Champ or Chump: Luis Castillo

Nothing is worse for a fantasy manager than when an early-round pick puts up disastrous numbers. You can't start the guy because he's brutalizing your ratios, yet you can't drop him because you've invested too many resources to give him up for free. What if he turns it around in his next appearance and you […]

Champ or Chump: Buster Posey

Some things about fantasy baseball change every season, while others are consistent from year to year. For example, breakout relievers exist every year but their names are different from season to season. You never want to use your first-round pick on a dud, but early-round duds have different reasons each year. If you played fantasy […]

Champ or Chump: Zach McKinstry

It seems like the young MLB season isn't producing as many random breakout stars as it usually does. Tyler Naquin had one huge game, but he isn't even playing every day. Akil Baddoo is a nice story for Detroit, but his OBP is below .300 and he's in a platoon. Where is Keven Maas when […]

Champ or Chump: Jonathan India

The NL Central was among the most wide-open divisions in all of baseball coming into the season. The Milwaukee Brewers were the favorites if you believe the projected standings at FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus, but oddsmakers tended to favor the St. Louis Cardinals after their splashy addition of Nolan Arenado. The Cubs still had their […]

Champ or Chump: Tyler O'Neill

With Opening Day officially in the books (for most teams anyway), the 2021 campaign is off and running. The secret to being a successful fantasy manager is to combine a strong draft with superlative in-season roster management. Early in the year, your focus should be on identifying potential 2021 breakouts that your rivals may not […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Statcast xStats

Statcast is a valuable tool for fantasy analysis, and it can be easy to look at a stat called "Expected Batting Average" and blindly use it as your projection moving forward. Of course, proper use of these metrics is a little bit more nuanced than that. First, a disclaimer: This article is about the "Expected […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Pitcher Statcast

Statcast metrics such as Barrels and Brls/BBE are great ways to evaluate a batter's performance, so it is only natural to assume that the metrics would be predictive for pitchers as well. As much as batters want to hit a Barrel every time, pitchers want to avoid them at all costs. Yet there is evidence […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Spin Rate

Spin rate has become one of the most recognizable Statcast metrics, with supporters of a given pitcher highlighting his spin rates to make their case. It has also become controversial as of late due to allegations of pitchers using foreign substances to increase their spin. Unfortunately, the baseball world has done a lousy job conveying […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Statcast Exit Velocity

If you've watched a baseball broadcast in the so-called Statcast Era, you have undoubtedly noticed the broadcasters commenting on a batted ball's exit velocity, or EV. Many have taken to using stats like Hard% and Soft% to forecast how a player should be performing, expecting larger Hard% rates to produce larger BABIP and HR/FB figures. […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Barrels

We've previously looked at how exit velocity (or EV) is only one piece of the fantasy analysis puzzle. Baseball broadcasts will commonly cite Launch Angle (LA) to complement their EV figures, but it is given in terms of degrees. Am I evaluating a baseball player or trying to find the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle? […]

An Introduction to Advanced Stats for Fantasy Baseball Managers

Hello, fellow RotoBallers! Sabermetrics have become an integral tool for fantasy baseball draft prep, but a concise resource for understanding the basics can be difficult to find. Over the next two months, this series will attempt to define and explain all of the metrics fantasy owners may find useful, citing examples of how to use […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: MiLB Stats

Once you've grown accustomed to having advanced tools to help make fantasy decisions, it can feel disorientating to be without them. Prospects are increasingly becoming a focal point in both real and fantasy baseball, but the minors simply do not have all of the data publically available for MLB players. For example, advanced plate discipline […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Ballpark Factors

If you have ever selected a streamable pitcher based on home park or benched an otherwise must-start arm at Coors Field, you already know how much a stadium can impact a player's bottom line. Ballpark Factors quantify the influence each stadium has, allowing you to make the most of your fantasy team's real-life schedule. However, […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Pitch Info

One of the most fundamental questions in fantasy sports is if a player's current performance is sustainable. More than any other sport, baseball has a slew of statistical measures that can be dissected in numerous ways to analyze player performance. Pitch Info is a publicly-available pitch tracking system that provides a lot of different data to […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Batting Order

You may be wondering why there aren't any advanced stats aimed at predicting a player's counting stats like runs and RBI. The answer is simple: modern sabermetrics reject the idea of a "clutch RBI guy" and therefore do not bother inventing predictive metrics for it. Runs and RBI are team-dependent stats and are unhelpful in ascertaining […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Pitcher BABIP

While FIP is a useful tool to predict a pitcher's future ERA performance, fantasy managers should remember that ERA, not FIP, is what really matters in most formats. This means that we are interested in the "luck" that separates the two statistics. While some of this luck is unpredictable, we can and should predict some […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Pull%

We have previously determined that fantasy managers generally prefer batters to hit the ball into the air to have a chance at a home run. Yet, all fly balls are not equal for this purpose. A player can maximize his power production by pulling the ball in the air. One way to illustrate this is […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: FIP/xFIP

The first advanced pitching stat most fantasy owners encounter is FIP. FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching, and attempts to measure a pitcher's actual skill instead of the effects of luck or his supporting cast. According to the DIPS theory, pitchers control only Ks, BBs, and home runs allowed. Therefore, Ks, walks, and dingers are […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Plate Discipline

No matter how high a particular player's BABIP may be, his average will be mediocre at best if he strikes out too much. This is why fantasy managers have known for years that players like Chris Davis are potential drains on a fantasy team's batting average. Furthermore, players that whiff a lot tend to continue […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Hitter Batted Ball Distribution

Fly balls can turn into home runs. Ground balls never do. It would seem as though fantasy owners want their batters to hit nothing but flies, yet this is not always the case. Why would this be? The answer, of course, comes down to batted ball distribution and how batters make contact. The league average […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: HR/FB

Using BABIP to predict a player's batting average is great. Batting average is a category in many league formats, and every hit is an opportunity to steal a base or score a run. But most fantasy managers find the long ball sexier. Every HR comes with a guaranteed run scored and at least one RBI. […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball: Batter BABIP

The most accessible of the fantasy-relevant advanced stats is BABIP, or Batting Average on Balls In Play. It simply measures a player's batting average on balls in play, with outcomes such as strikeouts and home runs removed from consideration. In general, the league average hovers around .300, a nice round number to remember. Many know […]

Champ or Chump: Year in Review

Now that the 2020 fantasy baseball season has come to a close, it is time to assess your performance. Did you ignore red flags that you wish you hadn't? Was a strong process foiled by unpredictable factors outside of anybody's control? Both of these things are likely true to some extent. The key is to […]

Champ or Chump: Trent Grisham

While it seems like the MLB season just started yesterday, the final full week is rapidly approaching. If you're looking for an extra edge for the stretch run, rostering players on teams with a bunch of games to make up could give you a quantity advantage. The Cardinals, Brewers, Rockies, and Nationals are all scheduled […]

Champ or Chump: Deivi Garcia

Fantasy baseball frequently turns into an arms race, so you should always be scouring the waiver wire for pitching reinforcements to help you reach your innings cap. Young Deivi Garcia has turned heads in his MLB debut for the Yankees, going 1-1 with a 3.06 ERA and 4.20 xFIP in his first 17 2/3 IP […]

Champ or Chump: Kevin Gausman

Separating legitimate breakouts from fluke seasons is one of the biggest components of fantasy analysis, and the unique structure of the 2020 campaign is making it more challenging than ever. Can you imagine making your final keeper decisions on June 1 in a normal year? That's going to be all of the information we have […]

Champ or Chump: Jake Cronenworth

It was widely known before the season that the shorter schedule would favor fringe contenders, and no team has taken better advantage of it than the San Diego Padres. They needed Fernando Tatis Jr. to continue producing like a star despite less-than-stellar peripherals in his rookie season, and he has. They needed Eric Hosmer to […]

Champ or Chump: Casey Mize

One of the secrets to perfect in-season fantasy management is to look at your league's transaction list every single day. You may not have been the first to scoop up that hyped prospect or breakout veteran, but you can still benefit from most of their stats if their current owner abandons them after a subpar […]

Champ or Chump: Alec Bohm

In this strange season where the Miami Marlins and Detroit Tigers look like plausible contenders, the teams that thought they should contend before the world turned upside down don't have the time to dilly dally. The Philadelphia Phillies have responded to this sense of urgency by summoning top prospect Alec Bohm from their alternate training […]

Champ or Chump: Jo Adell

For as different as the 2020 fantasy season has been, one thing hasn't changed: fantasy owners love top prospects. Nate Pearson generated significant intrigue when Toronto (Buffalo?) summoned him to the MLB club, especially with so many scrambling for pitching. Now, the Angels have summoned their top prospect and the sixth-ranked prospect in the entire […]