Keep It Simple, Stupid - Finding Homers and Strikeouts Throughout the Draft
Rotisserie fantasy baseball is a complex game. The best players give equal attention to each category, build balanced teams, and then prune their teams effectively throughout the year. Not everybody has the time for that though - and it's a lot easier said than done. Sometimes we can do just fine focusing in on the... Read More
Three Picks At Each Position - Expensive, Value and Cheap Players for Fantasy Baseball
If I had the time and approval, I could come here every single day and give you hard-hitting data analysis. We could learn all kinds of stuff and do all kinds of speculating and projecting, getting very into the granular data. I do that from time to time on here, but I'm not so egg-headed... 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
Exploring Stuff Metrics for 2023 Fantasy Baseball
In the days of Statcast, we have new metrics hitting the line every year. There are so many different things we can do with the publically available data that comes out of the Statcast system. One thing a lot of people have done is begin to isolate pitcher performance only by the movement details of the... Read More
Nick Mariano's Late-Round Fliers List for 2023 Fantasy Baseball (Premium Content)
This premium article is part of our 2023 Draft Kit. All other Premium Tools can be accessed on the premium dashboard. Howdy, RotoBallers! I hope you're ready to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. We’re here to dig a little deeper into the draft room and look for players that would be wise to... Read More
Second Basemen to Target or Avoid at ADP - Fantasy Baseball Draft Analysis
Over the years, the second base position has usually been one of the more shallow positions for fantasy purposes. And low and behold, the 2023 season will be no different. But we'll get more into that in just a second. At the top, we have four players being taken inside the top 50 of most... Read More
Pitchers With Fastball Velocity in The Tank - Potential Fantasy Baseball Risers
One of the ways a pitcher can have a breakout season is by gaining velocity. We see this quite often. A pitcher will find a way to add velocity to their pitches (mainly their fastball), which makes that primary pitch a bit more effective and enhances their offspeed pitches as well by separating the two... Read More
ADP Fallers to Buy for Fantasy Baseball - 2023 ADP Comparisons
"Buy low, sell high." The age-old advice. Simple but powerful. It is perfectly applicable in the fantasy baseball world as well, so that is what we're talking about today. I am going to explore the players that have seen the biggest drops in their ADP when comparing 2022 to 2023. Now, there are plenty of... Read More
First Basemen to Target or Avoid at ADP - Fantasy Baseball Draft Analysis
When I was growing up and really getting into baseball in the 1990s and 2000s, the first base position was chalked full of big-time sluggers that would be counted on to produce gaudy offensive numbers season after season -- especially in the HR and RBI departments. Let's look at 2006 for example. Why? Well, it... Read More
Noteworthy Hitting Leaders (xSLG) - Statcast Review for Fantasy Baseball
After diving into the xBA leaderboard last week, I'm continuing my look at Statcast metrics by turning our eye to the xSLG 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 the given... Read More
Analyzing Pitcher Fly Ball Data for Fantasy Baseball 2023
Pitchers don't have much of a say about what happens after a pitch they throw is put into play. There is a ton of randomness that occurs after a hitter makes contact with a ball, and that makes a lot of pitching statistics hard to trust. Getting ahead of this gives us an advantage. We... Read More
Noteworthy Hitting Leaders (xBA) - Statcast Review for Fantasy Baseball
While the fantasy baseball prep work has been ongoing for months for some, many fantasy managers are turning their attention over in more earnest as the calendar flips to February and the NFL season winds down. While there will be many prep strategy articles, the most basic starting place is to familiarize yourself with the... Read More
Four MLB Rookies Who Surged in September - Fantasy Baseball Draft Values
In 2022, we saw the MLB debuts of several up-and-coming top fantasy baseball prospects: Julio Rodríguez, Michael Harris II, Adley Rutschman, and Spencer Strider...to name a few. However there were many more "under-the-radar" prospects who produced quality rookie campaigns, and surged in September as a potential preview of what is to come in 2023. These... Read More
Catchers to Target and Avoid at ADP - Fantasy Baseball Draft Analysis
What's going on RotoBaller Family! For those that don't know me, my name is Eric Cross. In the past, you might have read my work at FantraxHQ, FantasyPros, or FTN Fantasy. I'll now be providing fantasy baseball content for RotoBaller, and couldn't be more excited to join the great RotoBaller team that is certainly on... Read More
Biggest Fantasy Baseball Breakout Hitters in 2022
It's always a blast to reminisce on the past, and today we've got a fun topic to discuss. We all love watching offensive-minded players, but a few in particular stood out this past season. Let's take a look! I hand-picked four players that outperformed their expectations in 2022. Alejandro Kirk, Nathaniel Lowe, Andrew Vaughn, and... Read More
Breakout Pitchers for 2023 Fantasy Baseball
Finding breakout starting pitchers is one of the most important things we have to do in order to win fantasy baseball leagues every season. In most leagues, an individual starting pitcher has more of an impact on a fantasy team than an individual hitter since they are throwing a higher percentage of your team's total... Read More
3 Fantasy Baseball Hitters Slated to Breakout Earlier Than Their Prime in 2023
Some ball players are just built differently. The superstars of the MLB world tend to break out well before their prime, far closer to the age of 20 than the generally accepted age-28 prime season. Let's be honest, even though he was promoted at the ripe age of 19, few expected Juan Soto to explode... Read More
Known-Skill Starting Pitcher Rankings - Predicting Future Stats for Fantasy Baseball
There is a lot of guesswork that goes into fantasy baseball. This is especially true when we're talking about starting pitchers. And all of this despite the fact that we have more metrics than we can even count about pitchers. You will see a ton of talk this year about fancy advanced pitch metrics. Spin,... Read More
Injury Agnostic SP Rankings for 2023 Fantasy Baseball
It's hard to project injuries. Therefore, it's hard to project how many innings a pitcher will throw in a given year. Am I rocking any boats yet? Sure, Jacob deGrom is more likely to hit the IL this year than Gerrit Cole. There's no questioning that, and that should matter when you are drafting your... Read More
Hitter Bargains at Every Position - Comparing ATC Projections vs. ADP for Fantasy Baseball
We're officially in the full swing of the 2023 fantasy baseball season, with all of the projections you know and love finally being released into the wild. With those projections come the award-winning ATC projections from our own Ariel Cohen. Since coming on the scene, the smart-aggregated ATC has been one of the highest-rated systems,... Read More
Fantasy Baseball Hitters That Could Benefit Most From the Shift Ban
Major League Baseball is making some big changes ahead of the 2023 season. One of the most significant is the banning of the shift. You can read more about that here, but here's a quick summary from that article: "With all four infielders needing to be on the dirt, the days of the four-outfielder setup... Read More
Using Hitter Projections to Identify Probable Improvers for 2023 Fantasy Baseball
Hey everyone, it's Jon Anderson back again! I have recently finished my season-long hitter projection system, so now the fun begins! I will be writing at least a few pieces here that look at what the projections are telling us. This is my first year doing a projection system, so I don't exactly have a... Read More
Pitchers That Could Improve for 2023 Fantasy Baseball - Exploring K% Correlation
With all of the data at our fingertips, we can really do some interesting things in the offseason. We know that the strikeout rate is one of (if not the) most important metrics for a pitcher. It's hard to have success with a low strikeout rate, and it's a bit tough to not have success... Read More
5 Mispriced Hitters for Deeper Fantasy Baseball Leagues
It's January! We are barreling towards the draft season, and for some of the more ornery folk, the draft season has already begun. Typically, at this time of year, most of the drafts being completed are on The NFBC. A lot of these drafts are deep leagues, 50-round drafts with no trading or free agents.... Read More
Exploring Hard Contact for Pitchers - Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitchers to Upgrade in 2023
This is a follow-up post to another one I've written recently. In that post, I did all the heavy lifting of setting the framework for what I was doing and why it made some statistical sense. You should check that out here before reading this post. The crux of the argument is this. For starting... Read More
Fantasy Baseball Batted Ball Type Analysis - Predicting Ground Ball, Line Drive and Fly Ball Hitters
MLB data has become so rich that there are countless things we can study and write about. It's really the best sport by a large margin for player and event analysis. One of the most useful and interesting data points we have available to us concerns batted ball data. We hear a lot about launch... Read More
Pitchers: Strong Septembers to Remember for 2023 Fantasy Baseball Drafts
Earlier this week, we looked at hitters that had strong Septembers. I included some important context in the opening of that piece. It's very important to read, and I don't want to just repeat all of that - so go there and read that first. I will be picking out five notable starting pitchers that... Read More
Hitters: Strong Septembers to Remember for 2023 Fantasy Baseball Drafts
It is typically a bad idea to look at one month of baseball data and draw strong conclusions from it. How do you like that for an opening to a piece that will look at one month of data and draw conclusions from it? Before you do an irresponsible thing, it is at least good... Read More
Pitch Mix Analysis: Starting Fantasy Baseball Pitchers With Upside In Their Arsenal
If you are going to make a living as a Major League starting pitcher, you had better come to the table with more than one effective pitch. There are very rare exceptions, but exceptions do not disprove the rule. Starting pitchers need multiple useful offerings to have success, and that's especially true when we're talking... Read More