Turning Two: Who Will Join the 20/20 Club in 2017?

Welcome back to our fifth edition of Turning Two. We've now discussed candidates for 50 HR, .350 BA, 300 K, and 20 W for the 2017 season. This week's topic is a bit easier but still a noteworthy accomplishment: pulling off a 20/20 campaign. For those that don't know, 20/20 means 20 home runs and 20 steals. In... Read More

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 10: PITCHf/x

One of the most fundamental questions in fantasy sports is if a player's current performance is sustainable. More than any other sport, baseball has a slew of statistical measures that can be dissected numerous ways to analyze player performance. PITCHf/x is a publicly available pitch tracking system that provides a lot of different data to... Read More

Maximizing Yahoo DL and NA Slots In Your Draft

Most fantasy baseball leagues have at least one DL spot. Many have two, three or even more. While certainly useful during the season when players inevitably get hurt, they can also be part of your draft strategy. Not as widely used and relatively new to Yahoo leagues, NA slots allow you to stockpile difference-makers for the... Read More

2017 Deeper Outfielder Sleepers - NL

The key to winning a championship in fantasy baseball is to find gems in the late rounds of your drafts. Anyone can draft a top-10 player, but only those who truly prepare can find the diamonds in the rough. Below are some 2017 deep outfielder sleepers for the National League. I will be analyzing five... Read More

ADP Champs or Chumps - Ender Inciarte & Kevin Kiermaier

If you play in a deeper league, you will quickly discover that your goal in the draft is different. Standard formats do not ask you to worry about playing time for anyone except your sleepers, as there are plenty of starting players in MLB to fill every slot in the fantasy league. Try an NL-only... Read More

Potential Third Base ADP Busts for 2017

We’re less than a week from baseball, which means drafts are flying in hot and heavy. If you haven’t yet drafted, we’ll be wrapping up our positional avoid series this week with third basemen today before outfielders and pitchers later in the week. Third base is one of the strangest positions in fantasy this year.... Read More

Podcast: After Hours With RotoBaller Radio - SS / C Tiered Rankings & ADP Valuations

RotoBaller co-founder Real Talk Raph and esteemed co-host Anthony Aniano of RotoBaller Radio discuss 2017 shortstop and catcher tiered rankings, ADP and draft valuations. Be sure to tune into RotoBaller Radio on SiriusXM (channel Sirius 210, XM 87) - every Saturday and Sunday between 5-8 PM EST. You can also find new weekly shows on BlogTalkRadio live or on demand, SoundCloud and... Read More

Scene Change - Four Hitters On New Teams

For those fantasy baseball players who don't follow and analyze every offseason move that occurs between October and March, catching up on those changes is a vital part of draft preparation. Below I'll quickly outline the four hitters who will likely have the most fantasy relevance for different teams in 2017. There doesn't figure to... Read More

Using Sabermetrics For Fantasy Baseball Part 9: Pitcher Batted Ball Distribution

The league average batted ball distribution in 2016 was 20.7% liners, 44.7% grounders and 34.6% 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 (.127 BABIP in 2016) consistently have... Read More

Potential Shortstop ADP Busts for 2017

Shortstop. One of the most vital positions in baseball. Throughout the years it has also been one of the most important positions in fantasy baseball, as it has fluctuated from a position with almost no offensive production expected (way back in the pre-Jeter/A-Rod days) to a top-heavy position (when Miguel Tejada and Nomar joined Jeter)... Read More

Third Base ADPs - Overvalued and Undervalued

In my starting pitchers’ piece, I noted how I wanted top starting pitchers, but very few had an ADP at or lower than my rankings. Thus, in order to fill my goal of acquiring top starting pitchers, I had to search for relative value; those who had ADPs close to my rankings became relative values.... Read More

Draft Values: The 2017 All-Bargain Team

This article first appeared on the Metro news publication. Our long national nightmare is nearly over. No, not that one…here we’re referring to the lack of baseball. Opening Day is right around the corner, and not a moment too soon. After last week’s look at the busts, let’s end draft season on a happy note... Read More

Top Power-Metric Gainers - What to Expect in 2017

The baseball universe is really coming into its own when it comes to advanced data metrics that we can parse through, with hard-hit rates, exit velocities, spray charts and batted-ball outcomes all becoming accessible tools to throw in the toolkit before we go digging for answers. Today's piece caps off our short series looking at... Read More

Jim Turvey's 10 Bold Predictions for 2017

One of my favorite preseason series here at RotoBaller has been the “10 Bold Predictions” series. It allows authors to pump up a few of the players and teams they like (and deflate the guys they dislike), while also going on record with actual stats and metrics. Be sure to check out just how wonky... Read More

Deeper Late Round Draft Fliers for Wins

Wins are a fickle stat and often don’t seem to benefit the most deserving pitchers in the game. One need only look at the leaderboard last season to see the likes of Hector Santiago, Josh Tomlin, and Collin McHugh with as many wins as Jose Quintana. That can make it frustrating and often difficult to... Read More

Points League Starting Pitchers: Overvalued and Undervalued

As we’ve discussed, points leagues are a bit of a different animal from the more popular head-to-head and rotisserie formats. One of the easiest and best ways to ensure that you’re making a smooth transition between these disparate styles is to identify players whose values change most. Today, to conclude this series, we're looking at... Read More

ADP Champs or Chumps: Keon Broxton & Trea Turner

If fantasy owners share a collective weakness, it's recency bias. How many times are we going to draft a guy based on what he did last season, or even the last month of last season, without any regard to what that player did before? Mike Trout was great out of the box, but there are... Read More

Three Potential AL Outfielder Busts for 2017 Fantasy Baseball

As much as we all love to find that diamond in the rough who exceeds expectations in the late rounds of our fantasy drafts, we loathe drafting a guy, expecting great things from him and being let down. It’s inevitable that it will happen to some fantasy owners. It’s almost impossible to completely avoid it,... Read More

Relief Pitchers - Updated March Rankings and Tiers

We rolled out our final update on 2017 rankings this past weekend. While there haven’t been seismic shifts, some players have naturally seen their stocks rise or fall since our initial valuations were made in December. We’re gathered here today to look at relief pitcher rankings, tiers, and auction values, which have seen a bit of movement. As... Read More

Jeff Kahntroff's 10 Bold Predictions for 2017

Just when you thought it was over... this will officially conclude our Bold Predictions series for the fantasy baseball season. Last year was the debut of my 10 bold predictions, and I think I did pretty well. But you should be the judge for yourself and review how I did before deciding how much stock... Read More

Top Gainers in Fly Ball Rate - What to Expect in 2017

The baseball universe is really coming into its own when it comes to advanced data metrics that we can parse through, with hard-hit rates, exit velocities, spray charts and batted-ball outcomes all becoming accessible tools to throw in the toolkit before we go digging for answers. Today's piece continues the series where we explore some... Read More

Last Minute Draft Prep and Strategy: Sweat the Small Stuff

The deeper your league, the more important it is to gain a slight edge over your opponents whenever possible. Nobody “dominates” a competitive draft. Presumably you have compiled a list. Most RotoBaller readers know who’s injured. Everyone has sleepers, some of us a hunch or two. Yet even with dedicated preparation, a successful live draft... Read More

2017 Deeper Outfielder Sleepers - AL

The key to winning a championship in fantasy baseball is to find gems in the late rounds of your drafts. Anyone can draft a top-10 player, but only those who truly prepare can find the diamonds in the rough. Below are some 2017 deep outfielder sleepers for the American League. I will be analyzing five... Read More

Shortstop: Updated March Rankings and Tiers

Just like second base, shortstop is a deep position this year. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the tiers. As before, this round of rankings features picks from Kyle Bishop, Nick Mariano, Bill Dubiel, Brad Johnson, Harris Yudin and myself. Check out all of our updated rankings. Adjust your league size, and export your rankings. Tiers,... Read More

Potential ADP Busts for Second Base in 2017

We’re continuing our Positional Avoid series today with a look at second basemen. Earlier, we examined three potential busts at catcher and at first base. We continue our positional avoid series today with three second baseman who are going just a bit higher than would seem to be logical in 2017 drafts. Second base is a position that... Read More

First Base ADPs - Overvalued and Undervalued

In this piece, I'll lay out some first basemen who are shaping up as great values in fantasy drafts and also a few who are not worth their current prices. All ADP data can be found using our awesome rankings wizard. The first base position is an interesting one in fantasy. There's a clear top-three at... Read More

Catcher ADPs - Overvalued and Undervalued

For standard, one catcher leagues, I either want one of the top four catchers (where Schwarber qualifies at catcher), or I want one of the last catchers. The top four catchers seem to be valued properly, but if one slips, go for it. While any individual taken fifth through eleventh in the catcher world could... Read More

Bill Dubiel's 10 Bold Predictions for 2017

Here at Rotoballer, we truly do believe in the "grand finale" concept--that's why you're getting MY bold predictions after all the other chuckleheads. By chuckleheads I mean my talented and respectable colleagues. Be sure to check out just how wonky we all get this time of year with our entire Bold Prediction Series. I didn't have... Read More

Top Gainers in Pull Rate: What to Expect in 2017

The baseball universe is really coming into its own when it comes to advanced data metrics that we can parse through, with hard-hit rates, exit velocities, spray charts and batted-ball outcomes all becoming accessible tools to throw in the toolkit before we go digging for answers. Today's piece continues the series where we explore some... Read More

Top 100 Keeper Values for 2017

What's up RotoBallers. Welcome back to the finale of my series on keeper leagues. Today we'll take a look at the final product, the top 100 Keeper Values, after analyzing each tier at every position this offseason. Keeper Value Rankings are intended for Keeper Leagues in which a fantasy owner must forfeit a designated draft round... Read More