Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 5 - 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 owners 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... Read More
Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 4 - Batted Ball Distribution (Hitters)
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 the case. Why would this be? The answer, of course, comes down to batted ball distribution and the manner in which batters make contact. In... Read More
Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 3 - Statcast for Hitters
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.... Read More
Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 2 - HR/FB for Hitters
Using BABIP to predict a player's batting average is great. Average is a category in many league formats, and every hit is an opportunity to steal a base or score a run. But most owners find the long ball sexier. Every HR comes with a guaranteed run scored and at least one RBI. Many owners... Read More
2018 Pitching Leaders: Hard Hit Rate
What's up all you fellow sad Fantasy Baseball fans? Now that the 2018 MLB season is behind us, and we were blessed to witness the greatest baseball team to ever play on a diamond (yes I am a Sox, fight me), we are left to reflect on an incredible season with some incredible players. For... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Early 2019 Sleepers and Fades (Week 26)
Welcome back to Rotoballer’s series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series utilizes the myriad tools and information provided by Statcast to pinpoint encouraging and worrying trends underneath the hood of headline numbers. Well, we’ve reached the endgame. Week 26 marks the last of the... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Early-Inning Pitch Count (Week 25)
Welcome back to Rotoballer’s series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. We’re closing in on two weeks left of regular season baseball and fantasy managers... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - xwOBA Trends (Week 24)
Welcome back to Rotoballer’s series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. Here at RotoBaller’s analytics division, we’ve experienced reasonable success discussing xwOBA and its relation... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Strike% (Week 23)
Welcome back to Rotoballer’s series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. After a month-long personal hiatus by yours truly, our column is back in action... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Post-Break Contact Quality (Week 19)
Welcome back to Rotoballer’s series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. It’s August and we’re firmly in the dog days of baseball season. After a... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Middle-Inning xBA (Week 18)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. Throughout the season, a common theme in our discussions has been pitcher efficiency. Whether... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - RP Trade Candidates (Week 17)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. We've rolled over the All-Star break and the trade deadline is fast approaching. With... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Statcast Scoreboard (Week 16)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. It's All-Star Week so rather than approaching the column in typical fashion, we'll use... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - wOBA - xwOBA Splits (Week 15)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. We're rolling over another month of baseball which means it's time for split talk... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Pitching Under Pressure (Week 14)
Welcome back to RotoBaller's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. As a prerequisite before we start, follow this link and rock out as we... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - June FB/LD Exit Velocity (Week 13)
Welcome back to RotoBaller's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. We touched on the topic of Exit Velocity (EV) earlier this season, using the... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Fastball Quality (Week 12)
Welcome back to RotoBaller's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. Chicks dig the fastball. At least that's how this pitching-friendly column remembers the classic... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Full Count Inefficiency (Week 11)
Welcome back to RotoBaller's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. As a pro-pitcher fantasy enthusiast and dedicated streamer, I regularly tune into starts hoping... Read More
Statcast Hitter Risers/Fallers - Barrels
It's time to revisit the most telling of Statcast numbers - Barrels. You may recall that last time we identified Evan Gattis and Andrew Benintendi as potential buy-low candidates because their power was due to arrive while warning you away from short-term power surgers like Pedro Alvarez and Daniel Palka. Let's see how things have... Read More
Statcast Hitter Risers/Fallers - Launch Angle (Week 10)
Besides being a fancy analytics term that baseball broadcasters can spit out on a Sunday afternoon, launch angle plays a big part in determining how other advanced metrics play out, such as HR/FB, FB/LD, and Hard%. Launch angle doesn't dictate how good a player is hitting, but is meant to be more descriptive of the... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Monthly xwOBA Splits (Week 10)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. All savvy fantasy players know that when we scour the trade block or waiver... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - O-Swings-and-Misses (Week 9)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. For the first two months of the season, the baseball community has fixated on... Read More
Statcast Hitter Risers/Fallers - Hard Hit Rate
Those of you familiar with Fangraphs and their plethora of advanced stats have probably seen and evaluated Hard Hit rate before. Statcast keeps its own set of data based on exit velocity and even measures the number of balls leaving the bat over 95 mph. It's not surprising that the leaderboard is littered with superstars... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Poor-Contact ISO (Week 8)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. We've surpassed the quarter mark of the 2018 baseball season and with each additional... Read More
Statcast Hitter Risers/Fallers - Average Home Run Distance
Home run distance is often bandied about as a stat meant inspire awe for today's most prolific sluggers. Upper deck moonshots and splashes in McCovey's Cove are quite possibly the most entertaining moments to watch for casual fans, but fantasy baseball owners reap no benefit for additional distance reached. Simply put, a homer is a... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Early-Inning SLG (Week 7)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and enlighten ourselves on the information and tools at our disposal. One of fantasy baseball's most gut-wrenching feelings is tuning into your pitcher starts only... Read More
Statcast Hitter Risers/Fallers - Barrels and Exit Velocity
As we enter the seventh week of the baseball season, there is a large enough sample size to rightfully pass judgment on a player's performance without expecting a sudden or dramatic change. While it's easy to glance at the HR leaderboard and determine that these players are tearing the cover off the ball, there are... Read More
Chasing Barrels: Hard-Hitting Early Statcast Leaders
When looking to confirm or refute fast starts, we can quickly turn to Statcast Leaderboards for information. While we could fill out a full search, the leaderboards are a quick way to see which hitters are barreling up balls in 2018. While sabermetrics don't always translate to fantasy leaders, they are often a great indicator of... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Two-Strike xBA (Week 6)
Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and I enlighten myself on the information and tools at my disposal. For Week 6, we'll continue our theme from last week arguing that by... Read More
Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - wOBA - xwOBA (Week 5)
We continue our RotoBaller series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and I enlighten myself on the information and tools at my disposal. With a month of baseball in the books, most starting pitchers have logged... Read More