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While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even larger entry fees ($2.5K to $15K). They are named Elite leagues (previously called High Stakes Leagues), and there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers try to gain every advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in five or more leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Intro

I left you earlier in the week with a promise to dive deeper into the bargain leaderboards created by comparing projected dollar value against the expected dollar value for a pick in that draft slot. Please accept my sincerest apologies if, left without more context, you found yourself mired in the digital equivalent of a TJ Maxx aisle, paralyzed with indecision while selecting which 10 articles of clothing you want to bring to the dressing rooms.

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We’ve covered several rookie-eligible starting pitchers and hitters throughout the past few months. Now, we’re examining five more rookies with small samples and tools. When we say tools, we’re usually talking about power and speed. As usual, we’ll provide recommendations for keeper or dynasty leagues based on the current data. 

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• Daily SP Chart archive
• 2-Start podcast episode
• SP Rankings (last update: 6/5 | next: July)

Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings. (Yellow added after original post)

• It’s Miz, Skenes, and Wheeler day — Rejoice!! Unfortunately, they all have evening games so there will be some overlap, but the start times are a little staggered with Skenes first at 5:40pm CT, 6:10 for Wheels, and 6:45 for Miz so you get a clean half an hour with Skenes before Wheels even starts. If you trying to split your time and catch some of all three, you can watch Skenes’s first few IP before jumping over. Skenes used to take precedent over any non-Skubal start for me, but Miz has ascended into that spot so come 6:45, CHC-MIL gets the big screen, even over my Tigers. 🙈
• Ginn, Arrighetti, and Martinez are the interlopers of the 3-x world thanks to matchups, venues, and/or recent performance. Ginn has become a firm home/road sit/start guy for me: 4.29 ERA/1.62 WHIP at home | 1.99/.79 on the road. Arrighetti and Martinez are toting mid-5.00s ERAs over the L30 days but both have solid full season records and get to face sputtering offenses.
• From there, the board gets really sketchy. I don’t feel great about starting any of the 2-x’ers and below. I’m taking a shot on McDonald despite his recent struggles because he’s catching ATL at the best possible time as they sit dead last in wOBA vR over the last month as regression and injuries catch up to them. Pair that with SFG’s offense hitting a lot better of late and putting a potential W in play if McDonald can put up a solid 5.
• Ureña still has that sharp ERA/WHIP split (2.41/1.31) that suggests the former will be headed upward sooner than later, but we’ll take a shot against a road ATH team that is top 10 vR in the aggregate, but sits 18th against ’em on the road.
• Castillo blew Miller’s gem last time out when they were in the starter-follower setup but his four outings before that were solid: 1.79 ERA/1.00 WHIP/13% K-BB in 20.3 IP. I only say “solid” despite the beautiful ratios because the K-BB is still pretty modest, suggesting there’s some run-hot here. But even if you tack the 4 unearned runs back onto his ledger, it’s still a palatable 3.58 ERA in this span. The clincher is the matchup, though. Our start thresholds against the J-Ram-less Guardians are wiiide open!
• We’re at the point of the season where COL has built enough good numbers at home to push their full season rankings way up so don’t immediately get deterred by their 4th highest wOBA vR. They’re tied for 1st at home with TBR (that’s interesting!) with a .353 wOBA that drops to .313 (16th) on the road. That doesn’t mean Bradley and his 6.93 ERA/1.62 WHIP over the last month is an auto start, just that the matchup isn’t as scary as it seems on the surface. 
• My interest Cantillo is purely matchup related as SEA is dead last vL on the year and 25th over the L30 days.
• Abbott is another pure matchup play. PIT has a night-day vR/vL split, sitting 23rd in wOBA vL with a 27% K rate that is tied for highest with COL. Abbott also hasn’t allowed more than 3 ER in a start since April 24th, posting a 2.41 ERA in his L10 starts. But the modest 1.23 WHIP and outright bad 8% K-BB don’t give the ERA a lot of credence, yet he keeps getting it done. I’d have no problem sitting in a tougher matchup even w/the hot ERA run, but PIT v. a southpaw is tough to pass.
• I originally gave Corbin 1-x, but took it off about 20 minutes after posting. TEX isn’t a scary matchup, but Corbin has completely pumpkin’d after a fast start (6.64 ERA/1.82 WHIP/5% K-BB in L30).  

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Syndication: Tuscaloosa News

With several websites hosting fantasy baseball leagues and analysts reporting rates from different sites, it’s tough to know how a rostership rate compares to the league each person is in. I hope to clarify some of that today by comparing the rostership rates at various websites.

Previously, some shmuck compared rostership rates at various hosting, but that was over eight years ago. A few things have changed since then. I chose to go to 500 players to get a feeling for the rates in 15-team, 30-man rosters. These leagues have 450 players on their active rosters, but there is disagreement on the end guys, so I included an additional 50 players. Read the rest of this entry »

Stuff and location have become key parts of pitcher analysis in recent years. It is something I have used a lot in my writing, and I believe it can be a great indicator of success when applied correctly. This can be particularly useful in fantasy when looking to identify pick-ups or diagnose regression.

The relationship between stuff and location is symbiotic, but not exactly equal. To understand this correlation, we can look at how 2026 starting pitchers have performed across metrics and what we can learn through a macro lens when building our pitching staffs across formats. In this chart, we have Stuff+ on the y-axis and Location+ on the x-axis. The higher the pitcher, the more ‘Stuff’ they have, and the further to the right of the chart they are, the better they are at locating their pitches. If you hover over or tap a dot, you can also see how many innings they pitched and their xERA for 2026.

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• Daily SP Chart archive
• 2-Start podcast episode
• SP Rankings (last update: 6/5 | next: July)

Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings. (Yellow added after original post)

• Cam/Sanchez Day is fun! I wish one had a day game instead of playing around the same time because I love dialing in on both this year. Sanchez draws the spunky Nats so slots 3rd among the aces.
• I thought Seattle was moving the Opener/Follower around the rotation but it Miller/Castillo doing it again. Last time I listed Castillo since I usually list Followers but their OP/FW setups aren’t like normal. Miller isn’t necessarily going to be limited on the front end. Last game, he was brilliant for 5 but Castillo had a really rough 4 behind him. Woo! (not Bryan, but rather an exclamation of celebration!) I was right that they are moving the OP/FW around. Miller and Castillo get traditional starts today & tomorrow with Gilbert/Hancock running the double dip setup on Saturday. Nothing changes for our purposes today as we were starting Miller even against the tough Pirates, but maybe now he’ll be allowed to go 6-7 IP if he’s rolling. Ty to commenter TheBabbo!
• Early has found a better strikeout groove of late. After reaching 6 Ks just once in his first 7 starts, he’s hit the mark in 6 of his L8 with his composite K% going from 20% to 24% in that time.
• Melton has quite hit his K% peak, but he’s also gotten better of late. After just 4 Ks in his first 2 starts (12.7 IP), he has 5 in each of his L3 though he’s still only at 20% during that time, amassing 19 IP of 3.32 ERA and 0.95 WHIP with the improved K output. The results have made it easy to stick with him and I still feel there’s more in the tank skillswise.

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Note: Any stated rostership rates come from the NFBC RotoWire Online Championship, the same rates we use on the FanGraphs Player Rater. For reference, these leagues are 12-team Roto leagues with 30-man rosters (2 C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, MI, CI, 5 OF, UT, 9 P) and weekly add/drops.

American League

Angels

• Ryan Johnson threw the best start of his career.

The rookie turned in the best outing of his young career, allowing just one hit and one walk with eight strikeouts over six scoreless innings in a 5-1 win over the Orioles on Tuesday night at Angel Stadium.

Johnson carried a no-hitter until the sixth inning before he gave up a one-out single to former Angels infielder Jeremiah Jackson on a first-pitch cutter. But he got ex-Angels outfielder Taylor Ward to promptly ground into a double play to end his night, as he faced just one over the minimum.

“I feel great,” Johnson said with a big smile after his third career start. “You can’t feel anything but great after that. That’s exactly what I wanted to do.”

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Ret of season projections are a great way to identify players likely to perform better moving forward. The table below shows all the starting pitchers whose rest of season OOPSY-projected ERA is 3.80 or better (as compared to a league average of 4.19) and at lest 0.20 better than what they have shown so far this year (through June 22).

We’ll likely follow this up with another version looking at potential fallers based on the OOPSY projections. Today, we’ll highlight four starting pitchers that should perform better based on their skills and stuff for the rest of the season.

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• Daily SP Chart archive
• 2-Start podcast episode
• SP Rankings (last update: 6/5 | next: July)

Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings.

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