Top 20 Outfielders for 2020 Fantasy Baseball

January 22, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 195 Comments

[brid autoplay="true" video="511677" player="10951" title="RZBL 2020 DraftKit Outfielders 012020"] In an incredible turn of events, I’ve done all the infield 2020 fantasy baseball rankings. Less incredible, you’ve read them. It’s like that time your favorite team won because they played better than that other team but you convinced yourself they won because you cheered loudly. When I win the Fantasy Baseball Blogger of the Millennial in 2099, and my frozen head is accepting the award, I’m going to thank you, the readers, but I’m secretly going to be thanking myself. Without me, none of this would be possible. You’re a close second though! Okay, enough ranking of you and me, let’s rank some outfielders! Here’s Steamer’s 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Hitters and 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Pitchers. All my projections are listed by the players and where I see tiers starting and stopping. Anyway, here's the top 20 outfielders for 2020 fantasy baseball:

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Rolling In The Deep: Early Second Base Thoughts

January 21, 2020 | Deep League Strategy, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy, Rolling In The Deep | 15 Comments

by: Laura Holt

Last week we took a very early look at the first base position for fantasy baseball in 2020, both with some early general thoughts that could apply to both deep and shallower leagues, as well as some more specific thoughts about NL-only, AL-only, or other deep leagues. We'll move along to the Keystone this week as we try to do some early navigation into the world of second basemen. Since Grey has already kindly gifted you with his list of top 20 second basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball, I'll began by quoting him directly -- as he said, "First time I can remember a position, besides catcher, that didn’t have one guy in the top 20 overall." Two other important points he made which I largely agree with and will now paraphrase: 1) The guys at the very top of this position are probably not worth drafting at their current price in any format, but 2) There are lots of 2B bargains later on. One other thing I noticed that I thought was interesting when looking at the second base landscape: just off the top of my head, it looks to me that about two-thirds of the top 30 second basemen also qualify at another position, even when using a 20-games-played-in-2019 threshold. I don't remember any position having stats quite like that in the past, and what it means to me at first glance is that there are A LOT of guys who qualify at 2nd base this year. Let's take a look at some names, and how the current state of second base particularly affects those of us deep-leaguers.

Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Top 20 Catchers For 2020 Fantasy Baseball

January 21, 2020 | All Podcasts, Razzball Podcast | 12 Comments

by: Geoff

It's the episode you've waited patiently the entire off-season for, it's of course the Top 20 Catchers for 2020 Fantasy Baseball. This was essentially Grey recording 60 minutes of catcher questions. Imagine if that was a specialty series weekly during the season here on Razzball? We need a catching expert! Donkey Teeth make this happen! Words, words, words. More words, stop. Oops didn't mean to write that, but my delete button is broken so I'm going to leave that here. It's not like I ran out of exciting things to say about catchers, or the players we discuss not named Gary, J.T., Yasmani, Willson, or Carlton Banks cousin. It's catchers, but we make it enjoyable. Grey talks about Chance Sisco and doesn't make a single Dru Hill joke.

Top 20 3rd Basemen for 2020 Fantasy Baseball

January 21, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 131 Comments

by: Grey

[brid autoplay="true" video="508691" player="10951" title="RZBL 2020 Draft Kit 3rdBase 010720"] After going over the top 20 shortstops for 2020 fantasy baseball, I needed a cigarette. A good after-sex cigarette, not a waiting-to-go-into-court-to-hear-if-you-have-to-spend-18-months-in-jail cigarette. Subtle, but important differences. We also hit up the top 20 catchers for 2020 fantasy baseball, the top 20 1st basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball and the top 20 2nd basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball. In no way was that clickbait. Okay, onto the hot corner. Here’s Steamer’s 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Hitters and 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Pitchers. All projections listed are mine and I mention where I see tiers starting and stopping. Good times, dyn-o-mite! Anyway, here's the top 20 3rd basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball:

Finding Aces Part II – K.I.S.P.

January 20, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Top 100 Starting Pitchers | 25 Comments

by: Pat

K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Is it a corny acronym? No doubt. Does it have a purpose in fantasy baseball? Absolutely. I’m not the smartest person on the planet. There is zero chance I can combine hundreds of metrics into a special formula to conveniently spit out 2020 breakout pitchers. Ask Rudy for that. However, I can break down the game to simple components and use a few metrics at a time. That is exactly what I plan to do in this series for the next month. Keep It Simple, Pat. K.I.S.P.! Last week, I highlighted a group of pitchers who exceed expectations in the past 3 seasons. Time after time in reviewing these pitchers a commonality was the use of a highly effective secondary pitch. Additionally, the usage of this secondary pitch contributed to a rise in the effectiveness of the player's fastball. This cohesion leads to the hypothesis of this week’s article, locating exceptional secondary pitches. If a pitcher throws hard with at least one valuable secondary pitch they will generate more strikeouts, more poor swings, and infrequent hard contact. In order to find players that matched to this premise I did the following:

Started with 2019 Fangraphs pitch data and filtered out anyone with less than 50 MLB innings pitched and more than 400 career MLB innings pitched to isolate for Youthful Jumps.
Brought in the average fastball velocity for the last two years and removed all pitchers throwing less than 93.4 MPH. This isn’t an arbitrary number; Shane Bieber was the average velocity floor from the Youthful Jump group at 93.4 MPH.
Highlighted only players with a Standardized Pitch Value (Pitch Type Linear Weights per 100) for a secondary pitch over 0.5 for the 2019 season.

Shockingly, there were only 12 pitchers from the 2019 season who met the criteria. Of those, seven could be removed for various reasons mentioned at the end of the article for clarity. The five pitchers who remain are detailed below:

Top 20 Shortstops for 2020 Fantasy Baseball

January 20, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 97 Comments

by: Grey

[brid autoplay="true" video="509458" player="10951" title="RZBL 2020 DraftKit Shortstops 011320 V2"] Wasn't that long ago that we were screaming about how terrible the shortstops are and how the sky is falling and how red wine is good for your health and you were like, "What if I put grenadine in my vodka?" Maybe it comes with age, but if you're around long enough you know these things go in cycles. For a few years, middle infidels are terrible, then corner infidels are in that sinking boat. As of now, shortstops are stupid stacked, and the top 20 shortstops for 2020 fantasy baseball are an absolute joy for at least twenty of the twenty but, as always, this is going much deeper. So, here's Steamer’s 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Hitters and 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Pitchers. All my 2020 fantasy baseball rankings are under that thingie-ma-whosie, and I mention where all tiers start and stop, and all shortstop projections are mine. Let's get to it! Anyway, here's the top 20 shortstops for 2020 fantasy baseball:

Top 2020 Prospects: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

January 19, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 14 Comments

by: The Itch

The hardest decision to make about this prospect list is not who occupies the top spot but how to alphabetize the team’s name. I’m not sure a dumber thing has ever existed in the world of phraseology than The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Just. Stop. Although, big empathy for playing in a division with the Astros. My take coming into this was that the Angels have been on a very strange stretch for a long time. Kind of aimless. I was going to knock the Will Wilson sale. Who drafts a guy 15th just to sell him so you can move a bad contract? It doesn’t get much worse than that, in my opinion, and good on the Giants for raising their hand, taking the dead money and cutting Zack Cozart, who it looks like they might resign. Why do that? He’s a trade-able asset now. Maybe the Angels should've done that. My take right now--after the hellstorm that is our baseball world--is that maybe they’ve finally got a chance. They’ve never had a real chance in that division--at least not for a long time now--because on the one hand you have Billy Beane in the prime of his career, and on the other you have the land of infinite cheating. Texas too has been extremely sharp for periods of the past decade and seems particularly sharp to me right now. So it’s a tough road whether or not a cyborg squad populates the division. They’ll need to get something out of their pitching development program to have a chance, but the Dylan Bundy gambit could turn out better than the twin cores of Trevor Cahill and Matt Harvey. The Angels are not without interesting pieces in the system, but the vast majority of future impact is on the hitting side.

Ambulance Chasers – Pre-season, Part 1 – Labrummer

January 18, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Injury Report | 9 Comments

by: Hammer

Coming into 2020, there’s not a ton of major injuries that we need to worry about in terms of keeping guys out to start the season. The biggest names that will definitely be on the shelf (and off your draft boards) are guys like Jameson Taillon, Jordan Hicks, and David Robertson. Those aren’t exactly guys that will alter draft strategies significantly going into the season. What we do have is a lot of players that will be drafted high, or be prime breakout candidates, who have some questions over how their offseason recoveries could affect their situations this year.

Fantasy Baseball Busts: Cole in my Stocking

January 17, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Overrated | 34 Comments

by: The Real Joey Bart

I’m so freaking excited to be back and writing about baseball. After months of dealing with stupid, unpredictable football variances, we’re back at it with some much-needed fantasy baseball! This is the real fantasy sport and I can’t wait to get started. My first articles of the offseason are going to be deep-diving on potential busts. We actually did this last season and had pretty good results aside from one guy. I actually had Christian Yelich as my Top 10 player to avoid last season and obviously, that was incredibly stupid. The other busts I had included Craig Kimbrel, Edwin Diaz, German Marquez, Lorenzo Cain, Javier Baez and Miguel Andjuar. The only other guy I got wrong was Baez but he still scares me to death with his horrendous plate discipline. I’m honestly not too disappointed with the Yelich one either because it’s hard to predict any Top 10 player to bust (according to me). We’re going to go with a similar approach here, so let’s get into some of our Top 50 busts!

Top 20 2nd Basemen for 2020 Fantasy Baseball

January 17, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 207 Comments

by: Grey

[brid autoplay="true" video="508694" player="10951" title="RZBL 2020 DraftKit 2ndBase 011020"] One super quick word about the top 20 2nd basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball and all the 2020 fantasy baseball rankings, each ranking appears insanely long and it is, but I imagine in a lot of leagues guys won't have eligibility, because I'm using the extremely lax Yahoo position eligibility. Without further ado because this post is longer than the combined length of the Gutenberg Bible and Steve Guttenberg's IMDB page, I mention where tiers start and stop and all projections are mine and cannot be reproduced without the express written consent of Major League--Damn, I'm being told by Major League Baseball I did not have express written consent to use their warning. It was expressly written for them. You guys! Anyway, here's the top 20 2nd basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball:

Bullpens On Parade: AL East

January 16, 2020 | Closers | 9 Comments

by: Roto-Wan

Oh, hello random blog reader. I didn't see you there. Don't mind me, I'm just doing early offseason fantasy baseball research while listening to Rage Against The Machine's "Bulls On Parade" on a loop. It gets me in the proper mindset to tackle bullpens. I generally find few fantasy positions that elicit more angst than relievers. Nevertheless, I've hit the double-digit mark on BoP and am feeling all kinds of weird. It's the perfect place to dip a toe into choppy reliever waters. I've broken down the roles while unveiling my new "Razzers" rating system (base 1-5). Is this a ploy to trick search engine's into redirecting users searching for Brazzers? Yes. Yes, it is. Ok, now that you've returned to this tab from your incognito browsing session, the Pens!

Top 20 1st Basemen for 2020 Fantasy Baseball

January 16, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 161 Comments

by: Grey

[brid autoplay="true" video="508695" player="10951" title="RZBL 2020 DraftKit 1stBase 010620"] This is gonna be a weird one. Just when you think the top 20 1st basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball are stacked chef's kiss finding a vacation home on House Hunters International, they take a left turn and become ugly like the Property Brothers. Well, mostly the one who always wears plaid. Any hoo! This post goes on for about 1.8 million words, so let's dive in. Here’s Steamer’s 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Hitters and 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Pitchers. All projections included here are mine, and where I see tiers starting and stopping are included. Let’s do this! Anyway, here’s the top 20 1st basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball: