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

Guest: Jessica Kleinschmidt

Personal history in the business

Oakland Athletics

• Chris Bassitt
• Who is the Athletics MVP to date?
• Ramon Laureano Injury Update
• Closer situation
  • Jake Diekman
  • Lou Trivino
• Athletics needs via trading
  • Potential trade candidates (as buyers)
• Athletics Prospects
  • Daulton Jefferies
  • Grant Holmes
  • Nick Allen
  • Logan Davidson
  • Luis Barrera
• Marcus Semien contract thoughts

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

Guest: Craig Mish

LABR Mixed Auction Update

Working in the Business & Playing Fantasy Baseball

• Craig Mish Personal History
• Advangates gained for fantasy baseball
• Thoughts on Marlins GM Kim Ng [later in the show]
• Working as a beat reporter in COVID times [later in the show]

Miami Marlins

• Closer situation
  • Yimi Garcia
  • Anthony Bass
• Trade Possibilities as sellers
• Jazz Chisholm Jr. outlook rest of season
  • Rankings game
• Trevor Rogers
  • Innings Limit
• Sixto Sanchez Update
• Marlins Prospects
  • Edward Cabrera
  • Jake Eder
  • Max Meyer

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Today, I’m going to take a stab to answer the simple question:

“Do hitters perform better with regular at-bats?”

While the question is simple, finding an acceptable answer is not so easy. While my final approach is far from “perfect”, it verifies the statement is true to a small extent.

The concept behind the rule-of-thumb is that with regular at-bats, a hitter can get into a groove and perform better. Usually, the idea references a hitter in a platoon.

Besides being in a platoon, he could be in the National League and used primarily as a pinch hitter. Anyone going from mainly being a pinch hitter to a full-time role will no longer occur the pinch hitter penalty.
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The NL Central Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Sara Sanchez

Strategy Section

• Injured List roster slots in fantasy baseball
  • Do they add or remove “luck” to the game?
  • Do they take away “decisions” that fantasy owners have to make?
  • Is 2021 different than other seasons with regard to its use?
  • The use of a Limited IL slot for high value / undropable players.

Chicago Cubs

• Closer situation
  • Will Craig Kimbrel still close if traded?
  • Who is next in line for saves?
• Anthony Rizzo & Kris Bryant
  • Contract status
  • Who is more likely to be traded?
  • Who is more likely to be a Cub in 2022?
• Javier Baez outlook rest of season
  • Who would you rather have ROS – Baez or Lindor?
• Kyle Hendricks outlook rest of season
  • HR/FB rates and when FIP differs greatly from xFIP
• Prospects that may have an impact in 2021
  • Keegan Thompson
  • Miguel Amaya
  • Brailyn Marquez
• Underperforming players worth considering in fantasy
  • Ian Happ
  • Joc Pederson
  • Matt Duffy

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Today’s post is brought to you by Vince Velasquez who is schedule to face the Marlins. When I decide which pitchers to target, I look for who is facing some of the weaker offenses and Velasquez popped for being interesting (3.68 ERA, 11.4 K/9) and available. I noticed his 15% K% (5.8 BB/9) and moved on. He broke my simple rule of not rostering a player with a walk rate over 10% BB%. But is 10% the right value? After diving into the numbers, it’s not a bad rule, but I’ll try to shrink that number down.

I use 10% because it’s simple to remember. The equivalent is 3.9 BB/9 which could be rounded up to an even 4.0 BB/9. The deal is that while simple rules help, I’d like to have every advantage. For example, I used to use a 50% GB% to show an advantage. The deal is that between 50% and 55% GB, the pitcher doesn’t gain any advantage in double plays and additional high flyballs (i.e. outs).

The other reason I picked 10% is that only a few pitchers reach this total. Of the 68 qualified starters this season, nine have a walk rate of 10% or higher.
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A while back on Twitter, Razzball’s Rudy Gamble made the following comment in a discussion of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and his high groundball rate.

trying to think of any plus power guys that never figured out how to reduce a ton of GBs.

maikel franco is the only one that comes to mind with hosmer a possible second

— Rudy Gamble (@rudygamble) March 1, 2021

Vlad’s career groundball rate in just 900 PA is 50.5% which would rank as the 5th highest of 75 hitters. Over the same sample, his 118.9 mph Max Exit Velocity is the highest. It’s like he’s been blasting holes in the infield. So coming back to Rudy’s comment, will a power hitter, like Vlad, eventually get the ball in the air. While the answer is some, it’s likely not enough to make a difference.
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The Returnee Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jeff Erickson

Strategy Section

• Returning players to active lineups
  • When to return struggling hitters
    • Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
  • When to return struggling pitchers
    • Luis Castillo
  • When to return recovered injured players
  • When to insert prospects
    • Jarred Kelenic
    • Bobby Dalbec
    • Jo Adell
• How to determine when a “hot” waiver wire player is worth a pickup

Cincinnati Reds

• Closer situation
• Nick Castellanos – Where does he rank ROS among outfielders?
• Is Tyler Mahle for real?

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If I were to look into the rear-view mirror while riding in the back seat of an Uber and ask the driver, “Could you tell me the expected time of arrival, minus the current time please?”, I would probably get some weird looks. But, if I were to ask you, fantasy baseball enthusiast, for your team’s current stolen base total, plus your rest of season (RoS) projected stolen base count, you would probably be delighted. It would give you a good sense of where your team is and where your team is heading.

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With just over a month of the season complete, we’re starting to look at more current season data to make decisions on who to add and who to cut, who to target in trades and who to move on from. Before the season, projections are a great way to value players, set prices and find targets for auctions. And we don’t lose that tool once the season starts.

With the projection systems providing Rest of Season (ROS) projections, we are able to identify what players are projected to do moving forward, instead of simply relying on performance to-date. To identify potential sell-highs or buy-lows (or buy-highs or sell-lows), it can be useful to look at the comparison of the two – who has most over- or under-performed their ROS projections.
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The Lineups Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Steve Gardner

Strategy Section

• Lineups
  • 5 games for a star vs. 7 games for a scrub
  • When should you start paying attention to categories when setting your lineup?
    • When should you be playing the Jon Berti types?
  • Monday morning decisions for injured players
    • What are the key words/terms that managers use that you should pay attention to when making your decisions?

Fantasy Baseball in 2021

• How does 2021’s lower batting average environment affect how you play fanasty?
• What does the 2021 pitching environment mean for player values?
• Should we change the rules of rotisserie baseball?
  • BA vs. OBP
  • Saves vs. Saves + Holds
  • Wins vs. IP vs. Wins + Quality Starts

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