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

Guest: Michael Simione

Joes vs. Pros Congratulations

Strategy Section

• Streaming Players
  • Definition of streaming
  • Long-term holding of players streamed
  • Streaming hitters
  • Should you stream players in-season from the very beggining?
    • Should you set aside roster spots in your draft for streaming?
• Streaming Starting Pitchers
  • Advice for first-time players
  • How to determine which starting pitchers to stream
    • What stats to consider?
    • Can you avoid getting “Gombered?”
  • Budgeting FAAB for Streaming
    • How much should you pay per week in FAAB on starting pitcher streamers?
  • How to manage your bench in-season for streamers?
    • How many slots should you allocate?

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93-69 (1st in Division; 6th in MLB)

[PREVIOUS REVIEWS]

SP Wins: 61 (3rd)

RP Wins: 32 (18th)

Saves: 43 (8th)

1+ Save: 5 (Liam Hendriks 38, Aaron Bummer 2, Craig Kimbrel [total: 24], Matt Foster, Ryan Tepera 1)

100+ Ks: 6 (Dylan Cease 226, Lucas Giolito 201, Carlos Rodón 185, Lance Lynn 176, Hendriks 113, Michael Kopech 103)

.260+ AVG (min. 350 PA): 4 (Tim Anderson .309, Leury García .267, Yoán Moncada .263, José Abreu .261)

65+ Runs: 3 (Anderson 94, Abreu 86, Moncada 74)

65+ RBI: 1 (Abreu 117)

10+ HRs: 8 (Abreu 30, Yasmani Grandal 23, Anderson 17, Andrew Vaughn 15, Moncada 14, Luis Robert 13, Gavin Sheets 11, Eloy Jiménez 10)

5+ SBs: 5 (Anderson 18, Billy Hamilton 9, Adam Engel 7, Garcia, Robert 6)

BEST BUY: Yasmani Grandal

Grandal packed a full season into his 93 games last year and even managed to hit .240 despite returning from the IL on August 27th with a .203 AVG. From that point forward he hit .337/.481/.673 with 9 HR in 129 PA. The craziest part is that he was a waiver pickup for many because he was widely dropped after a torn left knee tendon required surgery in early-July. He recovered quickly and fully as his 209 wRC+ was the MLB’s best in that time. Grandal is regularly available after pick-100 (ADP of 110) as the 5th catcher off the board. Steamer sees another strong season coming: .235/.373/.458, 26 HR, 72 RBI, and 73 R in 536 PA.

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With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being drafted on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can find all the pieces in this series here. Read the rest of this entry »

After just updating the appendix last year, The Process has been fully updated for next season and is available in digital (full and appendix) and print versions.

Some of the new highlights from the book are:

• A foreword by the great Phil Dussault, fresh off his amazing 2021 season, as well as our unique analysis of Phil’s strategies.

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The experiment from last week’s post on modeling for strikeout rate continues this week with a look at walk rate:

1. I’ve limited to players with at least 120 PAs because it is a good point of stabilization for hitter BB%.
2. I’m using 2017-2019 as a training set and then deploying my model on 2021 data to look for differences between model predictions and actuals.
3. My model only tells us what should be expected from a hitter who accumulates at least 120 plate appearances in a season based on what other players have done in the same situation from 2017-2019. 2020 is excluded. The predictions of this model should not be confused with expectations.

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

Guest: Ron Shandler

LABR Congratulations

Strategy Section

• Dealing with the current injury frequency level in baseball
  • Roster construction
  • Risk management
    • Broad Assesment Balance Sheet (BABS)
  • Reasons for injury frequency by team
  • Risk-adjusted pricing vs. managing to a risk budget
  • First round picks
    • Fernando Tatis Jr.
    • Ronald Acuna Jr.
• How to think about Binary Risk
  • Jacob deGrom
• Playing fantay against “Power Drafters” who take on more risk
• Is the market still right to draft risky elite starting pitching?
• Is the market overpricing stable closers in early drafts?
• How to value prospects in drafts?
  • Bobby Witt Jr.

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Here is the first run of my top-150 starting pitcher rankings for 2022. I create these by turning my personal projections into dollar values and using those, along with non-projection factors, to rank accordingly.

These will change, as my projections do, over the course of the offseason, with many being driven by adjustments in playing time projections more so than changes in talent rates. ADP information is taken from NFBC, previous values are calculated with FanGraphs auction calculator. Read the rest of this entry »

12/21/21

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer
• @jasoncollette – Co-Host

PATREON

• Join our Patreon

INJURIES/TRANSACTION NEWS

• Buck Showalter to NYM

IN FOCUS: 3B Ranking Debates

• Austin Riley P:3, J:5
• Adalberto Mondesi P/J: 4
• Ryan McMahon P:12, J:15
• Eugenio Suárez P:19, J: 22

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I’ll be releasing my first run of positional rankings over the next week or so. My rankings with the individual comments will come after the new year, but these will lay the groundwork and show you where I’m at to start. These are for 5×5 15-teamers with a 20-game eligibility threshold.

Let’s discuss in the comments!

• 2B Rankings
• 1B Rankings
• SS Rankings

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Trust me I know the catcher position is insanely boring and especially boring when you have to analyze the players. Well, as I prepare for my draft season I did break down every possible catcher for the fantasy season. Here are some fun facts and opinions I gathered while doing so, maybe this can help ease your pain.

When you think of power in terms of catchers you think of course think Salvador Perez and Mike Zunino. Perez broke the catcher record with 48 home runs while Zunino put up an impressive 33 home runs. But only Zunino had a higher max exit velocity than Willson Contreras who had a 115.4 Max EV.

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