Kelvin Herrera (RP, KC) - 2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

BALLER MOVE: Target ~300 CURRENT ADP: 332 ANALYSIS: Kelvin Herrera’s average fastball velocity has stabilized between 96 and 98 mph for his entire career. This serious heat has led to a career average 23.9 K%, making him seemingly unhittable at times. The main storyline regarding the Royals’ bullpen has been the downfall of Greg Holland […]

Corey Knebel (RP, MIL) - 2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

BALLER MOVE: Target Late in NL-Only Leagues CURRENT ADP: 498 ANALYSIS: Corey Knebel worked his fastball and curveball in very well together in his first real year in the majors, as he pitched 50.1 innings out of the bullpen with 58 strikeouts, a 3.22 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP. He was snake-bitten by an ugly […]

Sergio Romo (RP, SF) - 2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

BALLER MOVE: Target Late in NL-Only Leagues CURRENT ADP: 336 ANALYSIS: The reasons fantasy owners may have loved Sergio Romo in years past are the same reasons they should love him moving forward. That one bad stretch of giving up a ton of homers pushed Santiago Casilla ahead of him in 2014, and Casilla has […]

Carson Smith (RP, BOS) - 2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

BALLER MOVE: Target ~275 CURRENT ADP: 285 ANALYSIS: Carson Smith was traded from the Mariners, where he was in the mix for saves last year, to the Red Sox, where he is behind Craig Kimbrel and probably Koji Uehara. If you just want relievers for the sake of saves, Smith might not be someone to […]

Saves & Holds: NL Central Bullpen Depth Chart

With the 2016 fantasy baseball season approaching, bullpen depth charts can be tricky to decipher when entering your fantasy drafts. Projections of who will be vital to their respective team and to your fantasy team will be analyzed over the course of the next two months. Below I've identified the projected NL Central closers, setup men, and […]

The Waiting Game: 5 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values

This article originally appeared on We Talk Fantasy Sports. You can follow Brant on Twitter @BrantChesser. Fantasy baseball drafts and auctions place owners in difficult situations at various times throughout each day. When should we draft the best player on the board? When should we fill out our roster? Quite a few owners would say […]

2016 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values: Will Smith

In baseball, too many options is the best problem a team could have. According to 620 WTMJ's Greg Matzek, Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell informed him that both Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith could get the nod as the team's potential closer. Throwing Cory Knebel into the late-inning mix, the Brewers have at least one […]

Three Potential Busts to Avoid on Draft Day: Teheran, Chapman, Hamels

This article first appeared on wetalkfantasysports.com by Jason Johnson. You can find him on twitter @y2trips. Now that I’ve covered three players that I’m really high on, let’s look at a few players that I think have zero chance to live up to their ADP. Please note that current ADP data has been pulled from FantasyPros.com's consensus, […]

Saves & Holds: AL Central Bullpen Depth Chart

With the 2016 fantasy baseball season approaching, bullpen depth charts can be tricky to decipher when entering your fantasy drafts. Projections of who will be vital to their respective team and to your fantasy team will be analyzed over the course of the next two months. Below I've identified the projected AL Central closers, setup men, and […]

2016 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values: 5 Busts Due for a Rebound

t’s really hard to admit when we have made a mistake. But sometimes, we look back on our fantasy season and we slap ourselves around for drafting a player who just didn’t cut it. The preseason hype was there, we were so excited to see the player tear it up, and he completely failed us. […]

2016 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values: 5 RP Sleepers

Non-closing relievers, with some exceptions, have limited value in most fantasy formats. As a result, they are often overlooked by many owners. However, a quality set-up man can help your ratios, boost your strikeout totals, and even vulture a few wins or saves. If your league counts holds, all the better. That's without acknowledging the […]

Five Deep Relief Pitcher Sleepers For 2016

Let's go digging for some relievers who don't have the ninth inning to themselves, but still have various degrees of intrigue to them heading into 2016. Carter Capps is wide awake at this point, no sleep to his stock. Will Smith and Jeremy Jeffress have been named as the candidates to get the closing opportunities […]

2016 Fantasy Baseball Tiered Rankings: Relief Pitchers (February)

Relief pitcher is possibly the toughest position to evaluate for your fantasy draft. There are only a handful who maintain a closer role for more than a couple of years, and the rest of the league is a carousel of mediocrity. Additionally, saves are such arbitrary statistics, since a closer has no control over whether […]

Points Leagues Rankings (Top 300): 2016 Fantasy Baseball

It's almost time folks. Spring training is officially underway, and the MLB season is fast approaching. With that comes the excitement of fantasy baseball drafts, coming in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Today's rankings are focused on points leagues, which will have different scoring settings than many other types of fantasy baseball leagues. Each statistical category […]

Saves & Holds: NL East Bullpen Depth Chart

With the 2016 fantasy baseball season approaching, bullpen depth charts can be tricky to decipher when entering your fantasy drafts. Projections of who will be vital to their respective team and to your fantasy team will be analyzed over the course of the next two months. Below I've identified the projected NL East closers, setup men, and […]

Tyler Clippard Set Up To Be DBacks' Setup Man

Tyler Clippard did not have a great 2015 campaign. His strikeout rate was down, and his flyball rate was up. In 2014 with the Nationals, Clippard had an impressive 10.5 K/9 ratio. However it fell to 8.8 in Oakland in 2015, and then after going to the Mets in the same season it fell to […]

Saves & Holds: NL West Bullpen Depth Chart

With the 2016 fantasy baseball season approaching, bullpen depth charts can be tricky to decipher when entering your fantasy drafts. Projections of who will be vital to their respective team and to your fantasy team will be analyzed over the course of the next two months. Below I've identified the projected NL West closers, setup men, and […]

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 […]

Saves and Holds: AL West Bullpen Depth Chart

With the 2016 fantasy baseball season approaching, bullpen depth charts can be tricky to decipher when entering your fantasy drafts. Projections of who will be vital to their respective team and to your fantasy team will be analyzed over the course of the next two months. Below I've identified the projected AL West closers, setup men, and […]

Saves and Holds: AL East Bullpen Depth Chart

With the 2016 fantasy baseball season approaching, bullpen depth charts can be tricky to decipher when entering your fantasy drafts. Projections of who will be vital to their respective team and to your fantasy team will be analyzed over the course of the next two months. Below I've identified the projected AL East closers, setup men, and […]

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 […]

MLB Podcast on RotoBaller Radio: 2016 National League Preview & MLB Player News

RotoBaller is very excited about the start of the second year of RotoBaller Radio. You can find our new shows as always on BlogTalkRadio live or on demand, and on iTunes under podcasts. Every Tuesday night at 9:00 PM EST, RotoBaller co-founder Real Talk Raph and co-host Anthony Aniano will be discussing the most recent and relevant MLB news and information […]

Turning Two: Who Will Earn 50 Saves?

Turning Two: Who Will Save 50 Games? Welcome back to our fifth edition of Turning Two. We've now discussed who will hit 50 HR, who will win 20 games, who can put up a 20/20, and who can hit .350. This week's topic revolves around the back-end of games; who will reach 50 saves? Reaching 50 saves is an impressive, […]

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 […]

MLB Podcast on RotoBaller Radio: 2016 American League Preview & MLB Player News

RotoBaller is very excited about the start of the second year of RotoBaller Radio. You can find our new shows as always on BlogTalkRadio live or on demand, and on iTunes under podcasts. Every Tuesday night at 9:00 PM EST, RotoBaller co-founder Real Talk Raph and co-host Anthony Aniano will be discussing the most recent and relevant MLB news and information […]

RotoBaller Radio is On @ 9PM – American League Baseball: Team Previews & MLB News

RotoBaller co-founder Real Talk Raph (@RealTalkRaph) will be talking all things American League baseball tonight at 9:oo PM EST with co-host and MLB expert Anthony Aniano (@AAnianoFantasy), Tuesday February 2nd, to prepare for fantasy baseball draft season and discuss the top MLB news and player updates. They will be answering all of your American League baseball questions live on […]

Top 300 Rankings & Analysis (Part 1)

Welcome, RotoBallers. You may have noticed that we're rolling out a ton of rankings content for the 2016 season. Included in this effort is our Top 300 staff rankings, which you can view by clicking that link or scrolling all the way down below. In addition to yours truly, Brad Johnson and Nick Mariano participated […]

Minnesota Twins Top MLB Prospects for 2016 Dynasty Leagues

The Minnesota Twins appeared to be mired in a never-ending state of rebuilding until 2015 came along. The Twins finished with a very solid 83-79 record. With a very young core mixed with some solid veterans like Phil Hughes and Brian Dozier, this could be a dark horse candidate to compete for the AL Central […]

Early Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft: Maneuvering the Middle Rounds

Here are the usual suspects (in draft order): Jacob Bogardus, Brad Johnson, Alex Brock, Harris Yudin, Max Petrie, Josh Leonard, Ross Williamson, Andrew Miller (from The Fantasy Fix), Nick Mariano (myself), Tom Bellucco, Brian Dunshee (also from The Fantasy Fix), and Edward Suletan. Reminder - this was a traditional 5x5 redraft 23 round mock with […]