Leody Taveras: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

With the All-Star Break upon us, now is a great time to look at your league's standings page and formulate a plan of attack for the rest of the season. If you're in first, try to proactively identify and address any weaknesses that could be exploited by your rivals. If you're in contention, identify where […]

Ramon Laureano: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

Fantasy managers knew that Ramon Laureano would miss the first 27 games of the 2022 season due to his 2021 PED suspension, but he was still seen as a solid late-round pick for the category juice he provides. In 2019, he slashed .288/.340/.521 with 24 homers and 13 steals over just 481 PAs. That regressed […]

Jonathan Villar: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

Every fantasy manager has a weakness for a particular player or even player type. Perhaps you've rostered Nomar Mazara for the last five years because you just know that breakout is coming. Maybe you always spend a draft pick on Eduardo Rodriguez because this is the year he finally pitches up to his peripherals. You […]

Jeremy Pena: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

Jeremy Pena was one of the biggest stories of the offseason. The contending Astros expressed minimal interest in retaining the services of star shortstop Carlos Correa and even less in the countless other names available at the position, instead anointing the 24-year-old Pena as their shortstop of the present and future. Pena's role in a […]

Riley Greene: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

The big-time prospects keep coming up from the minor leagues with 21-year-old Riley Greene surfacing for the Detroit Tigers. Greene was originally slated to break camp with the club but a broken right foot in Spring Training delayed his debut. Still, he singled in his first PA and currently has a BB% above 40 at […]

Gabriel Moreno: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

When a consensus top-10 prospect is summoned to the major league level, the fantasy community always takes notice. As such, many were scrambling to the waiver wire once the Toronto Blue Jays announced that Gabriel Moreno was being called up to replace the injured Danny Jansen on their roster. To say that Moreno is a […]

Christopher Morel: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

There's always a flavor of the week in fantasy baseball, some of whom have staying power while others are banished to the waiver wire never to be heard from again. If you play in a keeper league or a shallow format, the trick is identifying which camp a particular player belongs to so you know […]

Anthony Santander: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

The fantasy baseball community has a nasty habit of ignoring players who don't play for the best teams, especially if they lose whatever might have made them appealing. For example, the Baltimore Orioles have been terrible for a while now and their hitters were rostered only because Camden Yards was a good ballpark for power. […]

Roansy Contreras: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball

The next big prospect in fantasy land comes by way of Pittsburgh, as the Pirates are summoning 22-year-old Roansy Contreras to join their rotation. He has already logged MLB time this season with a 3.52 ERA and 10 punchouts over 7 2/3 IP of relief work, but the role wasn't conducive to fantasy value. He […]

Gleyber Torres: Fantasy Baseball Champ or Chump?

Isn't it amazing how one strong fantasy season can keep a player on our radars for years? Gleyber Torres was fantastic in 2019, slashing .278/.337/.535 with 38 long balls. He was widely cited as a potential bust the next year given middling Statcast metrics and the fact that half of his production came against the […]

Alek Thomas Outlook: Fantasy Baseball Champ or Chump?

Two well-regarded prospects were called up over the weekend, but the response to their arrival couldn't be more different. George Kirby put in a scintillating effort in his big league debut for the Mariners, inspiring multiple fantasy-focused articles. Alek Thomas hit a double in his MLB debut for the Diamondbacks, but he hasn't seen as […]

Kyle Wright: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

Starting pitching has been surprisingly deep so far this season, with multiple arms posting stellar numbers. Kyle Wright might be the most surprising for fantasy purposes. The 26-year-old pitched well in the 2021 World Series for the Atlanta Braves, but he wasn't even on the roster for the other postseason rounds and never did anything […]

Julio Rodriguez: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

When fantasy managers selected top prospect Julio Rodriguez at an ADP around 200 this year, they thought they were taking on a very particular type of risk. The 21-year-old was the second-ranked prospect in the game according to MLB.com and his game would translate well to fantasy with 60-grade speed and raw power. The only […]

Steven Kwan: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

Steven Kwan was one of the biggest stories to come out of MLB's Opening Week, setting numerous records for most times on base over a player's first X games. Unsurprisingly, the 24-year-old has endured a couple of hitless games and likely won't hit .400. Now that the initial performance is in the rear-view mirror, it's […]

Carson Kelly: Champ or Chump for Fantasy Baseball?

Welcome to Champ or Chump! We take an extremely detailed look at a single player per piece, incorporating information from everywhere we can think of to determine whether the featured player is a champ or a chump in fantasy baseball. The biggest sources are Baseball Savant and FanGraphs, but we also look at ADP data […]

Statcast Pitch Tracking: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

When you're evaluating a pitcher by Pitch Info on FanGraphs, sometimes you see pitches that don't seem to accomplish anything. If Pitch X is seldom a strike, rarely chased outside of the zone, and not generating whiffs or a favorable batted line against, why doesn't the pitcher scrap it entirely? Some pitchers could improve by […]

Pitcher Statcast: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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 […]

Statcast xStats: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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 […]

Barrels and Brls/BBE: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

We've previously looked at how exit velocity 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. LA is basically a fancy way of saying things that the fantasy community has used for years. Am […]

Spin Rate: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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 […]

MiLB Stats: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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, […]

Statcast Exit Velocity: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

If you've watched a baseball broadcast in the 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. There […]

Ballpark Factors: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

If you have ever selected a streamable pitcher based on a 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. […]

Pitch Info: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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 […]

Batting Order: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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 […]

Pull%: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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 […]

HR/FB: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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. Most fantasy managers find the long ball sexier. Every HR comes with a guaranteed run scored and at least one RBI. Many […]

FIP/xFIP: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

While we've only examined how to evaluate hitters using advanced stats thus far, sabermetrics are at least as useful for pitchers. 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 […]

Pitcher BABIP: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

While FIP is a useful tool to predict a pitcher's future ERA performance, fantasy managers should remember that ERA, not FIP, is what 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 of […]

Plate Discipline: Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball

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 Mike Zunino are potential drains on a fantasy team's batting average. Furthermore, players that whiff a lot tend to continue […]