It’s getting even later in the fantasy season and endgame strategies are starting to come into play. While it is possible to guide your offense toward specific categories, a greater impact can be made with how you direct your pitching, depending on which categories you are looking to massage, and so that’s where we’ll continue to focus.
Round 2…Fight! Read the rest of this entry »
It’s getting late in the fantasy season and endgame strategies are starting to come into play. While it is possible to guide your offense toward specific categories, a greater impact can be made with how you direct your pitching, depending on which categories you are looking to massage, and so that’s where we’ll continue to focus. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week we got a little more granular in evaluating our pitching matchups, focusing on how teams have fared against left-handed pitchers, both in terms of overall offense, as well as against individual pitch types. So, in the name of symmetry, let’s move on to right-handers this week, trying to identify weaknesses for matchups this weekend and in Week 19 of fantasy.
No time to waste, let’s go. Read the rest of this entry »
With the trade deadline behind us and only the dog days of August/September standing in the way of fantasy championships, let’s start taking a more targeted approach to our pitching matchups, with each one we choose, whether stud or streamer, carrying even more weight as the season winds down.
We’ll do this by first looking at how each team has fared by the handedness of the pitcher faced, starting with those wily left-handers and ranking teams in wOBA, xwOBA, wOBA/xwOBA (on contact), SwStr%, Whiff%, and BB%. Baseball can always baseball at any given time but looking at these ranks gives us a good starting point for how teams have generally succeeded (or failed) against certain hands, both in overall damage and whiffs. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s Friday and I’m back from vacation, so let’s talk about bacon. Well, wOBAcon, anyways, or, weighted on-base average on contact, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing. Simply put, it’s how much damage a batter does when actually making contact. Easy-greasy. Read the rest of this entry »
They’re still an under-.500 team but the Miami Marlins are chock full of fantasy-relevant arms worth discussing. Sandy Alcantara has been a fantasy ace in 2022 and Pablo Lopez is knocking on the d0or (and actually staying healthy). Trevor Rogers is still far from expectations but has at least started being good enough to stop the mass cuttings, and Edward Cabrera is a hot prospect who showed flashes of excellence before hitting the IL.
Lots of exciting guys, with names you know (and roster). Obviously, we should talk about Braxton Garrett, a backend lefty who is less than 5% rostered on Yahoo, ESPN, and CBS, right? What can I say? I’m a sucker for change, particularly when it’s purposeful. Read the rest of this entry »
After a rough stretch, Lucas Giolito is coming off of two great starts and is set for a matchup on Friday night with a Tigers team that has mostly been an offensive doormat for much of 2022. And since the mission statement here at NotBurt Inc. includes many mentions of setting ourselves up for success, clearly, now is the perfect time to question his performance going forward. Because where’s the fun without an added degree of difficulty? Read the rest of this entry »
I do love change. No, not that jiggle jiggle that my fellow kids and I love to talk about these days but simply the act of one thing turning into another. Change doesn’t have to be good or bad; it can be both, either, or neither. And perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than when looking at the arsenals of major league pitchers. More of this pitch, less of that one, more velocity here, less movement over there. More horizontal for that, less vertical for this, one fish, two fish, v fish, nu fish.
But just because a pitch changes how it moves, doesn’t guarantee the results will fare better, a quality that is already rather subjective when needing to factor in a pitcher’s intent that isn’t fully known. However, changes are useful flags and can serve as starting points. And when seeing dramatic movement changes in key pitches, I can’t help but wonder, why. We’ll take a look at two such pitches today, thrown by two left-handers who’ve had similar overall fantasy value in 2022, though, not quite of the top-tier variety. More like SP4/5’s that have 2/3 aspirations. Read the rest of this entry »
The AL West Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
Guest: Jennifer Piacenti
Strategy Section
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Woe. Malice. Dread. These are the emotions that have come to mind in the past when considering the prospect of rostering Martín Pérez for fantasy purposes. But these tempers have been tamed by Pérez in 2022 as he’s now frolicked his way to a top-25 SP. And yet, we still do not fully trust him, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the home runs to once again rain down on his pristine ERA. But I, for one, would like to take a break to say I’m sorry. Read the rest of this entry »
