Hitting for the Cycle #19

A Sunday Review - May 29, 2022

📖 What I’m Reading:

NFBC Main Event: Fever Dream, Chapter 2 - Ryan Rufe

• Ryan Rufe provides an in-season update to his NFBC Main Event team through the 7 scoring and FAAB periods. If you didn’t catch Ryan’s first article on his journey into season long high-stakes fantasy baseball, you can read that HERE. In this current article, Ryan takes you through the ups and downs of his teams performance as well as his weekly FAAB bidding thought process. He reflects on most weeks with a lesson learned such as:

  • Be more on top of Tuesday lineup locks.

  • Make sure to have adequate roster coverage and flexibility on your bench for last-minute injuries that occur.

  • Don't spend $30-plus dollars for a streaming hitter on the short-side of a platoon when you don't know how long they will be on your roster.

🎧 What I’m Hearing:

Fantasy MLB Today - Hosted by Joe Orrico

• Last two episodes of Fantasy MLB Today focused on over and under-performing pitchers this season. In one of those episodes, Joe Orrico brings on Nick Pollack of PitcherList to discuss when to trade a pitcher, whether we can believe in pitcher’s skill changes, or whether you just ride out the current over performances until you drop them to your league’s waiver-wire. Though most leagues I play in are no-trading, I do have one H2H home league. These episodes were not only a good reminder to assess current year pitching performance but whether it’s a good time to buy, hold or sell in trading leagues.

📊 Metric of the Week:

Whiff Rate (“Whiff%”)

Whiff% is calculated as the number of swings and misses divided by the total number of swings. This is very helpful to look at when reviewing a pitcher’s performance per start and per pitch type thrown. Current year league average Whiff% on all pitches sits at 25.6%. You can see the current list of pitchers sorted by Whiff% on all pitches at Baseball Savant HERE.

💬 Quote of the Week:

“We just want to win. That's the bottom line. I think a lot of times people may become content with one championship or a little bit of success, but we don't really reflect on what we've done in the past. We focus on the present.”

- Derek Jeter

ps: Juuuuuust a bit outside, strike @umpjob