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 […]

Brandon Phillips (2B, CIN) - 2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleeper

BALLER MOVE: Roster as MI in shallow leagues, starting 2B in anything deeper CURRENT ADP: 255.8 ANALYSIS: Long left for dead in the fantasy game, Brandon Phillips came out of nowhere to post a .294/.328/.395 triple slash line with 12 HR and 23 SBs in 2015. Many feared that the aging second sacker would be […]

Jimmy Nelson (SP, MIL) - 2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleeper

BALLER MOVE: Stream in standard mixed leagues, start as a back of the rotation arm in anything deeper. CURRENT ADP: 274.8 ANALYSIS: Nelson's middling 11-13 record and 4.11 ERA don't exactly scream out "Draft me!," but there is solid upside here nonetheless. As a pitcher in a hitter's park, the first thing you should look […]

Preseason Champ or Chump: Outfield

I like to look at the outfield as the department store of fantasy baseball. Sluggers, speedsters, batting average and all around players are all available in abundance. Most leagues compensate for this by starting five OFers per team, but even then the OF-5 is better than a lot of shortstops or catchers. While you don't […]

Preseason Champ or Chump: Shortstop

There are those who will try to convince you SS is amazingly deep this year. Don't buy it. In reality, it is just littered with guys that have ridiculously inflated ADPs based on unsustainable performances in small sample sizes. My best advice on the position is to wait to fill it, kind of like catcher. […]

Preseason Champ or Chump: Third Base

Third base is home to two of the trendiest "sleeper" picks this draft season, Kris Bryant and Miguel Sano. I put sleeper in quotes because they both need to hit their upsides to simply break even relative to their current draft day costs. This seems to happen every year with a few young players, but […]

Preseason Champ or Chump: Second Base

Position scarcity gives certain players an uptick in ADP over what their established production warrants based on the feeling that it is important to get something out of the lineup slot. Buster Posey is a much better offensive performer than other catchers, for example, so slotting him in at C is more valuable than a […]

Preseason Champ or Chump: First Base

While I provide generic ADP data in these articles, it is at least as important to look at the data for the site and format you are drafting on as well. Wonky default ratings often lead to absurd values, such as Masahiro Tanaka lasting way too long in the recent Rotoballer industry draft. It is […]

Preseason Champ or Chump: Catchers

Earlier this offseason, I did a series of articles detailing how to use advanced metrics to validate and predict baseball player performance for fantasy purposes. In season, advanced metrics are useful to separate random hot streaks from legitimate breakouts. In the offseason, they can spare you from wasting a high pick or a bunch of […]

Rick Lucks' 10 Bold Predictions for 2016

While I like the idea for this series, it has become a trend to blame fellow RotoBaller Kyle Bishop for making us do it. So thanks a bunch, Kyle, for making me do something I wanted to do anyway. Usually, I identify whether specific baseball players are champs or chumps. This time, we'll find out […]

Ian Kennedy: 2016 Fantasy Baseball Draft Value

2015 In Review Ian Kennedy? Seriously? You want me to buy the bust that somehow fleeced the Royals for $70 million and a draft pick as a sleeper? Yes, I do. Kennedy's 9-15 record and 4.28 ERA last season don't look great, but his xFIP was a much more palatable 3.70. The biggest difference is […]

Five 2015 Breakouts Poised to Regress in 2016

Every year, every fantasy owner tries to predict who will breakout and outperform their draft day cost by a significant margin. The players that manage to do so may be viewed skeptically the next year, as the fantasy world wonders if the performance is repeatable. Sometimes, younger players are given a pass on that skepticism because […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 10: Minor League Stats

Once you've grown accustomed to having advanced tools to help make fantasy decisions, it can be disorientating to be without them. Prospects are increasingly becoming a focal point in both real and fantasy baseball, but the minors simply do not have all of the data available for MLB players. For example, advanced plate discipline stats, […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 9: PITCHf/x

One of the most fundamental questions in fantasy sports is if a player's current performance is sustainable. PITCHf/x is a publicly available pitch tracking system that provides a lot of different data to help fantasy owners make this determination for mound breakouts and busts alike. The first data point, and the easiest to understand, is […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 8: Batted Ball Distribution for Pitchers

The league average batted ball distribution in 2015 was 20.9% liners, 45.3% grounders and 33.8% flies. Last time, we took a brief look at how pitchers may specialize in either grounders or fly balls. Fly ball pitchers have a BABIP advantage over their ground ball-inducing counterparts, since fly balls (.129 BABIP in 2015) consistently have […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 7: BABIP for Pitchers

While FIP is a useful tool to predict a pitcher's future ERA performance, fantasy owners should remember that ERA, not FIP, is what really matters in most formats. This means that we are interested in the "luck" that separates the two statistics. Some of this is unpredictable, but we can and should predict some of […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 6: FIP and xFIP

The first advanced pitching stat most fantasy owners encounter is FIP. FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching, and attempts to measure a pitcher's actual skill instead of the effects of luck or his supporting cast. According to the DIPS theory that the metric is based upon, pitchers control only Ks, BBs (and HBP) and home […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 5: Lineups, Runs and RBI

To this point, this column has focused exclusively on trying to predict and validate HRs and batting average. There is a reason for this--modern sabermetrics tend to reject the idea of a "clutch RBI guy" and therefore do not bother inventing predictive metrics for it. Runs and RBI are team dependent stats, and are unhelpful […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 4: Plate Discipline for Hitters

No matter how high a particular player's BABIP may be, his average will be mediocre at best if he strikes out too much. This is why fantasy owners have known for years that players like Adam Dunn, Mark Reynolds, and Chris Davis are potential drains on a fantasy team's batting average. Furthermore, players that whiff […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 3: Batted Ball Distribution

In the first post of this series, I referenced that Chris Davis's BABIP is not explained by that post alone, and that we would consider him again in the future. He was not considered in Part 2. He will be considered here. Davis managed an above average overall BABIP of .319 in 2015, despite the […]

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--and maybe more. […]

Champ or Chump: Lindor, David Wright and Scherzer

By now, most 2015 fantasy leagues have already been decided. In an all season roto league, someone probably has a big enough lead in enough categories that the last week doesn't matter. H2H formats are winding down their playoffs, if they haven't already finished. You've set your last lineup in any weekly format, and any […]

Champ or Chump: Conforto, Corey Seager, and Sano

Last week, we examined three veterans that have managed to dramatically exceed their preseason expectations, a class of player that is disproportionately likely to bust the next year. This week, we look at another class of player likely to bust: The highly touted prospect that puts up strong MLB numbers in a limited sample size. […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Arrieta, Donaldson, and Greinke

While everyone follows the pennant races this time of year, many also become fascinated by who will win the end of season awards. Who will be MVP? Is so and so good enough for the Cy? This year is no exception, with particular attention paid to NL Cy Young and AL MVP. Josh Donaldson made […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Eovaldi, Thor, and Strasburg

Few things complicate a fantasy baseball owner's plans like September innings limits. You can understand why a team would want to protect its most valuable arm, but just because the real team is dead in the water doesn't mean a fantasy roster doesn't still need it. It becomes even more confusing if the team is […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Molina, Bogaerts, and Arenado

Astute readers may have noticed that this column has increasingly made references to 2016 in predicting what the future may hold for featured players. While the statistical trends referred to hold value over time, there is simply not enough season left to assert that they definitely - or even probably - will impact a player […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Heston, Fiers, and Iwakuma

The no hitter. Few events in sports can make a stadium root against the home team, but a no-no can. There is a virtual guarantee of a great defensive play to preserve the effort, adding to the excitement of the event. Like a championship, these gems live on well after their season has faded into […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Desmond, Shields, and Lester

Nothing can tank a fantasy season quite like an early round champ performing like a chump. I was personally burned by Jon Lester's horrific 2012 season, and have not been able to trust him since. James Shields in 2015 reminds me a lot of 2012, and I'm sure Ian Desmond would as well if I […]

Champ or Chump: What to Make of Longoria, Carrasco, and A-Rod

In any 2015 baseball broadcast or highlight package, you are bound to hear terms such as "exit velocity", "Stat-Cast", and "Route Efficiency". Print sources are getting in on the game as well, with Fangraphs introducing "Hard%", and by extension Soft% and Med%, to act as a proxy for exit velocity. Many people have caught a […]