Since there were no games this week and players haven’t been able to get hot or cold or humid, this Buy/Sell is going to be slightly different. This Buy/Sell includes some players that are owned in more than 50% of leagues. Okay, that’s not different for the Sells, but it does change the Buys. The other day on our podcast I was asked by JB, “What is the USA Today?” Because JB was born in the 2000s. But I was also asked by him who is my biggest buy of the 2nd half. For that I said, “Um, well, I have to say, actually, actually, actually, my biggest buy is, uh, um, hmm.” Spit it out, Grey! You know how your own voice sounds weird? I wonder if that holds up for the Movie Trailer Guy. Any the hoo! My biggest buy was Adrian Beltre. For s’s and g’s, I looked at Beltre’s 2nd half from last year, it wasn’t great — six homers, zero steals, .308. Last year, he had 19 homers for the full season and he has 7 homers right now. So, I don’t think the power is going to come roaring back like he’s Mickey Maris in 1927 with Barry Bonds’s personal trainer. In my top 100 for the 2nd half of 2015 fantasy baseball (say that fast 117 times!), I gave Beltre 11 homers. That feels optimistic, but doable. His fly balls are more or less fine from last year, but he’s getting unlucky with his HRs per fly balls even though his home run distance isn’t terrible. He’s also been crazy unlucky with his BABIP. It’s sitting at .263, which would be his lowest since 2003. Basically, he’s hitting a line drive to the gap and a squirrel is grabbing it, flipping it to an outfielder and Beltre’s being called out because the ball never touched the ground. If I were struggling at corner and need to take a gamble, I’d trade for Beltre and watch the good times Esther Rolle! Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:
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With the first half of the MLB season in the books, I thought it might be a good idea to do a quick mid-season evaluation of the players who have been profiled in this series over the last two and a half months. Of course, that entails reminding you of all of the many mistakes that I’ve made this season. Hmmm… maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. Oh well, too late now. As the great Frank Drebin once said, “Like a midget at a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes.” It’s accountability time. As we look back on the bears/bulls of the first half, we’ll examine what went right, what went wrong, and what’s yet to be determined.
Just as a quick reminder, the players who are labeled “bulls” are the ones who I’m bullish, or optimistic, about going forward, while the “bears” are the players who I’m bearish on and expect regression moving forward. Let’s take a look at the monthly breakdowns of this season’s bears and bulls (post date can be found next to each player’s name):
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Second Half Closer Rankings
July 16, 2015 | Closers, Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 38 Commentsby: Smokey
So with the festivities of All-Stardom concluding, thus comes the second half. It’s an inevitable thing, you eat half a cookie the other half remains. So this week I am going to run down a list of the closers for the remainder of season. So sorry for not doing salads with donkeys this week, I felt this was more noteworthy since we are about two weeks from the trade deadline in real and fake baseball life (in some leagues). The closer rankings that I came up with will be based off of a few things: saves (no durrr), team success, likely hood to remain a closer, and peripheral stats. So we lump all those together and we get the ROS STSLRCPS. Which basically looks like a pretty good scrabble deck. Bare with me, it’s a busy time of year, and for those in the know, Fantasy Soccer is live and in full effect. Go check it out, it’s fantasy baseball with an accent. So now onto the closer ranks for the rest of the 2015 campaign…
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The Razzball MLB DFS Projection Challenge
July 16, 2015 | Testing Projections + Player Raters | 29 Commentsby: Rudy Gamble
A great blonde berobed American once said, “In order to be the man, you gotta beat the man.” When it comes to DFS MLB projections, we want to be the man. We just are not sure who, if anyone, we need to beat to wear the championship belt.
So here is our challenge and it is open to anyone who publishes daily DFS MLB projections online. These projections may be free or sold by subscription (like ours for only $9.99/month!). I am willing to put up $500 to make this worth our while (you’ll have to do the same):
Please, blog, may I have some more? Rudy’s Expert Leagues – 2015 All-Star Break Update
July 15, 2015 | Our Leagues | 21 Commentsby: Rudy Gamble
We have four days with no non-exhibition games so I figured I would vomit out a ‘how are my teams doing?’ post. It has been a pretty good year so far – I’d say 3 of my 7 teams are in contention to win. Read the below at your own peril as – by their very nature – team writeups are sess pools for self-congratulation and self-pity.
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In case you missed it, the All-Star break is upon us! As the (sort of) halfway point in the season, it’s time for teams to either go for broke or build towards next season. Some players have given owners reason to rebuild perhaps due to injuries or ineffectiveness, however not all is lost! Count on the following guys to regain some of their value in the final months.
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Midseason Top 50 Fantasy Baseball Prospects
July 15, 2015 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 411 Commentsby: Mike
Here’s a look at the best prospects for fantasy baseball right now. It’s a fluid list, and you’ll see some big changes as well as some new faces from the preseason Top 50. I’m sticking to a cap of 130 at bats or 50 innings pitched in the major leagues when determining who is still eligible for this list. So while some of the names have already been promoted this year and are expected to graduate, I’m still going to rank them. If Miguel Sano drinks too much nerve tonic with only 100 MLB at bats, he’d still qualify for prospect lists heading into next year, so he’s included on this one. This list does not include any 2015 draftees or J2 signees. The +/- column on the right shows how much each prospect rose or fell from my preseason list. I wouldn’t sweat players who moved just a few slots. Instead, I’d focus on the double-digit changes and the new additions. For lengthier notes on some of the biggest movers, you should check out last week’s post. Personally I skew towards hitters and rank only a handful of pitchers that I really like. Keep in mind that I’m coming at you from the perspective of our fantasy game, so it may differ from a traditional prospect list when it comes to certain players. Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, here is this year’s midseason Top 50 prospects for fantasy baseball…
Please, blog, may I have some more?With the MLB All-Star game set to begin in just a few hours and the first half of the season in the books, we’re provided with the perfect opportunity to hit the reset button on our fantasy teams and re-evaluate all MLB players for fantasy purposes. The players who are of particular interest are those who have significantly over or underperformed pre-season expectations thus far. For this week’s post, we’ll look at four players who were largely afterthoughts on draft day (late round picks and undrafted players) but have turned out to be high-end fantasy performers during the first half of the 2015 season. Will these players maintain their impressive levels of production? Are they “trash” or “treasure”? Barring injury, it’s difficult to envision any of these players being “trash” since they’ve been so good thus far, but some may be more reliable than others going forward. With that in mind, I’ll use the term “TRASH” to designate the players who might have more perceived value than actual value moving forward, and the term “TREASURE” to identify the players who are worth holding onto or perhaps even acquiring for the stretch run. Here are four players who exceeded expectations in the 1st half of 2015 (with their current positions on the year-to-date Razzball Player Rater):
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RCL Update, All-Star Edition: Break Yo Self, Foo
July 14, 2015 | Our Leagues | 21 Commentsby: J-FOH
Break yo’self foo! No, not like the video… like in take a break from fantasy for a few days and just chill. I hate that baseball won’t rid itself of this ridiculous All-Star break. I’m a fantasy player first. Seriously, what do fantasy baseballers get in return? We are left freaking out if our “guy” does well in the home run derby or our ace injuries himself/delays his next start by pitching in the mid summer crapbasket. Can the All-Star game be a bigger joke? I hate that they award the winning league home field advantage in the World Series. I hate having to read headlines about all the online ballot stuffing. Way to go internet… you blew it again. What I hate the most about the break is I get bored. Like a junkie waiting for a fix or a fat kid waiting for dessert, I need my games! I’ve been watching mediocre movies on Netflix and working on some new dance moves. What are you doing for the break?
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Top 100 for 2nd Half of 2015 Fantasy Baseball
July 14, 2015 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 757 Commentsby: Grey
Welcome, prematurely balding men and five women who are married to prematurely balding men and decided if you can’t beat them, join them! Make yourself comfortable, this is gonna be a long post. Here make yourself some java. Okay, you just poured rat poison into your coffee. Don’t worry, it can’t be worse than owning Pablo Sandoval in the 1st half. Oh, you owned him and that’s why you poured it into coffee! Now, I’m following! Hey, who’s leading here? Well, whoever it is their taillight is out and I’m gonna have to make a citizen’s arrest. Before we get into the top 100 for the 2nd half of 2015 fantasy baseball, let’s just be glad our 18-year-old selves can’t see us now, we’d get beat up! But our twelve-year-old selves would think we’re the coolest! So, as with all of the other 2015 fantasy baseball rankings, take this list with a grain of salt. If you need a 2nd baseman, but an outfielder is above him that doesn’t mean you can’t trade the outfielder for the 2nd baseman. Also, things change in fantasy baseball. Daily. I could put Au Shizz number two on the top 100 list for the second half of 2015 and he could pull a–Well, we won’t even mention an injury with Goldy. Why soil a good thing, ya know? This list is a road map for where I think guys are valued. It’s not the Holy Grail in the Church of Grey, that would be my mustache. This list is NOT (caps for emphasis, not aesthetics) where I see guys ending up if you were to take their first half and combine it with the 2nd half of their season. This is simply a list of the top hundred fantasy baseball players if you were to pick them up today. So while Carlos Santana did not have the greatest first half, he will appear on this list because I still believe. The projections are not their combined 1st half and 2nd half numbers; these are their projections for the 2nd half of 2015. I also liberally used our rest of the season Fantasy Baseball Player Rater. That’s right, we have a Player Rater that tells you what guys will do. It’s like that camera from The Twilight Zone. Welcome to the future! Anyway, here’s the top 100 for fantasy baseball for the 2nd half of 2015:
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I’ve just never been a Matt Moore guy…
Uber-talented Moore has always gotten praise for his clean mechanics and smooth delivery, plus fastball, and solid slider, but it never materialized into good control and solid numbers. Those horrible, horrible walks… Moore’s K zone looks like a star chart!
After never ranking him favorably the past few years because of a 4.5 walk rate, yes 4.5, I thought the buzz for him off the DL from TJ recovery was too… buzzy. I’m at a loss for words I’m so confused! But I hadn’t seen him pitch since hitting the DL after two starts last year, and maybe a reconstructed elbow can help. “He’s more machine now, than man!” Well let’s hope it helps the horrific walk rate! Here’s how he looked yesterday hosting the Astros, along with ranks for pitchers for the second half:
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SAGNOF Special: Second Half Steals Projections
July 13, 2015 | Closers, Steals | 49 Commentsby: RotoLance
For my “Rest Of Season” edition of SAGNOF Special, I’d like to start with a confession, or really more of an admittance: I’m in two Razzball Commenter Leagues this year and last year I was in one. Those are only the fourth, fifth, and sixth rotisserie leagues I’ve ever played in. This despite having played fantasy baseball since 2002. The reason is because I’ve primarily played in head to head leagues. One of the biggest differences between the two formats is the nuance involved in the tradeoff of various hitter stats (what one hitter can give you versus what another can) in rotisserie and it becomes much more important to not just realize where you are in the standings of individual stats but to try to predict/project where you will be by season’s end. That’s why I’ve chosen to give you some Rest of Season Steamer projections for the best base stealers. Use it to project your own players, to project your place in the final standings, or to scheme up a trade.
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