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

Guest: Mike Podhorzer

Bar Mitzvah Talk

• Coke & Pepsi

Projections

• Pod Projections
• Manual vs. automated projections
• Where do automated projections fail / blind spots?

In-Season

• At what point in the season should you rely on in-season statistics vs. pre-season projections?
  • Francisco Lindor 2021

Understandings Statistics Section

• Hitting Statistics
  • BA
  • OBP
  • SLG
  • OPS
  • BB%
  • K%
  • HR/FB%
  • Barrel%
• How can you tell if a YOY increase in a statistic is real skill, or if it was a fluke?
• BABIP
• Using Statcast to identify pockets of value / undervalued players
• What in-season statistics should you use when setting waiver wire pickups for hitters?
• Pitching Statistics
  • ERA
  • WHIP
  • Swing Strike %
• How to adjust for a potential universal DH in 2022?
• Strand Rate (LOB%)
• ERA Estimators
  • FIP vs. xFIP vs. SIERA
    • Descriptive vs. Predictive
• What in-season statistics should you use when setting waiver wire pickups for pitchers?
  • K% is superior to K/9
  • K-BB% or K% – Which is more valuable to track in-season?
• What statistics should one track to tout relievers for saves in 2022?
• Scouting for saves in 2022
• Other important statistics to track
  • Plate discipline metrics
    • O-Swing%, Z-Swing%, O-Contact%, Z-Contact%, etc.

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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.

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12/18/21

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

PATREON

• Join our Patreon

IN FOCUS: SS Ranking Debates

• Fernando Tatis Jr. (2:28)
• Francisco Lindor (8:00)
• Tim Anderson (11:50)
• Carlos Correa (17:50)

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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

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

Guest: Jeremy Hefner, New York Mets

Interview

• Highlight of career
• Game preparation
  • Preparing players for the mental & physical aspects of the game
  • Is game planning more about having players pitch to their strengths, or about exploiting weaknesses of your opponents ?
  • In-game management
    • 3rd time through the order
  • Use of an “opener”
  • How “first-in” and “next-in” pitchers coming out of the bullpen are decided

• Health
  • Keeping pitchers healthy throughout the season
  • Extended rest between outings – good or bad?
• Analytics
  • How best to use analytics as a coach
    • Objective vs. subjective view
  • Analytics vs. Gut
    • Pulling Blake Snell in the World Series
    • Trusting analytics, and when to go with your gut
  • How are stats/analytics used to help players on the major league level?
    • Which are the key stats/indicators that you look at?
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Rule changes in baseball
  • Universal DH
  • 3 batter minimum rule for pitchers
  • Extra inning runner on 2nd base rule
• Position players pitching in baseball
  • Effectiveness of Ariel pitching in the major leagues

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American League

Angels

• Michael Lorenzen has a guaranteed rotation spot.

If and when spring training begins in 2022, Lorenzen will not come in needing to earn a rotation spot. He confirmed his spot is “locked in.”
…
Lorenzen disagrees with the perception he’s a “failed starter” because he believes his arsenal has evolved significantly. Throw that rookie year out the window, he argued, because he’s a totally different pitcher.
…
“I don’t think people understood how rudimentary my skills were when it came to being in the rotation my rookie year,” Lorenzen said. “I had no idea what I was doing. … I’m surviving with no skill.”

His changeup now, he says, is 10 mph slower than his fastball. His two-seamer is different from his four-seamer. And his curveball is refined and he’s excited to use it as a starter. It wasn’t often called upon when he was a reliever.

He needed to sell himself on these changes because he’s been horrible as a starter (4.95 ERA, 4.68 xFIP, 1.50 WHIP). The biggest issue while starting was the walks (4.3 BB/9) and those didn’t go away last season in the bullpen (also 4.3 BB/9). He’s fine as a late-round flier, but I don’t expect some major step forward. Read the rest of this entry »

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!

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Experiment alert! Prepare yourself to digest a very simple linear model that looks at plate discipline data. I’ll do some explaining of the model along the way, but here are a few points to cleanse your already superb palate before sampling the charcuterie:

1. I’ve limited to players with at least 60 PAs because it is a good point of stabilization for hitter K%.
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 60 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.
4. Hasn’t this been done before? Probably.

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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.

Let’s discuss in the comments!

Read the rest of this entry »

12/14/21

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

PATREON

• Join our Patreon

IN FOCUS: Justin’s 2B Rankings

• Javier Báez at 5th (3:40)
• Jonathan India at 12th (9:40)
• Ketel Marte at 13th (16:47)
• Chris Taylor at 16th (23:20)

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