Archive for Head to Head

Episode 215

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the news, talk about some of the afternoon’s games, and then play a little game called Stash or Trash recording some largely available players off to solid starts.

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I’m really not privy to the whole daily fantasy baseball thing, as proctored by FanDuel or DraftKings. It’s probably good that I’m not because I’m 98 percent certain I would immediately fall in love with it.

Still, I’m intrigued, mostly because it takes streaming to the extreme. And I love streaming. It’s a tedious, somewhat painstaking process, what with combing through splits, looking for the juiciest matchups that are also cost-effective.
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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–Quality of Pitchers Faced–

Hunter Pence will start the 2015 season on the DL because of a fractured forearm, but there is a silver lining. Each week he misses is a week he doesn’t have to face Clayton Kershaw. Pence faced Kershaw 15 times in 2014, more than any other batter, and managed just one hit.

Pence’s misfortune from last season made me curious how much imbalance there is for hitters in a season in terms of the quality of the pitchers they face, and whether that imbalance might be consistent from season to season.

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Last week, I posted the first iteration of the American League starting pitcher tiers. Naturally, I couldn’t possibly include every starting pitcher, even if they conceivably have the upside to push their way into the rankings at some point. So let’s discuss a couple of names that could quickly make a debut appearance.

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Did you draft Dustin Pedroia, who is on pace for almost 300 home runs? Mookie Betts? In a fit of extreme homerism, the entire Red Sox lineup, which will surely score 1,296 runs? That must feel pretty good. Good for you, Pete. Give yourself a pat on the back.

Or, wait — you were the one who drafted Kyle Lohse, weren’t you? Threw a mid-round pick at Mat Latos? Wrote “stream Nate Karns” on your list of good Tuesday decisions? Do you regret it?

Man, there have been some truly brutal starts to kick off the season. It’s really easy to make a knee-jerk decision in reaction to such preposterous, ego-damaging, season-dooming starts, but you have to remember — and I think it goes without saying — that these guys will (probably) never be worse this year than they were today.

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Baseball in 2015 has finally begun! Well, the version that actually counts has. So it’s time to dig deep and uncover those hidden gems that could lead you to victory. As usual, the deep league wire will include names owned in 10% and less of CBS leagues and usually be players whose value is confined to deep mixed or mono leagues, unless otherwise noted.

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Episode 214

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the injury news with Ryan Braun, John Jaso, Jenrry Mejia, and Alex Cobb.

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So, it’s been a busy preseason and I had a list of all the articles I wanted to publish before the season officially began. Unfortunately, I failed. And as a result, Eno beat me to the punch. But I’m going to do it anyway. A whole three years ago, with help from math wizard Matt Swartz, we discovered that spring pitcher strikeout and walk rates actually do hold value and using them could improve projections, even if just marginally. This was validated recently by another math wizard, Dan Rosenheck. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at which pitchers enjoyed a strikeout rate surge during spring training.

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Opening day is finally upon us! I conclude this year’s (condensed) Pod’s Picks series with starting pitchers. If you missed them, here are the infielders and outfielders. The bullish group will only include those I ranked within my top 75 and the bearish only players the consensus ranked within their top 75.

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Episode 213

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss the massive trade between San Diego and Atlanta as well as roster decisions on Kevin Gausman, Micah Johnson, and Eddie Butler.

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