BABS streakers since the All Star Break

by Pat Cloghessy In many leagues, the trade deadline has come and gone. The waiver wire appears picked over. Aside from shallow setups, the ability to improve is limited.  However, “improving” one’s fantasy team is not always a by-product of adding a piece via trade or FAAB. It can happen in an instant (or seemingly…

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BABS analyzes the trade deadline moves

by Doug Gruber It was a crazy last few hours, especially the final minutes, as the new MLB “single” trade deadline reached its conclusion. Now that the deadline has passed, what is most important for us and our fantasy teams is to get BABS’ assessment of the major transactions, not only for the players involved…

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BABS and the baseballs

by Pat Cloghessy It’s the baseball, stupid.  In 2019, baseballs are leaving the yard at a rate of 2.76 HR/game, which would break the record  of 2.52, set in 2017. Are changes to the ball responsible? Is the ball “juiced”? Justin Verlander thinks so. It appears his comments have merit. Baseball America provides a summary…

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July 2019 BABS Update – Batters

by Doug Gruber At last week’s MLB Midsummer Classic, consensus among baseball’s experts was that three players have separated themselves from the others for this year’s MVP honors. Mike Trout appears to be the runaway leader in the American League, while Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger are in a virtual dead heat in the NL…

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July 2019 BABS Update – Pitchers

by Pat Cloghessy Well, this is awkward. Entering 2019, few would have put Jack Flaherty and Yu Darvish on the same planet. As luck (skill?) would have it, the July BABS update reflects on their skills thusly: (KK |-ER).  But wait a second. Were their converging assets and liabilities a realistic possibility all along? Here…

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BABS 2019 All Stars

by Pat Cloghessy It is increasingly difficult to find fault with All-Star selections. It appears fans are able to decipher who is “most-deserving” as opposed to who they like best. One could say that the baseball-watching community is more BABSian than ever.  Here are the BABS All-Stars for 2019: Catchers Tired of the ridicule foisted…

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Early returns look profitable for BABS pitcher targets

by Doug Gruber Two weeks ago, we looked at several pre-season hitter asset groups to measure how well BABS was doing for 2019. That evaluation identified numerous examples of hitters who have been very profitable. This week we will do the same assessment for the pitcher rankings. We think you will like these results too!…

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Are disappointing stars candidates for positive regression?

by Patrick Cloghessy No one wants to admit the sunk cost of an expensive draft choice. But positive regression is still possible. It’s not too late for these frustrating few to be useful, even great fantasy players provided they at least approach historical skill levels. Is Mookie Betts (p,s,a) nursing a World Series hangover? He’s…

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Early Returns Look Profitable for BABS Hitter Targets

by Doug Gruber One of the fundamentals of BABS is that players with similar skills are assembled into asset groups and are pretty much interchangeable. Further, BABS has taught us that our draft strategy is to sort the players within each asset group by the marketplace rankings (ADPs, AAVs) and look for the largest discrepancies.…

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June 2019 BABS Update – Pitchers

by Doug Gruber Which pitcher doesn’t belong in this threesome…Jacob deGrom, Stephen Strasburg or Matthew Boyd? If we were talking 2019 player salaries, Boyd at only $2.4 million would be the poor boy in the this group. In the June 2019 update, BABS says that all three arms belong in the same asset group, possessing…

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