Jon Anderson's First Base Tiered Rankings and Projections
One way to improve at drafting a fantasy baseball team is to shift your focus away from straight-ordered rankings and into tiered rankings. This helps you identify spots in the draft where you need to prioritize a certain position and times when you can wait. The difference between the #2 and #3 first baseman is […]
RotoBaller Mock Draft Review - Biggest Reaches and Regrets
As we steamroll into fantasy baseball draft season, the team here at RotoBaller continues to practice what we preach by partaking in mock drafts. It's the best way to test out plans, gather information to have a better idea of what to expect for the real thing and try out new ideas you've been working […]
2021 Second Base Rankings - 5x5 Mixed Leagues
We continue to move past the chaos of 2020 and onto a new baseball season full of promise. For fantasy baseball managers, draft season is already upon us. RotoBaller's rankers, Pierre Camus, Big Pick Nick Mariano, and I have updated our 2021 Mixed League rankings as we now move on to evaluate the keystone position. […]
Are We Overvaluing Innings Pitched Projections?
One of the biggest questions that the 2020 season has caused for 2021 is concerning starting pitcher inning totals. The league leader in regular-season innings last year, as you've probably heard, was Lance Lynn with 84 innings. The average total for pitchers who made 10 or more starts was just 60 innings. In years prior […]
Zac Gallen Commands The Edges Of The Zone
Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Zac Gallen, who was compared to Greg Maddux last year by Orel Hershiser for his ability to control the edges of the strike zone, is a dark-horse candidate for the National League Cy Young Award after posting a 2.78 ERA in his first two big-league seasons. The right-hander doesn't have overpowering […]
Top 250 Dynasty Prospects Rankings (Part 2)
Welcome back RotoBallers to Part 2 of my dynasty prospects list, breaking down the 51-150 ranked prospects. You can also read Part 1 and Part 3 from a few days ago, looking at the 1-50 and 151-250 ranked prospects. RotoBaller's Top 250 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball Prospects list is back and refreshed for the 2021 season. Baseball has […]
Top 250 Dynasty Prospects Rankings (Part 1)
RotoBaller's Top 250 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball Prospects list is back and refreshed for the 2021 season. Baseball has undergone a lot of change over the past 12 months due to the pandemic and no area of the game has been more heavily impacted than the minor leagues. Since this time last year, Minor League Baseball has […]
2021 First Base Rankings - 5x5 Mixed Leagues
The chaotic, wild, and confusing 2020 COVID season is now thankfully behind us, am I right fellow Red Sox fans? But now is the hardest part in terms of fantasy implications from the pandemic as we try to decipher how much of 2020's statistics are actually viable data for 2021 projections. Small playing time samples, […]
Sneaky Starters - Deceptive Pitchers Who Could Be Draft Steals
Earlier this week, I was reading Michael Ajeto's article on PitcherList about Brady Singer. In the article, Michael touted Singer's deception and mentioned a sign of that being Singer's Zone Swing Rate (Z-Swing%) minus his Chase Rate (O-Swing%). The premise of the concept was simple but one that stood out to me immediately. Z-Swing% measures […]
Deeper League Sleepers at Third Base
Fantasy managers are always on the lookout for the sleeper that can turn into a breakout performer. I've already reviewed the best deep sleepers at second base, so now let's turn to third base. When defining a breakout, I look at it as a player that can take a step forward to a level they […]
Outfield Dynasty Rankings for Fantasy Baseball
We've already gone around the infield with a look at first base, second base, third base, and shortstop. Let's head to the outfield now to break down the long list of outfielders that have fantasy relevance in 2021 and beyond. All of the players listed have outfield eligibility, although several will be used at shallower […]
2021 Catcher Rankings - 5x5 Mixed Leagues
The chaotic, wild, and confusing 2020 COVID season is now thankfully behind us, am I right fellow Red Sox fans? But now is the hardest part in terms of fantasy implications from the pandemic as we try to decipher how much of 2020's statistics are actually viable data for 2021 projections. Small playing time samples, […]
2021 All-Value Team: Pouncing on ADP Fallers
One of the most common ways to get ahead in fantasy baseball is to be on the right side of small sample-size overreactions. After the 2020 season that saw just 60 regular-season games for each team, there is sure to be a lot of this as we approach draft season for 2021. Most hitters will suffer […]
All Things Fantasy with Jeff Erickson - Bases Loaded Podcast
Mike Kurland (@Mike_Kurland) is joined by Jeff Erickson (@Jeff_Erickson) of Rotowire to discuss all things fantasy. Subscribe to the Bases Loaded podcast, part of RotoBaller Radio's Podcast Network. Like and Subscribe to the RotoBaller channel on Youtube to get all our latest podcasts and catch us on iTunes and BlogTalkRadio as well! Be sure to also tune into RotoBaller Radio […]
Fantasy Baseball Preseason Injury Updates
Injuries remain commonplace in all sports. Baseball has seen the rate of injury continue to rise over the past few years. In fantasy, if someone is not in the medical field, it is hard to gauge how long a player will be out and whether they need to be replaced in a lineup. Sometimes this […]
Top 50 Fantasy Baseball Redraft Prospects for 2021 (Part 2)
Spring Training 2021 is almost here, which means it’s time to start thinking about prospects again. A strong pop-up performance from a rookie or two can have a massive impact on a fantasy manager’s season. If we look back to the truncated 2020 season, we can easily locate a healthy dose of players that had […]
Top 750: Dynasty Fantasy Baseball Rankings
What's up RotoBallers. Today we are bringing you our top 750 fantasy baseball dynasty rankings for the 2021 MLB season. Dynasty leagues, or keeper formats, continue to become more and more popular in the fantasy sports landscape. For those of you who are playing in dynasty formats, or are interested in long-term valuations of fantasy players, […]
Top 50 Fantasy Baseball Redraft Prospects for 2021 (Part 1)
Spring Training 2021 is almost here, which means it’s time to start thinking about prospects again. A strong pop-up performance from a rookie or two can have a massive impact on a fantasy manager’s season. If we look back to the truncated 2020 season, we can easily locate a healthy dose of players that had […]
Diamondbacks Agree With Joakim Soria
The Arizona Diamondbacks signed free-agent relief pitcher Joakim Soria to a one-year, $3.5 million deal on Wednesday. The deal includes $500,000 in incentives. The 36-year-old veteran could be a strong candidate to close out games in the ninth inning for the Snakes in 2021 with no set closer currently on the roster. Soria has 223 […]
Dynasty Shortstop Rankings for Fantasy Baseball
The shortstop position is usually one of the most exciting to choose from on draft day but the options are even more enticing in dynasty. As we prepare to flip the calendar to 2021, fantasy baseball managers are poring over MLB free agency news and the latest rankings. That includes our constantly-updated dynasty rankings. We've […]
Digging Into K% Leaders - Christian Yelich
As we discussed in Part 1 focusing on Ketel Marte, it can sometimes be tough to know which way to go with it. There are the very basic stats: batting average, runs batted in, home runs, and maybe on-base percentage, but we know they are not always the most useful in player analyses even if […]
Starting Pitchers to Target Late - LIMA Plan
The LIMA (Low Investment Mound Aces) Plan is a long-standing draft strategy that was developed far before 2021 but it seems more applicable now than ever. FSWA Hall of Fame member Ron Shandler developed the strategy around the turn of the millennium due to the heavy emphasis on starting pitching in most drafts, leading him […]
Examining The Most Effective Pitches in Baseball
There is just nothing better in sports than Baseball Savant. We can derive almost any insight we want from their pitch-by-pitch dataset. One challenge I wanted to take a crack at was to see if I could find which individual pitches in baseball are most effective regardless of who throws it, just looking at pitch type […]
Digging Into K% Leaders - Ketel Marte
There are so many metrics that exist to evaluate player performance, it can sometimes be tough to know which way to go with it. There are the very basic stats we all grew up with: batting average, runs batted in, home runs, and maybe on-base percentage. We also know that they are not the most […]
Starting Pitcher Breakouts Who Will Keep Improving
Playing only 60 games in 2020 was sure to result in some wacky outcomes. The league leaders in innings were barely cracking 80 innings, less than a third of the usual. This resulted in some final pitching lines that certainly would not have remained the same had there been 100 more innings added to the […]
Dynasty Third Base Rankings for Fantasy Baseball
We will continue our early preseason look at each position with some thoughts on individual player values heading into 2021. We've already gone over first base and second base rankings. Today, we examine a fairly deep third base position. As we prepare to flip the calendar to 2021, fantasy baseball managers are poring over MLB free […]
Top 440: Early H2H Points League Rankings
Welcome back RotoBallers. Below you will find our early 2021 fantasy baseball H2H points league rankings (top 440). As you may know, head-to-head points formats are typically underserved by fantasy baseball outlets - but this is an area that we at RotoBaller take pride in and specialize in. Throughout the preseason and regular season, we will […]
No Universal DH - 2021 Playing Time Fallers
Major League Baseball introduced the DH to the National League in 2020, but the rule change may not stick in 2021. MLB recently advised teams to assume that the universal DH will not be implemented for the 2021 season, and although that doesn’t mean that the door is closed on the rule for the year […]
Top 680: Early Fantasy Baseball Tiered Rankings (January)
Welcome back RotoBallers, and Happy New Year! Below you will find our staff's early 2021 fantasy baseball tiered rankings (top 680) for 5x5 mixed leagues. In case you missed it, you can also see our tiered positional rankings as well. Three our lead fantasy baseball analysts - Nick Mariano, Pierre Camus and JB Branson - have analyzed the MLB offseason moves and are ready to […]
Dynasty Second Base Rankings for Fantasy Baseball
We will continue our early preseason look at each position with some thoughts on individual player values heading into 2021. We've already gone over first base. Today, we continue with second base. As we prepare to flip the calendar to 2021, fantasy baseball managers are poring over MLB free agency news and the latest rankings. […]