A high level accounting of the BABS player pool

By Patrick Cloghessy In our quest to set roster targets and assess our ability to meet those targets, it is helpful to have a good sense of the composition of the player pool. From a BABsian perspective, that means taking an accounting of where she is allocating her assets and liabilities. Here is a high-level…

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BABS Baseball 2.0 (BABL)

Last year, we introduced a fantasy baseball game format that made best use of how BABS has taught us to build teams. It incorporated players’ skills as well as risk, and pushed us into a more methodical process for roster construction. The leagues we ran in Year #1 might have been considered live laboratories for…

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Drafting with BABS right out of the box

In past years, having a fantasy baseball draft in January would seem a bit premature. Still, by now there would have been enough trades and free agent signings that we’d have at least a general sense of how MLB rosters are shaking out. These days, it’s far more complicated. As Bryce Harper and Manny Machado…

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An early view of 2019 BABS ratings

by Patrick Cloghessy Let’s cut to the chase. We are here for a reckoning. Will BABS confirm our love for Ronald Acuna? Will she throw cold water on Walker Buehler (pictured)? We know it’s instructive to overlay BABS’ rankings with ADP. As of this writing, there have been 76 completed NFBC drafts. BABS appears to…

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Four Named to Rotisserie Hall of Fame

While the baseball universe waits for the always-controversial Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) Hall of Fame announcement, the fantasy industry has named its 2019 picks for the Rotisserie Hall of Fame: Adrian Beltre, Carl Crawford, Jimmy Rollins and David Wright. After we re-set the qualification criteria this past fall, this quartet now represents the…

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Minor League BABS 2019

What is the difference between Ramon Laureano and Austin Meadows? Looking only at their 2018 major league stats, one might conclude, “not a whole lot.” BABS viewed their 2018 performances slightly differently. She rated Laureano (PW,SB,a), which is an elite-level asset group that no Major Leaguer attained in 2018. Meadows was rated (SB,a), a comparable…

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What to expect here in 2019

Welcome to 2019. It’s been 37 years since we partied like it’s 1999, and 20 years since we actually did the partying. About 35 years ago today, I would have been enjoying the performance of Tom Barrasso, who was the starting goaltender on my very first fantasy team. A few months later, I would be…

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The Rotisserie Hall of Fame – A Reboot

In the earlier part of this decade, I embarked on a pet project to create a Baseball Hall of Fame based solely on fantasy league merit. This is different from the BBWAA process that leads to a plaque in Cooperstown. The BBWAA awards reverence based on objective performance criteria, but also subjective criteria like “character.”…

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How I Did This Summer

Here’s hoping your 2018 fantasy baseball season has been a success. The final BABS ratings have been posted to the site. With the completion of the fantasy season, it’s time to look back and see how I fared in 2018. Not well. In fact, 2018 has been a year I would like to forget. It…

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BABS arms ready to take the next step up

by Patrick Cloghessy According to BABS, in 2017 Patrick Corbin pitched a full season of essentially “asset-less” baseball. She then tabbed him with a (F,e) rating entering 2018. That is not the profile of a breakout star. Some of us may have seen Corbin’s mostly dynamic 2nd half in 2017. He tired in September, but there…

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