Champ or Chump: Danny Espinosa

Last season saw a significant uptick in league-wide home runs, reducing the value of power-only profiles in the fantasy game. No one has conclusively determined why homers were up, but some people are assuming that it will remain the case for 2017. It might, but I look forward to drafting power at a discount in […]

Champ or Chump: Cameron Maybin

This time of year, it is easy to think only about the big names who are on the move, the Chris Sales and Andrew McCutchens of the world. Once the season starts up again, however, role players make a larger impact collectively on who plays in October. The same principle applies to the fantasy game. […]

Reviewing Rick Lucks's Bold Predictions For 2016

During the offseason, I joined a bunch of my fellow Rotoballer writers in boldly predicting what might occur in the upcoming season. I foolishly ended that piece's intro with ,"Am I a Champ or a Chump?" despite the fact that no one had any idea how I did yet. The season is over, so now […]

Champ or Chump: How'd I Do?

The point of Champ or Chump is to use every metric imaginable to try to predict how a player will perform in the future. It's not always right, as true talent levels change while luck plays a role in every play's individual outcome. Historically, I conclude the analysis based on what I see as the […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Tillman, Hanley, and Gary Sanchez

As we head toward the season's final week, chances are your fantasy fate has been decided. Even if it hasn't, adding players for this year only holds so much potential value. Your process may be flawless, but the tiny sample size remaining can ruin the best laid plans. My favorite story to that effect is from […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Gregorius, Nunez, and Dozier

A few weeks back, I lamented Rich Hill's blister problem because it prevented me from including him in my NL trade deadline article. He is back now, but was famously pulled after just 89 pitches despite being perfect for seven innings, again due to blister concerns. Babying him may be the best move for the […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Happ, Porcello, and King Felix

After two weeks of identifying underowned pieces who could help you solidify your stretch run, I figure it is time to do the opposite. Below are three pitchers that you have likely been relying on for some time now, but may not want to do so now that it is all on the line. Their […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Peraza, Prado, and Tyler Anderson

Thanks to the new splits tab on Fangraphs.com, we now have access to BABIP data by batted ball type for pitchers. This is a useful tool for determining whether a speedy batter has been fortunate, and I expect this new data to tell us how much a pitcher is benefiting from or being hindered by […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Conforto, Gray, and Ray

At this point in the year, all fantasy teams fall into one of three categories. There's the winner, the team that built an insurmountable lead in a rotisserie or points format or clinched a H2H playoff spot. If that is you, congratulations! Then there's the also-ran, the team that nothing went right for all season. […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Tim Anderson, David Dahl, and Trea Turner

By this stage of the season, there is no such thing as a perfect fantasy move. Every player available to you has warts, be they a lack of track record, unacceptable strikeout rate, or surface stats unsupported by underlying metrics. That first group is the focus of this week's column, as we look at three […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Moore, Reddick, and Kemp

Sometimes, a blister just ruins your day. I did AL players that were traded last week, hoping that Rich Hill's blister issues would be resolved by the time I got to the NL. They aren't, so Hill won't appear in this column. Instead, we'll look at Matt Moore's efforts to make a contending team worse, […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Pomeranz, Beltran, and Lucroy

The non-waiver trade deadline has officially passed, and baseball fans were treated to a number of last second deals. Unfortunately for my purposes, most of them are RPs that I evaluate by whether they get saves. Washington's Mark Melancon and Chicago's Aroldis Chapman earn Champ tags from me as they figure to continue earning saves. […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Gordon, Hamilton and Villar

It's Trade Deadline time, but I can't analyze lineup spots or roles resulting from trades that haven't happened yet. So, I'll save that for next week. I also promised myself I'd cover Dee Gordon upon his return from the stupidity suspension list, which happened this past Thursday. I also resolved to pair him with fellow […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Kepler, Pujols and Strasburg

It's the first full week of MLB action after the All-Star Game, and plenty of stories have emerged. Max Kepler is lighting waiver wires on fire with a scorching hot start to his MLB career. Albert Pujols is celebrating like it's 2006 with two multi-HR games this past week. With the unfortunate injury news on […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of NL All-Stars Cueto, Duvall, and C. Seager

As you may know, the AL defeated the NL 4-2 in the All Star Game. As a lifelong NL fan, this saddens me. I have to ascribe the blame to Terry Collins. Why was the completely unqualified Addison Russell allowed to play so long? Why did Jay Bruce and his replacement level performance log defensive […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Bruce, Polanco, and Myers

Over the last two weeks, we have profiled expensive draft day assets who have largely failed to live up to the hype. This week, we change it up a bit by discussing established players who have exceeded expectations thus far. All three have experienced success before. Jay Bruce was once a feared slugger. Gregory Polanco […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Franco, Harper, and A. Gonzalez

Continuing last week's trend, this week we profile three more players that cost a fortune on Draft Day and thus far have failed to deliver. Maikel Franco is one of the few MLB-caliber players on Philadelphia's roster. Adrian Gonzalez has lost his title as perhaps the safest selection in fantasy sports. Bryce Harper is following […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Ryan Zimmerman, Justin Upton and Prince Fielder

Risk in fantasy sports is supposed to be the thing you balance against upside toward the end of your draft. Everyone should get roughly equal early round talent, and then teams differentiate themselves by guessing right on lesser names. Except it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes your highly priced brand name superstar contributes […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Wright, Lackey and McCutchen

Last week's column was kind of a downer, harping as I did about my least favorite MLB player. This week I figured I should do the opposite and profile three of my favorite players. I'm a sucker for a good knuckleballer (or even a bad one), so Steven Wright continues the trend of a Red […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Mazara, Papi, and Stanton

I have power on my mind this week, in part because I have relocated to Denver, Colorado, known to all fantasy owners as a hitter's paradise. Regardless of the reason, this week we look at the consensus #1 power hitter coming into the season, the final season of a Boston legend, and a 21 year […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Castellanos, Bogaerts, and Abreu

Another day, another hitting streak that I don't care about for a Boston player. This time it's Xander Bogaerts, a shortstop that I dismissed in the preseason for lacking obvious fantasy skills. Jose Abreu is another guy I never really cared for, as he never posted a FB% that made me trust his impressive HR […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Shaw, Shelby and Sonny

Shelby Miller made offseason headlines after commanding an ace's price tag in the trade market. There were plenty of critics, but everyone assumed he would be better than his current performance. Travis Shaw seemed likely to usurp the struggling Pablo Sandoval at some point this year, but injury has opened the door faster than anticipated. […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Bradley, Murphy, and Greinke

Imagine your favorite position player on your favorite team, real or fantasy. How did he do five games ago? 17? What about 24? You don't remember, do you? I don't either, yet we as a baseball fandom hold hitting streaks on a pedestal despite needing to ask someone if one is going on. If Jackie […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Jones, Puig and Scherzer

My plan was very simple. Last week I profiled three struggling aces, intending to shift over to slumping bats this week. Then Scherzer decided to strikeout 20 Tigers amid concerns that he was off to a slow start, so I felt I should look at him. Thus, we have two slumping bats and whatever you […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Wainwright, Price, and Keuchel

If a player slumps in June, it is easy to avoid overreacting. His overall numbers still look acceptable, to the point that standard rotisserie league owners may not realize the slump exists until it is over. Slow starts to the season, however, are far more noticeable. OH MY GOD! DAVID PRICE HAS A 6.14 ERA! […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Aledmys Diaz, Neil Walker and Joey Votto

If you look at any baseball coverage with an analytical bent, you are sure to see the word "regress" or one of its derivatives. Baseball writers frequently cite it when a given player's performance, whether good or bad, seems likely to revert to a previously established level. The word is widely misinterpreted, however. If Player […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Mallex Smith, Trumbo and Harvey

Small sample size has been a common refrain from fantasy baseball experts over the past few weeks, as one hot or cold game should not significantly change your outlook on a player. The month of April is almost over now and, while it is still a small sample, a sixth of the season is almost […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Jeanmar Gomez, Randal Grichuk and Robinson Cano

It takes a little while for the advanced stats to have any significance at all, so we're continuing to look at guys with unexpected roles and analysis of 2015 data. This week, we have a closer that came out of nowhere, a struggling St. Louis slugger, and a perennial All-Star enjoying an early season resurgence. […]

Champ or Chump: Kiermaier, d'Arnaud and Trevor Story

Hello, and welcome to the first in season Champ or Chump of 2016. For anyone that is not aware, this column embraces sabermetrics to predict whether a given player will be good (champ) or bad (chump) the rest of the way. The advanced stats are used only to predict the usual fantasy ones, so I'll […]

Preseason Champ or Chump: Starting Pitchers

As Opening Day rapidly approaches, we close the preseason version of Champ or Chump by looking at a trio of pitchers. Pitchers have a unique set of data points to consider. Stats like BABIP and SwStr% continue to matter, but we want our pitchers to have low BABIPs and high whiff rates whereas with hitters […]