Have you ever had an idea that seemed crazy? Or maybe tried something with no real clue how it would pan out? Well, this is one of those times. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ll pick up on the prospect theme that Justin and Tom touched on in this week’s podcast: helium watch. In other words, here are a four somewhat under the radar prospects that have caught my eye this year that could have increasing value over the second half of the season and turn into real assets in the near future in Ottoneu (and other deep leagues).
If you were dying to roster a Michael, today’s deep league waiver wire gives you two options. Given that Michael is the world’s best name (I’m obviously not biased), then why wouldn’t you be racing to the free agent pool to dive in and catch one?
It’s hard to believe that we’re now about two months into the season and this has been my first post on xBABIP all year. Well, here it is. While I developed my own xBABIP equation back in early 2015, the availability of new data since my formula was published allowed Alex Chamberlain to create an equation I prefer and use instead. Not only is the r-squared slightly better, but all the metrics are available here on FanGraphs. When I’m looking to buy low, the most attractive targets are hitters whose power is fine, but are simply suffering from an unfortunate BABIP. Below is that list of hitters.
For the first time, I have included all the components of the xBABIP equation so we can get a better sense of which component(s) each hitter is excelling in and where he could improve.
Sorry I missed you all for most of this weekend, so I’ll make sure to catch you up on the long weekend. There were some mighty stumbles this weekend, but none that should rock the closer grid. Per usual, there were the fair share of saves and only one that so far has made movement in the grid since you last saw it. Let’s talk about the falls first.
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Entering the 2014 season I knew my fantasy team was setup to succeed. After all, I had just spent the entire 2013 season tearing it down and building it back up again, so I had the benefit of a full year of preparation, collecting as many assets as I could along the way to ready myself up for another shot at the title.
Unsurprisingly, at least three other teams in my league also appeared to be possible front-runners, so I knew it was going to be a hard fought battle towards the top. My roster looked great on paper, but what I really needed was an edge, a small but real advantage that would work in my favor and help me outlast some very savvy Ottoneu owners. So, I decided I would be obsessive about daily roster management…and I built a spreadsheet to help me track my team’s performance (by player) over the course of 180 days of baseball. If I was going to win a tight race, I would need more than just excellent players. I needed to know that I was effectively managing those players, too.
I ended up winning the championship in 2014 and owe a ton of credit to the daily roster tool I built to help me track it. You can view the tool here. I’m doing the same thing this year, so here are four roster management lessons I’ve learned that might be helpful for anyone playing daily fantasy baseball.
From the day I started playing fantasy baseball, I have placed a premium on players eligible at shortstop because all of the analysis I read and performed myself suggested that the replacement level at shortstop was less productive than the replacement level at other positions. Even in the shortstop boom of the late 90s that featured exceptional fantasy shortstops like Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter, and Barry Larkin, the cliff to non-productive replacement options happened much sooner at shortstop than other positions.
Over the last two seasons, we have entered another shortstop boom as elite prospects like Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor have made their way to the majors. You can check out the Last 365 Days split on the leaderboards to get a taste of their fantasy potential. Over that time frame, Correa has 29 home runs and 22 steals. Lindor has 15 and 21. Xander Bogaerts has hit .335 with 14 steals, and he has projectable power growth ahead of him. Even though players like Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt have been projected to have better fantasy statistics, I was prepared to thrust the likes of Correa and Lindor to their rankings neighborhood because I believed that positional scarcity would bridge the gap in their production. I no longer believe that is true.
Last year, I determined that pitcher batted ball distance allowed was correlated with HR/FB rate to a reasonable degree. This was fairly obvious, though the correlation was much lower than I expected, and less significant than that of hitters. It’s why I rarely discuss pitcher batted ball distance, along with the fact it doesn’t correlate from year to year all that well. But the correlation is there and it does convey meaning. We could run the same analysis for pitchers, comparing their distances with HR/FB rates to identify those due for improvement or regression. So today I’ll look at American League starting pitchers with highly inflated HR/FB rates, but distances that suggest major improvement is on the horizon.
While some of these players will obviously improve due to how high their HR/FB rates are, you might wonder if that improvement means a 10% mark going forward or a 14% mark the rest of the way. This analysis should help form those expectations.
I had no idea how I was going to follow up my extremely well-received article from last week, but then I realized it is the last Wednesday of the month which means it is time for my AL Outfield Tiers! Hooray! As always, these are my rest of the season ranks for the position and you can check out my previous versions below as well as Alex Chamberlain’s NL versions. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s deep league waiver time. Please contain your excitement.
