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Hitter Advanced Metrics Leaders - Sweet Spot% for Week 12
1B/3B Waiver Wire Pickups for Fantasy Baseball - Week 12
Welcome back RotoBallers to Week 12! We're inching closer and closer to the trading deadline. It’s almost time to make some big decisions about your fantasy teams. If you’re struggling, hopefully some of these additions can help turn your season around. Today, we're back with another edition of our first base and third base fantasy... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 12
Right now, the quality of baseball appears to be at an all-time high. Playoff races are heating up, and this week especially, that's leading to highly-contested matchups between premier teams. More of this to come, please! Fantasy baseball teams are built through the draft, but an argument can be made that leagues are won through... Read More
Hitter Advanced Metrics Risers and Fallers - Sprint Speed for Week 11
Enough with the hitting stats, let's turn to something a little different this week and measure running. Steals are still an integral part of the fantasy baseball universe but it can be hard to determine who is capable of helping out in that category on a regular basis. That said, I'll provide some analysis on... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 11
Don't look now, but the offense is starting to pick back up! After a barren start to the year in terms of run scorings, hitters over the past 14 days have been hitting 6% better than they had been over the rest of the year, with power production specifically being on the upswing. Hopefully, this... Read More
Hitter Advanced Metrics Risers and Fallers - Barrel Rate for Week 10
It's finally time to roll out the barrels and there will be Brewers involved! Now that qualified hitters have well over 200 plate appearances under their belts, we can dive into the Statcast numbers to see who is making the biggest splash over the wall. It goes without saying (but here goes anyway) that you... Read More
1B/3B Waiver Wire Pickups for Fantasy Baseball - Week 10
Welcome back RotoBallers to Week 10! It’s June already. It’s almost time to make some big decisions about your fantasy teams. If you’re struggling, hopefully some of these additions can help turn your season around. Today, we're back with another edition of our first base and third base fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups. For those... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 10
Now that we are two months into the season, we're starting to get a better idea of the MLB landscape. Not only are postseason races becoming more clear, but individual player struggles become more worrisome, while breakouts appear to be more legitimate. As the weather continues to warm up and the sun is shining, it... Read More
1B/3B Waiver Wire Pickups for Fantasy Baseball - Week 11
Welcome back RotoBallers to Week 11! It’s June already, we're inching closer and closer to the trading deadline. It’s almost time to make some big decisions about your fantasy teams. If you’re struggling, hopefully some of these additions can help turn your season around. Today, we're back with another edition of our first base and... Read More
Nick Mariano's Updated Fantasy Baseball Rankings for 5x5 Roto Leagues - Joey Votto, Tyler O'Neill, Jacob deGrom, Marcus Semien
Howdy RotoBallers, we are now a solid two months into the fantasy baseball season so it's time for another rankings check-in. Below in this article you will find Nick Mariano's updated 2022 fantasy baseball rankings and tiers for 5x5 mixed roto leagues. These rankings are being released in early June, and are looking at rest-of-season... Read More
Hitter Advanced Metrics Risers and Fallers - xSLG for Week 9
Rolling windows are one of the most effective ways to discern who the biggest risers and fallers are in a given area. Since power is at a premium this year, it seems only natural to examine expected slugging. For reference, here's the official definition according to MLB.com: "Expected Slugging Percentage (xSLG) is formulated using exit... Read More
1B/3B Waiver Wire Pickups for Fantasy Baseball - Week 9
Welcome back RotoBallers to our Week 9! It’s June already. It’s almost time to make some big decisions about your fantasy teams. If you’re struggling, hopefully some of these additions can help turn your season around. Today, we're back with another edition of our first base and third base fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups. For... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 9
It is hard to believe that June is already here! We are approaching the part of the season where the weather will warm up, and hopefully, more offense will come. Meanwhile, team's playoff hopes are becoming more clear, while we are starting to get a better idea of what to expect from specific players for... Read More
Hitter Advanced Metrics Risers and Fallers - FB/LD Exit Velocity for Week 8
In order to get to stats like barrels and hard-hit rate, you have to start with exit velocity. Exit velocity begins to stabilize after 45 batted-ball events. We're going to get more specific in this edition by focusing on exit velocity for fly balls and line drives because that's where power is found. You could... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 8
I don't know about you, but I'm in awe of some of the games that have taken place this week. With a weekend full of tight matchups (I'm looking at you, Yankees and Rays), as well as a full slate of action on Memorial Day, more exciting times are ahead for the game of baseball!... Read More
Hitter Advanced Metrics Risers and Fallers - xBA for Week 7
Last week, we dove into xwOBA (expected weighted on-base average) to see who is really maximizing their time at the plate. It's time we look at xBA (expected batting average) but with a twist. Some players are experiencing better batted-ball fortunes than others and it's bound to turn around at some point. Rather than examining... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 7
Major League Baseball has to be the only sport where the ball not only gets altered constantly, but also with zero transparency. We saw offense start to pick up last week, but, then again, that also coincided with a run of not as great pitching talent, so it is hard to say with conviction that... Read More
Preseason Hitter Sleepers Who Haven't Woken Up for Fantasy Baseball
The highs of sleeper hunting during draft season can quickly be brought low when our favorite later picks fizzle and sputter out of the gate instead of blowing the roof off from the word go. But should we be patient, grasshoppers? Or is it time to be proactive, revoking their sleeper status and confiscating official... Read More
Early Plate Discipline Standouts for 2022
In 2019, I introduced a new (yet simple) index statistic for pitchers – mPDI, which was inspired by a famous quote by Hall of Fame pitcher, Greg Maddux: “The key to pitching is to have the ability to throw a strike when they’re taking and throw a ball when the hitter is swinging.” Maddux’s simplistic... Read More
Dead Ball Victims - Power Hitter and Home Run Decliners for Fantasy Baseball
Things are different this season. The offense is down across the board and we are seeing hitters have a lot of trouble hitting for power. These aren't unprecedented times, but we got so used to the juiced-ball homer-happy era that it feels very strange to be back to the days of the early 2010s. Some... Read More
Hitter Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - xwOBA Leaders for Week 6
We're far enough into the season that we can dive into expected stats with some sense of reliability. Let's begin with everyone's favorite - xwOBA! Its given name is expected weighted on-base average and what it represents is the quality of each at-bat by a hitter. Statcast uses a combination of exit velocity, launch angle,... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 6
We are now a month in the baseball season, yet it still feels like we have many more questions than answers. Will teams like the Red Sox, White Sox, Braves, and Phillies start performing up to par? When will struggling stars get back on a groove? What is the baseball going to look like in... Read More
Nick Mariano's Updated Fantasy Baseball Rankings for 5x5 Roto Leagues - Trevor Story, Whit Merrifield, Julio Rodriguez, Joey Votto
Fellow RotoBallers, we a little more than a month into the fantasy baseball season so it's time for a rankings check-in. Below you will find Nick Mariano's updated 2022 fantasy baseball rankings and tiers for 5x5 mixed roto leagues. These rankings are being released in early May, and are looking at rest-of-season fantasy baseball rankings... Read More
Hitter Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - Swing & Take Leaders for Week 5
Admittedly, it's as exciting to measure 'swing and take' metrics as it would be to look at something like Barrels. One of them often results in a long fly ball that leaves the ballpark and puts runs on the scoreboard. The other can be a player staring at the umpire after watching a pitch hit... Read More
Baseball's Oldest Batters - Busts or Buy Low Candidates? Joey Votto, Nelson Cruz, Justin Turner, Yuli Gurriel
The first month-plus of the season has not been particularly kind to a few of baseball’s oldest hitters. That includes players who put together monster years in 2021 despite their already-advanced age. This article takes a look at a group of four old bats, to recalibrate expectations on their rest-of-season output. When evaluating the biggest... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 5
As I sit down to write this article, only one thought comes to mind: Shohei Ohtani remains an absolute marvel. Not only did he pitch seven scoreless innings with no walks, 11strikeouts, and 29 whiffs, but he also led off for a team that scored eight runs, having the highest exit velocity for the game... Read More
Changes to the Baseball in 2022 (And What To Do About It In Fantasy)
Offensive production has been down quite a bit early on in the season, and there has been plenty of grumbling about the state of the baseball, including from some Major League players. At the time of this writing, the league triple-slash line (AVG/OBP/SLG) sits at .232/.306/.370 and we have seen a significant reduction in homers... Read More
Finding Breakout Hitters for Fantasy Baseball: Chase Rate Early-Season Metrics
In an earlier article on Blast Rate, I mentioned that this was the time of year that some hitting metrics start to stabilize. While many of us want to focus on exit velocity and hard-hit rate because they lead to more exciting outcomes, I think focusing on plate discipline metrics can be just as important.... Read More
Hitter Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - Average Exit Velocity for Week 4
We can finally start extrapolating something from one of the easiest Statcast metrics to decipher - exit velocity. This stat stabilizes after approximately 70 plate appearances or 45 batted-ball events. Last week, we looked at early leaders in maximum exit velocity because it doesn't take long to take something away from that metric. Keep in... Read More
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 4
When will the offense pick back up? At the moment, the league-wide OPS is just .675. Meanwhile, home runs have become much more scarce this season, leading to a lot of lower-scoring affairs. Whether it's the baseball, the effect of humidors being in every stadium, or hitters needing to get back up to speed, runs... Read More
