What are some good fantasy baseball podcasts? Gonna check out fangraphs later today

Agree with this although I would probably do the deal as is.

Flags fly forever

Sleeper and the Bust is good. My favorite is BaseballHQ Radio.

The static set of stats you see is a range. Just an average of those to make it easier to read.

Most "projections" are some sort of weighted average of the last three seasons with some factors placed in for advanced statistics (ie increasing flyball rate, better eye %, increasing hard hit %) and of course for the feeling of the projector.

The idea is not to take them as gospel but as a guide. I need stolen bases so I'll take this guy projected to steal 25. My power guys have poor BA, I'll take this guy projected to hit .295.

HQ does have a health grade which is generally hard to understand because of the randomness of injuries. Last year a poor health grade and injury history kept people away from Stanton. Plays 155 games and smashes. Draft Mad Bum and his A+ health grade and you get half a season in 1 1/2 years.

Thanks guys. I'll check these out.

It took me several years to realize this, but the CBS fantasy baseball podcast is infinitely superior to the ESPN fantasy baseball podcast

Hopefully no one in this thread drafted knebel in the 6th

I don't think you read my post. I'm not arguing that the bolded is the correct way to value.

Of course I don't take projections as gospel. Even weighted averages fail to properly account for volatility. Take the following two players as an example, using HRs as the relevant stat and three possible outcomes:

Player A -- 20 HR (50% chance), 15 (25% chance), 25 HRs (25% chance)
Player B -- 20 HRs (20% chance), 10 HRs (40% chance), 30 HRs (40% chance)

The projected number of home runs for each player using a weighted average is 20, but the error bar in the projection, on both the high and the low side, is much wider for Player B than for Player A. And the size of the error bar affects value.

This is pretty much what I have in mind. I don't think that any tout's player valuations are based on Monte Carlo simulations.

Relative no0b to fantasy baseball here. In a weekly league what do I do with Othani now that he's raking? Do I play him an just accept that he's only hitting 3-4 times in the week? Or is his AB volume too low to put him in a lineup that is set for the entire week?

You can't play him in weekly unless you know hes going to DH a minimum 4 games, and that's pretty unlikely.

Plus, it's been 3 games. No doubt the tools are for real, but lolsample size.

I did read your post, I was making what's commonly known as a joke.

In poker there are 52 cards in a deck, so you can make more scientific/analytical decisions. That's just not the same in fantasy sports, especially baseball. Like Sluss said, there's a of data and then guess work. But at the end of the day, you have to combine stats, injuries, managerial decisions, your own personal strategy, and then over time, your own gut. And watching the game helps more than you think.

I always like remembering this quote too:

"They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball and they tell you to hit it square." - Willie Stargell

I watch plenty of baseball. Sadly, I'm pretty sure it is useless when it comes to doing well at fantasy sports. And I'm not really asking questions for the purpose of managing my own fantasy teams.

There are a significant number of pay sites out there that will generate auction values according to the parameters of your specific league. As best I can tell, the values always are tied to the projected performance for those players. I guess I'm proposing that all those models are flawed for more or less the same reason -- because they fail to account for volatility. Put another way, even if those models are based on excellent projections of weighted average outcomes, the valuations don't account for dispersion around the projected outcome. I'm not sure that this flaw is pronounced enough to make a competing model noticeably superior to the existing models, but I'm quite certain that failing to account for dispersion is a flaw.

One relatively simple shortcut would be to project performance in deciles, come up with a valuation for the projected performance in each decile, and then take compute the weighted average of the player values for each decile. That would be imperfect, but almost certainly more accurate than current models.

The best one I've found is free on fangraphs. Why would anyone pay for something inferior?



RE: volatility
Basically, who cares?
There are so many more important but unpredictable parameters in baseball that I can't see trying to create a model based on volatility being worthwhile at all.

i honestly didnt even know there were paid sites

Man I'm not feeling all that great about Castillo right now.
He's only my SP4 in the one league managed to get him, but I expected a lot more here in the early going. Seems pretty hittable so far.

yeah i just traded for him and watched most of the game too, didnt seem like that much bite on his stuff. hopefully it's just cause it was rainy the whole game? but not super confident about him.

I thought the price was a little too high in most of my drafts, so also only ended up with 1 share of Castillo. I wouldn't worry too much yet; he has 4 legit pitches and usually pretty good command. A lot of young pitchers just don't have much experience throwing in cold weather and a baseball can have a completely different feel. I'll be trying to buy if owners are ready to cut him loose this early.

soooo I could be wrong...

He just hit another absolute bomb just left of dead center. Went completely over the batters eye, well up into the rock pile. Swing looked effortless too. Amazing!

Castillo had 2 really bad match ups so far between the Nationals who are a good hitting team and today the combo of weather/ump/pirates not being a high strikeout team so I wouldn't worry about his results too much. That being said I watched today's game and his control was worrisome especially on his change up.

So glad I got gerrit Cole this year....he's dealing

I've stared at this too long. Please help and eliminate two of the following for next week. 5x5 roto.

Lester vs. PIT (Brault)
Morton vs. TEX (Hamels)
Tanaka @ BOS (Price)
Porcelllo vs. NYY (?)
Manaea @ LAD (Wood)
Nola vs. CIN (Bailey)

My current plan is to sit Nola and Porcello.

Porcello manaea