Chasing Barrels: Hard-Hitting Early Statcast Leaders

When looking to confirm or refute fast starts, we can quickly turn to Statcast Leaderboards for information. While we could fill out a full search, the leaderboards are a quick way to see which hitters are barreling up balls in 2018. While sabermetrics don't always translate to fantasy leaders, they are often a great indicator of […]

Contact Rate Risers and Fallers for Week 6: Buy or Sell?

Welcome to Contact Rate Risers and Fallers! Our premium tools allow us to get out ahead of trends in player performance, including contact rate. Every Wednesday, we'll be looking at some players that have seen an increase in contact rate and some that have seen it decline. Contact rate can foretell a player's batting average […]

2018 Prospects: Top 30 Impact Rookies for Fantasy Leagues (Week 6)

Hello everyone, and welcome to my weekly Top-30 Fantasy Rankings for Impact Rookies! In this series, I will be going over the top prospects in baseball and discussing which ones figure to have an impact for the rest of this fantasy baseball season. At this point, it’s only a matter of time until this list […]

Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Two-Strike xBA (Week 6)

Welcome back to Rotoballer's series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and I enlighten myself on the information and tools at my disposal. For Week 6, we'll continue our theme from last week arguing that by […]

Are You For Real? Surprising SP Starts (Week 6)

Welcome to our surprising starts series. Every week we’ll be going over a few surprising starting pitcher performances around the majors to determine whether these starts were smoke and mirrors or something more. With all the exciting young pitching prospects being called up and doing well and some veterans surprising us it was hard to […]

Strikeout Rate Risers and Fallers for Week 6: Buy or Sell?

Due to a combination of harder throwers and hitters focusing on hitting for power, strikeouts are at an all-time high in baseball. For pitchers, this is an ideal trend. The ability to generate swings and misses is the most important skill to possess, as it's the only true way to control what happens after the […]

NL-Only Waiver Wire Team of the Week for Week 6

Every week in baseball, a significant player will hit the disabled list, slip into a slump, or get traded out of a good spot. How fantasy owners adapt to these situations can make or break the season as a whole. One lousy add might not hurt the long-term standing of a team, but failing to […]

Hitter Streamers (Week 6) - Head-to-Head Leagues

Welcome back to my hitting streamers column for Week 6, taking a look at hitters to add or stream off the waiver wire for this week's scheduled games. To keep things simple, I pick from players who are 50% owned or less and who play at least seven games in the week.  If someone jumps […]

Buy or Sell - Underowned and Overowned Players for Week 6

It was nice to see Drew Pomeranz toss a quality start (finally) and prove that he's not a carcass of a former Rockies pitcher like Jhoulys Chacin. This, however, is a disclaimer that some of these buy-low/sell-high candidates may not pan out right away. Or ever. I'm still hoping that as soon as Domingo Santana […]

Power Risers and Fallers for Week 5: Buy or Sell?

Welcome to Week 5 of the 2018 MLB season and the first week of our investigation into the steepest power trenders in baseball, whether those trends be positive or negative. As the season turns the corner into the month of May, the window of opportunity to snag a surging slugger or to deal a down-and-out […]

Finding Value on the Fringes: Roster Flexibility and Late Picks

The key to winning any fantasy league is finding value where others have not. Either this means buying in on the Matt Kemps of the world early and getting value late in a draft or using roster construction to maximize stat collection. Where players play matters as much as when and how they play for […]

Preseason Sleepers Yet to Awaken - Hitters

If you are going to win a championship in your fantasy baseball league, you typically need to hit on at least a couple of sleeper selections during your draft. Anyone who took a shot on Ozzie Albies, Gerrit Cole, or Patrick Corbin have an enormous advantage on the rest of their league due to the […]

Minor League Roundup - Who's Hot and Who's Not? (Week 5)

In last week’s edition of “Who’s Hot, Who’s Not”, I mentioned Atlanta Braves pitcher Mike Soroka. After dominating Triple-A to start the season, Soroka was promoted to the Major Leagues on Tuesday, and made his big league debut. Soroka promptly dazzled with six innings of one-run ball. Dane Dunning was also mentioned in last week’s piece, […]

2018 Prospects: Top 30 Impact Rookies for Fantasy Leagues (Week 5)

Hello everyone, and welcome to my weekly Top-30 Fantasy Rankings for Impact Rookies! In this series, I will be going over the top prospects in baseball and discussing which ones figure to have an impact for the rest of this fantasy baseball season. The prospect promotions continue to roll in. First it was Gleyber Torres […]

Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - wOBA - xwOBA (Week 5)

We continue our RotoBaller series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and I enlighten myself on the information and tools at my disposal. With a month of baseball in the books, most starting pitchers have logged […]

Are You For Real? Surprising SP Starts (Week 5)

Welcome to our surprising starts series. Every week we’ll be going over a few surprising starting pitcher performances around the majors to determine whether these starts were smoke and mirrors or something more. This week we've got a trio of youngsters to look at, two in the NL Central and one in the AL. Each […]

Hitter Streamers (Week 5) - Head-to-Head Leagues

Welcome back to my hitting streamers column for Week 5, taking a look at hitters to add or stream off the waiver wire for this week's scheduled games. To keep things simple, I pick from players who are 50% owned or less and who play at least seven games in the week.  If someone jumps […]

Buy or Sell - Underowned and Overowned Players for Week 5

Stop the presses - Ronald Acuna has arrived! The presses have actually been kicking into overdrive since he amazed the baseball world with a wicked single and a couple of really, really long fly ball outs in his Major League debut. Oh, he hit a mammoth home run in his second game too. Like any […]

Flopping Aces - Finding Value in Slow-Starting Pitching Performances

Growing up, the baseball mantra from my father was “wait until 40 games and then you can know how a team will play.”  Perhaps this was just a way for a Cleveland fan growing up in the 80s to keep hope, or maybe there is some truth to that saying.   Small sample sizes do […]

Minor League Round-Up - Who's Hot and Who's Not? (Week 4)

With so many prospects to keep track of across the multiple levels of the minor leagues, it often becomes very difficult to sift through those levels and get an idea of who is performing well and who is performing not so well. Don't worry fantasy ballers, RotoBaller has you covered with the weekly "Who's Hot […]

Buy or Sell - Surprising Pitchers Off to Hot Starts in 2018

The beginning of the season is one of the toughest times of the year for fantasy baseball managers. Reading into small sample sizes is a tough task, as it can set you up for success the rest of the year if you make a smart waiver wire or set you back by giving up on […]

2018 Prospects: Top 30 Impact Rookies for Fantasy Leagues (Week 4)

Hello everyone, and welcome to my weekly Top-30 Fantasy Rankings for Impact Rookies! In this series, I will be going over the top prospects in baseball and discussing which ones figure to have an impact for the rest of this fantasy baseball season. This was a big week for prospect promotions. Sure, Franklin Barreto was […]

Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - Exit Velocity (Week 4)

We continue our RotoBaller series using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performances. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and I enlighten myself on the information and tools at my disposal. My predictive confidence face-planted over the weekend as two of my calls in […]

Are You For Real? Surprising SP Starts (Week 4)

Welcome to our surprising starts series. Every week we’ll be going over a few surprising starting pitcher performances around the majors to determine whether these starts were smoke and mirrors or something more. This week we're looking at a pair of NL East hurlers that have put up some eye-popping strikeout numbers, as well as […]

How Superior Setup Men Provide Value to Closers - AL Focus

The goal of the previous column in this series was to propose that the home runs allowed by relief pitchers have a significant impact on fantasy teams, even when those pitchers do not make the roster. While a baseball truism on some levels, home runs given up late in games tend to diminish the number […]

Hitter Streamers (Week 4) - Head-to-Head Leagues

Welcome back to my hitting streamers column for Week 4, taking a look at hitters to add or stream off the waiver wire for this week's scheduled games. To keep things simple, I pick from players who are 50% owned or less and who play at least seven games in the week.  If someone jumps […]

Buy or Sell - Underowned and Overowned Players for Week 4

Is it time to overreact yet? This is what many fantasy owners are asking themselves and our writers at RotoBaller, but it's not the question you should be asking. It may be the early portion of a long season, but clearly some trends are forming. The question is: how much longer are you going to […]

Statcast Pitcher Risers/Fallers - BABIP (Week 3)

RotoBaller embarks on a new series this year using Statcast to extrapolate, dig into, and commiserate over data to examine pitching performance. The weekly series will be dynamic as we fine-tune our findings and I enlighten myself on the information and tools at my disposal. This week we'll focus on a popular batted-ball metric, Batting […]

2018 Prospects: Top 30 Impact Rookies for Fantasy Leagues (Week 3)

Hello everyone, and welcome to my weekly Top-30 Fantasy Rankings for Impact Rookies! In this series, I will be going over the top prospects in baseball and discussing which ones figure to have an impact for the rest of this fantasy baseball season. It continues to be the waiting game for Atlanta to call up […]

Week 3 Points Leagues - Strategy, Pickups and Cuts

I hope you are coming off of a week two victory and flying high at 2-0 in your league. Whether you're crushing, or sitting at 0-2, I am here to help you notch that Week Three victory. This article is tailored to points leagues more than traditional 5x5 leagues. While every points league is different, […]