Dynasty First Base Rankings for Fantasy Baseball

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 will take an early preseason look at each position with some thoughts on individual player values heading into next season. Today, we start with first […]

Abandon the Win AND the Quality Start

The Win. One of the cornerstone categories of fantasy baseball since its creation. In recent years, baseball fans and fantasy managers alike have been debating the value of the win and whether or not it's overrated. With this debate, the quality start has become a category that more and more leagues are turning to as […]

Biggest Fallers of 2020 - Starting Pitchers

We recently took a look at some starting pitcher risers, those who have seen their stock jump significantly since this time a year ago. Now, we'll analyze some pitchers who have gone the other way following a down year in 2020. Last season consisted of just 60 games, so we're obviously looking at a much […]

Early Positional Breakdowns: Second Base - Bases Loaded Pod

Mike Kurland (@Mike_Kurland) and Jorge Montanez (@Roto_Nino) get an early start on the 2021 positional outlooks. 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 […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball First Base Rankings

Once again, I'll start by saying the 2021 baseball season is not guaranteed to be a normal one. But for now, let's just close our eyes and dream of a world unencumbered by COVID-19 and talk about our silly little game as if a 162-game season will come next spring. Join me for my position-by-position […]

Biggest Brl/BBE% Fallers from 2020

Last week, I discussed the importance of the Brl/BBE% and examined some players who had improved the most in the shortened 2019 season. If you haven't yet taken a look at that, I would encourage you to because I also gave a detailed breakdown of why I like this particular stat. However, if you simply […]

Projecting Power in 2021: Late ADP Options

Like a sitcom catchphrase from a bygone era, we all want more power. We'll take it early and we'll take it late but it always feels extra sweet when one of your final picks suddenly becomes one of the mayors of dong city. Looking at a player's exit velocities can tell us a lot about […]

MLB's Best Pitches by the Numbers

One of the most-often used algorithms in the data science world is called clustering. Clustering is defined, by Wikipedia, as: grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more similar (in some sense) to each other than to those in other groups (clusters) In baseball […]

Projecting Power in 2021: Early ADP Air% Exit Velocity

Looking at average exit velocity to project future power is not very useful compared to looking only at balls hit in the air. Because who cares how hard ground balls are hit? However, it can be even more useful to parse out those velocities into more refined bins and cast a more critical eye to […]

Top 250 Dynasty Prospects for 2021

The 2020 baseball season was unlike any year we’ve ever seen with its shortened season and schedule that can perhaps be best described as organized chaos. The absence of a minor league season played havoc with prospect prognosticators. The 2021 season — and perhaps beyond — will continue to present unique challenges as the pandemic […]

Top 50 Fantasy Baseball Redraft Prospects for 2021

The abbreviated, wild-ride known as the 2020 MLB season has come to an end and the playoffs are in full swing. Sadly, that means fantasy baseball seasons are finished. And prospects watchers have turned their attention towards the 2021 season. The 2020 season saw a significant number of key contributions from rookies and, had you […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Relief Pitcher Rankings

The 2021 MLB season isn't guaranteed to be normal but I have hope that next spring will be much healthier. As such, I will approach ranks as if a traditional 162-game season is coming. Join me for my position-by-position ranking series for the 2021 fantasy baseball season. How much weight do we give 2020? How […]

Starting Pitcher K-BB% Fallers: Who to Worry About

In part one of this mini-series, Sam Chinitz covered K-BB% risers from 2021. You can check that post out here. This article will take a look at the pitchers that went in the wrong direction. Strikeout to walk rate is so important to be mindful of when evaluating pitchers. No matter how you slice it, […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings

The upcoming 2021 season may not be normal -- going from 2020 to 2021 doesn't wave a magic wand -- but there's still comfort in baseball. As such, I will approach ranks as if a traditional 162-game season is coming. Join me for my position-by-position ranking series for the 2021 fantasy baseball season. How much […]

Projecting Power in 2021: Elite Levels of Air% Exit Velocity

Everyone wants more power, even more so when it comes relatively cheap. But even when pricey, you're going to need to draft a bomber or two. One of the best ways to see how a player's power is trending is to sift through their exit-velocities to see what they're saying. Most know by now that […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Outfield Rankings

I think most of us would agree that looking forward to 2021 is a good idea. For me, that means immersing myself in the upcoming baseball season. While there's no guarantee COVID-19 won't affect the '21 season, I will approach ranks as if a traditional 162-game season is coming. Join me for my position-by-position ranking […]

Faster and Furious: Pitchers With Rising Velocity

The shortened 2020 season resulted in some small sample size related caveats surrounding analysis heading into 2021, but fastball velocity is largely immune from that issue. Fastball velocity is extremely quick to stabilize, and even a few pitches can provide fantasy managers with a reasonably clear understanding of a pitcher’s velocity. Further supporting that notion […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Shortstop Rankings

As we begin to look towards the 2021 baseball season, we can only hope that COVID-19 will be handled well enough to let the season run as normal. Since this is a mere early ranking exercise and we have so much ahead of us, let's just close our eyes and chat as if a 162-game […]

Analyzing Fly Ball Metrics: Pitchers to Trust in 2021

Welcome back to some 2020-2021 offseason fantasy baseball analysis! I recently took a look at pitchers who could see a decrease in performance next season based on their fly-ball metrics from this season. Some of these metrics included home run-to-fly-ball ratio, fly-ball rate, and average launch angle. To reiterate the value of this type of […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Third Base Rankings

Hope springs eternal for the 2021 baseball season, but it's hard to imagine we'll be completely past COVID-19 by then. Plus, we could see opening salvos for the CBA debates to come. But for now, let's just close our eyes and dream of a perfect world and chat as if a 162-game season will come […]

Noteworthy xwOBA-wOBA Pitching Leaders

One of the oddities brought on by the shortened 2020 season was the number of qualified pitchers with huge gaps between their xwOBA and wOBA. In 2019, only seven qualified pitchers posted a wOBA at least 0.050 points away from their xwOBA in either direction, a number that ballooned to 52 pitchers in 2020. Of […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Second Base Rankings

As usual, I'll start by saying the 2021 baseball season may still be affected by COVID-19. Maybe even more labor disputes just for a curveball. But for now, let's just close our eyes and dream of a perfect world and chat as if a 162-game season will come next spring. Join me for my position-by-position […]

2021 First Look Fantasy Values: Third Base

The baseball offseason may officially begin with the end of the World Series but the projections offseason began last Thursday night with the release of the first Steamer projections for 2021. Created and maintained by mathematics teacher Jared Cross and his former students, Steamer remains the industry standard for non-aggregated projection systems, as well as […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Catcher Rankings

Let's cut right to it: the 2021 baseball season is not guaranteed to be a normal one. But for now, let's just close our eyes and dream of a world unencumbered by COVID-19 and talk about our silly little game as if a 162-game season will come next spring. It is time to decide how […]

2021 First Look Fantasy Values: Outfielders

The baseball offseason may officially begin with the end of the World Series but the projections offseason began last Thursday night with the release of the first Steamer projections for 2021. Created and maintained by mathematics teacher Jared Cross and his former students, Steamer remains the industry standard for non-aggregated projection systems, as well as […]

2021 Fantasy Value First Looks: Shortstop

The baseball offseason may officially begin with the end of the World Series but the projections offseason began last Thursday night with the release of the first Steamer projections for 2021. Created and maintained by mathematics teacher Jared Cross and his former students, Steamer remains the industry standard for non-aggregated projection systems, as well as […]

2021 First Look Fantasy Values: First Base and Second Base

The baseball offseason may officially begin with the end of the World Series but the projections offseason began last Thursday night with the release of the first Steamer projections for 2021. Created and maintained by mathematics teacher Jared Cross and his former students, Steamer remains the industry standard for non-aggregated projection systems, as well as […]

2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values Based On Contact Quality

In part one of this series, I established that zxwOBAcon is the primary driver of season-to-season changes in xwOBAcon and that the biggest risers in zxwOBAcon each season tend to be rebound candidates. Furthermore, rebound candidates recover all of their zxwOBAcon losses more often than not and frequently outperform their season x zxwOBAcon in season […]

Warning Signals in Shift Increases: Part One

Shifts work. Not all the time and not against everyone but eventually there is a sufficient amount of data on a player to be able to draw some pretty strong conclusions about what advantages can be gained by shifting. There are good reasons that Joey Gallo was shifted against 98.5% of the time in 2020. Not everyone […]

Ketel Marte Makes Elite Contact In 2020

Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte stepped into an elite tier of contact during the 2020 campaign, finishing in the 99th percentile of strikeout rate (10.8%) and 98th percentile of whiff rate (14.1%). Unfortunately, that did not lend itself to another top-five MVP finish, as the .732 OPS that Marte produced was his lowest mark […]