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

Notable Transactions/News/Rumors

• Yasiel Puig not signed
• Franchy Cordero to KC
• Edward Olivares
• Carter Kieboom not starting?
• Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hurts side
• Freddie Freeman to be ready for opening day
• Jose Martinez & Yonny Chirinos returned
• Blue Jays not in Toronto

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Sometimes you are all set for the week. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start thinking about the future. This article takes a look ahead for the following week to see if maybe there are things to consider or players to stash that may not have as much value right now. Don’t forget to check out the companion article to this one, Who’s On First? Read the rest of this entry »

The season is almost here! Read the rest of this entry »

Note: If you read this on Saturday evening, I’m likely to add a few names as I do some more research and more news rolls in.

Projecting this season’s FAAB is going to be a nightmare. In past seasons, the process seemed fruitless at times but it’s going to be even more of a mess this season. Most leagues are giving teams the same amount of FAAB to cover a third of the season that will lead to some high dollar desperate bidding. Additionally, when a league was drafted matters. For instance, I have two leagues running FAAB tomorrow. The one from early March I need to clean up (e.g. one had Trey Mancini) and the other I drafted last so I may gamble on some different bullpen arms.

In this article, I’m going to at least cover the players in demand using CBS’s (40% or less ownership) and Yahoo’s ADD/DROP rates. Both hosting sites have the option for daily and weekly waiver wire adds. CBS used a weekly change while Yahoo looks at the last 24 hours. Yahoo is a great snapshot of right now while CBS ensures hot targets from early in the week aren’t missed.

Additionally, I’m going to add anyone else I fill is appropriate.

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We’re a week away from baseball. I unloaded the chamber and dropped 181 names here (and probably still missed SOMEONE). As with the last update, I’ll have a podcast or column out on Monday covering specifics, but for today here are the rankings with the comparison to the last list.

Let’s talk about these rankings the comments!

(Blue indicates a new tier starting)

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General Information

• These may be the two most impactful sentences for season planning.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Dalbec said that his first positive test was on June 8 while in Arizona. Fortunately, he was asymptomatic the entire time.

Bobby Dalbec returned was cleared to play on July 11. He was asymptomatic but it took him over a month to get a negative result to play again. For the players who are currently on the ‘vague’ IL, they could be their a while.

American League

Angels

• Shohei Ohtani will not hit before he pitches on Sundays.

Ohtani homered while serving as designated hitter on Sunday, but Maddon said that he doesn’t see Ohtani hitting the day before he pitches. Ohtani remains slated to start once a week — most likely on Sundays — and serve as DH roughly three to five times a week.

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On recent episodes of The Sleeper & The Bust, Justin and I picked pitching and hitting league leaders for the upcoming season, highlighting a main pick and then someone to keep an eye on. I wanted to take it a step further and pick some guys who could lead the league in the 5×5 categories going pick-200 or later. Here are the pitchers and today we’ll cover hitters.

BATTING AVERAGE

Jesse Winker, CIN | Pick 345

A career .285 hitter, Winker dipped down to .269 last year when his BABIP was at a career-low .286, but he was at .332 from 2017-18 and hit a cool .299 in 471 PA. He has the talent to push a mid-.300s AVG in a short sample, especially if he’s protected a bit against lefties (.176 career AVG), though not too much or else he won’t qualify for the batting title. I don’t really understand Winker’s ADP. Even acknowledging his poor defense and inability to hit lefties, he’s better than pick 345 with a career 122 wRC+ as part of a fantastic lineup.

Also consider: Howie Kendrick (254) – Not a terribly daring secondary pick as he ripped a cool .344 last year which would’ve led the league and now the NL DH ensures a full-time role for the excellent hitter.

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07/16/20

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

• Yasiel Puig to ATL
• Jacob deGrom back MRI comes back fine
• Byron Buxton sprained foot, says he’ll be ready
• Julio Rodriguez hairline fracture in wrist
• Nick Solak holding down LF w/Calhoun out (Grade 1 hip flexor strain)
• Isiah Kiner-Falefa has edge for 3B role

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There is no argument that if two position players would be guaranteed to produce the exact stats, the one with multi-position eligibility should have more value. The added flexibility would be helpful while drafting or setting lineups. The question of how much value does it add remains unanswered? Todd Zola and I have attempted to answer the question with Todd coming to the conclusion of “adding $3 or $4 to each player in mixed formats, and a couple bucks in single-league formats.” That’s fine in theory but I wanted to see how the market values the flexibility in this short season by matching similar players with and without extra positions. In the end, the results matched up with Todd’s findings.
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