At this stage of the season, the impact of luck, or lack thereof, starts to take form and become a meaningful predictor for the rest of the year.

But BABIP can be a noisy stat in isolation. I wanted to identify which hitters were getting lucky when putting balls in play, but also wanted to add a layer that allows us to assess that luck relative to fantasy value and overall offensive production.

The idea for this piece actually came from a curiosity around one specific hitter, which I will come to later, but it is a useful exercise to get a broader sense of the BABIP landscape as we enter the summer months.

So which hitters are potentially providing an unsustainable output, and which could be worth buying low on or holding onto?

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I fought the law and the law won. And that law is the law of starting pitcher attrition. To make up for losing starters to season-ending injuries and the regression monster, turn to IL stashes.

This article won’t be for all of you, or at least the advice won’t be universally applicable. For those of you with limited IL room, or limited IL slots, this may not be as actionable today. But for most of these pitchers, you can likely hold off a few weeks before others in your league are ready to pull the trigger. 

But if you do have room to hold onto a player with a little upside, you are unlikely to be outbid in FAAB at this point. That would be the biggest value add of bringing on these pitchers now — not having to outbid opposing managers once more news is out. 

I will run through a handful of pitchers worth considering, sticking to blurbs unless a pitcher excites me to the point of digging in a bit deeper. I will focus on players who are rostered in less than half of CBS and Yahoo leagues (sorry Kris Bubic and Logan Henderson). 

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Here is today chat transcript:
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While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even larger entry fees ($2.5K to $15K). They are named Elite leagues (previously called High Stakes Leagues), and there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers try to gain every advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in five or more leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever looked at art that changed based on the direction you’re viewing it? Or maybe stared at that famous drawing of a duck for 10 minutes, only to have it morph permanently into a rabbit? The notion that one thing can be two or more does a number on our brains sometimes.

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Way to make a good impression:

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• Daily SP Chart archive
• 2-Start podcast episode
• SP Rankings (last update: 6/5 | next: July)

Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings.

I’m headed to Houston to watch the Tigers game and staying overnight so I’m going to load Tuesday’s board now as-is and it’ll run tomorrow night. I’m sure there’ll be changes, but it’ll be easier for me to address those in comments as opposed to finding time to put together the board on the road.

• I was stunned Imanaga went into Coors and dominated like that. He should be able to pull it off again as long as the wind isn’t blowing out 15 mph or something crazy.
• Core skills were better for Melton last time out with 5 K/0 BB in 5 IP, but 4 HRs (all solo) soured the outing a bit. He nabbed the Win, though, and still has sparkling ratios while he figures out the strikeouts and walks.
• This certified Dustin May Skeptic is on the train! He’s finally missing bats with consistency, posting a 3.25 ERA/0.97 WHIP in his L6 with 21% K-BB and 13% SwStr supporting the 28% K rate.
• Few teams have a wider start/sit range based on pitcher handedness than Arizona, sitting 28th vR and earning Ureña a full reco. Meanwhile, they sit 5th vL leaving me starting only the very best southpaws against them.
• A nightmare inning in each of his last 2 have pushed Teng’s ERA more than a full run to 3.71 and it seemed to be inevitable with his elevated walk rate. He skated on an 18% BB rate in his 3 starts before the struggles allowing just 3 ER in 16 IP. DET is hitting better of late, but is walking at a below average clip so they might not be able to take advantage of Teng’s problem.
• Jones had a solid 4-inning outing v. LAD but heading Sacramento is a different story and I’m definitely a bit nervous to run this one. He gets a trip to COL this weekend for the other part of his 2-step so I wouldn’t even necessarily justify this in a weekly setup.
• The PHI offense just keeps stinking so Gusto has some juice to stream.
• Alvarez sank himself at SFG with 5 BB but they could only cash in two of his 10 base runners. I still like plenty of what I’m seeing here and think this could be a successful 2-step (at TBR this wknd).

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7:32	Jeff Zimmerman:

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In this article, I cover the players using CBS’s and Yahoo’s ADD/DROP rates. Both sites have the option for daily and weekly waiver wire adds. CBS uses a weekly change while Yahoo looks at the last 24 hours. Yahoo is a great snapshot of right now, while CBS ensures hot targets from early in the week aren’t missed. I start players being added at CBS who started the week on less than 40% of rosters.

The players are ordered for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference, grouped by hitters, starters, and relievers. Read the rest of this entry »

Dodgers star catcher Will Smith hit the IL this week with neck inflammation that could keep him out past the minimum 10 days as Dave Roberts also suggested he’d need a ramp up period upon returning, though it wasn’t clear if that meant a full-on rehab stint. The 31-year-old backstop has disappointed this year, sitting 16th among catchers on the Player Rater. He’s hitting .249/.338/.382 with 6 HR, 23 RBI, and 23 R in 201 PA.

I was really excited about him this year, seeing him as an undervalued C1 in 2-catcher setups and a cheaper way to get a good piece of the coveted Dodgers lineup. While I never thought his .296 AVG was coming again this year, I didn’t expect a fallback all the way to 2024’s level (.248), either, but maybe I should have upon further investigation. Obviously the .345 BABIP that drove his AVG last year wasn’t going to sustain but he was a firm .270s BABIP guy for four years before that, posting a .257 AVG in the process. He’s at a .272 BABIP and .249 AVG this year so that likely should’ve been my expectation.

At C16 on the Player Rater, he was underwhelming-but-fine in 2-catcher leagues and certainly not killing anyone in 1-catcher setups. Let’s take a look at a few guys who could be worth picking up to replace him and possibly even keeping around when he returns.

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