Archive for Uncategorized

• It is an extra-long MASH Report today because I spent last week in Costa Rica. Much of the older injury news I will just give a small mention.

• Jhonny Peralta will be out 10-12 weeks with a torn thumb ligament.

It’s uncertain when Peralta will be able to return to normal baseball activities, but it likely won’t be for at least two months or more.

“I haven’t heard an exact date that I feel comfortable passing around, but that’s been kind of the earmark date, 10-12 weeks,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said Wednesday, prior to the Cardinals’ 7-2 loss to the Mets at Tradition Field. “There’s been some people who said even less, so we’ll wait and hear what the doctor says, when he thinks he can get back into activity and when he could likely be back to play.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone loves value, and paying down at pitcher is quite popular — even in writer/expert leagues. Waiting on pitchers puts some extra pressure on hitting on value plays to offset the lack of a “true” ace. That’s not to say the following pitchers will perform like fantasy aces, but they do appear poised to outperform their draft positions — some by a significant amount, in my opinion. Each of the five pitchers highlighted below is being selected outside of the top-50 starting pitchers in NFBC drafts, just one is being selected inside the top-200 picks on average, and three of the five are being selected, on average, outside of the top-250 players.

*NFBC ADP data current as of March 10th. Read the rest of this entry »

It was 2:16pm on a Thursday afternoon. I was sitting on my couch, watching a DVR’d episode of Better Call Saul, when I got the DM that would unknowingly change the course of (the next few hours of) my life. Read the rest of this entry »

I had my first two “normal,” not-mock auction drafts over the past two evenings. The first was a fairly standard 12-team keeper league. The second was the 20-team Utility Wars – a very different experience. Today, I’ll cover a few of the challenges from the standard auction then dip into the details of Utility Wars.

Read the rest of this entry »

So here you are, a month from Opening Day, reading a Deep League Waiver Wire column. If you’re actually perusing the wire, it’s either because you’re one of the few fantasy owners who’s already drafted or, like me, you’re frantically patching holes in a sinking fantasy Spring Training team that’s been decimated by injuries.

I’m writing this weekly column to help those of you looking at rather threadbare free agent pools find suitable replacements, Plan Bs, and maybe if we strike gold together, some…gold. This week, we focus on a couple overlooked catchers who are either going late in drafts or not at all. So, let’s go digging.

Read the rest of this entry »

On New Years Day, I promised I would create a number of experimental leagues. Today I’m unveiling the second – Fire and Forget. There is a method to my madness when designing these experimental leagues. In recent seasons, I’ve been unable to keep up with the sheer volume of industry leagues I get roped into. Lack of attention to detail means not finishing first, so I’m cutting down on most of them.

I plan to play a dynasty, ottoneu, sim (2005 season), home, college, and MLBTR league. The latter is my only redraft. But I love draft season way too much to have only three normal leagues. These experimental formats will combine my love of unique drafts with a minimum of in-season management.

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is the prospects installment of our 2016 Ottoneu FGpt rankings.

Previous Rankings: Catcher/First Base/Third Base/Second Base/Shortstop/Outfield/Relief Pitcher/Starting Pitcher

In Ottoneu, the prospect game is a bit different than in other fantasy leagues.  Ottoneu is not quite a dynasty, where you can stash players forever. But it’s a bit deeper than your average keeper league, and you can reap substantial benefit over a few years if you can score a hit on a top prospect. The rankings below reflect this dynamic – each of us has ranked our top 50 prospects according to a combination of his talent, proximity to MLB, and risk. As with our positional rankings, we’ve included each of our individual rankings, and a composite ranking that represents the average value we place on each player. Unlike our positional ranks, though, we’ve simply ranked our prospects from 1-50. It’s up to you (and your league’s market!) to determine how much of your budget you want to invest in prospects, depending on your team’s situation.

Only players who received a ranking from at least one of the four of us were included. “NR” indicates that the player was not ranked in one of our individual top 50 prospect lists. Consider this your early, subject to change, cheat sheet when you’re determining which prospects to target in your auction.

We can be reached on twitter as follows:

Trey Baughn
Joe Douglas
Tom Oltarzewski
Justin Vibber

Key:
AVG. – The average of our four rankings (for the purposes of this exercise “NR” was calculated as a ranking of 55)
Split – Difference from highest rank to lowest rank

2016 Ottoneu FGpts Rankings – Prospects

Name	Team	Pos	Justin	Joe	Tom	Trey	AVG.	Split
Corey Seager	Dodgers	SS	1	1	1	1	1	0
Lucas Giolito	Nationals	SP	3	5	2	2	3	3
J.P. Crawford	Phillies	SS	2	4	4	3	3.25	2
Nomar Mazara	Rangers	OF	8	2	3	5	4.5	6
Byron Buxton	Twins	OF	5	10	6	4	6.25	6
Julio Urias	Dodgers	SP	4	6	8	8	6.5	4
Steven Matz	Mets	SP	15	3	7	6	7.75	12
Tyler Glasnow	Pirates	SP	6	9	14	11	10	8
A.J. Reed	Astros	1B	14	8	10	9	10.25	6
Joey Gallo	Rangers	OF	18	13	5	7	10.75	13
Yoan Moncada	Red Sox	2B	10	19	9	10	12	10
Jose Berrios	Twins	SP	11	11	17	13	13	6
Alex Reyes	Cardinals	SP	9	17	18	12	14	9
Orlando Arcia	Brewers	SS	7	12	28	15	15.5	21
Trea Turner	Nationals	SS	13	14	13	23	15.75	10
Lewis Brinson	Rangers	OF	20	15	16	16	16.75	5
Dansby Swanson	Braves	SS	12	23	23	17	18.75	11
Blake Snell	Rays	SP	23	7	33	14	19.25	26
Jose De Leon	Dodgers	SP	29	16	21	20	21.5	13
Brendan Rodgers	Rockies	SS	25	34	12	19	22.5	22
Rafael Devers	Red Sox	3B	17	26	27	22	23	10
Andrew Benintendi	Red Sox	OF	24	27	24	18	23.25	9
Bradley Zimmer	Indians	OF	35	20	19	21	23.75	16
Franklin Barreto	Athletics	SS	19	25	20	33	24.25	14
Nick Williams	Phillies	OF	33	28	11	26	24.5	22
Austin Meadows	Pirates	OF	27	21	29	25	25.5	8
Brett Phillips	Brewers	OF	28	22	22	34	26.5	12
Manuel Margot	Padres	OF	16	24	32	39	27.75	23
Alex Bregman	Astros	SS	21	32	34	28	28.75	13
Aaron Judge	Yankees	OF	45	31	15	27	29.5	30
Jesse Winker	Reds	OF	31	29	31	29	30	2
Trevor Story	Rockies	SS	NR	18	26	24	30.75	8
Sean Manaea	Athletics	SP	38	30	30	31	32.25	8
Max Kepler	Twins	OF	36	33	35	30	33.5	6
David Dahl	Rockies	OF	34	39	25	40	34.5	15
Gary Sanchez	Yankees	C	41	35	36	35	36.75	6
Josh Bell	Pirates	1B	48	37	37	32	38.5	16
Tim Anderson	White Sox	SS	22	49	38	47	39	27
Sean Newcomb	Braves	SP	30	44	42	41	39.25	14
Clint Frazier	Indians	OF	44	42	40	43	42.25	4
Ozhaino Albies	Braves	SS	26	38	NR	NR	43.5	12
Ryan Mcmahon	Rockies	3B	43	45	43	45	44	2
Victor Robles	Nationals	OF	50	40	39	49	44.5	11
Gleyber Torres	Cubs	SS	32	46	NR	46	44.75	14
Alex Verdugo	Dodgers	OF	42	36	48	NR	45.25	12
Robert Stephenson	Reds	SP	46	NR	45	36	45.5	10
Hunter Renfroe	Padres	OF	NR	NR	44	38	48	6
Jose Peraza	Reds	2B	37	47	NR	NR	48.5	10
Dylan Bundy	Orioles	SP	NR	43	41	NR	48.5	2
Jorge Mateo	Yankees	SS	40	NR	47	NR	49.25	7
Jonathan Gray	Rockies	SP	47	NR	NR	42	49.75	5
Brandon Drury	Diamondbacks	2B/3B	NR	NR	46	44	50	2
Cody Reed	Reds	SP	NR	NR	NR	37	50.5	0
Javier Guerra	Padres	SS	39	NR	NR	NR	51	0
Anthony Alford	Blue Jays	OF	NR	41	NR	NR	51.5	0
Francis Martes	Astros	SP	NR	50	NR	48	52	2
Anderson Espinoza	Red Sox	SP	NR	48	NR	NR	53.25	0
Jeff Hoffman	Rockies	SP	49	NR	NR	NR	53.5	0
Willy Adames	Rays	SS	NR	NR	49	NR	53.5	0
Carson Fulmer	White Sox	SP	NR	NR	50	NR	53.75	0
Dillon Tate	Rangers	RP	NR	NR	NR	50	53.75	0

Years ago, I bought a nice set of knives for my wife and I was extremely excited to give it to her. She had been complaining about ours and these were a nice professional set. As Christmas approached, I began to pat myself on the back for nailing the gift. She had expressed a need for them, we had set a dollar amount limit on what we could spend for each other and I had gotten them for an amazing deal. Christmas day came and she opened up her present. She looked me squarely in the eye and said “Why?” That’s how I feel about the Rangers signing Ian Desmond. Read the rest of this entry »

After all of our focus on injury rates due to sliders and curves, which were good efforts but produced small results, it’s interesting to consider sinker usage as a possible marker for injury. Bill James did so, famously, a while back. He thought that ground-ball pitchers were only good for a short while, and then injured.

The response was swift from the saber metric crowd. Bill Petti couldn’t find an effect. Russell Carlton looked into injury prediction and found the following as important to shoulders. You’ll notice that ground ball rate is not included.

“First, shoulder injuries. In order of strength of prediction, the best predictors of whether or not you will have a shoulder injury in the coming year are whether you had a shoulder injury last year, how many pitches you threw last year, whether you had a shoulder injury two years ago, how many extra batters you faced last year from the year before (with a greater increase meaning that you were less likely to be injured), and the two-strike foul rate (just barely).”

Still. Let’s look at the top sinkerballers of the last three years. Perhaps sinkers are the source of the issue, not straight ground ball rate. You can get a ground ball with your secondary stuff, after all, and there is something about the sinker that combines internal shoulder rotation and big velocity that might actually be mechanically risky.

Read the rest of this entry »

Las Vegas seems to think that 2016 might just be the year when Cubs fans finally celebrate a World Series win in the streets of Wrigleyville. Stacked with a potent lineup from top to bottom and arguably the best starting five in baseball, Theo Epstein’s deity status could extend westward some 850 miles come October. But while there’s no position battle in the rotation to speak of, injury concerns, like curses, are real something to write about.

John Lackey joins Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks, and Jason Hammel in a formidable rotation that ZiPs projects for nearly 17 WAR. But they also enter 2016 having pitched a combined 6,674.1 career innings. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at who stands to step in should any of the Cubs’, let’s go with, seasoned starters miss some time.

Read the rest of this entry »