What’s up, FanGraphs!  My name is Derek Carty, and I’m pumped to announce that my projection system, THE BAT, is back at FanGraphs for its second season!

If you’re into DFS, you may have heard of THE BAT.  I’ve been building this system for the past eight years, and 2019 will be the sixth season it’s been available publicly, first at Fantasy Insiders and now at RotoGrinders.

Last year I brought THE BAT season-long projections to FanGraphs, a recent article by Ariel Cohen (which was nominated for FSTA Article of the Year—congrats!) with some really unique methodology showed it to be the most valuable of all the non-aggregate projection systems that were tested by a large margin.

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1/22/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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• @sporer – Host/Producer

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• Original Tweet

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It’s time to get nerdy. Very nerdy. While I’m going to post some auction values end the article’s end (I just lost 99% of the readers), the focus of the words is to concentrate on setting a pitcher-hitter split by just using Standings Gain Points (SGP). It’s not going to work with every league type. Not even close but it’s a theoretical solution which can help an owner the best chance to get the most value out of every draft pick or auction dollar. It’s definitely a better option when trying to set in-season values.

The following process is definitely ripe for discussion and argument. While writing The Process, Tanner and I debated this idea and even brought in others to determine if the pitcher-hitter split can be done by using SGP values. We published without including the concept as we were still ironing it out. We are still not in 100% agreement but here is the idea.

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Last year was an ugly season at 1B. It’s usually a power-focused position, filled with homers and RBIs aplenty, both categories often coming from several players. The 30+ HR hitters at first base were sliced in half last year, dropping to just seven after 14 in 2017. The number of 100+ RBI guys at the position has been dwindling for a while now but sank to just three in 2018. There were a whopping 13 in 2009 followed by 9, 9, 8, 7, 7, 6, 5, and 5 before only Jesus Aguilar, Edwin Encarnacion, and Anthony Rizzo reached the mark last season.

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Catchers … what a dumpster fire for a fantasy position. I can’t remember it being worse. It probably was at some point but with the increased knowledge of pitch framing, more horrible hitting catchers are accumulating plate appearances. Today, I’m going to go through the natural catcher tiers for various league types and show where owners need to buy for the best values.

Before I go any further, I need to explain a few concepts. I’m going to be using Standing Gain Points (SGP) to differentiate the various players. The main reason I like to use SGP is it takes all of player’s Roto stats and combine them into a single value. This important with differentiating the value of a speedster leading off or a middle of the lineup slugger. Additionally, I’m using The Process’s 15-team, two-catcher formula for all the following comparisons. It may not be the perfect formula when comparing different league types but it will provide a nice baseline.

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1/18/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

Follow us on Twitter

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

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles

• Avisail Garcia to TB (7:17)
• Adam Ottavino to NYY (12:50)

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Welcome back to my annual off-season series that has a quick-and-dirty review of all 30 minor league systems around baseball. This feature began way back in 2008.

The San Diego PadresIf you were perusing this series back in 2013, you would have read this:

The Sleeper: Matt Andriese, RHP Andriese has been one of my favorite sleepers for a couple years now and he continues to fly under the radar in part because he doesn’t have the electric stuff that gets scouts’ hearts palpitating. His fastball has at least average velocity but it’s the heavy sink that makes it stand out. Andriese, 24, is very close to big-league ready and he could settle in to the role of back-end, innings-eating starter.

Now on to the new stuff:

First Taste of The Show: Joey Lucchesi, LHP: What a year for Lucchesi, a former fourth round pick who needed just over one full year of baseball to reach The Show. He benefited from advanced control while incorporating basically a two-pitch attack with his fastball and changeup. Lucchesi may need to rely on a breaking ball more often in his sophomore season in the Majors now that the scouting report is out on him. He was hurt by the home run ball in 2018 and oddly gave up more homers at home. He’ll need an added weapon against right-handed hitters with almost half the hits against him going for extra bases.

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It’s time to start discussing pitcher rankings and fantasy managers need to know it’s a new landscape for two reasons. First, the idea of every team having one or two 200-inning starters is *over*. The top arms are putting up similar stats to the past. The change now is with the floor. It has just fallen. Starters are just not going as long and the Wins and Strikeouts they accumulate are gone. Second, many bullpens are now going to more of a committee approach where there aren’t 30 set closers but more like 20. The lack of Saves in a concentrated few closers boost their value and the overall value of every Save.

It’s time to get to the rankings. I used the 15-team Standings Gain Points (SGP) Formula from The Process to create these rankings. I used FanGraphs Depth Chart projections (stats in the table) along with three other sources (not to be named). I ranked them by the average SGP value and also included the standard deviation in all the values.

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A couple of days ago, I released some hitter rankings and now I’m going to dive into some players with the biggest value divergence. By going through the most different players, the value averaging makes any effects of an outlier less meaningful. Also, remember that these are the most divisive projections. Other player projections involve less disagreement.

It’s not always one projection being “wrong”. Each one as some instance of diverging. By using several projections, the faults of one are lessened.

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Welcome back to my annual off-season series that has a quick-and-dirty review of all 30 minor league systems around baseball. This feature began way back in 2008.

The Texas Rangers

If you were perusing the series back in late 2013, you would have read this:

The Sleeper: Odubel Herrera, 2B: An offensive-minded infielder, Herrera impressed me with his offensive potential in 2012. Unfortunately, he found Double-A to be more of a challenge and the 21-year-old finished the year back in High-A ball after being passed on the depth chart by fellow middle infield prospects Odor and Luis Sardinas. The 2014 season will be a key one for Herrera, who needs to avoid getting completely lost in the shuffle.

Now on to the new stuff:

First Taste of The Show: Ronald Guzman, 1B: The Rangers invested quite heavily in both Nomar Mazara and Guzman during the 2011 international free agency and both made good on their potential… with Guzman taking a little longer to develop. He has a huge frame that generates significant raw power but struggles to reach that pop in game situations. He’s still polishing his eye at plate and produced a modest 33-121 BB-K rate in his big league debut.

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