The year was 2023, the MLB season was ending, and Elehuris Montero was on a tear Read the rest of this entry »
Salaries can inflate as the season goes on. A player that makes you think pass as the auction price heads above $2 in March may look more like an easy $4 in the middle of July. Ben Rice is that player. But what do you do with him once the season is over? Check RosterResource? Follow the offseason beat? Or, take matters into your own hands and head to the winter meetings to ask the brass some hard-hitting questions? Whatever you choose, you can also incorporate a plethora of statistics to make your decisions more informed. Join me as I grapple with my own keep/cut decisions at the corner-infield position.
Replacement level 1B (24 rostered): 4.55 P/G
Replacement level 3B (24 rostered): 4.36 P/G
2024 Keep/Cut: C – CI – MI – OF – SP – RP
This article ranks the top 25 hitting prospects by peak projected MLB wRC+ heading into 2025, continuing an annual tradition (skip to the bottom for the ranking!). It is a counterpart to the top 25 pitching prospects piece I published last month.
Continuing an annual tradition, this article ranks the top 25 starting pitching prospects by peak projected MLB ERA heading into 2025 (skip to the bottom for the ranking!)
Like the other projection systems at FanGraphs, my projections capture the usual ingredients: past performance weighted by recenecy, regression to the mean that accounts for a player’s probability of making the major leagues, major league equivalencies to adjust for minor league difficulty, aging, park effects, and league scoring environment. The peak projections make use of aging curves to translate a player’s forecast to a late-20s peak forecast. Regardless of where the “true” peak age is, there is broad consensus that most growth happens in the teen years and early-20s, however.
The season is barely over, but we are already on to 2025, and some of the most useful tools for Ottoneu managers are out to help us. Early Steamer Projections are out and Justin Vibber has pulled them into the first push of the Ottoneu Surplus Calculator (SC) which means we have some early, rough values on players for 2025.
In mid-February, I compared wOBA projections from THE BAT X and Steamer forecasting systems. I then shared each system’s “favorites”, or the hitters each was most bullish on compared to the other, and added my take on which system I thought would prove to be closer. Given the size of each group shared in the original post, it’s clear that Steamer’s wOBA projections were generally higher, as the system was more bullish on significantly more hitters, so keep that in mind. Let’s now review the results.
In late March, just a couple of days before opening day, I shared the names of six starting pitchers and a hitter who I thought the projections would prove wrong. I incorporated various new information we learned over the offseason and during spring training that the forecasting models are unaware of to identify these names. I then commanded you, okay, suggested, that you targets these players, or go the extra buck in auction leagues. Let’s find out how my calls went and these players performed.
Before this 2024 season, Brent Rooker had never stolen more than four bases. He now has 11. With just a few games left, he’s projected (Steamer RoS) to steal no more. Brent Rooker was never supposed to steal 11, he wasn’t even expected to steal more than three. But now, in 2024, Brent Rooker steals bases. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s an odd thing, trying to rank baseball players before the season begins. There’s so much that can happen in between your last click of the “Post” button and the start of the regular season. Pre-season rankings are like a message in a bottle that gets gently pushed out to sea, or in my case, thrown overboard in choppy seas after the contents of the said bottle have been drained, stuffed with the best note I could muster and chucked out into the ether. It’s not easy, that’s what I’m trying to convey. In this post, I’m going to focus on what went well.
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
Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
Takeaways of the 2024 season
Looking ahead to 2025
Waiver Wire
Pitcher Preview
Injury Update
Podcast (beat-the-shift): Play in new window | Download
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