Doug Fister had a bad season in 2015. His 4.19 ERA was half a run higher than in his worst season between 2011 and 2014, and his FIP and xFIP were even higher. His best seasons with the Tigers featured close to seven strikeouts per nine and a groundball rate over 50 percent. Last year, he struck out five and a half batters per nine and induced under 45 percent groundballs. That is why Fister had to sign a one-year, $7 million contract with the Astros.
In the aftermath of Corey Dickerson being traded to the Tampa Bay Rays last week, we have seen numerous thoughts and predictions on his future fantasy value in Tampa. The prevalent belief being that he is no longer mixed league worthy. I actually saw someone in a Facebook discussion group post a tombstone with his player card on it. Photoshop aside, it is time to examine Dickerson’s fantasy value in Tampa. Read the rest of this entry »
If I have one complaint about fantasy baseball, it’s the importance of an early lead. Of course, it’s possible to scuffle through April and still win a roto league. In such a scenario, victory requires a heroic effort. The roto game is rigged to favor April’s top performers, and H2H isn’t much different. I’ll present an alternative today, but it does require some manual work from your commissioner.
1/31/16
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The Rays have two potential positional battles. One is more of a classic debate, whereas the other battle is a little more complex as it is not Player A vs. Player B for the same position. At catcher, the Rays will need to decide how much they value defense over offense with Curt Casali and Hank Conger slated to be behind the dish. Things are a little more complex with the addition of Corey Dickerson, who will certainly play right field with a righty on the mound. What will the Rays do when a lefty starts?
As a standings gain point disciple, one of the questions I get asked most is if I know where to get final standings data (and SGP denominators) for AL- and NL-only leagues. You can find reliable mixed-league data if you search hard enough on the web. But you won’t find much, if anything, about the only-league format.
Thanks to a tip from Mike Gianella, I finally got my hands on a nice set of AL- and NL-only standings. Mike suggested I check with the guys that run OnRoto.com. If you’re not familiar with OnRoto, they’re a league hosting and stat service that caters to hard-core and old-school rotisserie leagues… Meaning they host a lot of only leagues.
OnRoto has also historically hosted the various Tout Wars competitions. So this is legit data from a trusted fantasy resource. In this post we’ll be looking only at the AL data (NL coming soon). I was able to obtain the standings for 76 different 12-team AL-only leagues and here’s an analysis of the data… Read the rest of this entry »
Some of this is being repeated from the Primer piece that went up this morning.
We’re bringing them to you earlier this year, but that also means that they’re far from set in stone so take that into consideration as you peruse them. There are still strong arms on the free agent market, let alone all the moving and shaking that happens once players start reporting to camp.
We’re using Yahoo! eligibility requirements which is 5 starts or 10 appearances. These rankings assume the standard 5×5 categories and a re-draft league. If we forgot someone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure he’s added for the updates. If you have questions for a specific ranker on something he did, let us know in the comments.
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There will be differences, sharp differences, within the rankings. The rankers have different philosophies when it comes to ranking, some of which you’re no doubt familiar with through previous iterations. Of course the idea that we’d all think the same would be silly because then what would be the point of including multiple rankers?!
Think someone should be higher or lower? Make a case. Let us know why you think that. Like I said, it’s early. Things are going to change.
The chart is sortable and by default it’s sorted by AVG. If a ranker didn’t rank someone that the others did, he was given that ranker’s last rank +1. That would be 47 for Zach, Dan, and Mike, 40 for Brad, and 48 for Paul K. They are indicated in red on the chart.
I ran the 2016 Steamer projections through Zach Sanders’ Fantasy Value Above Replacement system and compared the results to early ADP data. Below I’ve got a player at each infield position that the Steamer projections think are unlikely to live up to their draft day price.
Wieters coming off the board as the ninth catcher on average makes little sense. For one, drafters are counting on a big bounce back in health from a now 30-year-old catcher. Wieters has a combined 394 plate appearances in the last two seasons. Staying healthy and getting enough PA to be a relevant fantasy option in shallow mixed leagues will be Wieters’ biggest obstacle this season.
But let’s not forget that he wasn’t that great in his last healthy season in 2013. Per our end of season valuations for that year, Wieters was barely starter-caliber in 12-team mixed leagues. His biggest issue that season was a .235 batting average, which was undoubtedly somewhat affected by some bad luck on balls in play. But since that time Wieters has been striking out more, as his strikeout rate was was a career-high 23.8 percent last year in 282 PA. So even assuming better health and an absence of bad luck on balls in play, Wieters seems unlikely to hit for much average. Steamer has a low-but-reasonable projection for Wieters’ BABIP and a 20.3 percent projected strikeout rate with a projection for his average of .244.
Episode 302
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
We have a new email address for questions: sleeperpod@gmail.com. Send your fantasy-relevant questions. You can send keeper questions, but those are much better for Twitter. Questions most likely to get selected are those that apply more broadly, as opposed to specific trade or keeper queries. However, if you do ask a league-specific question, please include the league size and categories.
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Hard to believe, but it’s almost February. Almost all the top free agents have signed. It’s almost prospect season, and it’s almost time for pitchers and catchers to report. All these things add up to a baseball season that is almost here.
Patience.
But patience is a luxury we don’t have these days in fantasy leagues like Ottoneu that have a keeper deadline (January 31st) fast approaching. Auction formats make player valuation even more complex, and now that it’s crunch time, tough decisions need to be made. How comfortable are you hanging onto that $20 Corey Dickerson while the risk of a possible trade out of COL remains a real possibility in February or March? Despite the power and the incoming fences, how does Giancarlo Stanton’s unavoidable injury history influence your decision to keep at $56? How much value, if any, has Zack Greinke really lost moving to Arizona? Is he a $35 starting pitcher? Everybody loves Kyle Schwarber as the next best thing (C and OF!), but where’s the line? $20? $25? $30?
