Each week I look at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 30% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy pros) with a few extra sub 5% discount options at the end, pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

Let’s highlight my ten favorite starting pitcher options that may be available on your waiver wires, roughly ordered from top to bottom:

Under 30% Owned

Steven Matz (New York Mets) – After a rugged four-game stretch, Matz has rebounded in a big way in his last three outings, featuring a 1.89 ERA, 0.68 WHIP, 33% K rate, and 4.5% BB rate in 19 frames. It’s a small sample, though he might be worth the gamble as he has a cushy schedule of PHI, MIA, @PHI, @WSH, and MIA ahead. This could be a season-winning stretch.

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The theme of this week’s deep league wire is POWER. Lots and lots of power. And unfortunately, perhaps nothing else. Most of you could use a couple of extra homers, right?

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With most of the money of the FAAB dollars long gone, owners are stretching every last dollar to acquire talent. This week’s bidding may drain everyone’s budget as several players are on the move and some impactful rookies could be called up.

First up are last week’s results.

Predicted vs. Actual FAAB Bids for @thenfbc Main Event

Name: Pred, Actual
Kopech: $70, $71
Morales: $35, $27
Gaviglio: $11, $7
B Wilson: $7, $1
G Allen: $15, $17
Melky Cab: $21, $9

I'm slowly getting better estimates.https://t.co/nPSjaec31q

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) August 27, 2018

The estimates and results are inline, especially being only $1 off on Kopech’s bids. Enough about last week, it’s time for this week’s estimates.

The ownership rates are provided by CBSSportsline. I use them because CBS leagues allow immediate adds, so a player’s demand can be known before those with weekly bidding.
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In my last article, I contemplated if fantasy owners care too much about who to add and not enough on who to drop. I’m going run an experiment over last few weeks of this season to see what can be extracted from league drop trends.

For reference, I’m going to analyze the 34 leagues in the NFBC Main Event. These are 15-team mixed leagues using batting average and no trading. With each team putting $3K on the line, more of these owners haven’t thrown in the towel than in most leagues.

This first week, I went through the 30 most dropped players. The reasons behind the most dropped players were obvious, mainly they were hurt, lost a role, or demoted. Next week, I may concentrate on the players dropped between 5 and ten leagues. These players aren’t the most obvious drops and analyzing them may be the most helpful.

Name: Number of teams who dropped him (of 31)

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Each week I look at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 30% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy pros) with a few extra sub 10% discount options at the end, pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

Let’s highlight my ten favorite starting pitcher options that may be available on your waiver wires, roughly ordered from top to bottom:

Under 30% Owned

Joe Musgrove (Pittsburgh Pirates) – Yes, Musgrove hasn’t been great recently, with two of his last starts accruing 7 ER total. That’s still not enough to turn away his 3.56 ERA production on the season, while his sub 5% walk rate has helped return a 1.20 WHIP. I don’t see a pitcher that should fall to a 4.00 ERA here and with seven QS in his last nine starts, he’s a must add for those in Quality Start leagues down the stretch.

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In just a couple of days, rosters will expand, new faces will be recalled, and you’ll have a slew of choices for your deep league teams. But until that time, you’re still stuck with the same group of mehs. Here are two recommendations.

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Since I’ve started this tracking the NFBC Main Event FAAB bids, I’ve gained some insight on how the owners spend their money. A few nuggets I’ve found is the high prices paid by owners chasing Saves and the money hoarding that happens right before the trade deadline. This week, it’s time to see the money spent on impact rookies with the promotion of Michael Kopech.

I expected a fairly bland week with prospect call-ups starting next week. After September 1st, any player on the 40-man roster can be called up and the time in the majors doesn’t count for their service clock. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Eloy Jimenez are the two big names who owners have been waiting on.

Without getting too far ahead, here is a look at how last week’s newly adjusted projections performed.

The results from my FAAB estimates this week.

I was way off on Taylor Ward but his value heavily depends on him being catcher eligible.

Owners stepped up to pay for closers this week. https://t.co/kimu1c0IiY pic.twitter.com/OI8DFDffut

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) August 21, 2018

While the results (and spelling) were not perfect, they were better than the previous few weeks. Owners do continue to spend their limited resources on potential closers (Hildenberger and Glover).
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Need an outfielder in your deep league? Here are two options.

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For the past month, I’ve been struggling to estimate the NFBC Main Event FAAB bids with my estimates coming in on the high side. I thought dormant owners or the trade deadline could have been behind the low estimates. After still being about three times too high last week, I dove in and redid my prediction formulas with hopefully better results.

For reference, here were some of the estimates and bids from last week.

I've been trying to estimate the weekly FAAB spent in the @thenfbc main event leagues.

https://t.co/CaLa0Azztx

My projections are over, again

Name: Projected, Actual
Scott Alexander: 111, 29
Ryan Madson: 100, 22
Brian Johnson: 18, 6
Hunter Renfroe: 45, 26
Tommy Milone: 11, 4

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) August 13, 2018

The values were so far off, they needed a correction. After testing several methods, I came up with improved results. The biggest change was a larger weekly factor dragging down estimated bids as the season progresses.

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