The Roto Riteup is a big fan of cycling:
You knew he wasn’t stopping at 2nd. pic.twitter.com/n0kE0dl6UJ
— MLB (@MLB) September 18, 2018
Big apologies for taking the last few days off. Been dealing with some health issues, but am now off the DL and looking forward to only pinch running and playing defense.
The Cardinals don’t have the deepest system in the word but there are some interesting prospects littered throughout the system. And the upper half of the Top 10 has some helium potential.
Click here for the pre-season Top 10
1. Alex Reyes | RHP | DL —> When healthy, Reyes has the ability to be one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball. He has three better-than-average offerings when his command is on but the control also lets him down — and hasn’t had much of a chance to get better with all the layoff time. Reyes can hit triple-digits with the heater and his curveball is a swing-and-miss offerings. The members of the Cardinals front office (and fans) will hold their collective breathes until Reyes returns healthy to the mound, hopefully for Opening Day 2019.
2. Nolan Gorman | 3B | A —> Gorman has a chance to be a beast. However, he also has a chance to de-evolve into Joey Gallo — a player who swings for the fences every single time and doesn’t have an ounce of strategy at the plate beyond the grip-and-rip. Gorman, 18, had a nice approach in rookie ball but it started to fall away in A-ball when he started to chase the homers more often. He’ll likely return to A-ball in 2019 and I’d like to see him put the homer swing in his back pocket for a while and work on pitch recognition, handling curveballs and just polishing the hit tool. Defensively, he has a chance to be average but he needs some work to get there.
For today’s limited game slate, I pushed my normal Fantrax’s ownership rate to 23% to snag a few more arms.
The 24-year-old lefty is not a bad option considering he’s facing the Orioles with Andrew Cashner on the mound. Borucki isn’t going to provide a ton of strikeouts (5.9 K/9) but his low HR/9 (0.6) has kept his ERA reasonable (4.26).
Richards is the day’s best strikeout option (8.9 K/9) but he’s ratio killer (1.46 WHIP and 4.85 ERA). He gets a small boost since he’s a flyball pitcher (35% GB%) throwing at home where he HR/9 is 0.9 while 1.3 on the road. There are worse options like ….
No way. The only possible desired outcome will be a Win since he is going against Ryan Borucki. Of the pitchers with at least 150 IP, his K%-BB% is the league’s lowest at 5%. Just stay away.
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9/16/18
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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Top 25 SPs from ’18 to Falloff in ’19
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| 7:31 |
: most droppable? (next opponent listed) Fiers-MIN; Urena-CIN; Minor-SEA; Matz-@PHI; Sabathia-BAL; Lucchesi-SF. thanks
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| 7:32 |
: Urena or Minor
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| 7:32 |
: Best source for finding out who will actually start over the last two weeks? My points league has a cap on starting pitching for our two week final and I have to choose wisely
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| 7:34 |
: It’s a little late in the season to possibly pay the full price, but I live off the Razzball.com weekly/daily projections. Ruby Gamble runs it and he knows his shit. For many of the best out there, it’s one-stop shopping.
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| 7:34 |
: need wins- Godley has been horrible. Would you pick up CC Sabathia who has been pretty bad in September but he does have a start this week against Baltimore?
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| 7:34 |
: CC is a great streamer this week
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The FAAB bids this past week at the NFBC’s Main Event mirrored the regular season, almost dead. Even so, I’m back for another week of estimates for the upcoming bidding cycle.
First off, here is a snapshot of last week’s results.
My forward looking FAAB projections got murdered this week
Name: Proj, Actual
Mejia: $19, $17
Voit: $61, $12
O'Hearn: $10, $7
Alcantara: $13, $7
Wainwright: $25, $6
Shoemaker: $15, $5
Valdez: $24, $4https://t.co/9oSIMQLCQoI need to dive in and do some late season adjustments
— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) September 11, 2018
On average, the bids were significantly higher than expected except with some rookie call-ups. I went back to the drawing board and completely reworked my formulas with some historically acceptable results.
My current quandary is making the estimates more usable. Before next season, I can reexamine the information with fresh eyes and possibly explore other options.
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Compared to yesterday’s streaming options, today’s group could win the Cy Young. While there are still some clunkers a few usable options exist. For the pitcher examined, I’m using pitcher owned in 20% or fewer FanTrax leagues.
I’d have no issues starting him for this game. His year-long results look uninviting (5.31 ERA and 2.3 HR/9) but he’s pitched decently since coming off the DL (shoulder). Since returning, he’s posted a 7.1 K/9, 0.9 HR/9, and 3.68 ERA.
He’ll face a beatable Angels team starting Andrew Heaney. He’s a fine streaming option.
I didn’t like what I saw from Reid-Foley when he debuted and nothing has changed (6.86 ERA, 9.4 K/9, 1.62 WHIP). Now, if an owner is only needing strikeouts and doesn’t mind how much the rest of his stats get abused, Reid-Foley is the day’s best strikeout option.
I’m a little surprised Chirinos’s ownership is only 14%. He’s a perfectly fine streaming option (7.4 K/9, 3.81 ERA) and faces a shaky Trevor Cahill.
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9/14/18
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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GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR! Read the rest of this entry »
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The transcript is live, thanks for coming!
| 3:26 |
: Hello everybody!! Sorry for the delay, but pod 600 needed my time and the band is back together with Justin and Jason joining me |
| 3:26 |
: Keeper time already?? |
| 3:26 |
: Whattya mean? Like talking about them? Sure! |
| 3:26 |
: How do you value Aaron Hicks for next year? Top 100 guy? |
| 3:27 |
: Thereabouts, I *love* Aaron Hicks |
| 3:28 |
: What do you think about car mart for next year? Wondering what kind of price you think he should go for in drafts (5×5 roto) to decide on what kind of keeper cost is worth it for him. $10-20? >$20?!? |
The Reds system may not have the most depth to it but it has a nice mix of high-ceiling players and toolsy, raw players with upside.
Click here for the pre-season Top 10
1. Nick Senzel | 3B | AAA —> Senzel appeared to be on a collision course with the Majors in 2018 but injuries derailed those hopes. He appeared in just 44 games but more than held his own at the big league level. In his prime, Senzel should hit for average, get on base at a strong rate and produce average or better pop. His defensive home has yet to be 100% settled but he could be a solid third baseman. After some lost development time in 2018, this young hitter may not open next year in The Show but he should be there by mid-year.
2. Taylor Trammell | OF | A+ —> Trammell is finally getting some of the recognition that he deserves but he’s still better than most people realize. An extremely athletic player, it’s taken a little time for his skill to translate onto the baseball diamond but he’s now more consistently showing the skills that could make him an all-star. His numbers weren’t as shiny in 2018 but the Florida State League is a tough one to play in. Trammell takes lots of pitches and walks a lot — which is exactly what you want to see from someone with plus speed. Once he starts tapping into his raw power, there is 20-homer potential there. His modest arm could limit him to left field but he has the speed for center.