Nick Mariano's Points Leagues Targets for Fantasy Baseball (Premium Content)

All other Premium Tools can be accessed on the premium dashboard. Fantasy baseball drafts (and their articles) are almost all about finding the next superstar and unearthing talent late, but points formats are typically lumped into rotisserie angles and/or ignored entirely. We can't have our pointy RotoBallers sad, so let us write with a different... Read More

Updated Prospects Rankings for Fantasy Baseball Drafts (2022)

Welcome back RotoBallers to our ongoing coverage of fantasy baseball prospects. Today we're here with our updated preseason rankings for the top 50 MLB prospects who have a chance to make fantasy baseball impacts in 2022. Marc Hulet has been leading RotoBaller's fantasy baseball prospects coverage for several years, after spending several years at Fangraphs.... Read More

Potential Home Run Risers: Fantasy Baseball Breakouts

Oftentimes in sports, we expect progression to be linear, and mainly with young players. However, as simple as it sounds, any player can get better. Particularly in baseball, which tends to be more skill-based than a sport such as football or basketball, development can happen at any time. Just take a look at the San Francisco... Read More

Points League Values: Outfielders Set to Outperform ADP in 2022

This article will examine a few eligible outfielders for the 2022 MLB season that are being selected later than their Steamer projections suggest they should in points leagues and H2H points formats. RotoBaller's fantasy baseball points analyst Antonio Losada will be offering a few picks for both potential overperformers (sleepers) and shortcomers (busts) when it... Read More

Fantrax H2H Points League Primer for Fantasy Baseball Drafts

Points-league players are often overlooked in the fantasy baseball draft world. Rankings for roto leagues do not match up and one-size-fits-all points rankings aren't much better since every site has unique scoring settings. So here I am, taking the baton from RotoBaller's own points league guru, Nicklaus Gaut, and advancing toward new horizons. Those horizons... Read More

K-BB% Gainers: Starting Pitchers to Watch in 2022

If I were on a desert island and had to pick just one statistic to take with me to evaluate starting pitchers for fantasy baseball purposes, I would choose strikeout-to-walk ratio. Would I have bigger problems than picking the best pitchers for my fantasy team if I ever found myself alone on a desert island?... Read More

Hitters Coming Off Career Years - American League

There’s no better story in baseball than when guys come out of nowhere and have career years whether it be at the plate or on the mound. From the up and coming youngsters to the late bloomers we see it every year. This past season there was a handful of talent that took their game... Read More

Mid-Round Third Basemen - Fantasy Baseball Draft Values and Targets

Welcome officially to the 2022 fantasy baseball season! Now that an MLB deal is in place, a lot more fantasy drafts will be taking place -- and we're here as always to guide you through it. Once you reach the middle rounds of drafts, everyone is looking to draft players with upside that can provide... Read More

Updated Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings (Part 2) - 5x5 Mixed Roto Leagues

Earlier, we broke down the first few tiers of starting pitcher rankings for 2022 fantasy baseball drafts. It's time to look at the rest of the starting pitchers that may be fantasy-relevant and worthy of a draft pick. RotoBaller's rankers, JB Branson, Pierre Camus, Ariel Cohen, Nicklaus Gaut, and Nick Mariano, have updated our 2022... Read More

Late-Round Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Targets - NFBC Draft and Hold Leagues

Even as the Major League Baseball lockout drags on, fantasy baseball managers have begun diving into draft season. In these early months before Spring Training begins, the most common draft formats are draft and hold leagues in which managers will draft large teams (usually 50 players) and then make no waiver claims during the year.... Read More

Freddie Freeman to Dodgers - Fantasy Baseball Impact

The Los Angeles Dodgers did not need to add a free agent hitter to go into the 2022 MLB season as the league's premier offense. They did not let that fact stop them from signing the cream of the free-agent crop Freddie Freeman to a huge six-year contract. Let's talk briefly about the fantasy impact... Read More

Universal DH - Biggest Fantasy Baseball Risers

The battle lines have long been drawn between baseball traditionalists (i.e. grumpy old men) and revisionists (those who realize we are in the 21st century). It appears progress has won out and both leagues will finally play under the same rules over a full season going forward. Although nothing has been officially settled in the... Read More

Mid-Round First Basemen - Fantasy Baseball Draft Values and Targets

Welcome officially to the 2022 fantasy baseball season! Now that an MLB deal is in place, a lot more fantasy drafts will be taking place – and we're here as always to guide you through it. Once you reach the middle rounds of drafts, everyone is looking to draft players with upside that can provide... Read More

Incorporating a Shift Ban into Hitter Projections

With the announcement of a likely shift ban in 2023, fantasy baseball analysts ought to prepare. Many good articles have been written about the shift ban recently, with most echoing the sentiment that the leaguewide impact will be modest. Further, it is conventional wisdom that pull-heavy lefthanders would benefit the most. However, the size of... Read More

Where to Draft Injured Hitters in Fantasy Baseball

After a stressful few months where seemingly everybody became an expert on the economics of baseball and traded spin rate analysis for PR spin analysis, we can get back to digging into the game itself. It's wonderful news without a doubt. Except possibly for those injured players who were hoping for another few weeks of... Read More

Chris Bassitt to Mets - Fantasy Baseball Impact

The Oakland Athletics and New York Mets have clearly been on opposite sides of the offseason from the beginning. The A's are in sell mode and the Mets are seemingly buying any player they can get their hands on as they aim to make a playoff push in 2022. More evidence of this was given... Read More

Yusei Kikuchi to Blue Jays - Fantasy Impact

The Toronto Blue Jays led the league in home runs hit last year, and it was not particularly close. Despite that, they still failed to make the playoffs. The main reason for that failure was the tough division they played in, as well as just some rotten luck. They were actually a pretty good pitching... Read More

Josh Donaldson to Yankees: Fantasy Impact

Well, those Yankees sure have a type, eh? As if the team didn’t have enough sluggers to fill out its lineup card, the Yankees bulked up their offense by trading for former AL MVP Josh Donaldson on Monday. The two-time Silver Slugger recipient spent each of the last two seasons with the Minnesota Twins. Last... Read More

Sonny Gray Traded to the Twins - Fantasy Impact

While the CBA was agreed upon last week, we all knew that the MLB Hot Stove would fire up, and it is heating up. The Reds have been rumored to be seeking suitors for some of their starting pitchers and found a match with the Twins on Sunday. They agreed to send Sonny Gray and... Read More

Updated Fantasy Baseball First Base Rankings - 5x5 Mixed Roto Leagues

Welcome back RotoBallers to some more preseason fantasy baseball rankings! RotoBaller is constantly working to try and bring fantasy baseball managers the best advice, especially during draft season. A big part of that includes regular updates to our tiered rankings for all formats. Our MLB rankers, -- JB Branson, Pierre Camus, Ariel Cohen, Nicklaus Gaut,... Read More

Finding Clones of Stud Hitters at Cheaper Draft Day Costs

Fantasy baseball is, most of the time, a category-centered game. Unlike fantasy football, where all you want are raw points, the roto category format of baseball really separates certain players in terms of how they can help your fantasy team. Some hitters will boost your team's batting average while bringing down your home run pace,... Read More

Updated Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings - 5x5 Mixed Roto Leagues

Fantasy baseball draft prep never stops, lockout or not. As we all anticipate the start of spring training, many fantasy baseball drafts are already underway. To prepare our readers, RotoBaller's rankers -- JB Branson, Pierre Camus, Ariel Cohen, Nicklaus Gaut, and Nick Mariano -- have updated their 2022 fantasy baseball mixed league rankings. This article... Read More

Three Hitters Set To Break Out Earlier Than Their Prime

In baseball, common sense would indicate that a player would break out when they reach their prime, which is around 26-years-old. However, development is not linear. We have seen plenty of players burst onto the scene with the first or second season and flourish, while others have taken longer than expected to develop. It really... Read More

High-Upside Hitters for Fantasy Baseball - Deeper Leagues Analysis

If you are drafting this early in the fantasy baseball season, you are probably playing in some pretty serious leagues. That means there is a good chance your draft is stretching past 300 picks. It is very tough to keep a large player pool sorted out in your head, and it's not hard to get... Read More

High-Upside Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball: "Stuff" Edition

In the first analysis of my "finding high-upside starting pitchers" series, I looked in depth at swinging-strike rate. You can read that here. That analysis looked at overall SwStr% for every pitcher, taking into account all of their pitch types to one SwStr% number. In this article, I want to go a step further and... Read More

Strong Septembers to Remember - 2022 Breakout Candidates

One of the most difficult things to do as a fantasy sports contributor is attempting to glean valuable information from small sample sizes. Small sample sizes represent a higher opportunity for variance, which can wreak havoc if not taken seriously or properly accounted for. However, variance isn't all bad and there are certain things to... Read More

Noteworthy Hitting Leaders (xBA) - Statcast Review for Fantasy Baseball

There are stats for everything now. It's great, but it can also be overwhelming at times. Depending on where we look, we can tell ourselves all different types of narratives about a player. As a result, I've always been a proponent of identifying the stats that you find to be most useful/beneficial and focusing on... Read More

2022 Fantasy Baseball Prospect Rankings - Prospects #26-51 (Part 1)

We've seen quite a few challenges thrown at fantasy baseball managers over the past couple of years and the 2022 season is going to be no different. Labor discourse will delay and shorten the 162-game schedule, which will, in turn, have repercussions on fantasy baseball. One of the biggest unknowns heading into the 2022 season... Read More

Contact Rate Gainers - Statcast Review for Fantasy Baseball

As the MLB and MLBPA keep working towards ending the lockout and getting baseball back into our lives, we've been keeping the offseason content going by digging into some 2021 stats. While we all obviously want the lockout to end, this is a useful time to do your research and have a better understanding of... Read More