Pitcher Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - Launch Angle For Week 5

Welcome back to RotoBaller’s Statcast pitcher Studs and Duds article series! Each week, I will select one advanced metric, choose two pitchers with strong values and two with poor values, and analyze what those values may mean for future performance. Last week I took a look at exit velocity, and this week I will analyze […]

Baseball's Oldest Batters - Busts or Buy Low Candidates? Joey Votto, Nelson Cruz, Justin Turner, Yuli Gurriel

The first month-plus of the season has not been particularly kind to a few of baseball’s oldest hitters. That includes players who put together monster years in 2021 despite their already-advanced age. This article takes a look at a group of four old bats, to recalibrate expectations on their rest-of-season output. When evaluating the biggest […]

The Cut List - Time to Let Go? Week 5

Welcome back to The Cut List. This is our weekly article looking at players who fantasy managers might be considering cutting from their teams and struggling players who need a closer look. We'll look at players who are worthy of a drop, players who are worth monitoring for replacing, and someone on the hot seat […]

Fantasy Baseball Trade Targets - Buy/Sell For Week 4

Making the right trades can be crucial to championship success in fantasy baseball, almost as much as the draft, if not more. While most trades can have a significant impact on your fantasy team, it’s the deals where you acquire undervalued players and then see their production improve that can really tip the scales in […]

Finding Breakout Hitters for Fantasy Baseball: Chase Rate Early-Season Metrics

In an earlier article on Blast Rate, I mentioned that this was the time of year that some hitting metrics start to stabilize. While many of us want to focus on exit velocity and hard-hit rate because they lead to more exciting outcomes, I think focusing on plate discipline metrics can be just as important. […]

Jarred Kelenic Still Isn't Ready for Prime Time

Jarred Kelenic was one of the most exciting prospects we had seen in a long time. The hype was right up there with the likes of anybody over the last decade and fantasy managers couldn't wait to jump on him when he was called up toward the end of 2021.  But that excitement has not […]

Pitcher Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - Exit Velocity Changes For Week 4

Welcome back to RotoBaller’s Statcast pitcher Studs and Duds article series! Each week, I will select one advanced metric, choose two pitchers with strong values and two with poor values, and analyze what those values may mean for future performance. Statcast has a cool year-to-year change feature for a host of metrics, and this week […]

Hitter Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - Average Exit Velocity for Week 4

We can finally start extrapolating something from one of the easiest Statcast metrics to decipher - exit velocity. This stat stabilizes after approximately 70 plate appearances or 45 batted-ball events. Last week, we looked at early leaders in maximum exit velocity because it doesn't take long to take something away from that metric. Keep in […]

The Cut List - Time to Let Go? Week 4

Welcome back to The Cut List. This is our weekly article looking at players who fantasy managers might be considering cutting from their teams and struggling players who need a closer look. We'll look at players who are worthy of a drop, players who are worth monitoring for replacing, and someone on the hot seat […]

Homer Run Risers and Fallers: Batted-Ball Profile Changes for Fantasy Baseball

We are closing in on the end of April, which means we have a pretty decent-sized data sample for hitters now. The league leaders will clear 100 plate appearances in the next week or so, which gives us a lot of good stuff to look into. A lot of times we find a breakout or […]

Fantasy Baseball Trade Targets - Buy/Sell For Week 3

Making the right trades can be crucial to championship success in fantasy baseball, almost as much as the draft, if not more. While most trades can have a significant impact on your fantasy team, it’s the deals where you acquire undervalued players and then see their production improve that can really tip the scales in […]

Hitter Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - Hard-Hit Rate for Week 3

Admittedly, it's still early for many sabermetrics to be considered descriptive but fantasy managers can't wait until midseason to start digging for hidden gems. You could always say that taking anything away from a two-week sample size is an overreaction. The purpose here is not to proclaim these players as the hard-hit kings or absolute […]

Pitcher Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - Swinging-Strike Rate For Week 3

Welcome back to RotoBaller’s Statcast pitcher Studs and Duds article series! Each week, I will select one advanced metric, choose two pitchers with strong values and two with poor values, and analyze what those values may mean for future performance. We still have small sample sizes because the season is early, but a metric that […]

The Cut List - Time to Let Go? Week 3

Welcome back to The Cut List. This is our weekly article looking at players who fantasy managers might be considering cutting from their teams and struggling players who need a closer look. We'll look at players who are worthy of a drop, players who are worth monitoring for replacing, and someone on the hot seat […]

Are These Early Slumps Worth Worrying About? Kyle Tucker, Mookie Betts, Cedric Mullins and more

We are less than two weeks into the season, and full panic mode is setting in for many fantasy players. It should not, but it is. Some of our draft picks perform poorly, and we always wonder what to do. It is even worse when watching some of our top draft picks struggle. So, what […]

Bullpens to Cause Headaches in Fantasy Baseball

Collecting saves is a tricky and dangerous game in fantasy baseball. One of the major pitching categories in 5x5 roto leagues, they are hard to completely ignore. If you don't have a collection of high-end closers, it's easy to start digging into every team in the league to figure out who is going to get […]

Fantasy Baseball Trade Targets - Buy/Sell For Week 2

Making the right trades can be crucial to championship success in fantasy baseball, almost as much as the draft, if not more. While most trades can have a significant impact on your fantasy team, it’s the deals where you acquire undervalued players and then see their production improve that can really tip the scales in […]

Hitter Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - Max Exit Velocity for Week 2

We couldn't wait for the delayed 2022 season to get underway and now we eagerly await the Statcast data to accumulate so we can dissect it. It's obviously too early to make anything out of a majority of the data but we can evaluate something that requires one good swing of the bat - maximum […]

Pitcher Advanced Metrics Studs and Duds - xwOBA For Week 2

Welcome to the first edition of RotoBaller’s Statcast pitcher Studs and Duds article series for the 2022 season! I am happy to be back at the helm for this series once again. Statcast provides a ton of insightful advanced metrics that can be used to better understand pitchers' performance and predict future fantasy performance. Each […]

The Cut List - Time to Let Go? Week 2

Welcome back to The Cut List. This is our weekly article looking at players who fantasy managers might be considering cutting from their teams and struggling players who need a closer look. We'll look at players who are worthy of a drop, players who are worth monitoring for replacing, and someone on the hot seat […]

Fantasy Baseball Trade Targets - Buy/Sell for Week 1

Making the right trades can be crucial to championship success in fantasy baseball, almost as much as the draft, if not more. While most trades can have a significant impact on your fantasy team, it’s the deals where you acquire undervalued players and then see their production improve that can really tip the scales in […]

The Cut List - Time to Let Go? Week 1

Welcome back for a new season of The Cut List. This is our weekly article looking at players who fantasy managers might be considering cutting from their teams and struggling players who need a closer look. We'll look at players who are worthy of a drop, players who are worth monitoring for replacing, and someone […]

FaBIO Analysis: Spring Training Starting Pitcher Fundamentals

My Rotoballer debut article more fully explains the FaBIO methodology. Every plate appearance is sorted into one of 12 event type bins (BB+HBP, K, IFFB, Pull OFFB, Center OFFB, Oppo OFFB, Pull LD, Center LD, Oppo LD, Pull GB, Center GB, Oppo GB) and the pitcher is charged with league's average runs value for that […]

Eric Samulski's Bold Predictions for 2022 Fantasy Baseball

It's bold prediction time! Everybody's favorite time of year. Last year, I put out my bold prediction article and it was the second straight year of being all over the place with my results. Some of the predictions hit, like Randy Arozarena being outside the top-30 outfielders, Sixto Sanchez being the least valuable Marlins starter, […]

Nick Mariano's Bold Predictions for 2022 Fantasy Baseball

We press on with the hit series where your favorite RotoBallers get a chance to flex their convictions. I know Opening Day is right around the corner but I couldn't let the year begin without firing this bad boy off. Yes, it is time to run wild with some 2022 Bold Predictions. Bold doesn’t mean […]

RotoSurgeon's Bold Predictions for 2022 Fantasy Baseball

The best time of year is when I am allowed a platform to over-explain my seemingly irrational fantasy opinions. Bold predictions are a fun exercise for any and all analysts to let their gut do the talking beyond a tweet that may just come off as a hot take. For what it is worth, these […]

ESPN H2H Points League Primer - Strategy, Bargains and Busts for Fantasy Baseball

Please, everyone just calm down. Don't worry! I'm not gonna do...what everyone thinks I'm gonna do...and FLIP OUT, man!!! I know that this is usually the space where I go on a big rant about ESPN point league coverage and how much they're failing the people by producing content that fails to match the realities […]

Undervalued and Overvalued Players - Fantrax Fantasy Baseball Draft Rankings

This year's RotoBaller Challenge is being hosted exclusively on Fantrax - The Home of Fantasy Sports. Whether you are competing against fellow RotoBallers, joining a public league, or creating your own custom league on Fantrax, you'll want to get familiar with the site's rankings and average draft position (ADP) before your league drafts. Each platform […]

Second Base Draft Busts for 2022 Fantasy Baseball

When it comes to successful fantasy baseball drafts, identifying risk is as important as identifying value. We focus so much on "sleepers" and "breakouts" but often forget to really think about the players we should be avoiding. If the goal for a good draft is to build a complete team but also to hit on […]