Archive for Roto

We’ll only have 10 days of the regular season left after this weekend, with one normal week and one bizzaro halfy. Roto leagues get to scrape every last scrap of stat but for those in head-to-head leagues, this week might be it. One last week to rule them all.

Let’s keep giving you all the stats you need to whittle down these final oh-so-important choices, whether you’re searching for a particular category, or just need a solid outing. Over the past few months, we’ve looked at how to best evaluate matchups for left-handers, and right-handers, and how to mix in the changes in hitting environments. And how to pick who to keep, cut, or start when late-season strategies start coming into play in September. But in the championship weeks, everything becomes that much more magnified and we need all the tools you can get. Read the rest of this entry »

In some leagues, certainly not all but some, when a fantasy manager runs out of starts, they can still collect stats from relievers. Some ESPN leagues are set up this way. They have a limit on starts, but no limit on innings pitched. The rule is put in place so that managers cannot stream a pitcher every single day of the season, effectively juicing their strikeout and, possibly, win counting stats. This strategy would almost certainly ruin ratios and should not be utilized. I would be curious to see a simulation of how a fantasy team’s ERA/WHIP would pan out if they streamed an average starter every day of the season, but that’s for another time.

Today, I’m writing this article to simply show 10 relievers who are not closers and have recorded the most wins this season. For those who have reached a starter max but can still record reliever innings, pick up these pitchers now! For those who just need a few more wins, start utilizing (if you haven’t already, why?!) the Roster Resource Closer Depth Chart and stream these pitchers in favorable matchups or after a day of rest. Here are the non-closer relievers who lead MLB in wins this season:

Predicting reliever wins is a difficult task. In fact, Steamer (ROS) is over it. If we look at all relievers (0 IP min) from 2021 and all relievers (0 IP min) from 2022, the correlation coefficient between their win totals is 0.42, good for a 0.17 R-squared. I’m also including pitchers who recorded zero wins in both years, which inflates the R-squared slightly, but still seems informative.

The fact that we see very few, if any, relievers in the top right corner of the graph shows just how unrepeatable high win totals can be for relievers across multiple years. However, in season, out of all relievers who collected at least one win by mid-July in 2021, 57% of them collected a second win in the remainder of the year. Change that threshold to at least two wins by mid-July, and 67% of those pitchers collected at least one win in the back half of the season. Here’s a breakdown:

What can we make of this? Relievers who perform well enough to be awarded a win in the first half of the season continue to get chances in the second half of the season. This is probably still very random. If a reliever is used in the sixth, seventh, or eighth inning often, they are increasing their opportunities to snag wins. But even the correlation coefficient between first half of the season wins and second half of the season wins in 2021 was still only 0.38 (0.14 R-squared). Reliever wins are mostly random, just like the official scorer’s awarding of the win can sometimes be.

Take for example Diego Castillo’s most recent win which occurred on July 16th. First off, that was a long time ago and if you’re just looking at the table of relievers above and adding them to your roster, you’re not doing enough. Regardless, Castillo threw in a tied (2-2) bottom of the ninth inning against the Rangers. He walked a batter, forced a double-play ball, and then struck out the third batter he faced. The Mariners then scored in the top of the 10th and Matthew Festa shut the door to get the save, giving Castillo the win. However, Paul Sewald got three quick outs in the bottom of a tied (2-2) eighth inning and was awarded nothing! He didn’t even walk a batter as Castillo did. Castillo got the win, simply because his team scored in the half-inning after he pitched. Random.

If you’re here at FanGraphs reading about baseball, chances are you have heard about the randomness of the win. Some of you may have even dropped wins from your fantasy leagues’ roto categories. However, it remains a common category and I would bet that the vast majority of fantasy leagues still count the win. If that’s the case, and you could use a few more before the season ends, you should bank on the relievers who up until this point in the season have been recording wins. Just hope that you’re rostering them on the random day that they record another.

Two weeks. That’s it. After (another) long, chaotic offseason, and five and a half months of action, two weeks is all that is left for those looking to secure gold. This isn’t June anymore and we can’t just casually shake off a blowup start from a starting pitcher, whether stud or streamer, consoling ourselves with thoughts of there being plenty of time to balance things back out. No, no, no – this is championship season, Indy baby, and one false step can send you plummeting out of contention like a grail-hunting nazi stepping on the wrong tile.

If you want to stack fantasy chips, you better stack your advantages as high as possible. Baseball is still going to occasionally baseball but all we can do is set ourselves up for success as much as we can.

Let’s get some trophies. Read the rest of this entry »

As we’re in the final (final) stretch of the fantasy baseball season, the magnifying glass needed for every pitching start chosen needs to be that much larger. To continue our recent theme of looking at the ways to make wiser choices in these regards, I’d only intended on adding a little context about the offensive environments according to stadium park factors. But as often is the case, down the rabbit hole I tumbled. And as we’ll see shortly, one cannot simply look at park factors from a single angle, as multiple agents of chaos must be accounted for. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve officially entered championship month and whether you’re in head-to-head playoffs or accumulating your way to the money in roto, our starting choices deserve a larger microscope. Choosing who to start and sit, whether stud or streamer, can have profound implications, with razor-thin margins in a category or two, often separating the ultimate winners and losers. And given the desire to manipulate particular categories, it’s not as simple as needing “good” starts because you might be in a situation where any start that ends with a win (or a strikeout per IP, zeroed ratios, etc) is good, and any start that doesn’t is bad, regardless of the other results. Read the rest of this entry »

Now is the point in the season where you are probably looking to accumulate stats from just about anyone. Adding and dropping and adding and dropping as the season comes to an end is a strategy that has worked for me in the past, but I play in a few daily moves leagues, where you don’t have to bring waiver claims to auction or use “FAB” money. Some fantasy managers like to let their rosters ride, but if you’re falling behind, or just need a few more stolen bases to move up a roto-point, now is the time to be more active. Here are three players who have low ESPN roster rates and should steal at least five bases the rest of the way this season.

Jon Berti, 24.2% rostered ESPN, ROS SB (Steamer): 7

Berti has benefited from the injury to Jazz Chisholm Jr., from a playing time standpoint in 2022. He has mostly been an everyday 2B/3B and has stolen three bases so far in August. Berti won’t be helping your AVG/OBP/SLG ratios, but he will be attempting to steal bases as the Marlins have the most stolen bases in the MLB this season. Out of all three players listed in this article, Berti has the most ROS projected stolen bases but is probably going to be the least productive offensively overall.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s getting even later in the fantasy season and endgame strategies are starting to come into play. While it is possible to guide your offense toward specific categories, a greater impact can be made with how you direct your pitching, depending on which categories you are looking to massage, and so that’s where we’ll continue to focus.

Round 2…Fight! Read the rest of this entry »

You don’t need machine learning, mathematical models, or even advanced projections to determine which counting stats you should focus on for the rest of the season. For some of our readers, this exercise will be elementary. For others, it may be just what you need to plan out the rest of the season. Start by copying and pasting your league counting stats into an excel spreadsheet so that it looks something like this:

Next, divide each cell by the number of days where at least one MLB game was played. If my math is right, there have been 135 baseball days so far this season (as of August 23rd). If you take your total points for counting stats and divide each by 135, you’ll see how many runs, rbi, home runs, stolen bases, strikeouts, wins, and saves your team has been recording on a daily basis.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s getting late in the fantasy season and endgame strategies are starting to come into play. While it is possible to guide your offense toward specific categories, a greater impact can be made with how you direct your pitching, depending on which categories you are looking to massage, and so that’s where we’ll continue to focus. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week we got a little more granular in evaluating our pitching matchups, focusing on how teams have fared against left-handed pitchers, both in terms of overall offense, as well as against individual pitch types. So, in the name of symmetry, let’s move on to right-handers this week, trying to identify weaknesses for matchups this weekend and in Week 19 of fantasy.

No time to waste, let’s go. Read the rest of this entry »