Once Spring Training was shut down, MLB.com must have ordered their writer to publish articles on “Roster Battles” and “What We Learned” since each team got one. I ground through all 60 of them and here is what I learned.

American League

Astros

• Bryan Abreu might be one of the team’s starters.

As camp progressed, rookie Bryan Abreu emerged as a legitimate candidate for the fifth spot as well.

I’m intrigued by the news. Abreu has always been a high-strikeout pitcher (11.9 K/9 in AAA, 13.5 K/9 in majors in 2019). His fastball sat at 95 mph last year. His slider and curve graded above average. His problem was fastball control and has always posted high walk rates. He’s starting to show some control. In the majors, he had a 3.1 BB/9. In spring training, it was 3.0 BB/9. While most prospect reports place him in the bullpen, I can see why the Astros have fallen for him.
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04/21/20

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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MVP & CY-WORTHY SEASONS DRAFT

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I’ve been sitting on a ton of possibly useful information since Spring Training was cut short. I was just going to sort through it once MLB tries to start up but it was becoming too much. I’m going to purge all the information in two to three articles and try to write Mining the News on a regular basis.

Here several quotes from several team officials and coaches on how long they think it’ll take to get pitchers ready.

• Jon Daniels says the Rangers are “idling”.

Daniels said the Rangers want their pitchers “idling their engines.” That means not shutting it down completely, but also not going at full intensity without knowing when they will be called back to work.

“Until the league tells us otherwise, we are going to try and keep guys in some sort of state of readiness,” Daniels said. “That’s going to vary with each guy based on what they can do safely. We don’t want anybody to do anything that will jeopardize their health or the public’s health.”

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In our last update, I reviewed the 2022 playoffs and discussed our World Series win! As we started the 2023 season, I identified starting pitching as the premium need and put up a poll of three starters for us to choose from: 2019 Jack Flaherty, 1987 Bret Saberhagen, and 2007 Ian Snell. I wasn’t terribly surprised by the fact that Flaherty steamrolled with 45% of the vote, but I made an executive decision to keep both him and the last place finisher of the poll, Snell. He only got 20% of the vote, but he was just so cheap at 650 Perfect Points that I felt he was worth holding.

WHERE WE STAND

As of this writing, it’s August 15th, 2023 and our Red Bulls are 65-54, sitting 4.5 games back of the Boston Kkroncs (not a typo) and holding the second Wild Card. It’s been an up and down season. We started 13-16 in April (with 2 games in March) and then ran up an 18-9 record in May, but we’re just 32-29 since with a .560 win percentage in June, .458 in July, and .643 thus far in August (9-5).

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A couple of weeks back, Mike asked for possible topic ideas. Today, I’m going to go through some topics that can be quickly answered or why they may be too massive to take on. Some reasonable questions were asked that deserve their own article so don’t fret if it wasn’t answered. Also, let me know which of these topics can be expanded and how?

Rock Lobster: Which stats are the most volatile week to week in h2h leagues? I assume something like Ws fluctuates more from week to week than SBs, but by how much? Could knowing this information lead to any insights regarding roster construction in h2h leagues? Or is it just noise?

This is a huge undertaking. Tanner Bell compiled weekly stats for a few studies in our book, and those took months. It’s something that could be done again but what are the standard points systems used? Just the standards at ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS? Any others? It’s doable but once jumping in, I think it’ll be a one-time study so everything desired needs to be in place before it begins.

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04/16/20

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.

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• @sporer – Host
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MAIN TOPIC

• American League Breakouts Out of Nowhere (drafted somewhere around 300 or later)
  • Baltimore (9:00)
  • Boston (15:25)
  • New York (20:00)
  • Tampa Bay (25:35)
  • Toronto (30:30)
  • Cleveland (38:20)
  • Chicago (41:37)
  • Detroit (43:43)
  • Kansas City (47:25)
  • Minnesota (52:52)
  • Houston (57:02)
  • Los Angeles (58:50)
  • Oakland (1:02:16)
  • Seattle (1:05:50)
  • Texas (1:10:54)

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The transcript is below, thanks for coming out!

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I’ve spent the last few articles releasing new projections. Today is no different and piggybacks off Monday’s article on single-season based pitcher projections or the GM’s. Today, it’s the hitters’ turn.

While the inspiration for these projections started with Giolito, I found I wanted the same dataset available for hitters. I took the players’ 2019 stats and regressed them to the league’s average rates and added in an aging factor. Finally, I prorated everyone to 600 PA.
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04/14/20

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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• @sporer – Host
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CARTOON CHARACTER DRAFT

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