Last week, the Giants decided to move Jordan Hicks to the bullpen and Hayden Birdsong to the rotation. While some fantasy managers had already stashed Birdsong, he was available in many leagues like these nine NFBC Main Event leagues.

These teams spent 15% to 20% of their yearly budget on a starter projected to be below replacement-level. Unless a manager wore blinders or took some analyst’s hype without any doing their own basic analysis of Birdsong. No line of reasoning points to Birdsong making a difference, and the most likely scenario is that he’s on the waiver wire in a couple of weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

In the wild and crazy world of Ottoneu fantasy baseball, players can battle it out in a points-style format that is so true to modern hitting that batting averages are meaningless and home runs are more valuable than a 12-pack of eggs. Don’t worry, this article applies to all leagues, regardless of format. Has this ever happened to you?

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The Is It Too Early episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Eric Samulski

Strategy Section

• Is it too early?
  • Is it too early to give up on winning if you are in last place?
  • Is it too early to punt certain roto categories?
  • Is it too early to stop looking at preseason projections?
    • Is it too early to count on year to date stats?
  • Is it too early to take victory laps?
  • Is it too early to trade?

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Byron Buxton
  • Jorge Polanco
  • Jacob Wilson
• Cold Players
  • Eduardo Rodriguez
  • Sandy Alcantara

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Betting episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jennifer Piacenti

GDD Update

Strategy Section

• Sports Betting
  • Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS)
  • Betting terms
    • Money Line
    • Run Line (Spread)
    • Totals – Over/Under
  • Prop Betting
  • Arbitrage

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Pete Crow-Armstrong
  • Alex Bregman
  • Hunter Brown
  • Nick Pivetta
• Cold Players
  • Jordan Romano
  • Devin Williams
  • Yusei Kikuchi
  • Lane Thomas
  • Colt Keith
  • Andrew Vaughn

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Hot & Cold episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Sky Dombroske

Tout Wars Head to Head

• Draft recap
• Strategy & execution
• Hitter vs. pitcher split
• 1st week matchup !

Strategy Section

• What stats do you use to determine if a hot/cold start is for real?
  • Hitters vs. Pitchers
• How long do you play the hot hand?
• When do you bench a cold player?

Hot Players

• Hot Hitters
  • Wilyer Abreu
  • Tyler Soderstrom
  • Kyle Manzardo
  • Spencer Torkelson
  • Eugenio Suárez
  • Otto Lopez
  • Lars Nootbaar
• Hot Pitchers
  • Nathan Eovaldi
  • MacKenzie Gore
  • Casey Mize
  • Shane Baz
  • Luke Jackson

Torpedo Bats

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Cold Players

• Cold Hitters
  • Luis Arraez
  • Rafael Devers
  • Luis García Jr.
  • Triston Casas
  • Michael Toglia
• Cold Pitchers
  • Nestor Cortes
  • Bailey Ober
  • David Bednar
  • Ryan Pressly

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Mailbag

Injury Update

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The Predictions episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Howard Bender

Strategy Section

• Early drafting (January/February) vs. Late drafting (March)
  • Pros & cons, advantages & disadvantages, differences
  • Average draft position (ADP)
• Our player shares in the 2025 draft season
  • Players we drafted early but not late
  • Players we drafted late but not early
  • Our most drafted players
  • Players we didn’t plan to draft, but did
  • Players we planned to draft, but didn’t
• FAAB
  • What are you looking to accomplish in the first FAAB period?
  • How do you evaluate players for the first FAAB period, and early on in the season?
  • How much does a player’s hot performance in the opening week influence your FAAB bidding?

Predictions

• Bold Predictions
  • Player predictions
  • Team predictions
  • Baseball event predictions
• Awards Predictions
  • MVP
  • Cy Young
  • Rookie of the Year
    • Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Playoff Predictions
  • A team unlikely to make the playoffs that will
  • A team likely to make the playoffs that won’t
  • The worst team in baseball
    • Board bet !!!
  • Pennant winners
  • World series winner

Injury Update

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The 2025 Pre-Season Injury episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Strategy Section

• When should you draft injury risk?
• How does the league format factor into taking on injury risk?
• What are the different types of baseball injuries and recovery timetables?

Injury Updates and Discussion

• Hitters
  • Gunnar Henderson
  • Ronald Acuna Jr.
  • Royce Lewis
  • Byron Buxton
  • Bobby Witt Jr.
  • Christian Walker
  • Giancarlo Stanton
  • Freddie Freeman
  • Mookie Betts
  • Jurickson Profar
  • Brandon Nimmo
  • Francisco Alvarez
  • Matt Vierling
  • Parker Meadows
  • Sean Murphy
  • Spencer Steer
  • Nico Hoerner
  • Zach Neto
  • Tyler Stephenson
  • Jesus Sanchez
  • Jung Hoo Lee
  • Daulton Varsho
  • Jeff McNeil
• Pitchers
  • Jacob deGrom
  • Spencer Strider
  • Gerritt Cole
  • Luis Gil
  • Clarke Schmidt
  • Sean Manaea
  • Frankie Montas
  • George Kirby
  • Clayton Kershaw
    • Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
  • Max Scherzer
  • Jared Jones
  • Tobias Myers
  • Brayan Bello
  • Kutter Crawford
  • Cody Bradford
  • Grayson Rodriguez
  • Yu Darvish
  • Brandon Woodruff
  • Ranger Suarez
  • Shane Bieber

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The Relief Pitcher episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Greg Jewett

Strategy Section

• Closer Landscape
• Closer Strategy
  • Should you invest in an elite closer?
  • Is it viable to draft two top-10 closers?
• Would you rather?
• Breakout relievers

Closer Situations

• Free Agents
• American League
• National League

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

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The Mixed LABR Auction Recap episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Justin Mason

TGFBI

• What is TGFBI?
• How did TGFBI get started?
• First few rounds of TGFBI 2025

Mixed LABR Auction

• General Auction Strategy
• Incoming plan
• Observations
  • Positional Observations
  • Categorical Observations
  • Auction Temperature
• What we liked / disaliked about our auction
• Live vs. online auctions
• Auction Board:
  • https://www.rtsports.com/labr-mixed-auction

Injury Update

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The 2025 Prospects episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: James Anderson

Strategy Section

• Valuing Prospects
  • Disconnect between projections and prospect evaluation
  • How to value prospects in fantasy drafts?
  • What skills are most translatable from the minors to the majors?
  • How to determine if and when a prospect will make the majors?
  • Does the organization matter in valuing prospects?
  • How to value dynasty rankings?

Prospects to Know

• Impact prospects for early 2025
• Impact prospects for mid 2025
• Impact prospects for 2026

Injury Update

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