The Cut List (Week 10) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome back to the Cut List, already perhaps the final one of the year with the season ending on September 27. Either way, it's crunch time. In recent weeks we switched up the format of this article a bit, to cover a larger pool of players and to discuss trends being seen by fantasy baseball […]

The Cut List (Week 9) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome back to the Cut List. In recent weeks we switched up the format of this article a bit, to cover a larger pool of players and to discuss trends being seen by fantasy baseball managers across a large number of leagues, based on ESPN's 25 most dropped players in the past week. Injuries have always […]

The Cut List (Week 8) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome back to the Cut List. In recent weeks we switched up the format of this article a bit, to cover a larger pool of players and to discuss trends being seen by fantasy baseball managers across a large number of leagues. This article, for three weeks now, reviews several of ESPN's 25 most dropped […]

The Cut List (Week 7) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome back to the Cut List. This article, for three weeks now, reviews several of ESPN's 25 most dropped players in the past week and, in order from most dropped to least (except most injured players), determines how reasonable that course of action has been. (Some players near the bottom of the ESPN and Cut […]

The Cut List (Week 6) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome back to the Cut List. In case you missed last week, this article now reviews several of ESPN's 25 most dropped players in the past week and, in order from most dropped to least (except most injured players), determines how reasonable that course of action has been. (Some players near the bottom of the […]

The Cut List (Week 5) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome back to the Cut List, where we're about to call an audible--or, for a more baseball-appropriate term, throw a changeup. This article now reviews several of ESPN's 25 most dropped players in the past week and, in order from most dropped to least (with some exclusions for injuries or opt-outs), determines how reasonable that […]

The Cut List (Week 4) - Time to Let Go?

The season is about one-quarter over for the luckiest teams, who have played up to 14 games out of 60. Meanwhile, the Cardinals have played all of five. If only you could have known beforehand which teams would be asymmetrically affected by the current health situation. But while we're dealing with small samples, they represent […]

The Cut List (Week 3) - Time to Let Go?

You already didn't have very many Marlins on your fantasy roster, right? It's still early enough that most of your cuts are going to be clearly marginal players who will miss several days due to postponed games. But what about those tougher calls? There's a bit more information out there than there was last week. […]

The Early Cut List (Week 2) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome back to the Cut List. Writing this column at this exact moment is an interesting exercise because most cuts are either: really obvious, on account of a player opting out of the season or an injury that will cost several weeks; or the opposite of obvious, on account of no one has played more […]

Adam Eaton (OF, WAS) - Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleeper

BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~180s CURRENT ADP: ~204 overall ANALYSIS: In 2019, a healthy Adam Eaton hit .279/.365/.428 with 15 home runs, 15 steals, 103 runs scored and 49 driven in—nothing spectacular, but useful in four categories. He played in 151 games after combining for just 118 in his first two years in Washington. That […]

Batters on a Diet: Sweet-Spot% Fallers

Last week, we talked about players who increased their proclivity to hit the ball between eight and 32 degrees in a stat known as sweet spot percentage. This week, we focus on some players whose sweet spot percentage decreased. But not all decreases in a stat are made equal. The players below all saw their […]

Luke Voit (1B, NYY) - Fantasy Baseball Draft Sleeper

BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~170 CURRENT ADP: ~193 overall ANALYSIS: Voit was never going to sustain his .322/.398/.671 small-sample slash line from 2018, but he remained productive when healthy in 2019. Prior to suffering a sports hernia in late July, he hit 19 homers in 94 games with a .278/.392/.493 line. After returning, he hit […]

Kings of Candy: Sweet-Spot Risers

Sweet spot percentage (SwSp%) is not the best-known Statcast measurement. It doesn't care how hard you hit the ball, just at what trajectory. Well, it doesn't care about that either, it's just a statistic, it has no capacity to care about anything. But what it measures is the number of times a hitter's contact is between […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 26 - Buy or Sell?

With under a week to go, streaming is the name of the game if you need power. The more available a player has been, the more likely they are to be a riser in this edition, and fallers are more likely to be rostered since you have drops to go with your pickups. Additionally, the […]

The Cut List (Week 26) - Time to Let Go?

Here it is, the final week. With 96% of the season in the books, anyone can be considered droppable under the correct circumstances. Most obvious would be a situation where you have already hit a playing time cap and thus have no use for anyone who plays that position. Or if you are 15 home […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 25 - Buy or Sell?

Less than two weeks left, and if you still need an extra home run or two, time is running out to get it. Are September's risers the answer? Are the fallers going to continue to fall? Weekly reminders: EVAB (pronounced ee-vab or ev-ab) is simply exit velocity on "air balls" - meaning fly balls and […]

The Cut List (Week 25) - Time to Let Go?

Only two weeks to go! Not much time in roto, but enough if things are close, or if you're entering crunch time in a head-to-head playoff. If you're facing those circumstances, you know it's no time to get casual. The players themselves don't have much time to turn things around either. Players do go through […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 24 - Buy or Sell?

A lot of this week's risers aren't actually too surprising. (We were going to talk about Jurickson Profar but the May 19 game resumption appears to have irreparably damaged the reliability of his two-week splits, which show him hitting .262 in some places and .298 in others. In short, though, you can ride his streak, […]

The Cut List (Week 24) - Time to Let Go?

Time is running out to make a move in your league. You're still looking to hit on categories that are close while sacrificing those where you are fairly isolated in the standings with little to gain. Achievable gaps are only getting smaller, too. Harder to make up two or three home runs in three weeks […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 23 - Buy or Sell?

Crunch time it is as September has arrived. Once again, that means unpredictable playing time, and the need for quick roster turnover where required. Fortunately, one can use the standings and the degree to which a player is already a known quantity to try and predict the playing time. As for roster turnover, one thing […]

The Cut List (Week 23) - Time to Let Go?

September. That time of year where non-contending teams will end a player's season over a generally minor injury, or otherwise cut into the playing time of regulars with expanded rosters. While actionable consequences won't really show until next week, it's something to start considering. Fortunately, next season rosters will jump from 26 to 28 instead […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 22 - Buy or Sell?

Today's magic numbers: 5/14. Each riser has exactly five home runs in the past two weeks (August 13-26). The names are a little more interesting on the whole than the ones with six or seven (and have been less explored around here). As for falling power outputs, four of today's five have been risers in […]

The Cut List (Week 22) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome to the last Cut List of August. Wait, the last Cut List of August already? Yup, next Sunday is September 1. Most trade deadlines are past, so that option is out the window for big names. At this point, if you want to offload them, it's a cut. The 10-team list has three of […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 21 - Buy or Sell?

As with last week, the focus will be on the full season numbers. Not much else to say, so let's jump in. Weekly reminders: EVAB (pronounced ee-vab or ev-ab) is simply exit velocity on "air balls" - meaning fly balls and line drives, as shown on Statcast. Isolated power -- ISO -- is slugging percentage […]

The Cut List (Week 21) - Time to Let Go?

Thank you to Austyn Varney for filling in at the Cut List last week. Crunch time is approaching. If you're like me, you have multiple leads that are evaporating before your eyes, because fantasy baseball is never easy. Moments that require quick action can strike at any time. If your trade deadline has passed, the […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 20 - Buy or Sell?

Since the past few weeks, through players like Trey Mancini, have demonstrated that a player's track record is more important than their Statcast numbers during a hot or cold spell, it's time to reorient a little towards season numbers. Each player's entry starts with a line of their key numbers over the course of the […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 19 - Buy or Sell?

The last edition of Power Hitting Risers & Fallers came out on the trade deadline. News had broken about a big trade involving Cleveland. So far, in this very young post-deadline campaign, both sluggers Cleveland acquired have had a rough couple of weeks. Before we get there, there's the happier news of several risers to […]

The Cut List (Week 19) - Time to Let Go?

The trade deadline has come and gone. Arguably only one widely-rostered player, Luke Jackson, became unusable thanks to a trade at the deadline. So not much has changed around here. It's now really getting to that point in the fantasy season where cuts are going to be highly based on statistical needs, which are much […]

Power Hitting Risers & Fallers for Week 18 - Buy or Sell?

It's trade deadline day. Will any actual trades be made, and which hitters will change parks, and for better or for worse? Lots of unanswered questions. However, most of the players below are unlikely to move. Weekly reminders: EVAB (pronounced ee-vab or ev-ab) is simply exit velocity on "air balls" - meaning fly balls and […]

The Cut List (Week 18) - Time to Let Go?

Welcome to the last Cut List before the July 31 trade deadline. Emphasis on dead, because there has still been little action on the trade front. The next week should be pretty fun if things heat up. For now, however, players are on the team they're on, and judgments should be made accordingly. Stats are […]