RADIO
2021 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers - Leody Taveras
Harold Ramirez (OF, CLE) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
The Cleveland Indians finished the shortened 2020 season 10 games above .500 and earned a Wild Card spot out of the A.L. Central. They had this success despite having one of the worst-performing outfields in all of baseball. In 2021, they should be much better in the outfield with a hopeful rebound from Oscar Mercado... 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
Outfielder Busts Due to Bounce Back in 2021
MLB's 60-game regular season in 2020 was weird for a lot of reasons, but at the core of it, we experienced a baseball season that was more of a sprint than a marathon. Throw in the uncertainty of COVID-19 potentially wreaking havoc on the schedule at any moment in time, and making any kind of... Read More
Willi Castro (SS, DET) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
The Detroit Tigers currently have five players ranked amongst the top-25 of MLB.com’s prospect rankings. No other team has more than two. However, the most intriguing fantasy sleeper for 2021 amidst Detroit’s roster might be someone who wasn’t included on that list, 23-year-old Willi Castro. He’s no longer prospect-eligible with 229 MLB at-bats under his... Read More
2021 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers - Tyler Mahle
Eric Samulski of RotoBaller analyzes Tyler Mahle as a 2021 fantasy baseball sleeper and undervalued draft pick. He breaks down Mahle's pitches, improvements from 2020, and other factors that could make him a sneaky mid-round starting pitcher breakout candidate. Fantasy players should consider drafting Mahle for their drafts this MLB Season. Be sure to also tune... Read More
Emmanuel Clase (RP, CLE) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
The Cleveland Indians finished the shortened 2020 season 10 games above .500 and earned a Wild Card spot out of the A.L. Central. They had this success despite key players like Francisco Lindor and Oscar Mercado not performing up to expectations. They also had success despite losing one of their key bullpen arms in Emmanuel... Read More
2021 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers - Chris Martin
Eric Samulski of RotoBaller analyzes Chris Martin as a 2021 fantasy baseball sleeper and undervalued draft pick. He breaks Martin's pitches, improvements from 2020, and other factors that could make him a sneaky late-round relief pitcher breakout candidate. Fantasy players should consider drafting Martin for their drafts this MLB Season. Be sure to also tune... 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
Prospects to Know in 2021 - AL Central
The Super Bowl is over and we are officially on to baseball season! So what better way to celebrate the new baseball year than by talking about prospects? Last week, I took a look at the prospects to know in the NL Central. This week we're switching leagues and taking a look at five prospects... Read More
Exploiting Early Strength of Schedule for Starting Pitchers
It's important to have a strong starting rotation for your fantasy teams. If you rely on too many high-upside arms with wide ranges of outcomes, you could be struggling to keep up in pitching categories the rest of the season, especially ERA and WHIP. High-volume pitchers with elite strikeout rates are hard to find in the... Read More
Sneaky Starters - Deceptive Pitchers Who Could Be Draft Steals
Earlier this week, I was reading Michael Ajeto's article on PitcherList about Brady Singer. In the article, Michael touted Singer's deception and mentioned a sign of that being Singer's Zone Swing Rate (Z-Swing%) minus his Chase Rate (O-Swing%). The premise of the concept was simple but one that stood out to me immediately. Z-Swing% measures... Read More
Deeper League Sleepers at Third Base
Fantasy managers are always on the lookout for the sleeper that can turn into a breakout performer. I've already reviewed the best deep sleepers at second base, so now let's turn to third base. When defining a breakout, I look at it as a player that can take a step forward to a level they... 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
Drew Smyly (SP, ATL) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
Finding strong starting pitching that does not have a hefty price tag can be really tough. A lot of leagues are won by the team that had the most success with their later-round starting pitcher selections. Blake Snell, Shane Bieber, and Dinelson Lamet are three names of the last handful of years that went in... Read More
Adbert Alzolay (SP, CHC) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
The Chicago Cubs suddenly have some openings in their rotation after jettisoning Yu Darvish in the offseason to, uh, not save money at all because that's totally not why they did it. Although we can agree that the additions of Zach Davies and Trevor Williams alongside Kyle Hendricks and Alec Mills make this staff a... Read More
Zach Eflin (SP, PHI) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
Welcome back to RotoBaller's 2021 draft sleepers series. Here we'll take a look at one of my favorite breakout picks, Phillies starter Zach Eflin. Eflin elevated his game to new heights last year. The right-hander had his best season in the majors posting a 3.97 ERA, 3.50 SIERA, 1.27 WHIP, and a 10.2 SwStr% in... Read More
Kolten Wong to Milwaukee - Fantasy Impact
Many baseball fans were surprised in late October when the St. Louis Cardinals declined the $12.5 million club option for Kolten Wong. Wong is one of the best defensive second basemen in baseball, has shown very nice on-base skills, and has been a threat on the basepaths. After a few months of waiting around, Wong... Read More
Edwin Rios (1B/3B, LAD) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
If there is one thing the league does not want to see, it's the Dodgers develop another breakout power hitter, but it sure is looking like that's a very real possibility with Edwin Rios. He did more than enough in his 83 plate appearances last year to draw our attention, so let's take a deep... Read More
Bobby Dalbec (1B, BOS) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
It is safe to say Bobby Dalbec surprised us all as he came up and smacked eight home runs in just 23 games. A prospect known for his power, the production isn't as much as a surprise as how quickly it clicked for him. But be mindful, this came with a 42.4% strikeout rate and... Read More
Four Post-Hype Hitters Ready to Break Out
Any high-ranking prospect is saddled with an astronomical amount of hype, both throughout their minor league career and up to the moment they finally reach the Bigs. If the player fails to reach the expectations laid before him, we as fantasy players are quick to cast him aside and move to the next big thing.... Read More
Prospects to Know in 2021 - NL Central
There are many factors and ideas that go into conducting a draft strategy. Are you going to draft pitching early? Are you going to punt steals and focus on home runs and RBI? Which players are you going to reach on and which will you let fall and hope to catch in later rounds? The... Read More
Josh Naylor (OF, CLE) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
People often forget that Josh Naylor was a first-round pick. He hasn't even been bad in the minors. His plate discipline has been a strength all throughout. He only struck out over 16.8% once as a minor leaguer and that was in his first run at Double-A. He posted a 20.6% strikeout rate that season.... Read More
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... Read More
Hitters Who Changed Scenes - Fantasy Impacts
Well, the 2021 off-season has finally come to life! Over the course of January, we have seen some big splashes, both in terms of pitchers and hitters on the move to new teams. There are still plenty of unsigned big-name free agents, but we have some juicy free agent hitter signings and trades to take... Read More
Austin Hays (OF, BAL) - 2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleepers
Austin Hays continues to bait me in as he shows flashes of upside. The appeal for Hays is the power potential, mixed with a little bit of speed. He had stolen 11 bases as recently as 2019 when combining his three stops. In 2020, he was in the 76th percentile for sprint speed and had... Read More
Starting Pitcher Breakouts Who Will Keep Improving
Playing only 60 games in 2020 was sure to result in some wacky outcomes. The league leaders in innings were barely cracking 80 innings, less than a third of the usual. This resulted in some final pitching lines that certainly would not have remained the same had there been 100 more innings added to the... Read More
Outfielders Ready to Break Out Late
Finding value is crucial on draft day and finding just one or two players in the mid to late rounds in drafts that provide better numbers than projected can give you a significant edge on the competition as you bid for fantasy glory. All too often, we look for the new shiny object in drafts... Read More
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... Read More
