In 1996, Larry Labadini had a dream. He entered the AL Only Tout Wars league with a plan that had never been attempted before: a $9 pitching staff. Labadini pulled it off, spending just one dollar on each pitching and the rest of his money on offense. He then built up a lead on offense before trading his hitting for pitching. He fell just short of winning the league, finishing fourth.

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On February 23, the competitors of the LABR Mixed draft virtually congregated for our annual February 15-team draft. Drafts this early are challenging. On the one hand, the early timing benefits the prepared and the more highly skilled. On the other hand, there remain a great many unknowns that we need to make educated guesses on at best, and complete shots in the dark on at worst. Position battles either haven’t begun or just began and all the excitement about pitchers throwing new pitches and the velocity spikes they are experiencing typically aren’t even known yet, taking away actionable information we would normally use in our player evaluations. In addition, the longer time between the draft and opening day means more opportunity for injuries to decimate your roster before the season even begins!

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The Mid-Season episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Ray Murphy

LABR Update

First Pitch Arizona

Strategy Section

• 1st Half Recap
  • 1st Half Studs
    • Pete Crow-Armstrong
      • Regression – Should he / will he be drafted in the 1st round next year?
    • Cal Raleigh
      • Catcher strategy
  • 1st Half Duds
  • All-Star Game
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
  • Shortstops
• 1st Half Takes
• 2nd Half Predictions
• Trading Deadline
  • Should you make fantasy trades in advance of the trade deadline?
  • Should you make fantasy waiver pickups in advance of the trade deadline?
    • Closer speculations
  • How do you handle some active roster decisions and waiver decisions post trade deadline?

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Mixed LABR Auction Recap episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Justin Mason

TGFBI

• What is TGFBI?
• How did TGFBI get started?
• First few rounds of TGFBI 2025

Mixed LABR Auction

• General Auction Strategy
• Incoming plan
• Observations
  • Positional Observations
  • Categorical Observations
  • Auction Temperature
• What we liked / disaliked about our auction
• Live vs. online auctions
• Auction Board:
  • https://www.rtsports.com/labr-mixed-auction

Injury Update

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10/6/24

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!

Follow us on Twitter

• Jason Collette – Cohost
• @justinmasonfwfb – Host/Producer

PATREON

• Join our Patreon for live video feeds of each show
• Watch the video feed replay on YouTube

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The Final Two Weeks episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Ray Murphy

First Pitch Arizona

League Updates

Strategy Section

• Final Two Weeks of the Season
  • Is there a limit to who you might sit in the final two weeks of the season?
  • How much should you churn your roster?
  • How much should real life MLB team standings / playoff pushes factor into your roster decisions?
  • Should you take a chance on stashing a returning injured player for the final week?
  • What is the bar for dropping injured or underperforming players?
  • How much should playing decisions be based on year to date stats vs. last 30 days stats vs. projected stats?
  • Gaining points vs. defending points
    • What and when should you emphasize each?
  • FAAB
    • How to allocate your FAAB spending for the final two weeks of the season?
  • Multi-position eligible players
    • How important are they in the final weeks of the season?
    • How to best utilize your roster to take account of them

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Takeaways of the 2024 season

Looking ahead to 2025

• Overall #1 pick choices
• How early should you draft Elly De La Cruz?
• Starting pitching in early rounds

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Elias Sports Bureau episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Matt Martingale

LABR League Update

• Recent trade – Ariel gets Josh Bell & Tommy Pham for Harrison Bader and Ryan O’Hearn from Matt

Elias Sports Bureau

• What does Elias do?
• Elias and fantasy sports
• ATC Projections

Strategy Section

• Spring training statistics
  • Predictive value in spring training stats
  • Players who start slow
• Predictive value of spring training manager tendencies

Who’d You Rather?

• C – William Contreras, Willson Contreras, Salvador Perez, Will Smith
• OF – Jarren Duran, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Corbin Carroll, Luis Robert Jr.
• OF – Anthony Santander, Kyle Schwarber, Teoscar Hernandez, Adolis Garcia
• OF – Taylor Ward, Brandon Nimmo, Ian Happ
• OF – Christopher Morel, Giancarlo Stanton, Jorge Soler, Bryan De La Cruz

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Draft & Auction Recap episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Justin Mason

Strategy Section

• TGFBI
  • What is TGFBI?
  • KDS Selections
  • Draft plan & execution
  • Freddie Freeman as a 1st rounder
  • Nico Hoerner as a draft linchpin
  • Relief Pitcher darts at the end of drafts
  • How much risk to take on, and when?
  • TGFBI Average Draft Position trends
• Auctions
  • Differences between snake drafts and auctions
  • What is it like to draft against?
    • Ariel Cohen
    • Justin Mason
  • Adjusting draft strategy based on other owners’ tendencies
  • Coming to auction tables with market values
  • Hitter / Pitcher % Split
  • How to handle Ronald Acuna Jr. in auctions?
  • Online vs. in-person auctions
  • 12-team vs. 15-team auctions
• LABR Mixed Auction Recap
  • Justin
    • Stars & Scrubs hitting
    • Low cost pitching
    • Late game / low valued injury darts
    • 3 Closers
  • Ariel
    • Big catcher spending
    • High value starting pitching
    • How to make up for the loss of Devin Williams
  • Trading leagues vs. non-trading leagues
• Tout Mixed Auction Recap
• Drafting as a proxy for a team’s owner
• Tout Head to Head Recap
  • Do you need to follow the market’s Hitter / Pitcher % split in points leagues?
  • Nominating catchers early on
  • Salvador Perez’s value
  • Factoring in the HTH playoff format into player valuation

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Last Tuesday night, the competitors of the LABR Mixed draft virtually congregated for our annual mid-February 15-team draft. Drafts this early are challenging. On the one hand, the early timing benefits the prepared and the more highly skilled. On the other hand, there remains a great many unknowns that we need to make educated guesses on at best, and complete shots in the dark on at worst. In addition, the longer time between the draft and opening day means more opportunity for injuries to decimate your roster before the season even begins (Kodai Senga’s new owner is already shaking his head)!

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The 2023 Draft Recap episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Steve Cozzolino

The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI)

• Steve’s TGFBI Draft Board – Team 9
• Reuven’s TGFBI Draft Board – Team 8
• Ariel’s TGFBI Draft Board – Team 8
• General snake draft strategy
• KDS Strategy
• First five rounds strategy
• Saves strategy
• Steals strategy
• Catcher strategy
• Easiest draft decisions
• Toughest draft decisions

LABR Mixed Auction

• Ariel’s LABR Draft Board
• Altering strategy based on knowing how the other competitors draft
• General auction strategy for a 12 team mixed league
• Shohei Ohtani at $26 as Ariel’s most expensive player
• Saves strategy in a 12 team mixed league
• How to pull off obtaining so many value bargains in an auction

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