discipline.

It seems to be, in general, once a hitter establishes his baseline, it is difficult to deviate too much away from that level throughout his career. This is due to how inherent a hitter’s approach is at the plate. Hitters have tendencies baked into their profile, and shifting from that is difficult. But this opened up a slew of further questions relating to how baselines are established: is it possible to establish a new baseline? If a hitter improves or declines from this baseline, how are we able to establish a new Z-O baseline (if at all)?

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Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

Note: Any noted rostership rates come from the NFBC RotoWire Online Championship, the same rates we use on the FanGraphs Player Rater. For reference, these leagues are 12-team Roto leagues with 30-man rosters (2 C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, MI, CI, 5 OF, UT, 9 P) and weekly add/drops. This rate can be compared to other rostership rates found in this article.

American League

Angels

• Ryan Johnson is throwing his cutter more.

Los Angeles was again the beneficiary of a good start from Johnson, who pitched seven scoreless innings and walked only two.

The right-hander has leaned more heavily on his cutter and used his sinker less frequently over his past two starts, an adjustment Suzuki said plays to Johnson’s strengths.

His cutter (10% SwStr%) usage increased from 31% to 54% instead of his sinker (1% SwStr%). A 100% LOB% has him with a 1.46 ERA over those games while having a 5.13 xFIP. The pitch is an improvement for him, but he’s still not rosterable. Read the rest of this entry »

This is an amazing webgem!

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• Daily SP Chart archive
• 2-Start podcast episode
• SP Rankings (last update: 7/24 | next: September)

Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings.

• SFG switched from Roupp to Webb, nothing changes on our end. In fact, I’m more confident in Webb than Roupp.

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