The AL Central Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jeff Zimmerman

Strategy Section / Mailbag

• What to look at / reasoning for setting weekly pitching lineups.
• How to accumulate “risk” & other strategies if behind in the standings and trying to catch up.
• How many points behind first place is it not too late to catch up to first?
• Sell high on Julio Rodriguez?

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The AL East Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jason Collette

Strategy Section

• Is it time yet to think about punting categories in roto leagues?
  • Punt speed? Punt saves?
  • Punt ERA?
• How do you know when to use the waiver wire vs. resorting to a trade?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

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The Frustration Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Howard Bender

TGFBI Update

Strategy Section

• When do you look at where you are in the individual category standings?
• When do you look at where you are in the overall standings?
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Unorthodox Strategies
• Is it too early now to punt categories?
• Trading desperation
• The risk of Byron Buxton
• Frustrating fantasy baseball situations
  • Injured players
  • Overbidding / underbidding on FAAB
  • Sitting a player who has a good week
    • Shohei Ohtani’s excellent pitching performances in weekly leagues
  • Starting a player who has a bad week
• Balancing being a fantasy expert and succeeding in fantasy leagues

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The Waiver Wire Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Vlad Sedler

Strategy Section

• When to sit cold players, and when to cut them?
  • Does it differ for Hitters vs. Pitchers?
• Cutting injured players in non-IL slot leagues
  • Eloy Jimenez
  • How much FAAB should one spend on an injury stash?
• FAAB
  • Going with your gut.
  • When should you overspend on FAAB?
  • Being in tune with how the rest of the league is spending FAAB dollars.
  • FAAB from a Return on Investment perspective.
  • FAAB pricing also depends on the avaialble player pool.
  • Looking at other team’s positional and categorical needs before setting FAAB bids.
    • Adalberto Mondesi
      • Profile Risk
• General FAAB bidding guidelines
  • Streaming options
  • Hot players
    • Taylor Ward
    • Uniqueness of profile
  • Speed
  • Closers and speculative closers

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The Early Season Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Ian Kahn

Strategy Section

• How to know when to be interested in players with hot starts.
  • Garrett Whitlock
  • Nestor Cortes
• How to know when to sit or drop players with cold starts.
  • Joey Votto
  • Charlie Blackmon
  • Joey Gallo
• How much to bid on FAAB in the early part of the season.
• Trading in the early season
  • Do you / how to trade struggling superstars?
    • Gerrit Cole
    • Mookie Betts
  • Do you / how to trade surging players?
    • Cody Bellinger

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The Predictions Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Scott Pianowski

Strategy Section

• 2022 Draft Season Wrap-Up
  • Younger players over boring vets
  • Reliable pitching
  • It’s less about the player information advantages, and more about the game play.
• What do you look for / watch closely for early in the season?
  • Roles
  • Manegerial tendencies
    • Lineup
    • Bullpen
    • Stolen base attempts
    • Platoon splits
  • Pitchers
    • Velocity
    • Walk and strikeout rates
    • Don’t look at pitch count
  • Which baseball is the MLB using?
• How quickly can you trust the hot/cold player starts?
  • Regression – Underperforming players vs overperforming players in terms of correction time
    • Kyle Hendricks
    • Noah Syndergaard
    • Yu Darvish
    • Nick Martinez

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One of my favorite Topps baseball card series is the Gypsy Queen collection. Typically released at the beginning of the season, this series has special inserts, such as the Crystal Gazing Die-Cuts, that serve as the Topps version of a bold prediction. I like to think of myself as a machine learning, gypsy fortune telling, bold predictor. I’ve created a model, one that I’m still partially developing, named Jolt after Joe “Joltin’ Joe” DiMaggio himself. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pre-Season Injury Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Injury Update – Reuven gives us the injury updates.

Hitters

• Ronald Acuna Jr.
• Fernando Tatis Jr.
• Evan White
• Julio Rodriguez
• Brandon Belt
• Adley Rutschman
• Odubel Herrera
• Andrew Vaughn
• Luis Urias
• Chris Taylor
• Cavan Biggio
• Greg Bird
• Carter Kieboom
  • Maikel Franco
• Evan Longoria
  • Wilmer Flores
• Nick Ahmed
  • Josh Rojas
• Yermin Mercedes
• Dominic Smith
  • Mets lineup & defensive allignment

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The Mock Draft Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Chris Welsh

Tout Wars Head to Head Recap

Strategy Section

• General Draft Strategy
  • Push up saves/steals/starters? What is the right time to roster them?
• KDS Selection for 2022
• What is the best time to reach for your “favorites,” “targets” or “upside players?
• Should you draft prospects in redraft leagues?

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The 2022 Pod Projections are now available and include over 550 player forecasts! As usual in my Pod Projection posts, I’ll dive into my projection methodology (detailed in Projecting X 2.0) by sharing my process on several hitters and pitchers.

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