The 2023 version of the Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »

American League

Angels

• Brandon Drury (.824 OPS, 5 HR, 0 SB) has started in eight of the last 10 games.

• Chad Wallach (.978 OPS) and Matt Thaiss (.814 OPS) are splitting the catching duties. Read the rest of this entry »

Using baseball-savant data and some Python code, I have written a script that will loop through a pitcher’s three most recent appearances and flag any pitcher who has shown an increase in their fastball velocity. In raw form, it looks something like this:

Looking at the table above we can see that each of these three pitchers increased their fastball (“FF” in savant data) consistently over their last three appearances. Don’t believe me? You can check my work with Savant visualizations:

While I wrote more specifically about the merits of paying close attention to game-by-game fastball increases, quoting many other studies and great pieces along the way, I won’t be writing about it again here. Instead, I’ll simply show you a list of the starters and relievers who have increased game-by-game average velocity on their four-seamers and hope that you can take it from there. Sure, you could scroll through stacks of player pages to find players who have increased velocity until the cows come home, or you could write some code that will detect those increases and flag those players for you. I chose the second way. If you find it useful, I’ll do it on a more regular basis. That’s it. This post is more about the data than the words:

In past seasons I’ve done this Daily SP Chart down the stretch and invariably there are comments asking why I don’t do it all season. I’ve never really had a great answer for that so now I’m doing it!

Once the season gets going, the chart will include their performance over the last five starts (for the first few weeks, it’ll be their 2023 stats), their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness, my start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues, and then a note about them. The opponent wOBA will remain blank for a while until we get some data and because there is so much lineup turnover year-to-year, I’m not going to include last year’s mark. I’ll start including wOBA data on April 17th.

These are general recommendations, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you are protecting ratios or chasing counting numbers. This is for standard 5×5 roto leagues. The thresholds for H2H starts are generally lower, especially in points leagues so I thought there would be more value focusing on roto.

Trying something new by splitting up the data a bit with the recos & comments in one chart and the recos and stats in another. Let me know if that’s preferable to putting it all in one. I decided this after writing it, but for the future this could give me a bit more space for deeper comments, too. At any rate, I’m open to any feedback even if it’s constructive criticism!

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Guest: Jason Collette

Strategy Section

• Demoted Players
  • Parameter/Projection error, or simply part of the process?
  • Jake McCarthy
  • Jordan Walker
• How to know when hot player starts are for real?
• How to trade for / trade away players with hot starts?
  • Is it easier to trade for / trade away players with cold starts?
• Hitters with hot starts
  • Yandy Diaz
  • Nico Hoerner
  • Patrick Wisdom
  • Jarred Kelenic

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast (beat-the-shift): Play in new window | Download

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I love stories like this:

After 3,846 Minor League at-bats, Drew Maggi receives a warm welcome before his first MLB plate appearance with the @Pirates. pic.twitter.com/pjUXlw0TDD

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) April 27, 2023

Read the rest of this entry »

There are been complaints about being FanGraphs being NFBC (National Fantasy Baseball Championship) centric (e.g. Big Kid Adds) and we should consider other league types. The deal is that besides a few exceptions, the NFBC provides a superior product to analyze drafts and in-season player movement.

First off, I know there are leagues just as or more competitive than the NFBC, but are their drafts and rosters movements made public like the NFBC. Just last week you could notice that I was ranked 2457th out of 2460 teams in the Online Championship. Having the information available is huge. Read the rest of this entry »

In past seasons I’ve done this Daily SP Chart down the stretch and invariably there are comments asking why I don’t do it all season. I’ve never really had a great answer for that so now I’m doing it!

Once the season gets going, the chart will include their performance over the last five starts (for the first few weeks, it’ll be their 2023 stats), their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness, my start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues, and then a note about them. The opponent wOBA will remain blank for a while until we get some data and because there is so much lineup turnover year-to-year, I’m not going to include last year’s mark. I’ll start including wOBA data on April 17th.

These are general recommendations, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you are protecting ratios or chasing counting numbers. This is for standard 5×5 roto leagues. The thresholds for H2H starts are generally lower, especially in points leagues so I thought there would be more value focusing on roto.

Trying something new by splitting up the data a bit with the recos & comments in one chart and the recos and stats in another. Let me know if that’s preferable to putting it all in one. I decided this after writing it, but for the future this could give me a bit more space for deeper comments, too. At any rate, I’m open to any feedback even if it’s constructive criticism!

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2023 version of the Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »

SP1:

Pumpkin seeds ✍️ balanced ✍️ wrist ✍️ pic.twitter.com/WbZKt4uMn6

— Cut4 (@Cut4) April 25, 2023

Read the rest of this entry »