Come with me, for a moment, down into the clubhouse of your favorite MLB team. Walk through the concrete halls and into the press room. Take a seat and wait for the manager to come in. Listen, you can hear it. Pencils, pens, iPad taps, all preparing to ask questions that press the manager, while also making the person asking them sound cool and trustworthy, like, “You can talk to me, it’s me! I’m cool. I’m not like these other press passers.” Here it comes, the classic question:

Press: What did you see out there with your starting pitcher today?

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

Guest: Pierre Camus

Strategy Section

• FAAB / Waiver Wire
  • How much time do you spend on preparing for FAAB each week?
    • Do you prioritze leagues that you are doing well in over others?
  • Should you make last minute changes in FAAB, or leave alone?
  • How to decide how much to bid on FAAB
    • Should you look at FAAB on a dollar basis, or on a percentage basis?
    • How to decide the exact figure to bid on FAAB for leagues that employ $1000 of FAAB for the season.
  • What to prioritze in researching / perparing / putting in bids for FAAB?
• Vacation
  • How to manage your fantasy teams if you are on vacation?
  • What instructions should you give to a proxy to help with managing your fantasy teams?
  • How to make decisions if you are the proxy?
• Catcher Strategy
  • Should you spend a lot of draft capital on catchers?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Yusei Kikuchi
  • Ranger Suárez
  • José Berríos
  • José Soriano
• Cold Players
  • Zac Gallen
  • Zach Eflin
  • Bailey Ober

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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

Guest: Marc Winokur

League Updates

• GDD
  • Trade!
• NFBC
  • 1st half sucesss

Strategy Section

• NFBC Overall Contests
  • When should you alter your focus from the single league contest to playing for an overall contest title?
    • Does the size of your lead matter?
    • Does format matter – FAAB vs. non-FAAB?
  • Do you alter draft strategy at all due to the overall component of NFBC contests?
• The 2025 fantasy basbeall winning strategy to date
• Are Ohtani/Judge auction bids (i.e. high priced, but high returning players) efficient?

ATC Half Season

• Hits and Misses
  • Luis Arraez value
  • The profitable range of the pre-season auction market for hitters and pitchers

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Andy Pages
    • Who’d you rather?
  • Jesús Sánchez
  • Byron Buxton
• Cold Players
  • Ian Happ
  • Rhys Hoskins
  • Jarren Duran

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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

Guest: Zack Waxman

Draft Champions Podcast

Strategy Section

• NFBC
  • Power players
  • Drafting early vs. drafting late
  • The use of projections
  • ADP
  • Jacob deGrom’s innings for 2025
• Waiver Wire / FAAB
  • General Strategy
  • Putting in the time
  • What to tackle first / how best to use your time?
  • Track remaining FAAB?
  • Allocate FAAB weekly?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • Taylor Ward
  • Miguel Vargas
  • Zach Neto
  • Ranger Suárez
  • Will Vest
• Cold Players
  • Kristian Campbell
  • Matt Mervis
  • Francisco Alvarez
  • Brayan Bello

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The 2nd Month episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Chris Welsh

Strategy Section

• Waiver Wire
  • What player level is it acceptable to cut (for underperformance)?
    • Based on time of the season
    • Based on current standing
  • In practice, are player pickups more for the short term or for the long term?
    • Does it differ hittter vs. pitcher?
• Prospects
  • Are prospects good waiver wire investments?
    • What level of FAAB spending should you spend on prospects?
  • Key prospects to know for redraft leagues
    • Now
    • Later in the season

Buy/Sell/Hold

• Hot Players
  • James Wood
  • Kyle Stowers
  • Maikel Garcia
• Cold Players
  • Michael Toglia
  • Spencer Steer

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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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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