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. […]

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 […]

A's Acquire Reliever Nik Turley

The Oakland Athletics acquired left-hander Nik Turley from the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday in exchange for $60,000. Turley was 0-3 with a 4.98 ERA and one save in 25 relief appearances -- the most of any major league rookie in 2020 -- for the Pirates in 21 2/3 innings in the shortened season. The 31-year-old […]

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 […]

Year-In-Review: Rafael Dolis and Jordan Romano

As I created my early 2021 Relief Pitcher rankings, I realized how wide open so many bullpens are right now due to free agency. One team that will surely add a late-inning arm this offseason is the Toronto Blue Jays, as Anthony Bass and Ken Giles are both now free agents. But are they in […]

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 […]

Three Hitters Set To Break Out Earlier 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 early in their careers. Whether it be through added playing time, skill improvements, or some combination of the two, pre-prime breakouts can be excellent draft values thanks to their unusually high upside.  […]

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 […]

Year-In-Review: Framber Valdez

Houston Astros starting pitcher Framber Valdez has been one of the team's many intriguing prospects over the past several seasons. He first got consistent playing time (mostly in relief) in 2019 and put forth poor results with a 4-7 record, 5.86 ERA, 1.67 WHIP, and 20.7% strikeout rate over 70 2/3 inning pitched. He also pitched […]

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 […]

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 […]

Year-in-Review: Lance McCullers Jr.

It had been a while since we saw Lance McCullers Jr. on the mound. He has dealt with his fair share of injuries throughout his career, and he dealt with his most severe in 2019 when he lost the entire season to Tommy John surgery. The shutdown and the subsequent delayed start to the season […]

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 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 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 […]