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

Jeff Samardzija (San Francisco Giants) –  His 6.42 ERA will not last. His 1.67 WHIP will not last. He will have a strikeout rate above 16%. I think it’s best for us to forget about what has happened to Samardzija so far this year, throw it out, and ask what t expect moving forward. Is a sub 4.00 ERA so hard to buy into? A 1.30 WHIP or lower? How about a 20%+ K rate? It all seems very plausible to me, making him playable in 12-teamers, especially those in QS leagues as he will be given a longer leash than most.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re dying to catch an outfielder, this is the waiver wire piece for you. This is especially true if you’re in an NL-Only league, where this pair is almost assured of delivering positive fantasy value in the near term.

Read the rest of this entry »

Contrary to popular belief, the secret to rebuilding (and winning) your fantasy league is not hoarding prospects. This season, you could be waiting patiently for the arrivals of Michael Kopech, Willie Calhoun, and Luis Urias to save your team, or you could have jumped on pop-up producers like Max Muncy, Jesus Aguilar, and Ross Stripling. Last year, Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, and Charlie Morton were universally available if your timing was right.

The thing about prospects is that sometimes they pan out, and sometimes they don’t. Even a “successful” one like Ronald Acuña has just a 114 wRC+, with a rest-of-season projection slightly below that. In real life, that’s fantastic for a 20-year-old and Acuña is a likely future star. But in the meantime his production is nothing special.

And again: Acuña is a success story. Owners might wait years for the likes of Byron Buxton, Dansby Swanson, and Alex Reyes to carry their teams to relevancy. All the while, players like the following four who are owned in less than 40 percent (well, actually, 43 percent) of Ottoneu leagues have been quietly carrying contenders: Read the rest of this entry »

Coming into the 2018 season, it looked like Jordan Zimmermann was finished as a fantasy-relevant starting pitcher. He was entering his age-32 season, and he had essentially been a train wreck ever since he turned 30. In other words, I certainly didn’t expect to be sitting here in July 2018 recommending Zimmermann in basically any fantasy format.

After a strong first month in a Tigers uniform in 2016, Zimmermann unraveled entirely. As for that month of April, it wasn’t without its warning signs either — even though he pitched to a pristine 0.55 ERA in his first 33 innings as a Tiger, he just wasn’t missing many bats, as his 6.27 K/9 indicated. He was getting outs, but for a guy who recorded strikeout rates of 8.20 K/9 and 7.32 K/9 in his previous two seasons with the Nationals, that was a pretty steep drop — even for a guy moving from the National League to the American League.

As soon as the 2016 calendar turned to May, Zimmermann experienced a meltdown that lasted for about two full years:

• May-Sept 2016:
  • 72.1 IP, 6.84 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 5.4 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 1.6 HR/9
• 2017 Season:
  • 160 IP, 6.08 ERA, 1.55 WHIP, 5.8 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 1.6 HR/9

He continued to allow way too many runs in April 2018 (5.81 ERA), but there were also some signs that he might finally be turning it back around after two years plagued by nagging injuries to his neck and back. He struck out 27 batters in 26.1 IP in April — which was the first time he averaged more than a strikeout per inning in any month since August 2015 — but when he hit the disabled list with shoulder discomfort in early May, it looked like he might be heading for another lost season in Detroit.

Read the rest of this entry »

A quick at some available bats at each position for the upcoming week. Check out Nick’s piece on available pitchers, too. I’m using the FantasyPros roster rates of 50% or lower as the threshold and including a 25% or lower option at each position, too.

With a handful of doubleheaders this week, there are several teams with 8 games: BAL, MIL, NYM, NYY, PHI, and PIT.

CATCHER

Tucker Barnhart | CIN, 30%, 6 games (all vR) – The switch-hitting Barnhart is better against lefties (.949 OPS) than righties (.645), but pickings are slim for catcher! He does have solid 17% K and 9% BB rates against righties and a .260 BABIP holding him back. If you’re just going for playing time, he’s got the third-most plate appearances at the position.

Read the rest of this entry »

After my first attempt into the estimating FAAB bids, I’ve been working away matching up ownership jumps with the actual bids. I’m close to being done as I work backward from the most recent weeks to the season’s beginning. By using these most recent values I found some interesting conclusions along with FAAB estimates for this week.

First, thanks again to everyone who has suggested any improvements. I’m trying to implement as many as possible. Second, if you are reading this more than a week from the publish date, look for newer articles. I’m just at the initial stages of creating the FAAB estimate equations.

As for information I’ve found out.

1. Owners spend a ton of FAAB chasing Saves. Of the top-10 players with the most money spent on them from week 13 to week 15, six were potential closers with 27 teams spending $1550 on A.J. Minter in week 14.
One issue possibly driving this high value is that for a team to win the overall NFBC prize, they must beat all the other 509 owners. They can’t dump a category. Owners who are behind with Saves are still grinding away. Other leagues may not see values this high.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Zack Wheeler (New York Mets) – Wheeler is finally getting proper time in the Mets rotation and he’s developing into a dependable arm, featuring a 2.73 ERA with a 27% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate across his last four starts. A 13.2% over whiff rate and a double-digit mark in each of these starts is a product of both increased velocity (97.1mph average four-seamer!) and an increased reliance on his slider. Get on board before your entire league catches on.

Read the rest of this entry »

A couple weekends ago, Dave Appelman asked my fellow writers and me what features we’d like to see available at RotoGraphs (more additions are in the works) and a FAAB (free agent acquisition budget) bid estimator was discussed. With so many leagues and so many bidding setups, I accepted the daunting challenge. I’m beginning to produce some limited usable results.

Before I go into the many inputs in FAAB bids such as declining budgets and absentee owners, I needed:

1. A way to measure owner seniment before the normal Sunday FAAB bids.

2. A reliable source of FAAB bids.

For the first source, I’d like to thank fellow RotoGraphs contributor, Al Melchior for pointing out that CBS Sportsline displays historic weekly ownership rates. Every host website will display ownership rates. What was important with this source is they have a ton of quick grab waiver wire leagues. As soon as a player bursts on the scene, owners can go pick them up off the wire. The ownership rates for these hot commodities immediately begin ticking up. These values are available but the bases need rounding a few times to collect them.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re changing it up a little this week, formerly looking at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 15% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy pros) and moving toward a 30% threshold, 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

Nick Kingham (Pittsburgh Pirates) – With Chad Kuhl leaving Tuesday’s game with forearm discomfort, it’s possible Kuhl heads to the DL for a significant amount of time, with Kingham taking his place as soon as this weekend. Kingham’s skill set speaks to a Top 60 starter if not higher with excellent fastball command and a swing-and-miss heavy slider. It’s a 1-2 punch that makes him 12-team relevant regardless of the rest of his arsenal and with a secure role in the rotation, Kingham could be in for a fantastic second half.

Read the rest of this entry »

Each week through the season, I’ll be looking at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 15% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy pros) and pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

It’s been another week of Fantasy Baseball, and the waiver wire has shifted. Let’s highlight my ten favorites, roughly ordered from top to bottom:

Shane Bieber (Cleveland Indians) – The only reason Bieber qualifies is his lack of security inside the Indians rotation. It’s possible he only sticks for one more start – Thursday against the Tigers – as Carlos Carrasco returns from his short DL stint, but the possibility that he gets more starts alone should be enough to grab in most leagues now. And even if it’s just for one start, his control-heavy approach with a good fastball and solid secondary offerings make him a good play for Thursday’s matchup.

Read the rest of this entry »