Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 4 - Batted Ball Distribution

Fly balls can turn into home runs. Ground balls never do. It would seem as though fantasy owners want their batters to hit nothing but flies, yet this is not the case. Why would this be? The answer, of course, comes down to batted ball distribution and the manner in which batters make contact. In […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 3 - Statcast for Batters

If you've watched a baseball broadcast in the so-called Statcast Era, you have undoubtedly noticed the broadcasters commenting on a batted ball's exit velocity, or EV. Many have taken to using stats like Hard% and Soft% to forecast how a player should be performing, expecting larger Hard% rates to produce larger BABIP and HR/FB figures. […]

Champ or Chump - Alcides Escobar and Alex Avila

Fantasy owners hope that every selection they make turns into a stud, but this isn't that realistic. In more practical terms, you want as many strong performers as possible while avoiding roster slots with zero (or less) value. Some positions are easier to find "non-zero" production in than others, giving birth to the concept of […]

Champ or Chump - Jesse Hahn and Lewis Brinson

The Kansas City Royals and Oakland A's recently completed a trade that boils down to intriguing arm (Jesse Hahn) for slugging first baseman (Brandon Moss) for our purposes. Hahn is discussed below, while Moss will receive a closer look in a future column. Speaking of trades, much has been made of Miami's inability to get […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 2 - HR/FB for Hitters

Using BABIP to predict a player's batting average is great. Average is a category in many league formats, and every hit is an opportunity to steal a base or score a run. But most owners find the long ball sexier. Every HR comes with a guaranteed run scored and at least one RBI. Many owners […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 1 - BABIP for Hitters

Hello fellow RotoBallers! Sabermetrics have become an integral tool for fantasy baseball draft prep, but a concise resource for understanding the basics can be difficult to find. This series attempts to define and explain all of the metrics fantasy owners may find useful, citing examples of how to use them in the process. Twenty degrees […]

Champ or Chump - Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich

Milwaukee's outfield has improved significantly with the additions of Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich, but it muddies the waters a little from a fantasy perspective. Domingo Santana should beat out Ryan Braun for the last OF slot, but Eric Thames also offers owners more upside at first base. One report suggests that Braun might play […]

Champ or Chump - Felipe Rivero and Colin Moran

The Milwaukee Brewers bought all of the available outfielders, so let's continue to discuss the Gerrit Cole deal. This column previously concluded that Cole may disappoint owners in Houston, while Joe Musgrove has considerable upside. Both of the articles linked above noted that Pittsburgh's infield defense is superior to Houston's, thanks in part to the […]

Champ or Chump - Joe Musgrove and Randal Grichuk

Baseball's offseason continues to trickle in moves as opposed to flooding us with them, but the latest batch seem interesting from a fantasy perspective. Joe Musgrove's 4.77 ERA last year may be a big reason prognosticators don't love Pittsburgh's side of the Gerrit Cole trade, but he may have the talent to replace Cole himself. […]

Champ or Chump - Curtis Granderson and Andrew McCutchen

Five-tool players are among the most sought after commodities in all of fantasy baseball. This is a great thing if they are performing the way you expected them to, but most owners give ex-five tool guys a much longer leash than anyone else on their roster. They end up dropping points in the standings as […]

Champ or Chump - Brad Hand and Gerrit Cole

Pitching is the name of the game in both real life and fantasy baseball. Rostering the wrong arms can put any team into a hole it's difficult to dig out from under, but overpaying for the right ones can leave your team exposed on the offensive side. What's a fantasy owner to do? The best […]

Champ or Chump - Freddy Galvis and Jay Bruce

Baseball's hot stove is finally starting to heat up a bit, with names like Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole headed to new addresses in 2018. It's late in coming, but now is the time some fantasy owners begin overlooking the smaller moves to concentrate on the biggest names. Don't make that mistake. This doesn't mean that […]

Champ or Chump - Yangervis Solarte and Mitch Moreland

Much is made of a team's projected batting order early on in the offseason, but the discussions quickly become moot as the realities of the regular season alter every team's plans. Slumping players move down the batting order, replaced by their more productive teammates. A utility guy could escape the bench and become a fixture […]

Champ or Chump: Chase Headley & Starlin Castro

The following analysis is presented with some misgivings. Both Chase Headley and Starlin Castro were moved this offseason, making them candidates for a change of scenery examination. However, these veteran players do not present an obvious fit with their presumably rebuilding clubs and have been included in trade speculation, with Castro reportedly asking to be […]

Champ or Chump - Christian Arroyo & Denard Span

We have previously seen that both West Coast teams and bad teams are great places to mine for fantasy gold because nobody is keeping up with their games. There is a third category that also goes underappreciated: the Tampa Bay Rays. The team isn't projected to be bad (80-82 projection by Steamer) and they're not […]

Champ or Chump - Magneuris Sierra and Matt Moore

Last week, we looked at how West Coast players frequently become fantasy values because not everyone can stay up late enough to watch them play. The same principle applies to teams that fantasy owners expect to be utterly terrible. The 2018 iteration of the Miami Marlins is therefore a great place to look for potential […]

Champ or Chump - Jhoulys Chacin and Yonder Alonso

If you want to know the secret to finding unheralded fantasy assets, the answer could be as simple as looking at poor teams out west. Most media coverage centers on east coast players that the entire country is awake to see. Exceptions might be made for studs like Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw, but no […]

Champ or Chump - Zack Cozart and Evan Longoria

Fantasy baseball has long been a game of perception. Will Player A continue his hot start or slump back into mediocrity? Are Player B's recent struggles signs of things to come or a temporary blip on the radar? An analysis of each specific player is the best way to answer these questions, but fantasy owners […]

Champ or Chump - Stephen Piscotty and Carlos Santana

As sabermetrics become more widely accepted, analytical stats such as OBP are replacing more luck-based metrics such as batting average in a lot of formats. Playing in leagues like this frequently indicates a willingness to embrace a more realistic approach to the game, but many owners fail to adjust their rankings to their new reality. […]

Champ or Chump - Ian Kinsler and Marcell Ozuna

The last day of the Winter Meetings continued the same trends that had previously categorized them. The Angels added Ian Kinsler to capitalize on the contention window opened when Shohei Ohtani decided to sign there, and Miami continued their fire sale by shipping Marcell Ozuna to the Cardinals. A change of scenery should result in […]

Champ or Chump - Dee Gordon and Giancarlo Stanton

In what has become something of a South Florida tradition, the Miami Marlins are again selling everything on their roster in an effort to reduce costs. The team is unlikely to have any established names when the 2018 season starts, setting it up as a land of opportunity for fantasy owners searching for gems on […]

Champ or Chump - Mike Minor and Tyler Chatwood

Now that big names like Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Ohtani have moved, it's easy to stop paying attention to the lesser names on the transaction wire. Don't fall into that trap! The most prepared owners frequently perform the best, and everybody will have an educated opinion on guys like Stanton. Spin rate is still beyond […]

Champ or Chump - Brad Boxberger and Welington Castillo

The hot stove has been more of an ice box so far this season, as few moves have been made of any fantasy consequence. This seems poised to change in the near future, as both Shohei Ohtani and Giancarlo Stanton should provide some clarity regarding their intentions before the new year. That said, the two […]

Champ or Chump - Ryon Healy and Doug Fister

Thanksgiving is over, meaning that it is officially time to start preparing for 2018 fantasy baseball drafts! This column usually uses sabermetrics to determine whether a given player is worth his current cost, but draft data isn't reliable this early in the offseason. Instead, we'll do a deep dive on the lesser offseason transactions. Players […]

Reviewing Rick Lucks's Bold Predictions

What’s even more fun than making bold predictions? Looking back at the end of the season to see how good (or so, so hilariously bad) they were. It's my turn to determine if my preseason picks make me a Champ or a Chump. I was terrible this year, so the answer is the latter. Let's […]

Champ or Chump: Chris Archer and Justin Verlander

Way back in March, I wrote a multi-part tutorial on how to use all of the metrics cited in Champ or Chump. I concluded the series by introducing Barrels and Brls/BBE, arguing that the metrics could have been used to predict Chris Carter's 2016 HR title had they been available before the season started. Gary […]

Champ or Chump: Avisail Garcia and Andrew Benintendi

Owners in weekly formats have set their last lineup for the season. The transaction wire for daily formats has likely fallen silent with most of the teams settled into their final place in the standings as well. There are probably a few leagues out there with races going until the final day, but rooting for […]

Champ or Chump: Joe Mauer and Blake Snell

If you play in a weekly league, this weekend is likely your last opportunity to set a lineup before the winner is crowned. There is a widely held belief that you cannot move up in rate stats such as batting average or ERA this late in the season, but you actually can most of the […]

Champ or Chump: Jose Reyes and Jed Lowrie

With only two weeks left in the regular season, it is not an exaggeration to say that anything can happen. Power hitters could hit for a high batting average if the ball bounces their way. A pure speedster could win a league by hitting an unlikely pair of homers on the last day of the […]

Champ or Chump: Yolmer Sanchez & Jeff Samardzija

While it's easy enough to target stats like SB or HR if you need them from the waiver wire, counting stats are a little more challenging to predict. Runs scored in the past are a poor indicator of future performance in the category, especially if a player's real life lineup slot has changed since April. […]