The Starting Pitcher Episode (Part I) of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Paul Sporer

Strategy Section

• How many pitchers will throw 200 innings in 2021?
• Pitcher ramp up from the 2020 short season.
• Pitchers returning from injury (Chris Sale / Noah Syndergaard / Luis Severino)
  • How do you project innings for 2021?
  • How do you assess their fantasy value?
  • What leagues are these players more (or less) valuable?
• Super Elite Pitchers (Jacob deGrom / Gerrit Cole / Shane Bieber)
  • How far should the trio be pushed up in drafts?
  • Which hitters should be drafted ahead of the super elite starters?
    • Does the format make a difference?
• Pitching Strategy in 2021 – Snake Drafts vs. Auctions

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

Guest: Derek Carty

Strategy Section

• The key components of what goes into a credible set of player projections.
• Incorporating the 2020 short season into 2021 projections.
• THE BAT vs. THE BAT X

ATC Projections

• Overview of ATC
• New for ATC – Inter-Projection Volatility

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

Guest: Todd Zola of Mastersball, ESPN & RotoWire

Park Factors

• What are park factors, and how they are calculated? What do they capture?
• The effect of the humidor.
• Park factors for unknown situations.
• Park factors for free agents.

Projections

• How projections are treating the uncertainty surrounding the DH (for the National League) in the upcoming season.

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

Guest: Wayne Randazzo – The Voice of the New York Mets

• Broadcasting in 2020
• Lindor/Carrasco trade
• Pete Alonso/Dom Smith and the Designated Hitter
• J.D. Davis/Brandon Nimmo as starters
• Trade for George Springer?
• Edwin Diaz, Seth Lugo & the bullpen
• Minor League prospect impact for 2021
• Steven Matz
• Most underrated player on the ball club
• Most exciting moments of Wayne’s broadcasting career

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

Guest: Randy Dobnak, Starting Pitcher on the Minnesota Twins

Interview

• The current offseason
• The affect of COVID on minor league players
• Innings limits in 2021
• Innings per start trends
• Players & Social Media
• The impact of fans
• Pitching coaches

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

Guest: Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN

Strategy Section

• How to use and adjust projections
  • What are the key adjustments that are most often made?
  • When should you diverge from projections?
  • How to adjust player rankings.
  • How to stress test playing time.

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With news of the Blake Snell trade to San Diego (covered here and here by our fine folks at FG and Podhorzer will have a fantasy piece out Tuesday), there is a lot of chatter about his workload now that he’s out of Tampa Bay. This isn’t a particularly new issue – he didn’t complete six innings once in the regular season – but it all came to a head in Game 6 of the World Series when Snell was removed after 5 1/3 brilliant innings, allowing just a run on two hits with nine strikeouts and zero walks in 73 pitches.

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

Guest: Ian Kahn of RotoWire

Strategy Section

• Trading
  • Trading Philosophy – Dynasty & Redraft
  • 2 for 1 trades – Is it best to acquire the best player in the deal?

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

Guest: Eno Sarris of The Athletic

Strategy Section

• Roster construction in roto snake drafts
  • What matters more at each pick – 
    • Value or category balance?
    • Stability or upside?
• KDS – Kentucky Derby Style Preferences 
• The Case for An Ace
• Relievers
  • Should you be drafting middle relievers in 2021?
  • Should we still be drafting closers early on?

ATC Projections

Command+

Mailbag – The team answers Twitter comments and questions.

Injury Update – Reuven gives us the injury updates.

Follow us on Twitter

• Ariel Cohen (@ATCNY)
• Reuven Guy (@mlbinjuryguru)
• Eno Sarris (@enosarris)
• Beat the Shift Podcast (@Beat_Shift_Pod)

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Many thanks to Derek Carty of RotoGrinders for his assistance on this article, and for his player notes on a few 2020 player projections.

In my previous article, 2020 Projection Systems Comparison – A Game Theory Approach, I compared several excellent projection systems in terms of fantasy baseball profitability for 2020. It was not the typical statistical comparison, rather – I used a game theory approach. This was the third such annual article that I had put forth in evaluating projection systems.

Earlier this year, Derek Carty unveiled a new version of his already excellent THE BAT projection system. The new system is called, THE BAT X. The major innovation of THE BAT X is that it incorporates Statcast data into the fold. You can read more about THE BAT X works in Carty’s introductory article found here on the pages of FanGraphs.

I have typically evaluated THE BAT within my 2020 Projections comparison. With this season (despite the short duration) as the inaugural run of THE BAT X – Derek asked me to take a deeper look into how his new projection system had performed. To do this, I went back and revisited the same game theory methodology applied to THE BAT X. The initial results look very promising for the young system.

In this article, I will go through what had changed between THE BAT and THE BAT X as far as the game theory simulations. For a few of the largest and most impactful player performance differences, I will also include some analysis from Derek Carty himself as to why THE BAT X made those adjustments. Read the rest of this entry »