Champ or Chump - Sean Newcomb and Sean Manaea

Baseball games that count are once again upon us! Now that baseball is back and you're looking over your fantasy squads, you're probably a little light on pitching. If your format has an innings cap, it'll probably be harder to reach than you realize. If it doesn't, volume becomes the best way to accumulate more […]

Champ or Chump - Luis Castillo and Miguel Sano

Most fantasy owners have already drafted their squads by this point in March, but there are a handful of leagues that wait until after the season has started to populate their rosters. It seems bizarre, but we're not judging. This column will continue with its current format (citing ADP data) until a few weeks into […]

Champ or Chump - Trevor Story and Mookie Betts

"Sometimes, a little bit of knowledge is worse than having none at all." Most fantasy owners are now savvy enough to perform basic BABIP regressions, but blindly regressing everything to the league average or even a given player's career work is a great way to set yourself up for disappointment. For example, Trevor Story is […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 15 - Minor League 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 available for MLB players. For example, advanced plate discipline stats, […]

Champ or Chump - Manny Margot and Justin Verlander

A player's ADP often has little to do with how good he is and everything to do with how good other people think he is. In an age when young studs are favored over more established veterans, Manny Margot has still escaped notice by playing his home games in San Diego. Likewise, the narrative that […]

Rick Lucks's 10 Bold Predictions for 2018

Several of my colleagues have already announced their Bold Predictions for the 2018 fantasy baseball season, and now it's my turn. This is my third year participating in this exercise. The first one was great, as I correctly predicted Steven Wright would matter in 2016 fantasy leagues. The second one wasn't, as I had a […]

Champ or Chump - Eugenio Suarez and Carlos Correa

This may shock you, but fantasy baseball writers are not infallible. Sometimes we're incredibly wrong on a guy, and there's a written record to prove it. We also make the same mistakes everyone else makes. For example, I recently had to fill a Util-slot at the end of a draft. I needed power, so I […]

Champ or Chump - Domingo Santana and Byron Buxton

You can't win your league during the draft, but you can lose it. Therefore, your primary goal should be to walk out of the draft with a realistic shot to win the league. You'll need a few unexpected things to go right for you, but the late rounds and waiver wire are the places to […]

Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball Part 14 - Statcast For Pitchers

Previously, we looked at Barrels, a stat combining exit velocity and launch angle to measure how often a batter makes quality hard contact. As much as batters want to hit a Barrel every time, pitchers want to avoid them at all costs. Yet there is some evidence that pitchers do not have the same influence […]

Champ or Chump - Brett Gardner and Whit Merrifield

Many fantasy owners avoid players such as Billy Hamilton because his lopsided production puts you at a disadvantage in four out of five categories. The obvious solution is to roster balanced players who contribute in all of the categories, but players who can realistically do that are often expensive. Heck, Alex Bregman is commanding a […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 13 - 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. Unfortunately, the baseball world has done a lousy job conveying what spin rate really means. The result has been a ton of owners who know that spin rate exists, but […]

Champ or Chump - Robbie Ray and Rhys Hoskins

This column usually places a strong emphasis on regression, or why you shouldn't expect last year's production from a given player. Sometimes a player breaks out in a sustainable manner, however, making them a good investment even if you need to pay a premium based on the previous year's performance. Robbie Ray provides an excellent […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 12 - 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 numerous ways to analyze player performance. Pitch Info is a publicly available pitch tracking system that provides a lot of different data […]

Champ or Chump - J.T. Realmuto and Andrew Benintendi

Some fantasy owners prioritize upside over everything else in their draft. Upside wins leagues! Upside makes your team more exciting to follow! Upside encourages you to draft Byron Buxton and hold onto him until his lack of production has doomed you to the second division of your league! Upside doesn't win leagues, profit potential does. […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 11 - Batted Ball Distribution For Pitchers

The league average batted ball distribution in 2017 was 20.3% liners, 44.2% grounders and 35.5% flies. We have previously seen how pitchers may specialize in either grounders or fly balls. Fly ball pitchers have a BABIP advantage over their ground ball-inducing counterparts, since fly balls (.130 BABIP in 2017) consistently have lower BABIPs than worm […]

Champ or Chump - Garrett Richards and Xander Bogaerts

Sometimes, you look at fantasy baseball ADP data and ask yourself, "why?" A deeper dive might reveal that your opinion on a given player has become outdated, or maybe you can see an argument that fails to convince you but might move the needle for somebody else. In either case, the price is justifiable. However, […]

Champ or Chump - Kevin Kiermaier and Alex Bregman

Our friends at FantasyPros have added ESPN and CBS to their composite ADP rankings, drawing from a total of six sources (those two plus Yahoo!, Fantrax, NFBC, and RT Sports). The vast majority of you probably use at least one of those services, making the compiled ADP data a fairly reliable predictor of what might […]

Champ or Chump - C.J. Cron and Carlos Gomez

As promised, it's time to take a closer look at the players Tampa Bay brought in to replace those that the team shipped out of town. C.J. Cron has been buried behind uninspiring fantasy options such as Albert Pujols in recent years, but his underlying power metrics suggest a 30-HR campaign if given regular PAs. […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 10 - 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. […]

Champ or Chump - Corey Dickerson and Steven Souza Jr.

Traditionally, the Tampa Bay Rays operate in relative obscurity. That has changed this offseason, as trading away Evan Longoria, Jake Odorizzi, Corey Dickerson, and Steven Souza Jr. has led to allegations of "tanking" comparable to the Miami Marlins. The news that Brent Honeywell may require Tommy John surgery certainly doesn't help either. Despite appearances, the […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 9 - BABIP For Pitchers

While FIP is a useful tool to predict a pitcher's future ERA performance, fantasy owners 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 […]

Champ or Chump - Jarrod Dyson and J.D. Martinez

Major League GMs are making up for lost time, as the moves have been fast and furious over the past few days. The Arizona Diamondbacks completely remodeled their outfield by signing free agent Jarrod Dyson and trading for Steven Souza Jr. Dyson is discussed below, and Souza's fantasy prospects will be considered in a future […]

Champ or Chump - Jake Odorizzi and Eric Hosmer

It took the better part of four months, but baseball's offseason is finally starting! Eric Hosmer signed a massive contract to vacation play baseball in San Diego, while Jake Odorizzi was traded to the Minnesota Twins for a ham sandwich and a few extra baseballs. One of these players is capable of turning a substantial […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 8 - FIP and 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 that the metric is based upon, pitchers control only Ks, BBs (and HBP) and home […]

Champ or Chump - Adrian Beltre and Yu Darvish

One great way to identify sleepers and busts is to take advantage of any biases that may impact the community's perception of a player. For example, older players are frequently bargains on draft day because owners assume that they're going to collapse. Adrian Beltre of the Texas Rangers seems to fit into this category so […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 7 - Lineup Slot

To this point, this series has focused exclusively on trying to predict and validate home runs and batting average. There is a reason for this--modern sabermetrics tend to 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 […]

Champ or Chump - Ian Desmond and Jonathan Villar

Early draft data from RTSports drafts has been added to FantasyPros, making the latter's composite ADP data a little more reliable. Your host site's ADP data is worth looking into, especially if any absentee owners are auto-selecting based on the site's default rankings. However, FantasyPros' composite ADP is the best way to feel an unbiased […]

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 6 - Pull%

Earlier in this series, we saw that fantasy owners generally prefer batters to hit the ball into the air in order 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. Today we'll […]

Champ or Chump - Willie Calhoun and Ronald Acuna

Our friends at FantasyPros have started offering composite Average Draft Position (ADP) data from the earliest 2018 drafts. Currently, data is only available from FanTrax and NFBC, but other popular platforms such as Yahoo!, RTSports, and CBS will be added as it becomes available. ADP is influenced by the host site's default rankings, so composite […]

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 Adam Dunn and Chris Davis are potential drains on a fantasy team's batting average. Furthermore, players that whiff a lot […]