Second Half Breakouts for Fantasy Baseball - Eric Samulski's "My Guys"

One of the more fun traditional pre-season fantasy baseball columns is the "my guys" article where analysts provide players that they have considerable shares of for the upcoming season. It's a good way to identify potential value based on a writer's analysis and also track the writer's process by seeing if the results pan out.... Read More

Fantasy Baseball Breakouts - Using Pull% to Predict Home Runs

On a recent episode of "Rates and Barrels," Eno Sarris and Derek Van Riper discussed the idea of a pull rate "goldilocks" range where fantasy baseball hitters are pulling enough to make meaningfully hard contact but also not pulling too much to hit fly outs and rollover ground balls. In the discussion, they suggested that... Read More

Potential Hitter Breakouts for Fantasy Baseball - Samulski Custom Leaderboard

When the summer months hit, it can sometimes be hard to think of where to look to find fantasy diamonds in the rough. Should we still be looking at year-to-year changes? Should we be using the last month's surface-level stats? Should we use Statcast x-stat leaderboards or the rolling windows? Instead of doing any of... Read More

Pitchers With New Pitches - Should We Care for Fantasy Baseball? (Part Six)

Welcome to the third season of the FSWA-award-winning series Pitchers with New Pitches (and Should We Care), where we take the simple premise that not every new pitch should be greeted with praise. A new pitch, like a shiny new toy, might be exciting on its own, but it also needs to be a complement... Read More

Hot MLB Prospect Hitters and Potential Call-Ups: Mining the Minors for Fantasy Baseball

Welcome to the second episode of this season of this series where I comb through the minor league leaderboards to see who is hot at the plate and then try to break down whether the performance is for real and if this player should be somebody that we should have on our radars in redraft... Read More

Minor League Hitter Stashes for Fantasy Baseball - Hard Hit Leaders

It seems like more and more of the impact prospects are impossible to land in fantasy baseball unless you are willing to spend massive amounts of money in waivers or can get ahead of stashing a player long before he makes his mark. This is where I think the value lies. Too often, we stash... Read More

Pitchers With New Pitches - Should We Care for Fantasy Baseball? (Part Five)

Welcome to the third season of the FSWA-award-winning series Pitchers with New Pitches (and Should We Care) where we take the simple premise that not every new pitch should be greeted with praise. A new pitch, like a shiny new toy, might be exciting on its own, but it also needs to be a complement... Read More

Potential Breakout Hitters for Fantasy Baseball - 2023 xwOBA Leaders

One of my favorite tools to look at is the Statcast rolling xwOBA leaderboard. It shows you the hitters who have improved their xwOBA the most over the last 50 plate appearances. Since wOBA (weighted on-base average) "is a version of on-base percentage that accounts for how a player reached base, instead of simply considering... Read More

Potential Buy-Low Trade Candidates for Fantasy Baseball - 2023 Exit Velocity Fallers

We're now a month into the MLB season, which means that some of these hot starts aren't just hot starts but legitimate gains and breakouts. As stats begin to stabilize, we can get a sense of which players have truly changed something about who they are as a hitter and separate them from the players... Read More

Potential Breakout Hitters for Fantasy Baseball - 2023 Exit Velocity Gainers

We're now a month into the season, which means that some of these hot starts aren't just hot starts but legitimate gains and breakouts. As stats begin to stabilize, we can get a sense of which players have truly changed something about who they are as a hitter and separate them from the players who... Read More

Hot MLB Prospect Hitters and Potential Call-Ups - Mining the Minors for Fantasy Baseball

Welcome to the second season of this series where I comb through the minor league leaderboards to see who is having a particularly impressive start to the season. I then try to break down whether the performance is for real and whether or not this player should be somebody that we should have on our... Read More

Pitchers With New Pitches - Should We Care for Fantasy Baseball? (Part Four)

Welcome to the third season of the FSWA-award-winning series Pitchers with New Pitches (and Should We Care) where we take the simple premise that not every new pitch should be greeted with praise. A new pitch, like a shiny new toy, might be exciting on its own, but it also needs to be a complement... Read More

Potential Breakout Hitters for Fantasy Baseball - Early Plate Discipline Improvers

Early in the fantasy baseball season, it's so easy to overreact to what we see on the field. We want every early home run barrage or max velocity to be a sign of a pending breakout, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of it is just noise less than 20 games... Read More

Pitchers With New Pitches - Should We Care for Fantasy Baseball? (Part Three)

Welcome to the third season of the FSWA-award-winning series Pitchers with New Pitches (and Should We Care) where we take the simple premise that not every new pitch should be greeted with praise. A new pitch, like a shiny new toy, might be exciting on its own, but it also needs to be a complement... Read More

Emerging Pitchers With New Pitches - Should We Care for Fantasy Baseball? (Part Two)

Welcome to the third season of the FSWA-award-winning series Pitchers with New Pitches (and Should We Care) where we take the simple premise that not every new pitch should be greeted with praise. A new pitch, like a shiny new toy, might be exciting on its own, but it also needs to be a complement... Read More

Pitchers With New Pitches - Should We Care for Fantasy Baseball? (Part One)

Welcome to a new season of the FSWA-award-winning series Pitchers with New Pitches (and Should We Care) where we take the simple premise that not every new pitch should be greeted with praise. A new pitch, like a shiny new toy, might be exciting on its own, but it also needs to be a complement... Read More

Greatest Fantasy Football QB Seasons of All-Time: Where Do Mahomes, Hurts, and Allen Rank?

As we near the 2023 NFL Draft, many wonder where the next crop of quarterbacks will land and how they will impact the fantasy landscape. The AFC has Patrick Mahomes, a player who has put up some of the best fantasy seasons in recent memory. Meanwhile, the NFC has a quarterback in Jalen Hurts who looked... Read More

Eric Samulski's "My Guys" for the 2023 Fantasy Baseball Season

It's Opening Day! Drafts are done and the baseball season is finally getting underway. To celebrate, it's time for my "my guys" article. These are the players at each position who I had ranked higher than ADP and have considerable shares of during the upcoming season. Some of the rankings you'll see below were where... Read More

Post-Hype Draft Values for Fantasy Baseball

In fantasy sports, we're always chasing the young, upstart prospect. It's why the ADPs for guys like Anthony Volpe and Jordan Walker have been climbing in recent weeks. However, the consequence of this is that other talented young players often get forgotten about. Today we're going to try and rectify that. However, we're also going... Read More

Undrafted Starting Pitchers Who Can Have Top 25 Value for Fantasy Baseball

Finding value is such a huge part of fantasy baseball success. While you obviously need to hit on your early-round picks, being able to find key contributors late in the draft is a surefire way to rocket up your standings. For me, the best place to find value is with starting pitching. In their book The... Read More

2023 Fantasy Baseball AL Tout Wars Draft Recap

This past Saturday, I was honored to be participating in my first-ever AL Tout Wars draft. The long-standing industry league was kind enough to find my writing and analysis worthy of inclusion into their prestigious league and despite never having participated in an AL-only (or NL-only) league before, I was thrilled to accept. The draft... Read More

Matt Chapman (3B, TOR) - 2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values

BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 130 CURRENT ADP: ~155 overall ANALYSIS: Matt Chapman is one of my favorite targets at 3B this year if you sit out the early feeding frenzy that involves plenty of players being pushed up the draft board ahead of where they should be going. Chapman's plus defense will keep him... Read More

2023 Fantasy Baseball - Starting Pitchers With Bad Fastballs To Avoid

The fastball is the key to a fantasy baseball pitcher's success in my opinion, and it's hard to find a truly good pitcher with a bad one. Even as Major League Baseball gets to becoming more of a slider-focused league, good starting pitchers can't succeed regularly without a good fastball. A closer like Edwin Diaz... Read More

Patience and Power - Noteworthy Hitting Leaders For Fantasy Baseball

So far this offseason, I've been doing deep dives on a few of the key Statcast metrics and trying to see how the leaderboards from last year can point us in the direction of some players that might be undervalued based on current projection systems. If you haven't checked those out yet, you can read... Read More

David Peralta (OF, LAD) - 2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values

BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 475 CURRENT ADP: ~550 overall ANALYSIS: David Peralta signing with the Dodgers was one of the more under-the-radar moves of the offseason. Now, with the injury to Gavin Lux forcing Chris Taylor to spend more time in the infield, it seems like Peralta may have a bit of a longer leash in the outfield... Read More

Trey Mancini (1B/OF, CHC) - 2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values

BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 240 CURRENT ADP: ~260 overall ANALYSIS: While it was a tale of two seasons for Trey Mancini before and after his trade to Houston, the pull rate numbers showed growth throughout 2022. While Statcast has him for a 40.9% pull rate, FanGraphs has a 45% mark, both of which are... Read More

Noteworthy Hitting Leaders (Pull%) - Statcast Review for Fantasy Baseball

After diving into the xBA and xSLG leaderboards last week, I'm continuing my look at Statcast metrics by turning our eye to the Pull% leaderboard. We'll go through some of the leaders in the hopes of not just giving you Statcast numbers but explaining how I believe those numbers impact the projections I have for... Read More

Greatest Fantasy Football TE Seasons of All-Time: Where Does Kelce Rank?

As we prepare for the Super Bowl, we are set to see the Philadelphia Eagles try to contain Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce. While it is often mentioned that Kelce is doing things no tight end has ever done before, there were a few trailblazers before him that it's important we don't forget. During... Read More

Greatest Fantasy Football WR Seasons of All-Time: Where Does Cooper Kupp Rank?

The NFL playoffs are exiting the Conference Championship rounds and preparing for the Super Bowl as I wrap up my look back at some of the best fantasy football seasons of all-time, position by position. While it's mainly an exercise for amusement, I wanted to see just how spoiled we've been of late or how... Read More

Greatest Fantasy Football RB Seasons of All-Time: Where Does McCaffrey Rank?

In the NFL's wild Super Wild Card Weekend, we saw a few running backs lead their teams with huge games. Christian McCaffrey had 119 yards on the ground, Travis Etienne paced the Jaguars with 109 rushing yards, and Saquon Barkley had 109 total yards and two touchdowns. As a result, it's time to pay the... Read More