Marcus Semien to the Blue Jays - Fantasy Impact

Toronto may have come up short in the Francisco Lindor sweepstakes earlier this offseason, but they got a new middle infielder last week with the signing of Marcus Semien to a one-year deal. Semien has played exclusively at shortstop throughout his career with Oakland, but he'll likely slide over to second base in Toronto with […]

Carl Edwards Jr. Agrees With Braves

The Atlanta Braves agreed to a minor league deal with free-agent relief pitcher Carl Edwards Jr. on Friday night. The 29-year-old right-hander helped the Chicago Cubs win the World Series in 2016 and had a nice 3.03 ERA and 34 percent strikeout rate with the team from 2016-18. However, he started struggling in 2019 when […]

Braves Have Checked In On Justin Turner

The Atlanta Braves are among the teams that have checked in on free-agent third baseman Justin Turner. The veteran third baseman doesn't have a shortage of suitors, but most still see the Los Angeles Dodgers as heavy favorites to re-sign him. The Blue Jays were also interested, but that's more unlikely after they signed infielder […]

Mike Foltynewicz Throws For Teams Friday

Free-agent starting pitcher Mike Foltynewicz threw for interested teams in Atlanta on Friday and looked to be in fine shape while hitting 90-92 mph on the radar gun. Foltynewicz was an All-Star in 2018 with the Braves when he went 13-10 with a 2.85 ERA and 1.08 ERA while striking out 202 batters and walking […]

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 […]

Are We In or Are We Out? - Bases loaded Podcast

Mike Kurland (@Mike_Kurland) rolls solo and dives into the names you gave us on twitter that you are not sold on or unsure with how to go about handling in the upcoming 2021 season. Subscribe to the Bases Loaded podcast, part of RotoBaller Radio's Podcast Network. Like and Subscribe to the RotoBaller channel on Youtube to get […]

Braves Considering Trey Mancini

The Atlanta Braves have kicked the tires on Baltimore Orioles star outfielder Trey Mancini. Nothing is serious between the two sides yet, but the Braves are still trying to improve on offense. We still don't know if there will be a universal designated hitter again in 2021, but the Braves could be losing one of […]

Ehire Adrianza Signs With Braves

The Atlanta Braves signed free-agent infielder/outfielder Ehire Adrianza to a minor league deal on Tuesday. It's unclear if Adrianza received an invitation to spring training. The 31-year-old spent the last four seasons with the Twins, hitting .253/.317/.377 with 13 home runs, 88 RBI and 14 stolen bases in 311 games. He hit just .191 with […]

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 […]

Braves Bring Back Pablo Sandoval

The Atlanta Braves agreed to a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training with corner infielder Pablo Sandoval on Sunday. Sandoval will receive $1 million if he's put on the team's big-league roster, according to a source. The 34-year-old switch-hitter hit just .214 with a .549 OPS in 94 plate appearances with 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 […]

Braves Interested In J.T. Realmuto?

The Atlanta Braves are circling on free-agent catcher J.T. Realmuto, according to league sources. Other teams on the west coast are also expressing interest in the All-Star catcher. The Philadelphia Phillies are rumored to be the favorites to re-sign Realmuto, who spent the last two seasons with the team. Philadelphia is believed to have offered […]

Joe Musgrove to the Padres - Fantasy Impact

The San Diego Padres have made yet another trade for starting pitching, as news broke on Monday of a three-team, seven-player deal that will send Joe Musgrove back home to sunny Southern California. Here's how the deal breaks down: Padres receive: RHP Joe Musgrove Mets receive: LHP Joey Lucchesi Pirates receive: (from Padres) OF Hudson Head, […]

2020 Schedule Outliers - AL East Starting Pitchers

One of the major changes MLB teams faced during the 2020 season was the lack of a diverse set of competition. Instead of playing around 20 other teams as they would in a normal season, teams played only nine different opponents in 2020. Additionally, two-thirds of each team’s games came against opponents within their own […]

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. […]

Four Pitchers Who Changed Scenes

It has been a slow off-season to this point, but we're starting to see some moves made, in the form of both free-agent signings and trades going down. There will be plenty of more action over the next several weeks, as there are still a lot of unsigned free agents, and no shortage of trade […]

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 […]

You Paid What?! Overvalued Players in Auctions

Assuming the 2021 MLB season starts on time, we are on the precipice of fantasy baseball draft season. Spring Training will get underway next month, at which point, drafts roll out in full force. We aren't there quite yet, which makes sense. Many of the biggest free agents remain unsigned; the league is unsure of […]

Austin Riley Expected To Begin 2021 Season At 3B

The Atlanta Braves expect Austin Riley to begin the 2021 season at third base, which is why the club is more focused on adding a left fielder than a third baseman, according to a source. Riley started 45 games at third base in 2020 but also saw some time in left field. The 23-year-old power […]

Early One-Man Mock (Round 1) - 2022 Fantasy Baseball

There is no such thing as too early when it comes to draft prep. The calendar won't flip to 2022 for another few weeks but we at RotoBaller aren't ones to sit around and wait. Mock drafts take time, so I took matters into my own hands to complete a one-man mock. For the most […]

Three Hitters Set To Break Out Later Than Expected

Finding breakout hitters can be a difference-maker for fantasy teams, especially when those hitters have had limited success at the major league level and are older than when players typically have their best seasons. Whether it be through added playing time, skill improvements, or some combination of the two, post-prime breakouts can be excellent draft […]

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 […]

Squaring It Up: 2020's Biggest Brl/BBE% Gainers

Often when it comes to fantasy baseball, we get overloaded with statistics and it becomes hard to sort out what's useful from what's misleading. Many experts can write pages about why they swear by certain stats as being the most predictive for future success or accurate in reflecting who had a good season. In the […]

Statcast Review - Noteworthy xBA/xSLG Hitting Leaders

Thanks to its abbreviated schedule, the 2020 MLB season resulted in some unusual outcomes. Michael Conforto posted the highest full-season BABIP since Ty Cobb in 1913, Luke Voit was on pace for 60 home runs, and Robbie Ray walked a ridiculous 18% of the batters he faced. xStats were not immune to that weirdness, xBA […]

Early-Round Fades and Overvalued Studs

Entering 2021, there is a bit of recency bias in the early ADP as well as an overall sense of unknown entering 2021 as a whole in terms of what rules are in place, where players are going to hit in the lineup or even where many players will play and how that could affect […]

Yasiel Puig: Ready to Rise in 2021

Yasiel Puig signed with the Atlanta Braves in 2020 but due to having COVID, the signing never went through and he never got his chance to play. Now we enter 2021 and we get to play this waiting game again as we hope to see him sign sooner rather than later. We tend to look […]

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 […]