I kicked off the bullpen parade last week with the AL East. It’s a safe place for us reliever analysts with mostly secure jobs and quality arms. The tradeoff for that comfort is following it up with the AL Central. The odds are far better that all five of these projected closers will be changed out than none of them being replaced. There isn’t a ton of depth either. I suppose that’s what happens when you refuse to spend money. Let’s push through this muck like a swamp on dagobah and hope a little green man imparts us some wisdom in rearranged syntax. Did no one else take a hit of acid for this? Just me? Ok. Fire up the Rage Against the Machine and on to the pens.
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Top 40 Outfielders for 2020 Fantasy Baseball
January 23, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 194 Commentsby: Grey
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Hey, guys and five girls, we’re (I’re) back! Today’s 2020 fantasy baseball rankings tackle your favorite (I’m guessing!), the top 40 outfielders for 2020 fantasy baseball. Last year, this post was an absolute minefield that would’ve made Princess Di shudder. By my count, only Eloy went from this post last year into the top 20 outfielders for 2020 fantasy baseball this year. Yuck. Well, those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Or is it, ‘Those whom don’t learn?’ Someone explained this to me before. Meh, whatever! Here’s Steamer’s 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Hitters and 2020 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Pitchers. As always, my projections are noted for each player and where I see tiers starting and stopping. Anyway, here’s the top 40 outfielders for 2020 fantasy baseball:
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Top 2020 Prospects: Oakland Athletics
January 22, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 26 Commentsby: The Itch
When the biopic of your life comes out, who’s playing the role of you?
Danny Glover?
Jesse Eisenberg?
Or maybe if you’re a disrespected sort: Rodney Dangerfield?
How would you feel if it were, say, Brad freaking Pitt?
Pretty good, right? I mean one thing we never talk about is the hot GM.
And I don’t just mean Brad-Pitt hot but also hello-Mister-Pit-Boss hot. Throwing-sevens-all-night hot.
Some of the heat waves can be observed in the pace, preponderance and timing of their transactions. Some is plain as day in the results on the field. Some is apparent only through the stillness—through the inverse of that visible heat: a stagnant team scared to rock the boat for fear it’s mere moments from tipping.
Perhaps I’ve mentioned that I’m a Cubs fan. That stagnation describes the Cubs moves since the ill-fated Eloy trade. Describes the Rockies, too—just letting assets pile into a traffic jam with hopes to maybe sort them later.
Tampa is perhaps the best example of pace and preponderance of transactions signaling confidence. The Dodgers’ refusal to engage with Pittsburgh on their lofty terms last summer demonstrated a similar if different confidence. Oakland’s style is closer to that patient Dodger model than the high-wire act Tampa has to perform, but it’s definitely a style all its own. Twenty years after Moneyball, Billy Beane’s teams still find value when nobody’s bothering to really look.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 20 Outfielders for 2020 Fantasy Baseball
January 22, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 195 Commentsby: Grey
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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:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
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.
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Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Top 20 Catchers For 2020 Fantasy Baseball
January 21, 2020 | All Podcasts, Razzball Podcast | 12 Commentsby: 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.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 20 3rd Basemen for 2020 Fantasy Baseball
January 21, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 131 Commentsby: Grey
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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:
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Finding Aces Part II – K.I.S.P.
January 20, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Top 100 Starting Pitchers | 25 Commentsby: 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:
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 20 Shortstops for 2020 Fantasy Baseball
January 20, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 97 Commentsby: Grey
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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:
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 2020 Prospects: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
January 19, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 14 Commentsby: 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.
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Ambulance Chasers – Pre-season, Part 1 – Labrummer
January 18, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Injury Report | 9 Commentsby: 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.
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Fantasy Baseball Busts: Cole in my Stocking
January 17, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Overrated | 34 CommentsI’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!
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