B_Don and Donkey Teeth are joined by Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) of Pitcher List. We ask Alex about his pitching strategy and how it changes in his various industry leagues.
The guys talk about the different strategies being utilized for the RazzSlam, as Alex fits closer to the Donkey Teeth/Grey build than what B_Don tried. Later on, we discuss how the approach in the 15 team snake darft TGFBI and the 15 team LABR mixed auction before breaking down his teams. DT connects with Alex over their shared belief that a Gallo/Gary Sanchez build won't tank their batting average.
We ask Alex specifically about some of his pitchers and what we can expect from guys like: David Price, Zack Wheeler, Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, and more.
B_Don and DT ask Alex about his Jameson Taillon interview from how he was able to reach out to some of the more interesting points from the interview. Cannot say it enough, if you enjoy pitching discussions, it's a must listen.
As Taillon works his way back, we talk about which spring training stats might matter. While you're stuck at home avoiding coronavirus, you might as well listen to some baseball talk.
Side note: Here's the chart I discuss during the podcast for 2019 spring training velocity increases.
Monthly Archives: March 2020
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2nd Basemen To Target, 2020 Fantasy Baseball
March 11, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Sleepers | 212 Commentsby: Grey
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Psst! This post is gonna list 2nd basemen that you should target in your 2020 fantasy baseball drafts. I’m whispering because you don’t want everyone to see this post. No, I can’t whisper louder, then it WOULDN’T BE WHISPERING! Okay, gig’s up (or maybe that’s jig’s up), the love I’m about to reiterately (Made Up Word of the Day!) confirm is on these guys I love later in drafts. I’m not going to mention Ketel Marte other than this one mention of him where I say I’m not going to mention him. At least that’s my apophasis and I’m sticking to it! These are players that you’re looking at later and all of them have ADPs after 200 (unlike Marte; okay, two non-mentions). Some could be the 2nd baseman on your team, they are more than likely MIs. This is a (legal-in-all-countries-except-Croatia) supplement to the top 20 2nd basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball. Click on the player’s name where applicable to read more and see their 2020 projections. Anyway, here’s some 2nd basemen to target for 2020 fantasy baseball:
Bear or Bull: Reynaldo Lope-yes?
March 10, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Bear or Bull | 20 Commentsby: Son
Reynaldo Lopez allowed the fifth-most home runs last season and had game logs that would have made NBA players jealous. There were four games allowing three homers in a game and one game serving up four. There were 14 games in which he allowed at least five earned runs, with six of those games giving up six earned runs and two games with eight! Reynald-NOOOOOOOOOO. But I'm intrigued for some weird reason. Is it the 296 ADP in NFBC drafts from 2/1 to 3/9? Could be. Maybe it's the fact that he throws mid-to-upper 90s. I'm always a sucker for speed. I blame Maverick and Goose. Or could it be the six-inning, 14-strikeout performance in April of last season? How about the complete game, one-hit, 11-strikeout game against the Cleveland Indians in early September? Let's dig in and see if we can say Lope-YESSSSSS.
Lopez signed with the Washington Nationals back in 2012 as an international free agent from the Domincan Republic. He pitched in Single-A until 2016, when he logged 76 innings in Double-A, 33 innings in Triple-A, and 44 innings with the big club. With the major league team, Lopez finished with a 4.91 ERA, 8.59 K/9, and 4.50 BB/9. The following year, he was traded to the White Sox. He suffered a rib injury in 2017, which kept him at 47.2 innings pitched that season. In 2018, Lopez pitched 188.2 innings, had a 3.91 ERA, 7.2 K/9, and 3.58 BB/9. Last season, he pitched 184 innings, had a 5.38 ERA, 8.27 K/9, and 3.18 BB/9.
I know, I know. Yuckaldo Nopez, right?
The 2020 Razzball Commenter Leagues are now open! Free to join!
Rolling In The Deep: Should Deep-Leaguers Chase Playing Time?
March 10, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball | 13 Commentsby: Laura Holt
Ah, the age-old question: how important is it to chase playing time in deep fantasy baseball leagues? Okay, perhaps it's not a question that society has been pondering since the dawn of time, but it is something I've been thinking about a lot lately as I'm in the thick of my drafting season. The word "platoon" and "time-share" are huge turn-offs to most owners when perusing a hitter's profile -- but when it comes to deep leagues, I don't feel that having a hitter in a platoon situation is necessarily always a terrible thing.
In shallow leagues, playing time is crucial, since on a good fantasy team every player rostered will theoretically be somewhat of a stud, and you'll want as many at bats from said studs as possible or else you'll quickly lose ground in the counting stat categories. But in deeper leagues, I do believe there are times when less is more, and where chasing playing time will ultimately hurt you. More at bats (or innings if we are talking about pitchers) may lead to slightly raised counting stat numbers, but at the expense of taking a hit in ratio-based categories. Today let's take a look at a few examples of the many players who may not even be draftable in certain shallow leagues, but could be a big help to deep-league teams. Some of these guys may also have the added benefit of being available at lower-than-they-should-probably-go price points in deep leagues, due to the fact that other owners may tend to overlook them based on a playing-time bias that may not even be a negative factor in NL-only, AL-only, or other deep leagues.
The 2020 Razzball Commenter Leagues are now open! Free to join!
As I prepare for my voyage into the Vegas desert, it's that time of year to look at the futures bets for 2020. 2019 was a terrific betting season for me as I only missed 2 non-World Series winner bets (mostly win totals and prop bets). Realistically, the divisional, pennant, and World Series winners are typically poor bets given the restricted payouts and less likely occurrence than regular season win totals or player vs player prop bets.
Divisional
There are some nice values that can be had from betting divisional winners. Unfortunately, a number of the divisions have pretty clear favorites and aren't worth the odds. Many times, you have to take the second or third option in the division to make any money. Not a place where I put a lot of money for futures bets, but a couple of gems can be found each season, a la the Twins last season.
Lat In Verlander Necessitates Shelvus Forawhilus
March 10, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 275 Commentsby: Grey
Can I *itch about utter nonsense for a second? (Asterisk replacing a B there, but also works since I'm talking about the Houston Asterisks.) People who say it's okay to draft top starters in February, due to how well they did the previous season, invariably ignore all the starters who were bumped down in rankings by the start of the season. No one next year will mention Chris Sale, Mike Clevinger, Luis Severino, Justin Verlander or Blake Snell were drafted in the top starters in 2020 up until March. People in October will be like, "Top starters were safe last year, only Scherzer, Cole and Flaherty missed time." Yeah, only those three and five others! Contests which rank rankings always end the morning of Opening Day, when, ya know, 99.9% of leagues have drafted already! Am I saying this because I want some glory for telling to ignore top starters as early as January? YES, GODDAMN IT! Any hoo! Justin Verlander was shut down with a lat strain. Luckily, you didn’t draft any top starters, right? You did? Aw, shucks. Going onto eBay and put in a one cent bid on the world’s smallest violin, then adopt a baby and teach it how to play from a YouTube tutorial. Not sure how many times I have to say don’t draft a top pitcher, but I’m sure everyone this time next year will have forgotten I ever said it. A lat strain is better than an arm injury, or so I’m told. As in, I’m told that it’s a lat strain, but on Sunday it was triceps soreness. Sounds great! *insert giant thumbs up emoji* I told you not to draft Verlander before this, guess what this does for me? I’ve updated Verlander’s projections and moved him down in the top 20 starters and the top 500 for 2020 fantasy baseball. Also, with Verlander's latissimus dorsi more banged up than a dolphin at Sea World, I've added Josh James into the top 100 starters. Anyway, here's what else I saw in spring training for 2020 fantasy baseball:
Rudy’s 2020 ToutWars Mixed Draft (5×5 OBP)
March 9, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball | 19 Commentsby: Rudy Gamble
On March 5th, I took part in my 5th Tout Wars Mixed Draft – a 15-team snake draft that is unique amongst 'analyst' leagues in that it is a 5×5 OBP league. Otherwise, pretty standard. Weekly transactions. 2 catchers. $1000 FAAB.
Quick Perspective On The Difference Between OBP vs AVG
While the same draft tenets I discussed in my 2020 LABR writeup still apply, the biggest shift in OBP leagues is published hitter ADPs are less reliable. This makes drafts a little more unpredictable but it generally advantages the more prepared drafters in the room. I look at ADP but also put my projected $OBP – $AVG right next to it to indicate guys whose value is much higher/lower in OBP.
There are other minor shifts (1Bs look better b/c they typically have highest BB rates, hitters with high AVGs but mediocre BB rates become less valuable, etc.) but this ends up baked into the projections. I have to run 15-team 5×5 OBP custom but you can access my 12-team 5×5 OBP projections and those are updated daily for Season to Date and Rest of Season as well. All free.
It’s not the culmination of my life’s work, but it is the culmination of the finding aces series. The premise of this series was to identify pitchers showing traits similar to breakout pitchers from the past and ultimately locate the players who will make that value jump in 2020. We’ve discussed 30+ pitchers in the series (links to all articles at the bottom) since the calendar turned and today, I’m providing my top four pitchers with ADPs outside of the top 120 with SP2 upside for the 2020 fantasy season. There were a few landmarks I was seeking out in my analysis of who can reach this peak aside from them having the data points from our series research:
- Pitchers who will throw 160 innings – Only 3 pitchers who finished as an SP2 on the 2019 Razzball player rater threw less than this. They either came excruciatingly close to this figure (Jake Odorizzi -159) or won 60%+ of their games started which is highly unlikely to occur (Mike Clevinger and Domingo German).
- Pitchers on average or better teams – The lowest win total among the 2019 SP2s was 11. Only a single SP2 finisher was on a team that won less than 75 games (Lucas Giolito). Pitchers on bad teams struggle to hit this landmark.
- Pitchers who will strike out 160+ batters – Only one pitcher completed an SP2 season in 2019 without crossing this threshold (Mike Soroka).
- Pitchers with a WHIP under 1.24 – More baserunners lead to more runs against. Only one 2019 SP2 had a WHIP over this threshold and his success was largely wins driven (Eduardo Rodriguez).
RCL Update: RCL ADPs 2020
March 9, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Our Leagues, Razzball Commenter Leagues | 13 Commentsby: MattTruss
The fantasy baseball season has officially kicked off and we have real, live draft data to sift through. Numbers nerds, assemble! We have spreadsheets, charts and ADP, oh my! It was a busy first week here at Razzball Commenter Leagues HQ but I’ve gone through each league that has drafted and added their drafts to a master spreadsheet in order to calculate RCL ADP. We’ve had fourteen leagues draft already, so there’s plenty of numbers to look at. We’ve had some close calls, but all leagues have filled so far and we’d love to keep it that way. We don’t want to axe any leagues, so if you notice your league is not full the day before the draft, hit us up on Twitter: @Razzball or @MattTruss and let us know. You can also leave a comment in Grey’s most recent post and/or invite a friend to join. I know, sacrilege to tell your fantasy baseball friends you read Razzball, but sharing is caring. Speaking of sharing, jump below and I’ll share with you a fancy RCL ADP spreadsheet for your perusing pleasure.
Goin’ Deep Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Rudy Riding Into Town
March 9, 2020 | Razzball Podcast | 5 Commentsby: B_Don
Rudy Gamble stops by the Goin' Deep podcast to talk about the multitude of drafts going on. Of course, B_Don and Donkey Teeth have to ask Rudy about his RazzSlam draft and his general strategy.
The guys then get Rudy to explain his projections down from the initial ratios to how the player rater works. They also ask about Rudy's tools from the draft war room to the in season management tools that are just as key to Rudy's success as the draft tools and projections.
Then, it's time to discuss Rudy's mixed LABR draft. He explains how he approaches his draft for different leagues and the adjustments he makes year to year. Donkey Teeth questions a couple of draft picks in Chris Sale and Cavan Biggio before we jump into Rudy's team and where his strengths and weaknesses may be.
1st Basemen To Target, 2020 Fantasy Baseball
March 9, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Sleepers | 305 Commentsby: Grey
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My prior, uber, hard-line stance has been that you with that one hair wrapped around your head acting as a hairstyle don’t want to draft a sleeper 1st baseman. By the by, I tried to replace Uber with Lyft in the previous sentence, but it didn’t make sense. My wokeness has failed. Previously, I’d tell you to go to my top 20 1st basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball (not clickbait at all) and draft some top guys and stop fooling around with sleepers at this position. Of course, I’m malleable like Gumby and this year there are no top 1st basemen *ducks head*. Whoa, someone threw a wrench into this! Fine, Pete Alonso and Matt Olson get nethers ablaze, but 1st basemen dry up quick. As with other positions like the catchers to target (again, not clickbait), these are 1st basemen that are being drafted late. For the 1st basemen, I’m going with an ADP of 150 or later, so you should have a 1st baseman already, and these are more corner infidels or utility guys. Anyway, here’s some 1st basemen to target for 2020 fantasy baseball:
Josh James was a lad,
That K'd many a man,
He was robbed of a starter's gig last year,
The Astros stole signs since '17,
So Hinch was soon fired,
Dusty then hired, and the Toothpick says he's near...
That's just the intro, but it's a special song near and dear to my heart. So with A.J. Hinch gone from Houston, Dusty Baker rides into town. There's 2 things we know about Dusty Baker's managerial style. 1) Young position players often become waterboys for extended periods of time, and 2) he is not afraid to give young pitches a long leash and give them enough rope to hang themselves or succeed. Hold that thought. Losses to the Astros rotation: Gerrit Cole signed a $324 million contract to makeover his closet so he can pitch in pinstripes this year, and Aaron Sanchez went down with a shoulder injury and then subsequently not tendered a contract in offseason (those jerks!). The rotation left behind is now Verlander, Greinke, McCullers, Urquidy... with a 3-man spring battle for the 5th spot. The competition: Josh James, Framber Valdez, and Austin Pruitt. We have ourselves a Mexican (racist?) standoff. Central American standoff? Astro standoff? Astroff?
The 2020 Razzball Commenter Leagues are now open! Free to join!
