It’s no surprise that the Texas Rangers found a taker for and traded Geovany Soto. Prior to this year, which is hardly a fair period on which to judge him, he’d been a plus defensively, including some mildly influential work as a pitch-framer. He’s also on a one-year deal, so there was no reason for the Texas Rangers to keep him around.

The Rangers are in the mode, and mood, to evaluate their pair of active receivers for next season. They have already had a decent look at Robinson Chirinos. Jon Daniels said that he wants to see if the 30-year-old backstop can be more than a backup. The club also called up Tomas Telis from Triple-A Round Rock to fill Soto’s spot on the roster. The organization must apparently decide this winter whether it’ll protect the 23-year-old on the 40-man. Ron Washington says his plan to have the two split time, although he’s not sure how yet. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s probably safe to say Anthony Rizzo has silenced skeptics this season. After showing tremendous amounts of promise upon receiving a call up in 2012, he struggled in 2013, but the sky didn’t fall; his peripherals were still good, even improving a little. Still, questions remained, and they were fair. The two largest questions, to me, were: could he hit fastballs? and can he perform versus lefties? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the last week before September call-ups, that frustrating nook of the fantasy season when playing time for DLWW candidates is subject to change. But in cases of our two veterans this week, one has just received what could be an extended opportunity to make an impact in NL-only leagues, while the other’s hot bat could make him an option in the junior circuit.
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Yesterday, Jeff Zimmerman decided to have a little bit of fun by sharing with all of us his value calculations based on RoS Steamer/ZiPS projections. These were meant to be the earliest look at potential 2015 preseason value, though it is important to note that no adjustment for position was made so catchers in two catcher leagues would be worth significantly more than the spreadsheet indicates. With playing time a huge question mark for many players given that this season still has over a month to go, the rub was that every player’s stats were extrapolated over 600 plate appearances. So this was more like a fantasy skills like valuation, which is still plenty useful. It could assist in identifying guys who could be very valuable if they fell into additional playing time. It also provides a super early glimpse of what next year’s cheat sheets may look like. So who are some of the surprises in the top 30?

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• Jeff Passen looks at the playoff contenders and how the health of their pitching staffs have helped with their 2014 playoff runs.

Of the top 10 in each category, opening-day-rotation starts have more playoff teams than starters’ ERA or team ERA. Seven of the teams with most starts from opening day rotations would make the playoffs if the season ended today, whereas only six of the top 10 in starters’ ERA and team ERA would get to the postseason. And the three non-playoff teams on the healthy list include Detroit (one game back of the second AL wild card), Atlanta (one game behind for the second NL wild card) and Cincinnati (every theory needs an outlier).

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Many of you are preparing for the head to head playoffs, which often involves looking at the worst couple of pitchers on your roster and thinking about what you want those spots to look like in two weeks. Even those of you in roto leagues are getting down to it and wondering how best to use the remaining innings you have available. In either case, a look at the schedule can be huge.

My method is to look at the free agents in my shallowest league, sort them by ownership, and move through the pitchers. It’s not the most rigorous method. I fail the people around me often.

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All year, both Dustin Pedroia and Martin Prado have been falling down my monthly tiered second-base rankings, to the point where I couldn’t recommend either in anything but AL/NL-only leagues or very deep mixers. Over the last few weeks, both Pedroia and Prado have put themselves back into mixed-league consideration — in the last 30 days,  Pedroia was the No. 10 fantasy second baseman, with Prado at No. 15.

So who would you rather own rest-of-season? Both are aging second-sackers with steadily fading production, but both are coming off pretty good months:

• Pedroia (Last 30 days) – .325 AVG, 1 HR, 8 RBI, 17 R, 3 SB
• Prado (Last 30 days) – .253 AVG, 4 HR, 16 RBI, 12 R, 1 SB

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With trade deadlines coming up at the end end of the month, we are are going to publish some 2015 hitter projections to help owners make more informed decisions.  (Pitchers maybe later in the weak – I hate dealing with Saves and Wins so it may just be ERA, K, and WHIP). These are projections, just projections … an estimate of how a hitter will perform in 2015. The list should give owners a decent starting point when setting keepers or last minute trades for the next year.

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Episode 158

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

Jason Collette and Nicholas Minnix discuss, among other items, Rusney Castillo and his impact on the Boston Red Sox’s roster; the Arizona Diamondbacks’ infield; the Oakland Athletics’ recent bevy of transactions, including the acquisition of Geovany Soto and deactivation of Sean Doolittle; Mike Fiers; Justin Verlander, as well as the mess at the back end of the Detroit Tigers’ rotation; Tim Lincecum; Jacob Turner; Manny Machado; and, of course, a few two-turn pitchers.

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 »

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As promised, here are the updates reports on some of my injury finding metrics.

HURT (Hitter’s Under-performance from Recent Trauma) Rankings (introduction/explanation) :

Any player with a HURT value over 100 (red) has the traits of a batter playing through an injury.

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