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About Jon Anderson - RotoBaller
Baseball data enthusiast, Master's Degree in Data Science, Pirate fan when they're good.
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Jon Anderson - RotoBaller has written 464 articles so far, you can find them below.
MLB DFS Advice: Picking Hitters on DraftKings and FanDuel
Welcome back to our DFS strategy series. I've already gone over some tips for picking pitchers in this post, and I covered a lot of the hitting side in this piece where I talked about stacking strategy. A lot of hitting tips were already covered in that stacking piece, so give that a look after... Read More
Finding Hitter Clones At Cheaper ADPs
One of the most useful algorithms in the machine learning world is that of data clustering. Clustering, in this case, is defined 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... Read More
Jon Anderson's 10 Bold Predictions For 2021
Today, I am honored to take my turn giving you my 10 bold predictions for the 2021 season here at RotoBaller. It's a thrill to be featured on this site, and I look forward to continuing to put out content for you all over the 2021 season and beyond. This was not an easy post... Read More
Using Data Analysis To Spot Strikeout Risers
The key to winning a fantasy league is to spot things that are to come before they happen. This is what we try to do here every day at RotoBaller. As the years have gone by, more data about the game has been made available to us, and we can use that data to make... Read More
Later-Round Category Targets - Home Runs
Welcome back to my series of posts where I take us through a standard fantasy baseball category, break it down statistically and then locate some targets for 2021 to help you out in that category. We've already examined how to get an advantage in batting average. Today we will talk about home runs. You can also... Read More
Later-Round Category Targets - Batting Average
Of all of the fantasy sports, a baseball league using category scoring is the one most requiring manager strategy. You can draft a team full of players that overperform their draft cost but still not win your league if you don't fill up the categories correctly. If I had to give one piece of advice... Read More
Later-Round Category Targets - WHIP
Welcome back to RotoBaller and my later-round category targets series, thanks for being here. In this article, we're going to talk about some middle and late-round starting pitchers that can help your team in the WHIP category. It's important to note that there is a ton of overlap with WHIP and ERA, and I've already made... Read More
Roto Category Draft Targets - Wins
I'm here to do something that I probably can't actually do, help you find wins late in the draft. That's a very inspiring sentence, I know, but I'm an honest guy and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I'm able to pontificate about which pitchers will earn lots of wins this... Read More
Later-Round Category Targets - ERA
Starting pitching is a finicky thing in the fantasy world. There is certain to be lots of impactful injuries, breakouts, and busts this year within the starting pitching position. After the first handful of rounds of the draft, it gets pretty tough to find guys you can feel confident about helping your team in the... Read More
Roto Category Draft Targets - Strikeouts
Welcome back to RotoBaller, here we have another later-round category targets piece - this time focusing on strikeouts. Strikeouts are an interesting category for fantasy given how differently they can be handled in fantasy baseball. Lots of leagues use strikeout rate of some sort (strikeout rate or strikeouts per nine). Those seem to make more sense... Read More
Later-Round Category Targets - Stolen Bases
The stolen base is like no other category in the rotisserie game. It is correlated to no other category that is used in fantasy and is influenced by "specialists" (meaning players who only contribute in one category) way more than any other as well. Steal attempts have also been trending downward in recent MLB history, making... Read More
2021 Undervalued Draft Targets - Starting Pitchers
In late November, before I officially joined the RotoBaller team, I began a long post series where I went rotation-by-rotation, slowly populating my SP ranks for 2021. The way I did this was I would do the analysis and take a long look at each player, and then insert them into the list based on... Read More
Griffin Canning (SP, LAA) - Fantasy Baseball Draft Values
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 275 CURRENT ADP: ~290 overall ANALYSIS: Canning had his struggles last year after getting a late start to the year after dealing with some elbow injuries. His 23.5%-9.7% K-BB ratio is far from encouraging, but I think that was attributable to the elbow discomfort and delayed season. What this Angels righty... Read More
Tarik Skubal (SP, DET) - Fantasy Baseball Draft Values
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 275 CURRENT ADP: ~295 overall ANALYSIS: Tarik Skubal was not even the most highly touted young pitcher on his own team last year, as he was often overlooked for Casey Mize. However, Skubal outperformed Mize and posted a really strong 27.6% strikeout rate with an 8.2% walk rate. The ERA was... Read More
Launch Angle Analysis - Potential HR Risers
With the onset of Statcast data, we can now better predict which hitters may be due for a power surge. Before recent years, we only had things like hard-hit rate and home runs per fly ball ratios to look to as predictors of future changes in home run rates. Now that we have launch angle,... Read More
MLB DFS Advice: Picking Pitchers on DraftKings and FanDuel
Welcome back to RotoBaller, where we are taking you through some advanced DFS strategy and advice to prepare you for a full-length MLB season in 2021. Last spring, while baseball was not being played and I did not know what to do with myself, I wrote a big old script to go back and collect... Read More
Frankie Montas (SP, OAK) - Fantasy Baseball Draft Values
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 135 CURRENT ADP: ~151 overall ANALYSIS: Many fantasy managers may be hesitant to draft Montas after looking at his 2020 line of a 5.60 ERA and a 1.51 WHIP, but you have to keep in mind that the guy just was not healthy last year. Pair that up with him... Read More
Zack Greinke (SP, HOU) - Fantasy Baseball Draft Values
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 90 CURRENT ADP: ~106 overall ANALYSIS: Greinke is once again going pretty late with an ADP of above 100. Even at age 37, he's pretty attractive at that price point given that he had managed 200+ innings three consecutive years before 2020 where he racked up 67. The strikeout rate is... Read More
Jon Anderson's Outfield Tiered Rankings and Projections
I continue to press forward on my own personal rankings series. Today we tackle the beast that is the outfield. Check out the rest of the series at the links below if you haven't already! First Base Second Base Shortstop Third Base Starting at the top, here's that juicy tier one full of first-round talent.Featured... Read More
Advanced MLB DFS Strategy: Stacking Hitters In Tournaments
If you have played MLB DFS for any length of time, you've certainly dabbled in stacking. Stacking means putting multiple players from the same offense into your lineup with the hope that the offense scores a bunch of runs and you rack up fantasy points while they're at it. There are a lot of different... Read More
ESPN ADP Advantages - Overvalued / Undervalued Players
A quick way to get ahead in your league is to take advantage of bad pre-rankings. In every online draft room, the pool of players is ranked for players to choose from. These pre-ranks have a huge influence on how drafts go. Lots of managers choose when to pull the trigger on the players they... Read More
Jon Anderson's Shortstop Tiered Rankings and Projections
I am on to shortstop in my position-by-position tiered rankings. Check out the rest of the series at the links below: First Base Second Base Third Base This is quite a different position than what we've seen so far with first and second base. There are four studs at the position, and lots and lots... Read More
Does Pitch Arsenal Really Matter?
In my research over the last couple of months, I have been paying close attention to the pitch mix of each pitcher I study. This means I want to know how many different pitches they can throw and how they distribute those different offerings. It seemed logical to me that pitchers with more pitches in... Read More
Jon Anderson's Third Base Tiered Rankings and Projections
Welcome back to my own personal rankings series! Today we're covering third base, but you can check out the rest of the series at the links below: First Base Second Base Shortstop Third base may be the deepest position in terms of total statistical production that will come out of it, but that does not... Read More
Jon Anderson's Second Base Tiered Rankings and Projections
Happy drafting season everybody! We are back with another tiered ranking look, this time at second base. You can read about first base here. The way I went about this was to use current projections for each player and then average out each player's percentile rank in each of the five standard rotisserie categories (R,... Read More
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... Read More
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... Read More
Failure to Launch: Hitters With Falling Launch Angles
Launch angle is important. There is a sweet spot for launch angles and the hitters that hit the highest shares of their batted balls in those angles will have more success than the rest of the league. The reverse is also true. If you are consistently hitting the ball straight in the air or directly into... Read More
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... Read More
2020 Schedule Outliers - NL and AL Central Starting Pitchers
One of the many weird things about the 2020 MLB season was how the schedule was re-done. In case you have forgotten, every team played all 60 of their regular-season games against teams in the same division or corresponding geographical division as them. That resulted in some natural advantages. It seemed pretty obvious at the... Read More
