Archive for Roto

League design is something I greatly enjoy. In my more innocent days, I believed in using stats that most closely mirrored on field performance. For example, replacing batting average with OPS or using quality starts instead of wins.

Time and math – mostly the math to be honest – taught me that the best fantasy experiences have nothing to do with accurately estimating real world values. Instead, the name of the game is managerial flexibility. Put another way, how many different strategies and tactics can I use and still contend? The top formats like classic 5×5 roto allow for dramatic mid-season pivots. It’s not simply a matter of zigging when others zag, I want the option to zeg, zog, and zug* as needed.

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Baseball has a problem, one I’ve personally touched upon numerous times on this site, my personal blog, twitter, in chats, and whilst walking around the grocery store. The traditional role of starting pitchers is dissolving. Even though it has led to teams playing smarter, it’s also deteriorating the product on the field. Baseball, after all, is selling entertainment. We like to pretend that winning equals entertainment, but perhaps that’s not always the case. In fact, we have some decent evidence it is, indeed, not the case.

I explained the problem from a high level on my Patreon yesterday (paywall). I’m hardly the only person to notice this issue – it’s a frequent talking point among baseball circles. Recently, Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer quantified the ways in which starting pitchers are ceding innings to relievers. Bill  James had a rare good tweet about the point of baseball (i.e. entertainment). Jeff Sullivan kindly confirmed that people are pissed via a poll. Sometimes, writers aren’t the best barometer of fan preferences. In this case, we’re all on the same page.

When the way baseball is played changes, so too does the way we play fantasy baseball. The latest trends in pitch usage have altered the way I will approach the 2019 season.

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Every year, I sit down to hold myself accountable to you, the reader. I believe it’s important for the people dispensing fantasy advice to prove their aptitude for the game. So without further ado, my team-by-team performances.

My number of teams increased this year despite knowing I would miss two weeks in June for a rafting trip. Ultimately, I settled on two 20 team dynasties, three ottoneu (semi-dynasty), two keepers, TGFBI, and a sim league. As you’ll notice, my league participation skews sharply towards long term modes. My attention was a little too divided to effectively manage all of these clubs.

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Every fantasy owner should sit down in the next week or so and reflect on what went right and wrong in their leagues. More than reflecting, they need to take a few notes on the journey to help themselves improve next season.

The process doesn’t need to take a while but an owner should at least get a couple points, good and bad, on each league. It’s time for a little humility because some owners need to continue to take positive small steps forward. The rest of us need to start catching up. Hopefully, the following will nudge a few owners to take some notes before going into offseason mode.

Reviewing My Leagues

Overall, my season was a huge disappoint and I knew it was going to be a rough finish a couple months into the season. I made so many preseason and early season mistakes, I could never recover. Here are my leagues in order of finish.

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We are all learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. -Charlie Munger

It’s time to see if I need to adjust my fantasy baseball beliefs by analyzing the first half busts and breakout lists. While it’s great to acknowledge these players, owners need to sit down and figure out why everyone missed on them. By hitting on one or two of these breakouts, a team could be competing for the top spot. Here are the groups and how to identify the breakout next preseason.

For the player situations I analyzed, I’m used Paul Sporer’s First Half All Value Stars and Fantasy Team for inspiration. I looked for actionable traits or tells which can be used next season.

Unknown Playing Time

Jesus Aguilar

Everyone understood coming into this season that the Brewers playing time situation was going to be a mess, so not owning Aguilar is understandable. He was to be in a platoon with Domingo Santana with middling projections. The deal with Aguilar, he really didn’t have a horrible platton split. It was .372 wOBA vs .338 wOBA in 2017. It’s .444 vs .405 this season.

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The All-Star game has come and gone, but the festivities are ongoing here at RotoGraphs. It’s time to rank the first half’s “All-Sell-High Team.” These are players who had big first halves, but who aren’t necessarily the best bets to repeat that performance in the second half. Without further ado, let’s get right to the list: Read the rest of this entry »

Contrary to popular belief, the secret to rebuilding (and winning) your fantasy league is not hoarding prospects. This season, you could be waiting patiently for the arrivals of Michael Kopech, Willie Calhoun, and Luis Urias to save your team, or you could have jumped on pop-up producers like Max Muncy, Jesus Aguilar, and Ross Stripling. Last year, Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, and Charlie Morton were universally available if your timing was right.

The thing about prospects is that sometimes they pan out, and sometimes they don’t. Even a “successful” one like Ronald Acuña has just a 114 wRC+, with a rest-of-season projection slightly below that. In real life, that’s fantastic for a 20-year-old and Acuña is a likely future star. But in the meantime his production is nothing special.

And again: Acuña is a success story. Owners might wait years for the likes of Byron Buxton, Dansby Swanson, and Alex Reyes to carry their teams to relevancy. All the while, players like the following four who are owned in less than 40 percent (well, actually, 43 percent) of Ottoneu leagues have been quietly carrying contenders: Read the rest of this entry »

Is this thing on? Mic check… 1, 2, Mic check. “Were Doing it LIVE”. This is my first time here at the Roto Riteup so be gentle. I may not be Justin but I’m pretty sure standard procedure is to use a GIF in the intro…

We're more excited than @JustinMasonFWFB watching Chris Stratton right now pic.twitter.com/On7NmACtyQ

— RotoWear (@RotoWear) April 2, 2018

Am I doing this right?

On the Agenda:
1. Mookie the Great
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitchers

Mookie the Great

Have a day why don’t you Mookie Betts… WOW! Betts, yesterday against the Royals, went 4 for 4 with three solo home runs. Currently, Betts leads the league in home runs, runs, slugging percentage, on-base plus slugging, and is second in batting average. If you can name the five best hitters in baseball and you leave him off the list, chances are you are just wrong. Also if he is not in your top five hitters you should probably consider what other bad life choices have led you to this point.

Various News and Notes

Edwin Encarnacion and his home run parrot got quite the work out against the Rangers. Encarnacion hit two home runs off Matt Moore and then another in the ninth for good measure. Going into the game Encarnacion was hitting just .171 but he made up a ton of ground with just a few swings on Wednesday.

Bryce Harper stole his fourth bag of the season yesterday, tying his 2017 season total. With the wheels in motion for Harper, he is currently on pace for 49 home runs and 22 stolen bases. Four players in major league history have hit 50 home runs and stole 20 bases… Willie Mays (1955), Brady Anderson (1996), Ken Griffey Jr. (1998), and Alex Rodriquez (2007).

James Paxton was almost unhittable on Wednesday night. Yes, technically he gave up five hits but he also was able to get 31 swinging strikes on 105 pitches and a total of 16 punch-outs. When the A’s made contact, which wasn’t very ofte,n it was extremely weak contact. Paxton held batted balls to just 83.6 MPH on average in this one. Think of it this way… Paxton turned a top-five offense in baseball into a team full of Adam Engel’s.

Streaming Pitchers

There is not a ton of streaming options but if you are feeling lucky, Mike Minor against *cough* the Red Sox could be a decent one. Now, wait before you blast me in the comments section or say mean things on twitter (fantasy_keith), hear me out. Boston is probably the best team in baseball but against lefties, they have struck out 25% of the time and hit for a league-worst .202 batting average. Minor on the other hand has managed to keep base runners off the base paths this year (1.14 WHIP) and has a 3.01 ERA in his last 104.2 innings pitched.

Bullpen Report – March, 30th 2018

With only eight wins on the season, the Orioles closer job has been pretty tough to speculate on so far this season. However, manager Buck Showalter did fantasy owners a big favor Sunday night by laying his cards on the table in their 5-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

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Life is full of guarantees… death, taxes, and Fernando Rodney finding himself on the closer hot seat. Its only April baseball and yet here we are again. Rodney fialed close it down Friday night with just a one-run lead. He would cough this one up in a fairly strange sequence of events.

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