The luster is gone from all the shiny new toys and it’s a blue-collar week with boring adds. For hitters, I pushed up the full-time at-bats, so those managers with daily lineup moves might want to drop down to the platoon bats. With the starters, it seems full of guys with a 7.0 K/9 and 4.25 ERA.

In the article, I cover the players using CBS’s (about 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 for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters. Read the rest of this entry »

The Waiver Wire Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Vlad Sedler

Strategy Section

• When to sit cold players, and when to cut them?
  • Does it differ for Hitters vs. Pitchers?
• Cutting injured players in non-IL slot leagues
  • Eloy Jimenez
  • How much FAAB should one spend on an injury stash?
• FAAB
  • Going with your gut.
  • When should you overspend on FAAB?
  • Being in tune with how the rest of the league is spending FAAB dollars.
  • FAAB from a Return on Investment perspective.
  • FAAB pricing also depends on the avaialble player pool.
  • Looking at other team’s positional and categorical needs before setting FAAB bids.
    • Adalberto Mondesi
      • Profile Risk
• General FAAB bidding guidelines
  • Streaming options
  • Hot players
    • Taylor Ward
    • Uniqueness of profile
  • Speed
  • Closers and speculative closers

Read the rest of this entry »

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While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even a larger entry fee ($2.5K to $15K). They get originally named “High Stakes Leagues” and this year there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers are going to try to gain any advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in five or more of these leagues.

Jakob Junis (8): It’s not surprising at all that the Giants added a cast-off from another team and re-invented him. First, he’s throwing his slider 54% of the time, and here are the pitch’s comps.

The pitch’s results might improve as seen by the comps. One issue is that he’s not throwing it for strikes with just 27% Zone%. Read the rest of this entry »

The luster is gone from all the shiny new toys and it’s a blue-collar week with boring adds. For hitters, I pushed up the full-time at-bats, so those managers with daily lineup moves might want to drop down to the platoon bats. With the starters, it seems full of guys with a 7.0 K/9 and 4.25 ERA.

In the article, I cover the players using CBS’s (about 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 for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters. Read the rest of this entry »

The season is just two weeks old, but that doesn’t mean fantasy managers are sitting on their hands. We are busy overreacting to three-inning samples of relievers, two starts for starters, and a single hot (or cold) streak for hitters. And that means rosters are churning and cuts are being made. Here are the players cut in at least 10% of leagues in the last week, along with advice on how to handle them if they are on your roster or if they are now free agents in your league.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even a larger entry fee ($2.5K to $15K). They get originally named “High Stakes Leagues” and this year there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers are going to try to gain any advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in five or more of these leagues.

Owen Miller (9): Miller has an insane line of .500/.545/.964 with a .545 BABIP. Obviously, there is some regression coming but it’s tough to know where his talent will stabilize. His eye has improved with his K/BB dropping from 6.0 to 1.3. Those gains might not stick since the league is throwing him 61% fastball (53% last season). Almost all of his damage is coming off those fastballs (1.771 OPS) and the league will eventually adjust. I think in deeper leagues he is a must-add.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s hitters aren’t that interesting, especially compared to the pitchers. I’d not be surprised if a couple of league winners will be picked up this week.

In the article, I cover the players using CBS’s (about 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 for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters. Read the rest of this entry »

While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even a larger entry fee ($2.5K to $15K). They get originally named, “High Stakes Leagues” and this year there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers are going to try to gain any advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in four or more of these leagues.

Jhoan Duran (8): The Twins reliever has lights out talent. He has a fastball that averages over 100 mph. His splitter/change is a unicorn with its high velocity and low spin. The only comp I could find was Zack Britton’s sinker from the mid-2010s when Britton was the league’s most dominant closer. A must-add in all 12 team or deeper leagues for teams hoping for Saves.

Tyler Duffey (7): The only person standing in the way of Duran getting the closer’s job is Duffey. Duffey is no slouch with a 2.77 ERA, 10.8 K/9, and 3.0 BB/9. Additionally, he’s been used in high-leverage roles. With Saves scarce, the pair could be added and then the loser dropped once the roles are defined. Read the rest of this entry »

As always happens a few days into the season, Ottoneu managers are firing up auctions left and right, trying to grab the next big thing before it becomes too big for grabbing. Today, we’ll look at the six players who are being auctioned in the most leagues right now.

Read the rest of this entry »

With just a couple lineups in the books, there are just a few hitters moving up. The targets exist on the pitching front where a few pitchers have taken a step forward.

In the article, I cover the players using CBS’s (about 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 for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters. Read the rest of this entry »