2017 Prospects: Top 30 Impact Rookies for Fantasy Leagues (Week 1)

Hello everyone, and welcome to my weekly Top-30 Fantasy Rankings for Impact Rookies. In this series, I will be going over the top prospects in baseball and discussing which ones figure to have an impact for the rest of this fantasy baseball season. We are officially underway in the 2017 Major League Baseball season! Who […]

Streaming Wars: Waiver Wire Targets for April 5th

Over the offseason, there was much ado about the home run surge of 2016. Would it continue into 2017 or was regression looming? One game into the MLB season, and we already have 30 home runs - a 5,400 home run pace. Yasmani Grandal, Rougned Odor, and Khris Davis have already popped two apiece, as has […]

FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Lineup Picks (4/4/17): MLB DFS Advice

Good morning, fellow RotoBallers. It's the first Tuesday of the season. What we have on deck tonight is a lovely slate of baseball - specifically, daily fantasy baseball, for our purposes. The eight-game Main contest begins at 7:05 tonight, so get those lineups locked and loaded before your East coast guys take the field. FanDuel […]

DraftKings Lineup Picks & Sleepers (4/4/17): MLB DFS Advice

The MLB season just started, but it has already been a ton of fun. We don't have as many games tonight as we did yesterday, but it's still a sizable slate. There are a few elite options at pitchers tonight, but we also have a ton of high upside stacks. The Cleveland Indians and Los […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 13: Barrels For Pitchers

Last time, we looked at Barrels, a stat combining exit velocity and launch angle to measure how often a batter makes quality hard contact. As much as batters want to hit a Barrel every time, pitchers want to avoid them at all costs. Yet there is some evidence that pitchers do not have the same […]

Week 1 Waiver Wire - Second Base (2B) and Shortstop Base (SS)

Baseball is here! With real games having started Sunday, you have almost certainly had your draft and are in the honeymoon stages with your 2017 team. You don’t want to cut anyone just yet, as you don’t want to be labeled the Overreact Girl/Guy. That being said, there are some injuries that open up DL […]

Streaming Wars: Exploiting the Waiver Wire to Win Your League

Welcome to Streaming Wars, a new column offering waiver wire recommendations for the next day. Streaming goes by many names such as micromanaging, churn and burn, etc. Whatever you call it, the goal is the same - to fully leverage your weakest roster spots. Streaming is not for everybody, but it is for mostbody. Sometimes, you'll have […]

Week 1 Waiver Wire - First Base (1B) and Third Base (3B)

The season is officially underway and waivers are finally open to all antsy fantasy owners who are already desperate for help. Whether you're dissatisfied with your current starters or are scrambling for a replacement for Adrian Beltre or Anthony Rendon, these corner infielders could step right in and help your fantasy team. Third base is as deep […]

Week 1 Start/Sit: MLB Starting Pitcher (SP) Matchups

We're back Rotoballers! Your friendly neighborhood @Roto_Dubs is back with his weekly starting pitcher matchups. Below are the projected starting pitching matchups for Week 1, and will be updated as more starters are announced. If you've got any questions about which pitchers can capitalize on a juicy matchup and which ones might be worth putting on […]

Week 1 Waiver Wire: 25-50% Owned Pickups

Wow, we're really here. After all this time, baseball is truly back. Happy Opening Day RotoBallers! In light of this, let's give that free agent pool one last look over before the stats start flying. Today, we'll look at players who are owned in 25-50% of Yahoo leagues and see who stands out. You can […]

Baseball Award Predictions that (Probably) Won't Come True

My least favorite type of baseball articles to read are preseason predictions for awards. Nobody in their right mind is going to pick against Mike Trout for AL MVP and there's a very narrow population of players that are considered in the NL. It's not exactly informative to hear someone say, "Clayton Kershaw has a […]

Delino DeShields Jr (OF, TEX) - 2017 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers & Draft Values

BALLER MOVE: Target ~400 CURRENT ADP: 460 ANALYSIS: Delino DeShields’ strong spring has put him firmly in the conversation for the Rangers’ starting left field job, with Jurickson Profar and Ryan Rua as his main competition. There’s even been talk of sliding him into the leadoff role. The 24-year-old speedster slashed just .209/.275/.313 across 203 […]

Deep League Closer Handcuffs

"Don't overpay for saves." As dedicated fantasy baseball players, we've heard it a million times. When you start to see closers fly off the boards in your draft, however, it's tough not to pull the trigger so you don't get stuck with Jim Johnson as your lead fireman. There's no need to panic though. Given […]

American League Outfielders: Overvalued and Undervalued

With the MLB season right around the corner, we are in high-season for fantasy baseball drafts. Before you enter your draft room this year, it would behoove you to check out our ADP analysis pieces here at RotoBaller. We will ensure you have a good working knowledge of how players are being viewed, when to grab […]

Starting Pitcher (Part 2): Updated March Rankings and Tiers

We rolled out our final update on 2017 rankings this past weekend. While there haven’t been seismic shifts, some players have naturally seen their stocks rise or fall since our initial valuations were made in December. We’re gathered here today to look at part one of our outfield rankings, tiers, and auction values, which have certainly seen some […]

Starting Pitcher (Part 1): Updated March Rankings and Tiers

We rolled out our final update on 2017 rankings this past weekend. While there haven’t been seismic shifts, some players have naturally seen their stocks rise or fall since our initial valuations were made in December. We’re gathered here today to look at part one of our outfield rankings, tiers, and auction values, which have certainly seen some […]

Shin-Soo Choo (OF, TEX) - 2017 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers & Values

BALLER MOVE: Target ~227 CURRENT ADP: ~288 ANALYSIS: You might not know it by his innocent .242/.357/.399 triple slash from 2016, but Choo really smoked the ball – when he was on the field. In only 48 games, 210 plate appearances, the 34-year-old clubbed seven homers with six steals with a gaudy 43.2% hard-hit rate. […]

Jim Turvey's 10 Bold Predictions for 2017

One of my favorite preseason series here at RotoBaller has been the “10 Bold Predictions” series. It allows authors to pump up a few of the players and teams they like (and deflate the guys they dislike), while also going on record with actual stats and metrics. Be sure to check out just how wonky […]

Deeper Late Round Draft Fliers for Wins

Wins are a fickle stat and often don’t seem to benefit the most deserving pitchers in the game. One need only look at the leaderboard last season to see the likes of Hector Santiago, Josh Tomlin, and Collin McHugh with as many wins as Jose Quintana. That can make it frustrating and often difficult to […]

ADP Champs or Chumps: Keon Broxton & Trea Turner

If fantasy owners share a collective weakness, it's recency bias. How many times are we going to draft a guy based on what he did last season, or even the last month of last season, without any regard to what that player did before? Mike Trout was great out of the box, but there are […]

Relief Pitchers - Updated March Rankings and Tiers

We rolled out our final update on 2017 rankings this past weekend. While there haven’t been seismic shifts, some players have naturally seen their stocks rise or fall since our initial valuations were made in December. We’re gathered here today to look at relief pitcher rankings, tiers, and auction values, which have seen a bit of movement. As […]

Top Gainers in Fly Ball Rate - What to Expect in 2017

The baseball universe is really coming into its own when it comes to advanced data metrics that we can parse through, with hard-hit rates, exit velocities, spray charts and batted-ball outcomes all becoming accessible tools to throw in the toolkit before we go digging for answers. Today's piece continues the series where we explore some […]

Last Minute Draft Prep and Strategy: Sweat the Small Stuff

The deeper your league, the more important it is to gain a slight edge over your opponents whenever possible. Nobody “dominates” a competitive draft. Presumably you have compiled a list. Most RotoBaller readers know who’s injured. Everyone has sleepers, some of us a hunch or two. Yet even with dedicated preparation, a successful live draft […]

Shortstop: Updated March Rankings and Tiers

Just like second base, shortstop is a deep position this year. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the tiers. As before, this round of rankings features picks from Kyle Bishop, Nick Mariano, Bill Dubiel, Brad Johnson, Harris Yudin and myself. Check out all of our updated rankings. Adjust your league size, and export your rankings. Tiers, […]

Potential ADP Busts for Second Base in 2017

We’re continuing our Positional Avoid series today with a look at second basemen. Earlier, we examined three potential busts at catcher and at first base. We continue our positional avoid series today with three second baseman who are going just a bit higher than would seem to be logical in 2017 drafts. Second base is a position that […]

Catcher ADPs - Overvalued and Undervalued

For standard, one catcher leagues, I either want one of the top four catchers (where Schwarber qualifies at catcher), or I want one of the last catchers. The top four catchers seem to be valued properly, but if one slips, go for it. While any individual taken fifth through eleventh in the catcher world could […]

Top Gainers in Pull Rate: What to Expect in 2017

The baseball universe is really coming into its own when it comes to advanced data metrics that we can parse through, with hard-hit rates, exit velocities, spray charts and batted-ball outcomes all becoming accessible tools to throw in the toolkit before we go digging for answers. Today's piece continues the series where we explore some […]

Top 100 Keeper Values for 2017

What's up RotoBallers. Welcome back to the finale of my series on keeper leagues. Today we'll take a look at the final product, the top 100 Keeper Values, after analyzing each tier at every position this offseason. Keeper Value Rankings are intended for Keeper Leagues in which a fantasy owner must forfeit a designated draft round […]

Outfield (Part 2): Updated March Rankings and Tiers

We rolled out our final update on 2017 rankings this past weekend. While there haven’t been seismic shifts, some players have naturally seen their stocks rise or fall since our initial valuations were made in December. We’re gathered here today to look at part two of our outfield rankings, tiers, and auction values, which have seen a bit […]

Second Base: Updated March Rankings and Tiers

The positions that are usually thought of as thin are unusually deep this year, with second base being no exception. Unlike years past, you won’t be forced to have a poor first base option if you don’t take one early. Nonetheless, we need to examine each tier to see where the best values lie. Here, […]