02/26/20

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.

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Luis Severino TJ surgery (1:57)
  • Jordan Montgomery/Jonathan Loaisiga

STARTING PITCHERS Pt. 3 (#46-65)

• NFBC Average Draft Data (set to Online leagues and start date of 2/01/20)

46-50 (9:30)

• Sean Manaea
• David Price
• Kenta Maeda
• Lance McCullers Jr.
• German Marquez

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I’m trying to crank this article out three times a week to limit how long it takes me to assemble each one. That said, I’m not sure if/when the next one will be posted since I’m traveling Friday to BHQ’s First Pitch Florida for my mixed LABR auction. I’m guessing sometime late on Friday or sometime Saturday.

Notes

• I’m going to shy away from any current headline injury news (Luis Severino and J.D. Davis). Instead, I’ll try to dig a little deeper to find some “hidden” news that everyone isn’t “breaking”.

• I’ll continue to add in Spring Training velocities whenever I find them to my tracker.

American League

Angels

• Dillon Peters plans on emphasizing his slider to get left-handed hitters out.

Peters spoke after his first appearance of how he planned to begin mixing in a slider during the spring to give left-handed hitters another look. He threw the slider just 3.9 percent of the time last season.

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Chat transcript is below. Thanks for coming out!!

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02/25/20

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.

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Joe Pisapia Returns

• Get the Fantasy Black Book here

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It is time for an update to my starting pitcher ranks for 2020. I will be discussing some of these with Paul Sporer and Nick Pollack on tomorrow’s Sleeper and the Bust Podcast, so definitely listen to that.

All ranks are based on 15-team standard leagues. ADP is from ADP and reflects Online Championship’s data since 1/1/2020. For more ranks of mine for 2020, you can click the links below: Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of items before digging into projection adjusting news.

1. I’ve started collecting spring training fastball velocities and will update them as I find the time.

The Spring Training fastball velocity tracker is live. I'll update it when and if I feel like it, but I can always use some help. If anyone sees a velocity available in a Tweet or article, just tag me and I'll eventually add it. Thanks for the help. -Jeffhttps://t.co/2LaJ5uCDGJ

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) February 22, 2020

One name which immediately sticks out is Alex Wood with a 2 to 3 mph jump. Wood lives off his sinker (50%+ usage). While it’s not a huge swing-and-miss pitch, it does better at 93 mph and higher.

While healthy, he’s a must-own in all formats.
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02/24/20

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.

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SPs Pt. 2 (31-45)

31-35 (2:55)

• Zack Wheeler
• Jesus Luzardo
• Frankie Montas
• Lance Lynn
• Madison Bumgarner

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02/23/20

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.

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FWFB Draft Guide

• Amazon
• Email Justin for the $7 PDF at justinmasonfantasy@gmail.com

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Note: As noted in the comments, I missed Sean Murphy in the initial evaluation. He has now been added and hopefully, all the counts have been updated.

Every year around this time, I go through the catcher pool to see who I can tolerate. Either I’m getting soft in my advanced age or the catcher pool has improved since last season. I didn’t get nauseous during the process. I’ll myself through the ownable options for different league types.

When targetting catchers, I’d like them to do one of two things.

• Provide 15 to 20 home runs power.
• Not tank my batting average.

The first criteria is easier to find with 11 catchers projected for 15 or more homers. Seventeen catchers are projected between 10 and 14. On average in NFBC Main Event leagues last season, owners needed 363 homers to finish third or 30 HR per the 12 non-catchers. If an owner can get 36 homers from his catchers, the amount needed by the other hitters drops to 27.
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