With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being draft on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can find all the pieces in this series here. Read the rest of this entry »
In order to follow the same preview path as the Ottobot Podcast, we’re gonna pivot off of offensive ranks and jump to SP. I find this to be the most challenging list to create – there are so many relevant players, so many ways to evaluate them, and so little confidence in projections, at least compared to hitters. So in addition to my list, I am going to share a few notes on how to adjust rankings from your favorite pitching analyst.
Read the rest of this entry »
In 2019, Brad Johnson and I published a weekly series in which we, each on a semiweekly basis, identified three or four or five players in the Minor Leagues who (1) had not appeared on previous top-prospect lists and (2) appeared to us to be capable of producing admirably, perhaps significantly, at the big-league level at some point for fantasy purposes.
Because of an actual force majeure (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic), Peripheral Prospects was rendered temporarily null as the Minor League Baseball season was cancelled. Alas, we published nothing about peripheral prospects. But that does not mean peripheral prospects did not thrive! Peripheral prospects indeed thrived.
I figured it would behoove me to not only review my favorite peripheral prospects from the end of 2019 but also highlight my favorite (existing) peripheral prospects heading into 2021, before a whole new batch of peripheral prospects is anointed. Yesterday, I revisited my 10 favorites from 2019; today, I’ll highlight another 10 eight whose progress I’m eager to monitor in 2021.
Presented in chronological order (and not by favoritism):
As the saying goes, boring is better. A lot of fantasy baseball players look for the next best thing. This is mainly due to the fear of missing out on a breakout or new exciting young player. Sure, it’s extremely valuable to find those pitchers but it’s also really hard to find them. What most don’t realize is that taking those “old” boring players can be just as valuable. With a long track record and decent numbers, these pitchers could give you stable innings and ratios with a predictable floor.
In 2019, Brad Johnson and I published a weekly series in which we, each on a semiweekly basis, identified three or four or five players in the Minor Leagues who (1) had not appeared on previous top-prospect lists and (2) appeared to us to be capable of producing admirably, perhaps significantly, at the big-league level at some point for fantasy purposes.
Because of an actual force majeure (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic), Peripheral Prospects was rendered temporarily null as the Minor League Baseball season was cancelled. Alas, we published nothing about peripheral prospects. But that does not mean peripheral prospects did not thrive! Peripheral prospects indeed thrived.
I figured it would behoove me to not only review my favorite peripheral prospects from the end of 2019 but also highlight my favorite (existing) peripheral prospects heading into 2021, before a whole new batch of peripheral prospects is anointed. Here, I’ll revisit my 10 favorites from 2019; next time, I’ll highlight another 10 whose progress I’m eager to monitor in 2021.
For this article, we will be going through a couple of pitchers that you might want to avoid on draft day. This doesn’t mean they are in a sense bad, it just means based on their ADP they don’t seem to have any perceived value. This could be for a variety of reasons such as playing time, stuff, or injury history.
Walker Buehler ADP 19
We all know that innings will be at a premium coming into the 2021 season. We have heard of teams already saying tack on 100 innings to their innings pitched from last season. We have also heard of teams already setting a hard cap like the Mariners. This is the only reason you might want to avoid Walker Buehler.
Spring training can be helpful in determining a pitcher’s future performance. While most of it should be taken with a grain of salt, sometimes it can be a calling card for things to come. Some major components to look out for involve velocity, command, and pitch mix.
The Starting Pitcher Episode (Part II) of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
Guest: Nick Pollack
Strategy Section
Starting Pitcher Strategy
Podcast (beat-the-shift): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
2/9/21
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!
Follow us on Twitter
NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
I’m continuing my attention on fringe starters. They are the starters who once the season starts, managers are going to have to make a quick decision on adding or dropping. These pitchers will be in play all season. I’m using NFBC’s ADP and starting at the bottom and selecting any starter drafted by half the teams.
Here is an evaluation of six more starters. You can find the other editions here: