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The final week has some interesting two-start pitchers and some well-rounded hitters taking off for teams needing a boost. My one caution for owners is that even though one category (e.g. Saves) could be the easiest to gain (or lose) point in, it is possible to drop in other categories if they are ignored.

As usual, I’m going to at least cover the players in demand using CBS’s (40% or less initial roster rate) and Yahoo’s ADD/DROP rates. Both hosting sites have the option for daily and weekly waiver wire adds. CBS uses a weekly change while Yahoo looks at the last 24 hours. Yahoo is a great snapshot of right now while CBS ensures hot targets from early in the week aren’t missed. The players are ordered by my preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters.

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SwStr% is a simple metric that is calculated by taking swings and misses and dividing it by total pitches. Why is SwStr% important? Simply put, if a pitcher can produce a bunch of swings and misses it means his strikeout rate should be high. The more strikeouts the better, because if you look at an elite pitcher in baseball you will see a high strikeout rate. It is well known that SwStr% correlates well with a pitchers strikeout rate. Want to know if a player’s K% is over or underperforming? Check out their SwStr%. The rule of thumb (although it isn’t exact) is to double a pitchers SwStr% and their K% should be around that number. Keep in mind some pitchers will be outliers if they consistently rely on called strikes, like Aaron Nola.

Let’s take a look at the SwStr% leaders so far this season.
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Hey everyone! Before we get started on pitch mix changes I figured I would introduce myself since this is my first article on Fangraphs. When I learned I would be writing for Fangraphs it felt like I had just won the lotto. As people would say these days, my mind was blown. For those who don’t know me, you can mainly see my work on my own blog and I am extremely active on twitter. I have an obsession with pitching, am a Mets fan (unfortunately), and my favorite pitcher in today’s game is, of course, Jacob deGrom. The baseball community is the best in the world and I couldn’t be more excited for this new adventure!

In this shortened season we sadly won’t be able to rely on a ton of metrics when analyzing pitchers. The sample size just won’t be big enough, but one factor that could be telling is pitch mix. We have seen numerous pitchers suddenly lean on different pitches, creating a significant difference in their performance (looking at you Patrick Corbin). Below are four pitchers who appear to be changing things up for the 2020 season. The question is, what does this mean for their future?

Danny Duffy

Danny Duffy came into 2020 with the mindset of keeping a pitch mix change he made towards the end of last season. In July and September (hurt in August) of 2019, Duffy started to get comfortable with his changeup. Most notably in September, he threw his changeup over 20% of the time, the first time he did that all season. In that month he threw for 30.1 innings while producing an impressive 2.37 ERA and 3.61 FIP.

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It’s a bizarro world we’re living in right now. With no baseball and no set date for baseball to resume at this point, it’s getting more and more difficult to decide what topic tomorrow’s article should be on. Even if I do land on such a topic, I don’t really have any idea if it’s what you actually want to read right now. So help me, and the rest of the RotoGraphs crew, brainstorm content ideas.

What do you want to read from me? Any topic is fair game. In fact, I’m sure no one will mind if we go slightly off-baseball, as long as there is at least some loose connection to the sport.

Feel free to suggest as many players as you want to get a Pod Projections post, so you can learn the details of my forecasting process.

Or perhaps you want a strategy article or even my thoughts on handling a particular situation.

Heck, even if you have keeper or league-specific questions, I could potentially write about it, as long as there’s a way to frame the question so my answer appeals to a broad range of readers, and not just you and your league.

Is there a research project or an xMetric you have been dying to analyze/develop but never had the time or Excel/analytic skills? Now’s the time to tell me!

If you’re not sure whether it’s something I would be willing to write or am capable of writing, publish a comment about it anyway! The worst that could happen is I ignore your suggestion. Even if that happens, I could pass the idea along to another writer.

Thanks for your help in ensuring RotoGraphs remains a daily destination during this difficult time.

Don’t forget to strongly consider becoming a FanGraphs member, if you have the means to do so, to help keep my favorite website and invaluable resource running.

Introduction

This year, I again had the great fortune and the amazing honor of being invited to one of the most prestigious fantasy baseball industry leagues – Tout Wars (toutwars.com). It was my second year participating in Tout Wars.

Last year, I was a member of the inaugural Tout Wars Draft & Hold league. This year, I was invited to take part in one of the four live auctions – the Tout Wars Head-to-Head Points league. It was originally scheduled to be held live in Midtown Manhattan on Sunday, March 15.

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we were unable to hold this auction live. Though the NFBC had chosen to cancel their live auctions, and many of my home leagues agreed to postpone – the Tout Wars board had decided to proceed onward. Rather than postpone – all four remaining Tour Wars leagues competed online, with Fantrax as the provider platform.

Aside from the benefits of the social aspect of a live auction (one of the key reasons we do this in the first place), we lose many of its intangible aspects when moving to the online arena. You can no longer look a league mate in the eye as they bid. It is much harder to pick up on ‘tells’ by simply reading out your computer monitor. The art of using my voice to hypnotize others goes away (yes, that’s right – I said hypnotize). It isn’t the same.

Personally, I have played in many online auction leagues. It was a dynamic that I was used to, and I have previously played on the Fantrax software. My home office setup is quite decent for an online auction. I use two 27-inch monitors, plus a side 15-inch auxiliary monitor. I used one screen to see the auction room. One screen contained my homemade draft software. Displayed on the third monitor was my plan of attack for the day. Technologically, I was primed for the event. Perhaps, this medium of fantasy baseball drafting was even an advantage for me.

You can view the results of our auction on Fantrax here. Full spreadsheet results of all Tout Wars auctions and drafts are compiled here.

For Part I of my Tout Wars auction recap, rather than simply break down my player selections – I wanted to share with you some of my process and preparation. I might comment about one or two of my player selections along the way, but I thought that you – the reader – would benefit more from a discussion of my approach and from my overall observations.

Both in fantasy sports, as well as in real life – the process is always more important than the specific or situational results.

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Time now for our ever-popular annual effort to identify players—pitchers this week, hitters next—upon whom Fortune smiled or rained pigs last season. Our theory is that this season, as is her wont, Fortune will aim her slings and arrows at other players than last year’s star-crossed guys, whereas last year’s lucky guys will need industrial-strength umbrellas. We further theorize that the Fantasy Baseball draft market fails to accord luck the respect it demands in this, as in all other, human affairs, and undervalues the unfortunate and overestimates…you get the idea.

And how do we ascertain who was lucky and unlucky? Quite simply, in fact. For lucky pitchers, we try to find guys who had high BABIPs and high HR/FB Ratios but low Hard-Hit Percentages. Then we flip that over to find the unlucky guys. Uncomplicated as this approach is, it steers you in the right direction more often than you might expect. Thus, last year it steered you towards Stephen Strasburg (we know you already knew he was good, but we were suggesting he’d be even better, and he was) and away from Jose Alvarado (who quickly blew up as Tampa Bay’s closer). Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of items before digging into projection adjusting news.

1. I’ve started collecting spring training fastball velocities and will update them as I find the time.

The Spring Training fastball velocity tracker is live. I'll update it when and if I feel like it, but I can always use some help. If anyone sees a velocity available in a Tweet or article, just tag me and I'll eventually add it. Thanks for the help. -Jeffhttps://t.co/2LaJ5uCDGJ

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) February 22, 2020

One name which immediately sticks out is Alex Wood with a 2 to 3 mph jump. Wood lives off his sinker (50%+ usage). While it’s not a huge swing-and-miss pitch, it does better at 93 mph and higher.

While healthy, he’s a must-own in all formats.
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Let’s resume our sweep through MLB in search of deep-draft value without our customary throat-clearing. This week, we’ll finish the AL and start the NL, with the remaining NL coming next week.

Angels. The Angels starter who’s being kind of ignored is Dylan Bundy (NFBC Average Draft Position 308), who’s worth a buck, maybe two if that’s what it takes. He gets plenty of strikeouts, and last season became a ground ball pitcher. Unfortunately, he did this while pitching for the Orioles and their ultra-porous infield. Now we get to see him with an infield of Fletcher-Simmons-Rendon behind him, and if we get our wish, Tommy La Stella plays first base. If not, leaving the position vacant would be an improvement over having it occupied by Albert Pujols. Read the rest of this entry »

Using a format similar to the one Justin Mason recently posted for 2020 Roto player rankings, below is the 2020 ranking of the Top 100 Starting Pitchers for Ottoneu fantasy baseball.  Ottoneu leagues are auction style, but with no salaries listed (league dependent), think of these lists as simplified “snake draft” rankings (“which player would I take before the next”), or a value ranking of players above replacement level for 2020. Players with multi-position eligibility may receive a slight bump in value (2020 positions listed).  You can reference average Ottoneu player salaries here, but keep in mind these salaries fluctuate throughout the winter as rosters shape up towards today’s keeper deadline for all leagues.

Previous 2020 Ottoneu rankings:

First Base

Third Base

Middle Infielders

Shortstop

Second Base

Outfield

Since a majority of Ottoneu leagues are points leagues (pitching based on linear weights), WHIP and Wins are less of a factor here than in traditional rotisserie rankings.  Even if you don’t play Ottoneu, this list might be a good proxy for sabermetric leagues, so keep that context in mind as you review. “P/IP” represents the projected points per innings pitched from Steamer projections and their estimated innings total.

If I’ve missed an important player, or you believe I’ve wildly over or under-valued someone, please let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure to update.

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We all love goofy fantasy baseball team names. Earlier this morning, I was singing one to myself while washing dishes.

~who lives, who dies, who’s Trevor Story~

-Hamilton the Musical

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