1/19/21

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• DJ LeMahieu back to NYY (2:00)
• Corey Kluber to NYY (6:11)
• Joe Musgrove to SD in 3-way trade (11:45)
  • Mets get Joey Lucchesi
  • Pirates get Hudson Head (7), David Bednar (28), Omar Cruz (HM), Drake Fellows (‘19 6th rounder), Endy Rodriguez (13)
• Jon Lester to WAS (22:33)
• Archie Bradley to PHI (24:40)
• Kirby Yates close to TOR rumors (26:50)

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I’m continuing my attention on fringe starters. They are the starters who once the season starts, managers are going to have to make a quick decision on adding or dropping. These pitchers will be in play all season. I’m using NFBC’s ADP and starting at the bottom and selecting any starter drafted by half the teams.

Here is an evaluation of eight more starters. You can find the other editions here:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8
• Part 9

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1/15/21

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host/Producer

2021 STEAMER GEMS

• Franmil Reyes (2:43)
• Jesse Winker (7:22)
• Brandon Nimmo (13:36)
• Alejandro Kirk (18:35)

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

Guest: Todd Zola of Mastersball, ESPN & RotoWire

Park Factors

• What are park factors, and how they are calculated? What do they capture?
• The effect of the humidor.
• Park factors for unknown situations.
• Park factors for free agents.

Projections

• How projections are treating the uncertainty surrounding the DH (for the National League) in the upcoming season.

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With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being draft 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.

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

Guest: Wayne Randazzo – The Voice of the New York Mets

• Broadcasting in 2020
• Lindor/Carrasco trade
• Pete Alonso/Dom Smith and the Designated Hitter
• J.D. Davis/Brandon Nimmo as starters
• Trade for George Springer?
• Edwin Diaz, Seth Lugo & the bullpen
• Minor League prospect impact for 2021
• Steven Matz
• Most underrated player on the ball club
• Most exciting moments of Wayne’s broadcasting career

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1/14/21

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Pedro Báez to HOU (3:17)
  • Baez or Ryan Pressly as closer?

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The biggest trend in pitching right now is moving away from the fastball. With another 2-point drop, fastballs account for just half the pitches thrown, down from 64% back in 2002 when we started keeping the data. It slowly trickled down to 58% by 2011 and held there for five years before the current downturn that has seen at least a 1-point drop every year since 2016.

We are going to look at the pitchers with the biggest drops in usage and see what’s going on and how well it served them. Looking at 131 pitchers from 2020, just one pitcher added 10 points to his usage (Nick Margevicius 64%) while a whopping 24 shaved 10 points off from their previous season (some missed 2019 so I compared to their 2018). Six came from the Pirates (Joe Musgrove, Chad Kuhl, Derek Holland, Trevor Williams, Steven Brault, and Chris Stratton) as the departure of pitching coach Ray Searage seemed to foster a change away from heaters.

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1/12/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

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

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Liam Hendriks to CWS (2:08)
• Kyle Schwarber to WAS (9:40)

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