Gregory Polanco Breaks Wrist In Winter Ball

Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Gregory Polanco (wrist) suffered a fractured right wrist while playing in the Dominican Winter League with the Leones del Escogido, according to the team's general manager. The injury is deemed a small non-displaced fracture of the triquetrum bone. Polanco will have his wrist immobilized for a small period of time and is […]

Nationals Trade For Josh Bell

The Washington Nationals acquired first baseman Josh Bell from the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday in exchange for young pitchers Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean. Bell set career highs in almost every category when he made his first All-Star team in 2019 by hitting .277 with 37 home runs and 116 RBI, but he regressed in […]

Projecting Power in 2021: Late ADP Options

Like a sitcom catchphrase from a bygone era, we all want more power. We'll take it early and we'll take it late but it always feels extra sweet when one of your final picks suddenly becomes one of the mayors of dong city. Looking at a player's exit velocities can tell us a lot about […]

Strike Zone Rate Analysis - Starting Pitchers

There are hundreds of metrics out there that describe pitchers. The richness of the available data is rivaled by no other sport. This can at times lead to information overload, leading us too far away from the core tenants of what success looks like. One group of statistics that are very simple and very helpful […]

Jameson Taillon On Track For 2021 Return

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Jameson Taillon (elbow) is on schedule to return next season after missing most of 2019 and all of 2020 while recovering from his second Tommy John surgery on his right elbow. The 29-year-old has been throwing the ball well and is very eager to get back into games. But with Pittsburgh […]

MLB's Best Pitches by the Numbers

One of the most-often used algorithms in the data science world is called clustering. Clustering is defined, by Wikipedia, as: grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more similar (in some sense) to each other than to those in other groups (clusters) In baseball […]

Projecting Power in 2021: Early ADP Air% Exit Velocity

Looking at average exit velocity to project future power is not very useful compared to looking only at balls hit in the air. Because who cares how hard ground balls are hit? However, it can be even more useful to parse out those velocities into more refined bins and cast a more critical eye to […]

Top 250 Dynasty Prospects for 2021

The 2020 baseball season was unlike any year we’ve ever seen with its shortened season and schedule that can perhaps be best described as organized chaos. The absence of a minor league season played havoc with prospect prognosticators. The 2021 season — and perhaps beyond — will continue to present unique challenges as the pandemic […]

Biggest Risers of 2020 – Relief Pitchers

In 2020, we saw a large number of relief pitchers, previously not in the upper tier of fantasy rankings, breakout or bounce back from 2019 decrepitude. Below we will take a look at a few of the biggest relief pitcher risers of the 2020 season as we gear up for 2021 drafts in the spring. […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Relief Pitcher Rankings

The 2021 MLB season isn't guaranteed to be normal but I have hope that next spring will be much healthier. As such, I will approach ranks as if a traditional 162-game season is coming. Join me for my position-by-position ranking series for the 2021 fantasy baseball season. How much weight do we give 2020? How […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings

The upcoming 2021 season may not be normal -- going from 2020 to 2021 doesn't wave a magic wand -- but there's still comfort in baseball. As such, I will approach ranks as if a traditional 162-game season is coming. Join me for my position-by-position ranking series for the 2021 fantasy baseball season. How much […]

Projecting Power in 2021: Elite Levels of Air% Exit Velocity

Everyone wants more power, even more so when it comes relatively cheap. But even when pricey, you're going to need to draft a bomber or two. One of the best ways to see how a player's power is trending is to sift through their exit-velocities to see what they're saying. Most know by now that […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Outfield Rankings

I think most of us would agree that looking forward to 2021 is a good idea. For me, that means immersing myself in the upcoming baseball season. While there's no guarantee COVID-19 won't affect the '21 season, I will approach ranks as if a traditional 162-game season is coming. Join me for my position-by-position ranking […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Shortstop Rankings

As we begin to look towards the 2021 baseball season, we can only hope that COVID-19 will be handled well enough to let the season run as normal. Since this is a mere early ranking exercise and we have so much ahead of us, let's just close our eyes and chat as if a 162-game […]

Teams Interested In Steven Brault

Teams have been calling about Pittsburgh Pirates left-hander Steven Brault, according to a source. Brault is attractive because he carries three years of control and had a career-best 3.38 ERA in 2020. The 28-year-old is also in his first year of arbitration eligibility. He was arguably the team's best starter last year in the shortened […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Third Base Rankings

Hope springs eternal for the 2021 baseball season, but it's hard to imagine we'll be completely past COVID-19 by then. Plus, we could see opening salvos for the CBA debates to come. But for now, let's just close our eyes and dream of a perfect world and chat as if a 162-game season will come […]

Noteworthy xwOBA-wOBA Pitching Leaders

One of the oddities brought on by the shortened 2020 season was the number of qualified pitchers with huge gaps between their xwOBA and wOBA. In 2019, only seven qualified pitchers posted a wOBA at least 0.050 points away from their xwOBA in either direction, a number that ballooned to 52 pitchers in 2020. Of […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Second Base Rankings

As usual, I'll start by saying the 2021 baseball season may still be affected by COVID-19. Maybe even more labor disputes just for a curveball. But for now, let's just close our eyes and dream of a perfect world and chat as if a 162-game season will come next spring. Join me for my position-by-position […]

2021 First Look Fantasy Values: Third Base

The baseball offseason may officially begin with the end of the World Series but the projections offseason began last Thursday night with the release of the first Steamer projections for 2021. Created and maintained by mathematics teacher Jared Cross and his former students, Steamer remains the industry standard for non-aggregated projection systems, as well as […]

Nick Mariano's Early 2021 Fantasy Baseball Catcher Rankings

Let's cut right to it: the 2021 baseball season is not guaranteed to be a normal one. But for now, let's just close our eyes and dream of a world unencumbered by COVID-19 and talk about our silly little game as if a 162-game season will come next spring. It is time to decide how […]

2021 First Look Fantasy Values: Outfielders

The baseball offseason may officially begin with the end of the World Series but the projections offseason began last Thursday night with the release of the first Steamer projections for 2021. Created and maintained by mathematics teacher Jared Cross and his former students, Steamer remains the industry standard for non-aggregated projection systems, as well as […]

2021 Fantasy Value First Looks: Shortstop

The baseball offseason may officially begin with the end of the World Series but the projections offseason began last Thursday night with the release of the first Steamer projections for 2021. Created and maintained by mathematics teacher Jared Cross and his former students, Steamer remains the industry standard for non-aggregated projection systems, as well as […]

2021 First Look Fantasy Values: First Base and Second Base

The baseball offseason may officially begin with the end of the World Series but the projections offseason began last Thursday night with the release of the first Steamer projections for 2021. Created and maintained by mathematics teacher Jared Cross and his former students, Steamer remains the industry standard for non-aggregated projection systems, as well as […]

Mets Claim Nick Tropeano Off Waivers From Pirates

The New York Mets claimed right-handed reliever Nick Tropeano off of waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday. In 2020, Tropeano posted a 1.15 ERA, a 1.15 WHIP, and struck out 19 in 15 2/3 innings pitched for the Pirates. Despite the solid performance in 2020, albeit in a limited number of innings, Tropeano owns […]

2021 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values Based On Contact Quality

In part one of this series, I established that zxwOBAcon is the primary driver of season-to-season changes in xwOBAcon and that the biggest risers in zxwOBAcon each season tend to be rebound candidates. Furthermore, rebound candidates recover all of their zxwOBAcon losses more often than not and frequently outperform their season x zxwOBAcon in season […]

Warning Signals in Shift Increases: Part One

Shifts work. Not all the time and not against everyone but eventually there is a sufficient amount of data on a player to be able to draw some pretty strong conclusions about what advantages can be gained by shifting. There are good reasons that Joey Gallo was shifted against 98.5% of the time in 2020. Not everyone […]

Dissecting Contact Quality In Search Of Fantasy Bargains

Of the 1,015 hitters sampled(1) between 2015 and 2019, there were only 14 instances of hitters making more productive contact against pitches outside of the strike zone than against pitches inside of the strike zone based on xwOBAcon. Based on the same sample, the average hitter was a whopping .116 points better against pitches inside […]

2020 Expectations vs Reality (Hits and Misses): WPC+ Videocast

Pierre Camus and Nicklaus Gaut share the players they were the most right and wrong about in 2020 by comparing their preseason rankings to actual performance. Like and subscribe to the RotoBaller channel on Youtube to get all our latest podcasts and catch us on iTunes and BlogTalkRadio as well! Be sure to also tune […]

Daily Slivers of the Fantasy Soapbox - Yesterday's Recap

Welcome to the September 28th edition of Daily Slivers of the Fantasy Soapbox. Discussing baseball is as fun as the game itself. It has a way of bringing people together to share different opinions about the sport we all love. A similar action can be done with fantasy baseball where we not only discuss topics […]

Daily Slivers of the Fantasy Soapbox - Yesterday's Recap

Welcome to the September 26th edition of Daily Slivers of the Fantasy Soapbox. Discussing baseball is as fun as the game itself. It has a way of bringing people together to share different opinions about the sport we all love. A similar action can be done with fantasy baseball where we not only discuss topics […]