Trading Trout: Should you liquidate a long-term injury?
This is a special bonus ESPN Insider column for the week. When Freddie Freeman was injured two weeks ago, his fantasy owners cried out in agony: “He’s the core of my offense! What am I going to do?! My team is toast!” As a Freeman owner myself, I felt the pain. I paid a hefty…
Read MoreNot-so-bold June projections
This is my ESPN Insider column for the week. A month ago, I wrote a column called, “No-so-bold May projections.” The focus was on players whose underlying metrics pointed to a change in fortunes and a rough time frame for when those fortunes might change. I received a bunch of good feedback on that piece,…
Read MoreReader Survey: Is BABS here to stay?
I introduced the Broad Assessment Balance Sheet (BABS) back in January 2016. It arrived as the logical evolution of the Mayberry Method and other “embrace imprecision” philosophies that I have written about for four or five years. BABS has made some noise. It seems that nearly every radio interview I do includes some discussion of…
Read MoreCould we have planned around the injury problem?
This is my ESPN Insider column for the week. Back on May 11, I received a trade offer in the Tout Wars Mixed Auction league. At the end of the email, the owner added this P.S.: I’m jealous of how healthy your roster is. I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but he…
Read MoreCan BABS really be used during the season?
In the recent readership survey, I received no fewer than a dozen comments about using BABS during the season. “How do I use it? How can it help me? Is it even a viable tool?” These are difficult questions. We want to be able to use BABS during the season. Most of you have bought…
Read MoreOur overflowing disabled lists
This is my ESPN Insider column for the week. When we draft our teams each year, we count on the higher-ranked players to be more productive, more reliable and to spend more time on the field than on the disabled list. It’s a valiant expectation. But history shows that the level of attrition among baseball’s…
Read MoreBABS Database Update – May 2017
Six weeks into the season, we would normally expect the dust to start clearing on player performance. However, the excessive number of disabled list stays is wreaking havoc with that. I’ll be writing more about it in my ESPN piece this week. In the interim, I updated the BABS database over the weekend – a…
Read MoreEric Thames and skills ownership
This is my ESPN Insider column for the week. Twenty years ago, I coined a simple aphorism: “Once a player displays a skill, he owns it.” It came about from experiencing the 1996 breakout performance of Henry Rodriguez. After four nondescript seasons in the majors, Rodriguez exploded in 1997 by hitting 36 home runs, driving…
Read MoreTaking DFS to Task in “Dueling with Kings”
Most people know my strong opinion when it comes to daily fantasy sports (DFS). From my annual disclosure statement: “I think daily fantasy sports (DFS) are an excellent, exciting variant that requires a different skills set in order to excel. I think the manner in which cash winnings are tied to the core game completely…
Read MoreNot-so-bold May projections
This is my ESPN Insider column for the week. It was written on Monday, posted on Tuesday. So, April is now over. Thank goodness for that. We are living in a brand new world where last year’s Cy Young contenders are sporting 5.00-plus ERAs and the Colorado Rockies are in first place. Intuitively, we know…
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