The NFBC Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jenny Butler

First Pitch Arizona mishaps

Strategy Section

• Playing in the NFBC
  • What is the NFBC?
  • How Jenny got into the NFBC and how you can get your start
    • Tools that a first time player should use
  • Differences between home leagues and the NFBC
  • Differences between standalone leagues and leagues with an overall prize
  • The value of multi-positional players in the NFBC
    • Ben Zobrist tribute
  • KDS selection preferences
• Should we pay the market premium for saves and for speed?
• Roster Construction
  • General principles
  • Should you create a “Do Not Draft” list?
• Draft preparation tips
• Incorporating risk into drafting decisions
• Jacob deGrom – What to make of the current Steamer IP projection?
• Power Drafters
  • Should you incorporate a “deGrom share” into your fantasy portfolio?
  • Should you diversify your player selections on your fantasy teams?
• How to find fantasy baseball sleepers

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The Format Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Frank Stampfl

Tout Wars Congratulations

Strategy Section

• Drafting Strategy based on fantasy format
  • Rotisserie leagues vs. Head-to-Head Points leagues vs. Head-to-Head Category leagues
    • One win vs. full category score
  • Waiver wire leagues vs. Draft Champion/Draft & Hold Leagues
  • Roto leagues vs. Best ball leagues
  • Trading leagues vs. non-trading leagues
  • Deeper leagues vs. shallow leagues
  • 1-Catcher leagues vs. 2-Catcher leagues
  • Large vs. small bench size
    • Having IL slots vs. no IL slots
  • Daily lineups vs. weekly lineups
    • How to best use Shohei Ohtani
  • Overall competition vs. standalone leagues

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The Streaming Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Michael Simione

Joes vs. Pros Congratulations

Strategy Section

• Streaming Players
  • Definition of streaming
  • Long-term holding of players streamed
  • Streaming hitters
  • Should you stream players in-season from the very beggining?
    • Should you set aside roster spots in your draft for streaming?
• Streaming Starting Pitchers
  • Advice for first-time players
  • How to determine which starting pitchers to stream
    • What stats to consider?
    • Can you avoid getting “Gombered?”
  • Budgeting FAAB for Streaming
    • How much should you pay per week in FAAB on starting pitcher streamers?
  • How to manage your bench in-season for streamers?
    • How many slots should you allocate?

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The Healing Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Ron Shandler

LABR Congratulations

Strategy Section

• Dealing with the current injury frequency level in baseball
  • Roster construction
  • Risk management
    • Broad Assesment Balance Sheet (BABS)
  • Reasons for injury frequency by team
  • Risk-adjusted pricing vs. managing to a risk budget
  • First round picks
    • Fernando Tatis Jr.
    • Ronald Acuna Jr.
• How to think about Binary Risk
  • Jacob deGrom
• Playing fantay against “Power Drafters” who take on more risk
• Is the market still right to draft risky elite starting pitching?
• Is the market overpricing stable closers in early drafts?
• How to value prospects in drafts?
  • Bobby Witt Jr.

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The Understanding Statistics Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Mike Podhorzer

Bar Mitzvah Talk

• Coke & Pepsi

Projections

• Pod Projections
• Manual vs. automated projections
• Where do automated projections fail / blind spots?

In-Season

• At what point in the season should you rely on in-season statistics vs. pre-season projections?
  • Francisco Lindor 2021

Understandings Statistics Section

• Hitting Statistics
  • BA
  • OBP
  • SLG
  • OPS
  • BB%
  • K%
  • HR/FB%
  • Barrel%
• How can you tell if a YOY increase in a statistic is real skill, or if it was a fluke?
• BABIP
• Using Statcast to identify pockets of value / undervalued players
• What in-season statistics should you use when setting waiver wire pickups for hitters?
• Pitching Statistics
  • ERA
  • WHIP
  • Swing Strike %
• How to adjust for a potential universal DH in 2022?
• Strand Rate (LOB%)
• ERA Estimators
  • FIP vs. xFIP vs. SIERA
    • Descriptive vs. Predictive
• What in-season statistics should you use when setting waiver wire pickups for pitchers?
  • K% is superior to K/9
  • K-BB% or K% – Which is more valuable to track in-season?
• What statistics should one track to tout relievers for saves in 2022?
• Scouting for saves in 2022
• Other important statistics to track
  • Plate discipline metrics
    • O-Swing%, Z-Swing%, O-Contact%, Z-Contact%, etc.

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

Guest: Jeremy Hefner, New York Mets

Interview

• Highlight of career
• Game preparation
  • Preparing players for the mental & physical aspects of the game
  • Is game planning more about having players pitch to their strengths, or about exploiting weaknesses of your opponents ?
  • In-game management
    • 3rd time through the order
  • Use of an “opener”
  • How “first-in” and “next-in” pitchers coming out of the bullpen are decided

• Health
  • Keeping pitchers healthy throughout the season
  • Extended rest between outings – good or bad?
• Analytics
  • How best to use analytics as a coach
    • Objective vs. subjective view
  • Analytics vs. Gut
    • Pulling Blake Snell in the World Series
    • Trusting analytics, and when to go with your gut
  • How are stats/analytics used to help players on the major league level?
    • Which are the key stats/indicators that you look at?
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Rule changes in baseball
  • Universal DH
  • 3 batter minimum rule for pitchers
  • Extra inning runner on 2nd base rule
• Position players pitching in baseball
  • Effectiveness of Ariel pitching in the major leagues

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I recently took over an Ottoneu team for the upcoming 2022 season. If you are unfamiliar with Ottoneu, it’s keeper league where you get to make trades from mid-November to January 31st. Any players left on your roster after that you keep, using the auction draft to fill in the missing pieces. Taking over someone else’s team kind of feels like moving into an empty office. There are a few cobwebs in the corner, the previous owner left a really cool pen in the desk drawer and there’s a very stinky sandwich in the staff refrigerator that you somehow feel like is your new responsibility.

The fun part is taking stock of what you have and trying to decide what you want to keep (cool pen) and what you want to cut (stinky sandwich). In this series of posts, I’ll write about the decisions I have to make, how I go about analyzing the data before making my decision, and then what decision I plan to make. You too could be doing this kind of thing, all you have to do is take over someone’s abandoned team and search through the desk drawers when you move in.

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

Guest: Trevor May, New York Mets

Interview

• Highlight of Career
• Game planning
  • Is about pitching to your strengths, or exploiting your opponents weaknesses?
  • Game planning team by team
  • Helping other teammates with game planning
  • Having a “default” game plan
  • Using MLB the Show
  • Learning from other teammates
• Health
  • Recovering from TJS
  • Switching from starter to reliever
  • Keeping healthy all season long
  • Extended rest between outings – good or bad?
• Injury Guru Trivia of the Week
• Analytics
  • Trevor’s own stat – Command Quality Ratio (CQR)
  • Trevor’s CQR and Ariel’s wPDI
  • Horizontal movement vs. vertical movement on pitches
  • Pitch velocity, spin rate, spin efficiency
  • Hanging out with the analytics staff
• Mailbag
  • Who do you NOT want to face with the bases loaded?
  • Why #65?
  • Day games vs. night games
  • Favorite inning to pitch in
  • Love of cats
  • Favorite podcast

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Cedric Mullins was one of the best breakouts of 2021 with a 30 HR/30 SB season that came out of nowhere. But what comes next? There have been 11 seasons of at least 30/30 since 2011 featuring 10 players and Ryan Braun doing it back-to-back in 2011-12. We actually saw four in 2011 and then two in 2012 before a drought that José Ramírez and Mookie Betts ended in 2018.

Here are all 11:

I wanted to look at what these players did before and after their magical season to see if it might help us with our Mullins projection.

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If you haven’t studied the managers who won your league by now, you should. If you won your league, and your competition is smart, you’re being studied. People are trying to find out why the Robbie Ray‘s and the Marcus Semien’s of 2021 caught the eye of those who drafted them and are looking to find next season’s doppelgangers. The Dodgers didn’t take long at all to take their pick. We can make all the models, algorithms, spreadsheets, and crystal ball readings we like, but the most tried and true technique is regression. Players that were unbelievably good…will regress to their true-talent level. Players that were unexpectedly bad…will regress to their true-talent level. This is something you can take to the bank. Rather than choose from 15 of the best players we should take in the first round, let’s think of players that we expect to go in the 5th and 6th rounds. Here’s a look at three players that seem likely to do just that, and could fly under the radar in your 2022 draft.

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