Over the years, I’ve been working on how to fine-tune my player evaluation process. The following are six datasets that I’ve found useful I’ll not go into detail on any of them since I provide a link to the original article. The following is basically a referenceable data dump.

Note: I know there is a lot of content and when questions arise, make sure the area in question is obvious in the comment. Also, I’ll only answer questions here and not in the original articles.

Voit/Muncy All-Stars (link)

These are older AAA hitters who have shown signs of a breakout.

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Prospect season is around the corner, and while various rankings, reports, and even trades will continue to influence the ebb and flow of prospect opinions, it’s helpful to lay the groundwork for establishing this year’s fantasy prospect values as early as possible.  The list below represents a very early look at the top 101 prospects in the game for fantasy leagues tailored specifically towards traditional rotisserie scoring (where AVG, ERA, and SB are better indicators than OPS, FIP, and wOBA.). For example, this list could be a resource for evaluating the value of prospects in Ottoneu Old School 5 x 5 leagues.  The top 101 prospects for sabermetrics leagues is here.

Years ago I introduced the Scorecard system, my custom prospect ranking process, and I’ve continued to use this method for scoring and ranking this crop of 2020 prospects.  In ranking these prospects I take into account the following factors:

Scouting

“Scouting” is everything that goes into evaluating the true talent of an MLB prospect.  Age, ability, stats, rankings, “makeup”, and scouting reports all play a role here.  It’s the input of information that causes you to ask about the player’s ceiling, their floor, and what might be realistic in between.  What are the risks, and how serious are they? Is this prospect regarded more for their defensive talents than offensive? What MLB players might they compare to? What is their future value expectation and how likely are they to reach it?

Taylor Trammell scouts like a tremendously athletic player, but scouting alone hasn’t yet materialized into an elite on-field player, so there are other elements to consider when ranking him among the other top prospects in the game in this context.

Scoring

“Scoring” is honestly assessing whether the prospect’s skills and talents effectively translate to the specific scoring format of your fantasy league.  It seems obvious, but I continually see fantasy owners fail to make this connection in the way they draft and value their prospects each season.  While Andrew Vaughn might be a top pick in sabermetic leagues, his value needs to be reassessed in the context of 5 x 5 leagues, for example.  In order to be more successful in building our dynasty rosters, we need to always project value within the context of our specific league, which is what this rating is designed to consider.

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I’m already tired of hearing everyone’s hot take on how Matheny is going to halt the Royals from stealing bases. I’m not sure they are wrong but the analysis, if there is any, is suspect. Most talking heads point to his Cardinals being second to last in stolen bases during his tenure (2012 to all of 2018). The Cardinals weren’t exactly full of speedsters during that time. Here are their top-10 hitters ranked by plate appearances.

Talk about “Wheelz”. Of these 10, Yadier Molina was second in steals. A catcher is second. This group would have problems stealing candy for a blind lady.
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For today I just wanted to conduct a quick little exercise regarding stolen bases. So I looked at the top 20 finishers in the NFBC Main Event and tabulated all the players they got at least 10+ stolen bases from and then figured out how often each player showed up. As we turn our attention to 2020, I’m finding what I believe is too heavy of a focus on speed to the point of pushing down otherwise excellent players simply because they don’t run.

I understand the value of someone who does it all, but I’m not bypassing the brilliant contributions of someone like Nolan Arenado just because he nabs 2-3 SBs a year. There’s always a balance, right? You can’t completely ignore speed, but with premium SB contributors dwindling, you also don’t need as many at the draft table. At any rate, let’s get into it and see how it panned out.

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9/18/19

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Blake Snell sharp in return (5:50)
• Luis Severino even sharper in return (7:55)
• Cavan Biggio cycle (9:15)
  • Garrett Hampson talk (14:10)
• Chris Paddack done (17:42)
• David Price done for the year (22:00)
• Caleb Smith talk (23:52)
• Lucas Giolito done for the year (26:40)

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There’s only three weeks left in the regular season! If you haven’t already done so, now is certainly the time to completely ignore player values and just pick up what you need and drop what you don’t, given your place in the various category standings. One of the easier places to make up ground is stolen bases. So let’s discuss a bunch of lesser owned (all these guys are owned in 60% or less of CBS leagues) hitters who have attempted at least six stolen bases over the last 30 days.

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In Tout Wars this season, I’ve run Jose Ramirez out every week. I have no issues sitting a struggling star but in Ramirez’s case, I’m basically running out Billy Hamilton which helps with steals.

One of the following stat lines in for Billy Hamilton and the other for Jose Ramirez

A. .227/.302/.280 with 16 SB
B. .211/.299/.320 with 18 SB

Which one is Ramirez?

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) June 24, 2019

I’ve been waiting for a rebound but nothing so far. He’s hit .286/.310/.500 this past week but it’s just acceptable. It’s not enough to offset the horrible weeks. The numbers are lower than his preseason projections. Today, I want to determine if any hope exists for an offensive rebound. How often has a hitter been projected to hit as well as Ramirez and then struggled so bad and did he rebound? It doesn’t look good.

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Fantasy baseball rosters are littered with the corpses of hot start mirages turned albatrosses. Chris Shelton, Matt Moore, Yasmany Tomas . . . all have teased early and faded late, taking many a fantasy season with them. Let’s take a look at some fast starters and see if any late-March stars might catch you some lightning in a bottle.

Kolten Wong

Aren’t tiny samples the best? Through the end of March 31 – that’s fifteen plate appearances – the Cardinals second sacker was hitting .571/.600/1.071, good for a .688 wOBA and 288 wRC+. That seems pretty good, right? Wong probably went undrafted in your league after posting just a 98 wRC+ last year with 15 HR+SB, and production like that won’t get it done at a position as deep as second base.

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Yesterday, I compared my 2019 Pod Projections to Steamer in the stolen base category, identifying five hitters I was forecasting upside for versus the computer system. Today, I’ll discuss five of the downside guys.

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News broke on Friday that Francisco Lindor would be out seven to nine weeks with a strained calf. The reaction to the injury was swift. In NFBC’s Online Championship before the injury news, he had a 4.8 ADP in ten contests. In the two contests over the weekend, his ADP dropped to 16.5 after Jose Altuve, Javier Baez, Alex Bregman, and Trevor Story. So, is the drop deserved or did they drop him too far or not far enough? I’m going to fully breakdown how much I would change his value in a sample league.

With so many league variations, I need to pick a lane with his value adjustment. I going to take a 15-team roto league using AVG. For this league, I’ll use the Standing Gains Points (formulas in my book) as a shortcut to help determine his value and use couple tools to help speed along the process.

Add in replacement level

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