Okay now that I got that load of laundry out of the way (we discussed per game values
here), we can go back... to the future! Looking ahead to this season and what lies before us. How can it be ahead and before? Don't ask me, English is a tortured and butchered language that is an amalgamation of West German, Norman, Saxon, and broken Latin. Nothing makes sense. But I'm sure you didn't come here to hear me rant about linguistics, you are here for outfielders, and of those we have plenty.
The outfield is a position that is easy to punt in the earlier rounds as there are so many, even 4 of the top 5 bats in the game are outfielders, if you take one of them it is isn't hard to move on and address other areas of need before going back in. However, in some leagues you will need to roster five at a time so you mustn't wait too long; but, there are plenty of solid options after pick 100. Without further ado, let's dive in.
Last week we covered why you should join an RCL, so this week let’s start covering what to do once you’re in there. To be honest, this has all been covered somewhere on the site over the years, most often by Rudy. If you haven’t been playing in RCLs though, I could see how some of this has been glossed over, so I’ll try to consolidate some info for the newbies. Grizzled RCL vets can feel free to skip this and just go sign up for leagues at the end of the post. We’ll just be covering the basics for anyone still timid about jumping in the RCL waters.
QUICK NOTE: With Drafts going off daily now, we’re trying our best to get every league filled, but if you are in a league where someone bails late or it looks like it won’t fill, let us know. Jump in the comments or let us know on Twitter: @Razzball and/or @MattTruss and we’ll try to work some magic.
As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that, gloriously, it's not all that early any more (hence my last-minute title change). Players have not only reported to camp, spring training games are being played and Opening Day will suddenly be here within a month. Those of us who are already drafting are no longer in the bubble of being able to avoid "best shape of his life" comments from players and remarks from managers about bullpen or starting position battles where a few words may lead to a huge ADP rise or fall for certain players. After looking at second base last week, we'll begin March by shifting over one spot on the diamond and concentrating on shortstops outside the top 150 players being drafted according to current NFBC ADP. Since the position is stacked once again this season, I suspect most of us, even in very deep leagues, will have splurged on an expensive or early round stud and will have short covered by the time we get this late in a draft or auction. But it's always nice to know what our fallback/back-up/bench depth/lottery ticket options might be, which leads us to the following list of names.
Last year's schmohawk posts were Alex Bregman, Joey Gallo, Charlie Blackmon, DJ LeMahieu and Kris Bryant. Welp, four out five ain't bad. I crushed four of those so hard it was like I Mola Ram'd my hand into their chest so decisively, some of them were unable to come back from it. Somewhere, Kris Bryant is still walking with his head lowered, kicking rocks at some of the weak-sauce grounders he's hitting to the 2nd baseman. Imagine you could ruin careers with your typed words -- THAT IS MY POWER! I am a responsible enough adult that I can handle doling out this sort of punishment, but I promise you, I go to sleep every night, praying each of my schmohawks will be able to start up a new career after I decimate them with my (s)words.
"Lord, I know you are busy, but please, if you have a moment, let Joey Gallo start a career as a pretzel salesman at a well-attended circus. Or whatever he wants to do. Thank you, and keep in touch, big homey!" That's me knelt by my Cal-King, 45,000-count linen sheet-covered bed. Just an adult, doing adult shizz. Now, allow me to unsheathe my adjectives, unholster my nouns, something-something-out some verbs! Today's dressing down comes at the expense of Dominic Smith. En garde! is what I scream as I eat a Snickers bar, while perusing Statcast. You're done for, pal! So, what can we expect from Dominic Smith for 2021 fantasy baseball and what makes him overrated?
A lot of pitcher fantasy analysis centers around pitcher quality: Velocity, stuff, BABIP, Statcast, recent performance…balancing out all of the available metrics to determine cost (draft slot, $ value) is the name of the game. Today we’re going to look at a metric I rarely see discussed in the pre-season: strength of schedule (SoS).
In-season, starting pitcher matchups are gold, whether you’re playing the streaming game or DFS. But pre-season, I rarely see analysis go any deeper than AL-vs.-NL comparisons. At the individual-SP level, this makes sense: projecting out specific full-season matchups for an SP is impossible.
At the team level, however, we can get get a pretty good handle on who may have advantageous matchups and who has a tough road. More specifically, we’re interested in the extremes: How frequently will each team face really tough matchups, or really easy ones? The middle 60% will be mostly based on pitcher quality; at the margins, we have actionable start/sit decisions.
Do you want to do better in the
2021 RazzSlam? I finished ranked in the 80s last year in the main even, and 40s in the qualifier. I certainly want to do better! I did a similar study to this after a dismal finish in the 2019 RazzBowl fantasy football tournament, improving my RazzBowl finish by nearly 200% and ultimately winning the DataForce Charity League against 12 of the best fantasy football minds in the business. I wrote up my findings in the
2020 RazzBowl Guidebook and my article
How to Win an Industry Fantasy Football League. Last week, I showed you my methodology and findings on
How to Draft Starting Pitchers in an Industry Fantasy Baseball League. This week, let's take a look at the hitting landscape, and the strategies that succeeded for the best RazzSlam teams.
Razzball Patreon members receive our weekly podcast where Grey cackles about the funniest news stories we’ve found over the past week, plus you get that warm fuzzy feeling of supporting your favorite fantasy sports site in all the land.
ANNOUNCEMENT!!
Ten (10) Razzball Patreon members will randomly be selected to compete against Grey, Rudy and a slew all the biggest names in the fantasy baseball industry in this years
RazzSlam. Note your
Patreon membership at the bottom of your
RazzSlam Signup Form.
Now, without further ado, it’s your favorite hour of the week!
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Not News is back again with all the Billy Hurley jokes and Grey Albright cackles you can handle. First we report on the sexy snowmen who are haunting a Canadian town and then Billy heads to Louisiana to cover Cajuns bathing their kids in seafood boilers. Later we get the scoop on Hello Fresh's accidental urine delivery and an Alaska woman bitten in the butt by a bear.
Find all of this week's stories here:
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Hello, or hola, as I learned during my 13 years of Spanish. Welcome to my critique of Yahoo's
2021 fantasy baseball rankings. Or as I sometimes call it, "I don't know what they're thinking, but the longer I think about it the more it hurts my brain, so let's just shrug through this without acquiring a tumor." Let's not have my obit be, "Grey is survived by a much older wife, Cougs, and Yahoo's fantasy baseball rankings." We're gonna bury them, they're not gonna bury us! Uh, me! See, we're putting things in perspective, my over-the-internet friend. I have my aggravation ratio down to 3:2. For every three rankings I don't agree with, I'm only screaming twice. It's very freeing. I feel light as a feather. A very toxic feather. Anyway, here’s a totally impartial look at Yahoo’s 2021 fantasy baseball rankings vs. my own 2021 fantasy baseball rankings:
