A few weeks ago, we quietly rolled out our FanGraphs-Plus (FG+) player captions. These are located on most major league player pages, sandwiched between the most recent links and the data tables. We don’t do enough to promote these often insightful and frequently humorous write-ups. And so, I asked my colleagues to identify some of their favorites for inclusion in this article.

My favorite part of this process is everybody’s approach to the prompt. I tend towards the absurd, such as prior to 2017 when I “mistook” Rougned Odor for his brother by the same name (the resultant caption was NSFW). Others like Jeff Zimmerman prefer very straight takes.

For more player caps, search literally any player. You can also read past seasons.

Read the rest of this entry »

And now let’s begin our annual foray into Fantasy Baseball theology—a consultation of the Holy Quadrinity. For those of you who are new to our world: Back in the day, Bret Sayre of Baseball Prospectus posited that “the three skills that are most important to the art of pitching [are] getting strikeouts, reducing walks, and keeping the ball on the ground,” and that pitchers who can do all three of those things, as betokened by their above-average stats in those categories, are or can be something special. He called this approach The Holy Trinity.

The Quadrinity is our contribution to the ongoing dialectic. We look for pitchers who are in the upper half of two categories (strikeout percentage and soft-hit percentage) and the lower half—in other words, the upper half—of two other categories (walk percentage and hard-hit percentage). You can see why both the Trinity and the Quadrinity would work, insofar as they identify really good pitchers. But you don’t need them to tell you that Jacob deGrom and Chris Sale are really good pitchers. What we found surprising is that the Quadrinity often identifies pitchers who are in fact really good, but aren’t recognized as such by the Fantasy market. Read the rest of this entry »

I remember back in mid-December when first putting together a reliever ranking that I eventually threw my hands up around the early-20s and comforting myself with the idea that things would be much clearer by the time draft season kicked into high gear.

I was wrong.

A few situations have become clearer, but what I didn’t quite anticipate was that even more teams would push toward a more open setup rather than committing to one guy. Even a team like Philadelphia that brought in David Robertson and his 137 career saves has acknowledged that he will still share some of the duties with Seranthony Dominguez.

Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Hader is unquestionably awesome. He was probably baseball’s best reliever in 2018. In addition to his insane 47% K rate, he posted a 2.43 ERA and 0.81 WHIP in 81.3 IP. For fantasy purposes, his 12 SV and 6 W were instrumental in sustaining his value. However, he’s now going just outside the Top 100 (ADP of 105 in Rotowire Online Championship leagues since 2/1/19) and that’s just too high.

The performance will almost certainly be great again, but the saves and wins will be unpredictable and hard to rely on. Pitching in high leverage will ensure some of each, but that’s a hefty price to pay. Plus, relievers are insanely volatile so there’s always a chance he isn’t quite the superstar on the ratios. At any rate, this is less about being a Hader Hater and more about bypassing him at his cost and picking up another middle relief superstar much later.

This is for non-holds 12-15 team mixers. The ADP is from the Rotowire Online Championship which is a 5×5 12-teamer. 

Here are four to consider:

Read the rest of this entry »

My colleague Al Melchoir has steadfastly examined the bullpens of non-contenders and examined the closer landscape at large. These are excellent places to look for bargain saves. On another website of some repute, I’m tasked with setting the closer rankings. Part of that involves an in-depth preseason examination of all bullpens. Today, I’d like to share what I’ve learned about the NL and AL East.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the more popular questions I get in any given offseason is “Who is this year’s ____?”, usually focused on identifying the next breakout of a certain mold. Sometimes it’s about a bust, but it’s often looking for the upside. I’ve got eight pitcher scenarios from last year that I’m going to overlay on this year’s ADP data to identify some potential gems. For some of the deeper categories, I added a few extra considerations.

I’m using the NFBC ADP (linked above) and set to 2/1/19 and Draft Championships.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few days back, I determined the replacement levels for hitters who will miss some time this upcoming season. Today, the pitchers take center stage.

It’s tough to give any pitcher a full season of innings with almost half of them heading to the IL. Today’s focus is to find those pitchers who won’t see a full workload for one reason or another. Workload limits. Injuries. Time in minors. Since the missed time is known, an owner can the fill in the rest of the season with a replacement pitcher. It’s time to dive in.

Injured or coming off Tommy Surgery

Note: The standard minimum return time from Tommy John surgery is now 14 months. No one in years has come back in 12. I’m skipping any pitcher who had a mid-season or later surgery since they may just be back for a few September starts. I’m not going to worry about September starts in Spring Training.

Brandon Morrow
Out until: ~May 1st

While it may be a mistake, I’m fading Morrow hard. He’s an injury-prone pitcher who is starting the season hurt. And for a closer, he’s good (~2.00 ERA the past three seasons) but not great (9.1 K/9 in 2018). I could see Pedro Stroop take the job and run with it over the first month. When Morrow returns, he may never get another Save. He’s a late round DL stash for now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last several weeks, I have been writing about the closer picture for teams who are unlikely to contend, but are likely to deal an incumbent closer before the trade deadline. While this year’s Hot Stove season has generally moved slowly, there have been a number of moves and announcements involving relievers lately, so I’m taking the opportunity to update some of the situations I have written about recently. I am also tossing in a couple of closer conundrums from teams that I have yet to address this offseason (including one from a clear contender). Both situations are already starting to vex owners getting ready for drafts.
Read the rest of this entry »

Pitching is a fickle little pickle. The primary reason, of course, is injuries. The constant stream of injuries makes it so few, if any, teams ever make it through the entire season using just five starters. This is where the reinforcements come in. I’ve got seven notable arms who aren’t locked into a rotation spot, but have the skills to excel if and when they get the chance.

I think we often focus too hard on April and forget that it’s a six-month season. It’s a balance, right? You can’t get load your team up with guys who aren’t going to contribute until June or later. However, I wouldn’t eschew a viable arm who could be in the rotation within the first 4-6 weeks of the season for a lesser arm who has a role now, especially if that better arm will be in the bullpen to start (meaning they won’t be dead weight on your roster).

Read the rest of this entry »

Injuries analysis is becoming a pain in the butt. First, MLB goes and changes the days missed from 15 to 10 thereby nullifying several projection models. And now they’ve gone and renamed the Disabled List the Injury List. I think of naming it the BDL (Broke D__k List). I’ve been waiting for a few more seasons of DL data to create a new formula which will become obsolete with the 12-day DL but why wait. I have two seasons of 10-day IL information to create a few comparisons, especially for pitchers.

While I’ve historically collected the data, Ryan Brock jumped in and completed the 2018 season. I’m not sure if I would have gotten to pulling it together because when I normally do it (post-season), I was finishing my book. I can’t thank Ryan enough.

Read the rest of this entry »