Archive for Projections

Beat the Shift Podcast – Outfield Episode w/ Jeff Erickson

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

Guest: Jeff Erickson

Strategy Section

  • Playing in multiple leagues
    • How does the draft preparation differ between leagues?
    • Knowing the market of each individual league and creating specific game plans.
    • Does strategy alter by playing in multiple leagues?
      • To what extent should you diversify the players taken in each league?
    • Keeping track of multiple leagues in season
    • Waiver wire in season
      • Start with the shallow leagues
      • Using information from leagues with an earlier FAAB time slot for leagues with later ones
    • How to prioritze leagues in late summer
      • Learning from leagues that are lost
  • The impact of the current lockout on drafting
    • Closer prices
    • FAAB early season
    • Mono leagues
      • Actuarial goodness for Ariel

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Beat the Shift Podcast – Closer Rebuttal for 2022 Drafts

The Closer Rebuttal for 2022 Drafts Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Strategy Section

  • Closer rebuttal for 2022 drafts
    • Historical earnings for top closers
    • Early closers may bake in a certain value loss
    • Low historical hit rates for closers
    • Drafting top closers means passing up on valuable players
    • Drafting a starting pitcher instead of a top closer – one less starter to find on the waiver wire
    • Too much uncertainty in bullpens
    • Too much draft capital invested in a one-category player
    • Use a combination of absolute value and relative value

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The Fragility of Projected Prices

Over the past few weeks, I have been posting Ottoneu positional rankings, with dollar tiers instead of specific values. I took this approach last year, as well. It represents an evolution from where I was a few years back, when I regularly posted dollar values.

I have a growing discomfort with the idea that I can or should try to predict a player’s precise value. I don’t believe I was ever naive enough to think a value I put on a player was exact and not subject to error. I did, however, think the error bars could be managed – a $10 player might not be exactly $10 but he’s probably not $6 or $7 and he’s probably not $13 or $14. Over time, I have come to believe those ranges are wider. How much wider? Well, a lot.

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Beat the Shift Podcast – Auction Strategy Episode w/ Glenn Colton

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

Guest: Glenn Colton

Strategy Section

  • Auction Strategy
    • Online auctions vs. live auctions
    • Having a partner in an auction
    • Auction preparation vs. snake draft preparation
    • Scouting prior to an auction
    • Constructing auction values
    • How strict should you be to your values?
      • When should you bid over your values?
    • Hitter vs. Pitcher % split in auctions
    • Closer market premiums in 2022
    • Auction values for unsigned free agents in mono leagues
      • Playing in multiple leagues – hedging bets
    • Constructing market value dollars
      • Converting ADP to dollars
    • Constructing an auction plan
      • Finding the hotspots
  • Nomination Strategy
    • Nominating players you want vs. players you don’t want
      • Pacing yourself through the auction
    • Plan A / Plan B nomination
    • Economic Box nomination
    • Blocking a position nomination
  • Bidding Tactics
    • Freeze bidding
    • Starting bids for players
    • Incremental bidding vs. jump bidding
    • Bidding on the 9’s, bidding on the 0’s
    • Price enforcing

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The Argument Against Alex Bregman

Alex Bregman is a really good real-life baseball player who should continue to hit well. In 2019, his last full season, he banged out 41 home runs for us. In the following 580 plate appearance, though, he only has 18. This includes an injury-plagued 2021 that we can excuse, but it still begs the question:

Is Alex Bregman a 40-home-run hitter or a 25-home-run hitter?

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Beat the Shift Podcast – Potential Profit Sources & Middle Infield Episode w/ Nando Di Fino

The Potential Profit Sources & Middle Infield Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Nando Di Fino

Strategy Section

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Beat the Shift Podcast – Closer Thoughts for 2022 Drafts

The Closer Thoughts for 2022 Drafts Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Strategy Section

  • Closer thoughts for 2022 drafts
    • Don’t play the waiver wire for 2 closers
    • ‘Safe’ closers
    • Economics of closers in drafts
    • Paying up for closers
    • Relative market pricing vs. absolute market pricing
    • The exaggerated case of zigging and zagging
    • Spreading your closer picks throughout the draft
    • Market premium

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The Argument for Yordan Alvarez

No one doesn’t want Yordan Alvarez. He’ll be a low-third or high-fourth rounder in 2022 redraft leagues. This isn’t a binary buy-sell article on Alvarez in that we all know he’s good. But do we know how good he is?

Yordan Alvarez Career to Date
Season Age PA AVG OBP SLG xSLG ISO wOBA xwOBA wRC+ Barrel% HH%
2019 22 369 .313 .412 .655 .588 .342 .432 .405 176 16.30% 48.40%
2020 23 9 .250 .333 .625 .450 .375 .399 .358 158 0.00% 71.40%
2021 24 598 .277 .346 .531 .570 .253 .369 .389 138 15.90% 54.20%
Total 976 .290 .371 .577 .287 .393 153 15.90% 52.30%

Putting Alvarez’ first 976 PAs into context against other players with 750-plus PAs since 2019:

His SLG% ranks third, behind only Mike Trout and Fernando Tatis Jr. His wRC+ is tied for third. His wOBA ranks sixth. And he ranks seventh among hitters in barrel rate with 600-plus batted ball events.

Alvarez is somewhere in the top-ten among real-life hitters in MLB and will likely be toward the bottom of the top-20 among hitters in ADP. Houston is probably gonna keep getting on base a ton, with or without Carlos Correa, so the hitting in the middle of that order is gonna keep showing a profit. The profit that should make up for virtually no expected steals.

Alvarez has a history of injury, but I don’t really care about 25-year-old DH who just played a full season. Personally, I don’t even equate it.

His walk rate could be higher and strikeout rate is about fine. The team coaches contact, so there is room for growth on both ends. Even if the strikeout rate falls without the wall rate rising, we see in Alvarez’ elite barrel rate that contact is good for our purposes.

Alvarez’ .335 BABIP is really high, but I don’t really give a crap about that because he pulverizes the ball on contact so often. High BABIPs are usually ripe with good fortune, but there is such thing as a high quantity of high-quality contact. I’d bank more on his .369 wOBA in 2021 inches up closer to his .389 xwOBA because his quality of contact is so pure. And the super-raw, extremely early returns are agreeing with me out of the gate.

ATC has Alvarez 2022-projected wOBA at .385. THE BAT X at .382 and Steamer at .379.

Alvarez’ .570 xSLG% was far great than his .529 SLG%. ATC has him projected early at .557 for 2022, THE BAT X has .551, and the more conservative Steamer still has him boosted to .546 — .313-projected BABIP be damned.

Factoring in the bats around Alvarez boosting his run production — Jose Altuve the Everyman, a healthy Alex Bregman, the ageless Yuli Gurriel, the high power of Kyle Tucker, and the perpetual hitting efficiency of Michael Brantley — we should be projecting Alvarez as a top-12 fantasy hitter in redrafts and even higher in dynasty and keeper formats. He’s only turning 25 this season and without defense for fantasy or a speed-dependency on the table, he should age very well.


Beat the Shift Podcast – Projections & Corner Infield Episode w/ Dan Szymborski

The Projections & Corner Infield Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Dan Szymborski

Strategy Section

  • Projections
    • What goes into creating a projection system?
    • ZiPS
      • How does ZiPS set itself apart from other projections?
      • How does ZiPS handle multi-year projections?
      • How does ZiPS deal with free agents?
      • How does ZiPS handle rookies?
      • How does ZiPS handle the possible NL Designated Hitter for 2022?
      • How does ZiPS handle uncertain items (nature of the ball, run environment, sticky substances, etc.)?
      • How does ZiPS take into account positions [Question asked in mailbag]?
      • What is new for 2022?
    • Projecting playing time – Should projection systems attempt to do this?
      • ZiPS DC
      • FanGraphs Depth Charts

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Beat the Shift Podcast – Player Pool & Catcher Episode w/ Todd Zola

The Player Pool & Catcher Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Todd Zola

Todd’s Mastersball Projections

  • What’s new?
  • Assuming a DH in the National League
  • Adjusting for the Camden Yards’ new dimensions
  • Adjusting for the Blue Jays irregular home park in 2021

Strategy Section

  • Player Pool
    • Starting Pitchers
      • Is there more risk at the very top?
      • Is this the year to wait and grab pitchers in the early middle rounds?
    • Closers
      • Where is the value?
      • How many saves do you really need to be competitive?
    • Corner infielders
      • Bargains in the first base position
        • Pass on top talent?
      • The drop in talent at third base
        • How to attack/address the 3B position
    • Middle infielders
      • Do you need to obtain steals from the middle infield position?
      • Setting hotspot values and budgeting for the middle infield
    • Outfielders
      • At what price points should one purchase outfielders?
        • Early, middle, late, or spread them out?
        • The $1 outfielder conundrum
        • The effect of multiple position eligilibity on the OF pool

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