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Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 15 - Minor League Stats
Welcome back to the fantasy baseball classroom where we’re learning about winning strategies and advanced statistics that help us dominate. Previous lessons have been focused on hitters, as we’ve explored BABIP as well as hard-hit rates. Now we turn our attention to pitchers and their SIERA. Why should I care about SIERA? You’re probably familiar with ERA... Read More
Estimating value and worth can be a pain. You know what’s worse than just figuring it out for yourself? Doing that for your whole league, on the fly, as the draft is happening. You’ll kill yourself if you’re actively trying to figure out everyone’s valuations moving forward, so don’t sweat that. What you can do... Read More
Hello fellow RotoBallers! Sabermetrics have become an integral tool for fantasy baseball draft prep, but a concise resource for understanding the basics can be difficult to find. This series attempts to define and explain all of the metrics fantasy owners may find useful, citing examples of how to use them in the process. Twenty advanced... Read More
The human brain is one of the most powerful and fascinating things, and one of the greatest things it has given us is fantasy baseball. Utilized properly, it is your greatest weapon on draft day and beyond. Blindly followed, it can stab you in the back. Our brains did not evolve for the sake of... Read More
This isn’t the hottest of takes here, as the SAGNOF (Saves Ain’t Got NO Face) school of thought has had a steady stream of followers for quite a few years now. It’s a little more complicated than that of course, as this isn’t simply about the straight up value of taking a closer early on.... Read More
Late January means we’re treading ever closer to pitchers and catchers reporting, but more importantly, it means we’re wading ever deeper into the mock-draft waters for the fantasy baseball season. RotoBaller recently held its first mock draft of the season, and now we’ll give all participants a chance to share their notable picks. If you... Read More
Due to being professional fiends, we here at RotoBaller held our first mock draft of the 2017 fantasy baseball season this week. Mocks are great but constantly ruined by trolling fools who can't commit past two rounds. Luckily, my job grants me access to folks who want to be there. We still troll each other, but the... Read More
Pitching is a beautiful monster. It's such an elegant art that presents us with a nearly endless stream of data points to pick apart. On the one hand, this gives us a lot to explore and discuss, on the other hand it means there’s plenty of digging to do. We’re here today to talk about... Read More
This article first appeared in the Metro news publication. With Memorial Day in the rearview mirror, many fantasy owners are staring up at their rivals in the standings and feeling the pressure of falling behind. If you’re among them, here are some tips to help you close the gap. Review the Numbers When looking at... Read More
Welcome back to the fantasy baseball classroom where we’re learning about advanced statistics that give us a leg up on the competition, and help us win our fantasy baseball leagues. Our first articles were about a hitter’s BABIP as well as hard-hit rates. We then looked at pitchers and their SIERAs. If you didn't get... Read More
Welcome to this little crash course on hard hit rates. Use this helpful tool in the battle for fantasy baseball supremacy. Hard hit rate relates to several things: the velocity at which a baseball leaves the bat after contact is made, the hang time, the angle at which it is hit, amongst others involved in an algorithm... Read More
The first RotoBaller Pros vs. Joes league drafted Thursday night with a mix of self-proclaimed "expert" writers and some lucky readers who were ready to put their advice to good use. The league was set to standard 5x5 rotisserie rules, with the following roster positions: 2 C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, 5 OF, Util, 8 P,... Read More
This article first appeared on the Metro news publication. With Opening Day mercifully arriving yesterday, all leagues have held their drafts. The only thing left to do, of course, is play the games. Here are a few tips to help you navigate the waters in the early going. Early Fantasy Baseball Strategy and Tips DO:... Read More
The RotoBaller writers’ league conducted its draft on Thursday night. It was my final draft of 2016, and I realized in the lead-up to the event that it was the my only auction that didn’t involve keeper considerations. This meant two things – 1) the draft didn’t conclude until after 1:00 a.m., leaving me bleary-eyed... Read More
We here at RotoBaller HQ held our big writers’ league auction draft last night with some of the finest in the biz. We ran a 12 team roto league with 2 catchers, a CI and MI, 5 OFs, 8 P slots, and 5 bench. The auction budget was $260. Here are the results. Here’s the... Read More
Alright folks, the big week before Opening Day is upon us and that means that draft lobbies are popping off like Who Let the Dogs Out just came on at a party. What? That’s not a thing? Don’t be ridiculous. I have plenty of teams already with a few more to be drafted and figured... Read More
Ah, the saves+holds league. Welcome to a progressive community that embraces relief pitchers of all types, not just those fortunate few who selfishly hoard the game’s final outs. Here, players like Darren O'Day and Andrew Miller can flourish. Here, you need not worry about role stifling Dellin Betances’ value or (to use an example from... Read More
Welcome to the third installment of breaking down the industry mock draft that we hosted last Thursday. Yup, we’re getting into the meat of things by asking everyone who they thought the steal of the draft was. As is tradition, I’ll be following everyone’s thoughts with a brief commentary of my own because it’s my... Read More
Now we find ourselves with the final question to be answered regarding the industry mock draft that we hosted last Thursday. Now we’re looking at those go-go-gadget picks, asking everyone who they thought the reach of the draft was. As is tradition, I’ll be following everyone’s thoughts with a brief commentary of my own because... Read More
Back again with more insight into the industry mock draft that took place last Thursday. This time we’re looking at the picks that each of us wished we could give the ol’ Men in Black memory wipe to everyone else. Again, I’ll be following everyone’s thoughts with a brief commentary of my own because it’s... Read More
Premium Subscribers can click here to access the full version of the ADP Draft Sleepers Tool. Try The ADP Draft Sleepers Tool 2017 draft season is over :(, but check out our other premium offerings.
So as you may or may not know, we here at RotoBaller hosted an industry mock draft last Thursday night with some dapper gents. We are gathered here today on this webpage for part one of the reactions to the draft. Outside of discussing the awesomeness that is Jung Ho Kang’s tattoo of himself, we... Read More
On Thursday night we at RotoBaller hosted an industry mock draft with some cool people from RotoGraphs, the NY Post, BaseballHQ, RotoExperts, SportingNews, Baseball Prospectus, TheFantasyFix, We Talk Fantasy Sports, and of course we had our own cohort of RotoBaller reps. There will more on the draft as a whole, be on the lookout for... Read More
Once you've grown accustomed to having advanced tools to help make fantasy decisions, it can be 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,... Read More
One of the most fundamental questions in fantasy sports is if a player's current performance is sustainable. PITCHf/x is a publicly available pitch tracking system that provides a lot of different data to help fantasy owners make this determination for mound breakouts and busts alike. The first data point, and the easiest to understand, is... Read More
The league average batted ball distribution in 2015 was 20.9% liners, 45.3% grounders and 33.8% flies. Last time, we took a brief look at how pitchers may specialize in either grounders or fly balls. Fly ball pitchers have a BABIP advantage over their ground ball-inducing counterparts, since fly balls (.129 BABIP in 2015) consistently have... Read More
While FIP is a useful tool to predict a pitcher's future ERA performance, fantasy owners should remember that ERA, not FIP, is what really matters in most formats. This means that we are interested in the "luck" that separates the two statistics. Some of this is unpredictable, but we can and should predict some of... Read More
RotoBaller Premium Subscribers can click here to access the ADP Draft Sleepers Tool. RotoBaller’s ADP Draft Sleepers Tool is a powerful yet simple tool that can help you unearth fantasy baseball gems on draft day. It's a sleek tool that's easy to use, and will have a huge effect on your draft selections and help you... Read More
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 cast. According to the DIPS theory that the metric is based upon, pitchers control only Ks, BBs (and HBP) and home... Read More
