• One item missing from this article are hitters who played through an injury. While it needs to be updated, all the information can be located here.

• For Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, it took about two months for mechanical adjustments to take hold.

“In a shorter season, obviously everything gets magnified,” Rangel pointed out. “It’s tougher. In a regular season, we’d have about three or four months more to go, which gives you a little bit more time to kind of settle things down. It’s just hard this year, the way things are.”

Case in point: Lance Lynn.

In 2019, Lynn was 2-2 with a 6.51 ERA after five starts. By the time his recovery started to look legit, he was about to make his 11th start (Gibson, meanwhile, has 11 starts this season). If the season ended after two months and 12 starts, as it will for Gibson in 2020, Lynn’s line would have been good but not great: 7-4, 4.50 ERA, 77 strikeouts and 22 walks in 74 innings. Instead, Lynn took June through September and finished fifth in Cy Young voting.

The findings are just a data point that seems to be in line with other findings. Players need around a month or two to implement a change or get ready for the season. Just keep the idea in mind when a hitter is coming off the IL or missed part of Spring Training.
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The playoffs are a great time for all of us to collectively watch the best the game has to offer and when they have major performances, it can stick with us. Those memorable moments are fun, but they can result in a Playoff Tax for us as the fantasy draft table the following year. This isn’t inherently bad as there are plenty of times when these showcases make us look deeper into a player and realize he’s someone we want on our team.

I remember seeing the exact moment that Walker Buehler skyrocketed up draft boards in October 2018:

The playoff fantasy tax will have Walker Buehler regularly going among the top 10 SPs in fantasy drafts next year.

— Paul Sporer (@sporer) October 27, 2018

He ended up going 12th among starters in Main Event drafts, so I was pretty close.

American League version

Here’s one player from each National League team who could make a big move with a strong October performance (ranging from studs to low/mid-tier options for deeper leagues):

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I know information from the 2020 season will be suspect for future use and that includes closer usage patterns. Some parts are interesting. Others useless. Before going through each closer situation, I figured it would be a blood bath. After a month of constant flux, the results are better than I expected (not one established closer lost his job in September). The useable information seems to be in line with the last few seasons.

First off, the emphasis of this study is to determine how many draft-day closers make it through the season. Here is this season’s list with all previous studies found here.

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The playoffs are a great time for all of us to collectively watch the best the game has to offer and when they have major performances, it can stick with us. Those memorable moments are fun, but they can result in a Playoff Tax for us as the fantasy draft table the following year. This isn’t inherently bad as there are plenty of times when these showcases make us look deeper into a player and realize he’s someone we want on our team.

I remember seeing the exact moment that Walker Buehler skyrocketed up draft boards in October 2018:

The playoff fantasy tax will have Walker Buehler regularly going among the top 10 SPs in fantasy drafts next year.

— Paul Sporer (@sporer) October 27, 2018

He ended up going 12th among starters in Main Event drafts, so I was pretty close.

Here’s one player from each American League team who could make a big move with a strong October performance (ranging from studs to low/mid-tier options for deeper leagues):

Note: I’ll have a National League companion piece on Thursday

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Well, we got a season! It was only two months so it’s really hard to know exactly how much stock to put it into any of it, but here’s my first look. Obviously this is subject to change and will do so quite a bit as the offseason moves forward, but I feel pretty good about this initial look. I decided not to tier it yet as I’m just not feeling confident in the cutoffs, but rest assured that there are several globs once we get past the first 25 or so. I also just labeled pitchers with their current team, we’ll get into free agent stuff later in the offseason.

Let me know what you think in the comments! I’ll have more detailed ranks out shortly after the playoffs.

Note: Pearson, Richards, and Fiers added after initial post. Meanwhile, I had missed Hudson’s TJ. 

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10/12/20: Note: First, thanks to everyone for the help. Second, the comments are closed so if any player needs to be added, reach me at @jeffwzimmerman on Twitter. -Jeff

With the season just over, I’d like some help collecting the hitters who played through an injury in 2020. First, I’m not looking for those who may have struggled because of COVID-19 complications (e.g. Austin Meadows, Scott Kingery, Yoan Moncada). That’s another study for a later date.

The information can help fantasy managers help point to why a hitter may have struggled when their 2021 prep begins. Also, my research has shown that these hitters see a production decline. It’s one offseason data point to get out of the way.

Please let me know if I’m missing any in the comments. All I ask is that as much information as possible be provided like the location (e.g. hip), when (e.g. summer camp), or an article link. Just a name doesn’t help. From my own notes and begging on Twitter, here are the hitters I have so far (list from 2017, 2018, 2019). Thanks.
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The 2020 version of Bullpen Report includes six different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News 
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save.)

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The 2020 version of Bullpen Report includes six different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News 
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save.)

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Every year we get a group of players who emerge from being completely off the radar and turn into fantasy stars. This season might have added to that phenomenon by only being two months of action. After all, how often do we see one of these out of nowhere players have a fast start before tailing off as the six-month grind wears on? Plenty hold up and become something real, but many others fade. Well, no chance to fade with just two months so let’s take a look at this year’s Out of Nowhere All-Stars and assess their ’21 outlook, too.

Note: this is not a complete list, there are definitely more than eight candidates so feel free to include yours in the comments and I’ll give my thoughts on them in a response.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa | C, 3B – TEX

There’s one key letter that completely dictactes everything for IKF: C. His catcher-eligibility drove his fantasy interest this year and for me it was the fact that he wouldn’t have to catch much (turns out he hasn’t caught at all), though I did soft pedal on him a bit when we discussed him for summer drafts. Turns out I should’ve held firm in my love for non-catching catchers.

IKF has enjoyed a career year and while he only has an 88 wRC+, it comes with 3 HR and 8 SB which is enough to make him a top 10 catcher (7th on Razzball’s Player Rater). Unfortunately, he’ll lose the catcher eligibility for 2021 which severely curbs his outlook. He has been the 22nd best 3B and 21st best SS meaning he’s likely an AL only option.

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I’m as competitive as hell. I hate not winning. Simply…

So is almost everyone else. While many people search for an edge, they aren’t looking into harmful habits that erode that edge. All the gains an owner could get from researching the best players can be lost if he constantly overspends rostering them. Many times what a person considers to be an edge can actually be a hindrance. Here are several ideas that help me back and now that I’ve changed my stance
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