Welcome Back! Week 1 is nearly in the books and what a wild ride it has been! I like to describe Head to Head fantasy baseball as a long race with approximately 25 mini races along the way. The first leg of the race has been interesting, to say the least! COVID tripped up the Nationals before they could get out of the gate. Yermin Mercedes went from 0-60 in 2 seconds flat! Nate Lowe got out to a commanding RBI lead and if Fernando Tatis Jr was a racehorse, there would be rumblings about the glue factory. Please don’t mistake my sense of humor, or lack thereof, for anything short of disappointment for the Padres, and for baseball in general. I wish Tatis a speedy recovery! He is just too good of a talent to go to waste. Let’s turn our attention to Week 2 and which players are going to give you a leg up in your matchups!
Please, blog, may I have some more?Leody Taveras
Please see our player page for Leody Taveras to see projections for today, the next 7 days and rest of season as well as stats and gamelogs designed with the fantasy baseball player in mind.
Outfielders to Target for 2021 Fantasy Baseball
March 24, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Sleepers | 213 Commentsby: Grey
We (me) have gone over the catchers to target, 1st basemen to target, 2nd basemen to target, shortstops to target, and 3rd basemen to target, cause I have to do everything around here! Look at me, throwing shade like a beach umbrella! That makes sense…if you don’t think about it! That’s what I want my bumper sticker to say, “That makes sense….if you don’t think about it.” Okay, so this post is all the outfielders that are being drafted after 200 overall that elicit uber-sexy feelings. Last year, I featured Trent Grisham, Anthony Santander, Austin Riley, Teoscar Hernandez, Franchy Cordero and Austin Hays, and now we’re back with all of them again! I’m kidding, about at least half that list. Now, this is a (legal-in-all-countries-except-Canada) supplement to the top 100 outfielders for 2021 fantasy baseball. All Steamer hitter projections and all 2021 fantasy baseball rankings have been updated. Click on the player’s name where applicable to read more and see their 2021 projections. Anyway, here’s some outfielders to target for 2021 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?I don’t get it. This…this…this “pitchers have to be drafted early” …thing! Am I the only one who lived through the last baseball season? Even if you were to say to me, “I always draft starters early,” I’d say you’re living in some kind of goofball world made out of unicorns and iPhones that don’t correct the F word to duck. But fine! If this were a normal year. “If this were a normal year” is the ying, the yang, the sun and the moon. No pitchers are going to throw a lot of innings. Less innings means Gerrit Cole, if he’s the best pitcher, and the tenth best starter are going to be closer together. Pitchers as pancakes. Have one, and it’s Yum City, population: You. Have two, and it’s solid, great. Have three and it’s, “Do you have blueberries or something for these?” Have four and it’s, “Well, I liked my first two.” Have five and it’s, “I want bacon.” Have six and it’s, “I don’t even remember liking the first two anymore, and I never want to see another pancake.” All these guys taking starters crazy early are eating pancakes. Before I even drafted a starter, one team took Cole, Woodruff and Glasnow! “Cole…cool, cool. Yum City!…Woodruff…Um, yeah, but maybe I can get some blueberries or something…Tyler Glasnow? Stop! I’m diabetic!” For those unfamiliar, this is a standard 5×5, 16-team league, and, since it’s Yahoo, it’s 4 outfielders and two UTIL. As always, I used Rudy’s War Room, which is available with a subscription to our Razzball Tools. Anyway, here’s my Yahoo Friends & Family draft recap:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Steals might ain’t got no face, but team stolen base attempts definitely do got yes face. (Totally crushed this lede!)
Today we’re going to get into something that normally makes fantasy baseball FAR superior to fantasy football in my opinion: coaching decisions. You could have the best wide receiver in the game, but whoopsie daisy — Mike McCarthy decides he wants to run the ball a lot today. Now you’re out $500. At least with fantasy baseball, the manager will always put his best lineup on the field and it is completely up to the hitter to do his job. The coach isn’t telling him “Hey you, I don’t even want you to swing up there.”
Today’s article deals with managerial decisions on the basepath — specifically the stealing of second base. I’m going to let you in on some secrets on which managers have itchy trigger fingers when they have a runner on first with an empty base 90 feet away and those who are a bit gun shy when it comes to sending their runners. (Wow with all the violent imagery. What is this, CPAC?)
First, some alarming data — here are the average manager second base stolen base attempt percentages from the past 10 years. (Analytic nerds will soon refer to this stat as MASBSBAP.)
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Welcome back for another season of Coolwhip in the Outfield. This preview edition is meant to be a review of what has happened. There’s a lot of players, especially outfielders where their past track record has been forgotten in lieu of what happened in just the 60 games during a pandemic. Let’s not be too hasty here… A lot of things happened that spoiled the sample, and a lot of things didn’t happen that would have been beneficial. So as it tends to be my theme, let’s look at the context.
What we will look at today is the top 100 outfielders based on the last 162 games scheduled. There are zero projections in this post. Again, ZERO projections, no preseason rankings (yet), I want us to focus on the track record first and take note. Specifically, here we will look at the value provided based on the last “season” played. My rankings here are ultimately who gave the most value on a per-game basis from mid-2019 through the short season of 2020. To you early drafters, hopefully, this aids your choice of late-round picks mining for potential value (*cough* RazzSlam *cough*).
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 60 Outfielders for 2021 Fantasy Baseball
January 29, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 149 Commentsby: Grey
The top 60 outfielders for 2021 fantasy baseball are roughly around the top 150th overall to about the 225th overall mark. That’s in your late third outfielder to early fourth outfielder range, or very early fifth outfielder and did you even draft any other position? You might be doing this all wrong. Here’s Steamer’s 2021 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Hitters and 2021 Fantasy Baseball Projections for Pitchers. All projections included here are mine, and where I see tiers starting and stopping are included. Anyway, here’s the top 60 outfielders for 2021 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Top 10 Texas Rangers Prospects for 2021 Fantasy Baseball
January 24, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 31 Commentsby: The Itch
Can you name the last Rangers prospect who exceeded expectations?
Sorry to cut to the quick, but it feels like something of an unreported secret that Texas is trouble for top prospects.
Can go with Gallo, if you want to give your brain a break. I think he’s more or less lined up with expectations, for what it’s Weurtz.
Elvis Andrus came from Atlanta in the Teixeira trade, and I guess he counts. Kind of.
I know they’ve had environmental issues, but can you recall the last time they developed a fantasy-relevant starting pitcher?
Remember when Martin Perez was a top ten prospect?
I went digging through 40-man rosters year over year for the past decade or so as I was composing this piece, and it’s not inspiring, especially through the lens of internal development.
Nomar Mazara, Ronald Guzman, Tanner Scheppers, Jorge Alfaro, Rougned Odor, Jurickson Profar (injury exception), Derek Holland, Neftali Feliz, Keone Kela, Chi Chi Gonzalez, Mike Olt,
I think it’s Ian Kinsler, by the way: a Rangers prospect who exceeded expectations. Michael Young. They had a good run.
But it’s a new dawn, kind of. Chris Young has been hired because he is a former player who is extremely tall and probably possesses other traits that make him a good face for the organization’s transactions. I say such only because his first trade occurred within 12 hours of his hiring: Lance Lynn for Avery Weems and Dane Dunning. Hard to imagine he did much more than agree with the guy who’d just hired him, Jon Daniels, President of Baseball Operations.
Anyway, I feel good about the talent in this system but have reason to doubt the development team. If Young is being hired to re-imagine that aspect of the organization, I can lean in and hope for the best.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Leody Taveras, 2021 Fantasy Sleeper
December 14, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Sleepers | 28 Commentsby: Grey
Leody Taveras could’ve appeared in my fantasy baseball rookies series, but I wanted to put some extra shine on him, and, honestly, no one knows what constitutes a rookie this year. Sixto Sanchez received Rookie of the Year votes, and I think he’s eligible again in 2021. I say “I think” because the whole point of the last few sentences is no one knows! Right, so Leody Taveras, Wily’s son, Alex’s cousin, Frank’s brother, Jose’s uncle, Aneurys’s blood brother and Samuel Clemens Taveras, the celebrated frog of Taveras County. The Taveras family — La familiaras. Or not, I don’t know if Leody is related to anyone who’s played baseball before. Getting all the stuff I don’t know out of the way, so here’s what I do know: Last year in 119 ABs, Leody Taveras went 20/4/6/.227/8. Mr. Prorater runs into a phone booth, tipping it over, but still makes a call, telling us, “Leody was on pace for a 100/20/30/.227/40 season, and if everyone was eating stacked pancakes at the same time, it would cause an eclipse of the sun.” Okay, not sure about Mr. Prorater’s math on either of those accounts, but lordy Leody that was a solid month of baseball. So, what can we expect from Leody Taveras and what makes him a sleeper?
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Gimme Moore
September 12, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 21 Commentsby: Dan Pants
Mariners’ outfielder slash infielder slash superhero Dylan Moore continued his onslaught on the MLB Friday night hitting his seventh home run and stealing his 10th base of the year. The 28 year old is now slashing .282/.362/.563 in just 28 games played and is looking like a bonafide fantasy darling. A slam & legs, you say? In Seattle, the slam & legs is served up mid-air at Pike’s Market and must be caught before consuming. Chase it down with piping hot latte from Seattle’s Own (but not ‘Seattle’s Own’) Starbucks, because what goes better with fresh fish besides espresso? Dylan’s got three homers and four steals in the past week! He’s also reached base safely in every game he’s played since the start of September. The steals are why I added him but the homers are why I’m now obsessed with him. Mmmoore. This no-simp September thing is going to be tough. He’s over 50% owned at the time I’m writing this and that number’s going to probably double over the weekend, but I figured you deserved a Dylan Moore lede regardless of ownership percentage and also I couldn’t get that Britney Spears song out of my head. In more important slash concerning news you should know, an anonymous San Francisco Giants’ player (probably not Pablo, definitely not Yaz) tested positive for the COVID Friday which I assume means all Giants games are cancelled for the next 5-7 days so here’s your heads up to find some warm bodies to replace your Giants and Padres this weekend ASAP as possible. As for Moore, if you still read the late season Razzball posts you know I covered Kyle Lewis in my final post of 2019, so there are some gems to be uncovered in my lazy, late-September musings. Sometimes looking to 2021 is the best plan of action, especially when you know that each post could be your last as there is always risk of the entire Razzball staff contracting COVID and the blog getting shut down for the final two weeks. There’s nothing we could do to prevent, there’s only one straw in the office and the plastic ones are bad for the planet. Anyway! TL;DR Pick up Moore if he’s out there and drop all your Giants except Baby Yaz!
Here’s what else I saw Friday in fantasy baseball:
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Rolling In The Deep: Duvall Your Work While You Still Can
September 8, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Rolling In The Deep | 3 Commentsby: Laura Holt
We all knew this “season” was going to go by quickly if it went at all, and now we’re living the reality of it, as just three weeks remain. I’ve had a few teams take quite the hit of late — the compacted season makes for some maddening volatility in the standings, and a few horrendous pitching performances plus some key missed games from my hitters have knocked me from near the catbird seat to the middle of the pack. As is the case for me even in normal times, my deep league teams feature waiver wires that have been picked clean, and there’s even less maneuvering to be done in terms of attempting to reconstruct my rosters. I’m not sure I’ll be able to regroup in time, but am fighting on, since one thing we’ve all learned is to expect the unexpected this year. So, the pickings may be slim, but let’s take a look at a handful of players (all under 15% owned in CBS leagues) that may be of interest to those of us in NL-only, AL-only, and other deep leagues.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
