With the minor league regular season now over, this marks the end of this series but you can read the previous pieces here: the Impact Catchers, the Impact First Basemen, the Impact Second Basemen, the Impact Third Basemen, the Impact Shortstops, the Impact Corner Outfielders, the Impact Center-fielders, the Impact RH Starting Pitchers (Tier 1) and the Impact RH Starting Pitchers (Tier 2). Keep an eye out next week as my annual “A Minor Review of…” series gets under way and reviews the 2014 season for all 30 clubs. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been some time since I’ve been on the hook for a Bullpen Report due to the birth of my third child — and second daughter — so thanks for your patience with me as I ease myself back into this high leverage situation. Thankfully, it appears as if this evening’s edition will be like facing the bottom of the order due to just a few noteworthy items from today’s action. A huge thanks goes out to Colin, Dan and Ben for picking me up during this special time.

Anyway, here are just a few things that you may or may not be more interested in:

Huston Street took the hill for the Halos with a 5-4 lead over the Twinkies in Minnesota today. He surrendered two consecutive singles to Danny Santana and Brian Dozier, but induced a strikeout sandwiched between two fly outs to seal his 12th save as a member of the Angels and 36th total for the ‘14 season in 38 total chances. Street now owns a 1.04 ERA (2.55 FIP) with a ~26% K% in 52 frames on the bump between the Padres and the Angels. Tonight’s save, Street’s 270th career conversion, keeps him 30th on the list of career leaders in said category. He’s holds the fifth most saves among active closers, behind Joe Nathan, Francisco Rodriguez, Jonthan Papelbon — and if you count him as active — Jose Valverde.
Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 163

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is now live!

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix talk, among other topics that include a very interesting tangent or two, Homer Bailey, in light of just announced surgery news; the benching of Colby Rasmus; Joc Pederson’s consecutive starts; Juan Lagares and the directive to run more often; Miguel Gonzalez and the pop-up skill; and Casey Janssen’s possible phase-out at closer.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them on our next episode. Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Well, I just got done with the second most time consuming MASH report of the year when it seems everyone moves off the DL or onto the 60-day DL when the rosters expanded. I hope I got it all. Additionally, I have added a third table for players who will miss significant time, but are not on the DL.

• Carlos Beltran will have elbow surgery at the season’s end to remove some bone spurs in his elbow. Beltran may be a player I target in 2015. His value may be so low that he has the potential to generate surplus value like Victor Martinez did in 2014.

• The D-backs Archie Bradley is finally healthy and available to pitch in the Double-A playoffs.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re going to stream at any position or for any category, a lot of preparation can go into the dissection of matchups. Fantasy baseball players, in general, may be putting too much stock in matchups for starting pitchers, as Brett Talley may have discovered. If such toil for what is surely the most commonly streamed position might be futile, then it seems rational to question whether it’s even worth the time to do so for something like steals.

But Brett admits that he intuitively questions his results, so we’re going to give it a shot. The return on investment for this kind of homework might be pretty low, regardless. Given the type of data I put together last week to serve as a potential resource for this sort of thing, what goes into a recommendation is pretty simple. As I basically wrote then, the greater challenge for the batter is to reach base, not to pilfer one should he have the opportunity.

Read the rest of this entry »

George Springer has a lot of strikeouts this year, but that is as advertised. Springer struck out about 30 percent of the time in Double-A and 25 percent of the time in Triple-A over the last few seasons. He may never hit appreciably better than the .231 he is hitting this season, but with 20 home runs in less than half a season of plate appearances and a history of stolen bases in the minors that his five big-league steals do not live up to, fantasy owners will gladly make the tradeoff.

It turns out that Springer is not the only one. Teammate Jon Singleton got the call midseason in part because he was able to cut his strikeout rate from over 30 percent in 2013 to about 22 percent this season in the minors, but he has struck out in more than a third of his major league plate appearances. More recently, call-ups Javier Baez and Zach Walters have injected lineups with a combined 16 home runs in 240 plate appearances, but they have struck out 41 (!) and 35 percent of the time, respectively.

Read the rest of this entry »

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (do we have any rock-dwelling readers?), then you should be well aware that I have an infatuation with Carlos Carrasco. It actually began last year, when I commanded you dear readers not to sleep on him in April, recommended him to deep leaguers over the summer, and then despite finishing the year with a gruesome 6.75 ERA, continued the love fest heading into this season.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to use all things @jeffwzimmerman for this post.

First is xBABIP. During this past offseason, Jeff found an xBABIP equation which correlated better than just BABIP year to year with the use of new Inside Edge data and player speed scores. I believe his last full updated list was posted on July 25th of this season, but he and the team provided me with an updated list this morning in order to use the data to interpret expected(x)FantasyValue vs. actual/descriptive(a)FantasyValue.

Read the rest of this entry »

Searching for options that make sense for the stretch run? Streaming not the ideal method to achieve results in your fantasy baseball league? Need more fiber in your diet?

Who’s a good pickup at this time of year can change in an instant. It’s always tempting to ride a hot hand. But which hot hands are set up to keep it up?

Read the rest of this entry »

Tigers closer Joe Nathan hasn’t had the type of season fantasy owners were expecting. While Nathan has notched 32 saves, things haven’t come easy. Through 50 innings, Nathan has a 5.04 ERA. The performance has been somewhat of a shock. Yes, there were some reasons to be concerned about Nathan entering the year, but it’s safe to say no one expected him to struggle this much. One of the main reasons for concern entering the season was Nathan’s age. It’s tough for any player to be dominant at age-39. Are Nathan’s struggles a product of his age, or is there more going on here?

Read the rest of this entry »