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

Guest: Joe Pisapia

Strategy Section

• What are you looking to accomplish in drafts?
• KDS Selection
• Lessons learned so far

Mock Draft

• 14 Team – Mixed 5×5 – 2 C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, 5 OF, CI, MI, U, 9P

By Round

By Team

• Tanner Scott vs. Kirby Yates
  • Board bet !

Mock Draft Recap

• Favorite & least favorite picks

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