Michael Waldo - Page 2

Batting average on balls in play, or BABIP, is usually associated with offensive players. After all, it's primarily an offensive statistic. Nonetheless, BABIP against is the adaption of that statistic for pitchers and it's just as useful for them as...

It's tough to believe, but we've reached the final edition of A Closer Look for the 2020 fantasy baseball season! It's been a challenging year in many ways, but as always, it's subscribers like yourself that make producing fantasy content...

The divide between the upper class and lower class is growing larger, at least as it relates to baseball closers. The very good bullpens continue to get stronger and the closers continue to produce, while the weaker bullpens were hit...

With the trade deadline in the books, this column historically shifts into a mode that looks towards the stretch run. We'll still do that this season, but instead of having roughly 8 weeks to help you make up ground in...

Believe it or not, this is the last column before the Major League Baseball trade deadline! Given the uncertainty with the current state of baseball and the complicated business side of things, this will most likely be a relatively quiet...

Like most pitchers in 2020, the variance has been extremely difficult for fantasy owners to manage. We're officially about 33% of the way through the baseball season, but just 7 teams have one player with all their team's saves....

In normal seasons, the column that typically gets written this week (leading up to July 31st) would be filled with hypothetical statements and advice about how to handle the various movement expected in the closer pool. The same is true...

This weekend on our SiriusXM Fantasy we're continuing to talk about hard hit rate and it's usefulness when evaluating starting pitchers. Much like its correlation with batting average and HR/FB rate for offensive players, hard hit rate allowed is strongly...

Hi folks, Welcome back to A Closer Look for the 2020 season! Today I'll be providing a glimpse at our top-10 closers in our Draft Advisory Program along with a tease of some of the player notes in the software...

Contact percentage, like many of the plate discipline statistics, is like the Shohei Ohtani of sabermetrics - it plays both sides! While contact percentage is a useful statistic for measuring a pitcher's effectiveness, it's also an excellent way to measure...

Strand rate, or left on base percentage (LOB%), measures the percentage of baserunners a pitcher leaves on base over the course of an entire season. At its core, strand rate is simply a measure of the number of runners that...

Padres: A 2019 Bust To a 2020 Value? After being drafted as a 2nd round player heading into 2019, Machado's first season with the Padres was largely viewed as a disappointment thanks to drops in every counting stat category. His...

Swinging strike rate, or the percentage of pitches that result in a swing and a miss, is one of the most powerful tools for any fantasy player to utilize when attempting to evaluate starting pitcher performances. The calculation of the...

Sabermetricians are generally viewed as experts on statistics, so go find your favorite sabermetrician and ask him the ERA of Pitcher X in the MLB. Chances are, he might not even know what it is. Now ask the same sabermetrician...

SAN DIEGO PADRES: Tommy Pham (OF - SD) - Tommy Pham has gone 20/15+ for three straight seasons, yet this spring he will play for his third team in the last three years. Soon to be 32 years old,...

Statistics sometimes have a funny way of coming full circle. If you rewind the clock back a decade or two, our "advanced" metrics were using player's splits, specifically handedness and home/away. To this day, a player's handedness splits are frequently...

Home Run to Flyball Rate (HR/FB) is one of the most straightforward statistics that we use for fantasy baseball since it's simply telling us what percentage of flyballs are hit for home runs. The metric is calculated by taking total...

As we wrap up A Closer Look for another season, I like to use these final columns as a way to start getting an edge on the competition for the upcoming draft season. Teams are calling up their top prospect...

Ah, do you smell that? That's the sweet, sweet smell of victory. It's so close, yet the next two or three weeks will likely feel like the longest of the year. With the NFL season starting, it's possible you've lifted...

After today, we'll enter the final month of the fantasy baseball season! Saves are up across baseball and we're in the midst of the most parity at the position that we've seen in years. Perhaps it's the change in development...

This time of year, it's not uncommon to read through the boxscores and come across an unfamiliar name. These occurrences will only increase in September as rosters expand to include the entire 40-man roster. As focus shifts from baseball to...

It's August....that means back-to-school, end of summer sales and the prep for fantasy football. If you're still reading this article, it probably means you take fantasy baseball pretty seriously. Sure, you might play fantasy football, but fantasy baseball remains a...

Within the next week, we're going to be about 75% of the way through the baseball season. From a figurative standpoint, that means we're rounding third base on this fantasy baseball season. While it's probably too late to make a...

The trade deadline has come and passed and from a closer perspective, it turned out to be a lot of pomp and circumstance over nothing. Well, nothing is a strong term, but some of the tremors we felt leading up...

Happy trade deadline weekend!! Unlike some seasons, the list of sellers and buyers remains murky, at best. With so many teams on the cusp of a wild card race, it's quite possible we see a quieter than normal trade deadline....

Welcome to the first official edition of A Closer Look of the second half! As I wrote about two weeks ago and touched on in last week's first half awards ceremony, the trade deadline is looming and will be upon...

David Dahl (COL) - David Dahl was forced to exit Wednesday's contest after fouling a ball off his foot. The good news is that x-rays were negatives for any fractures or broken bones, but there's a decent chance Dahl might...

Welcome back to baseball! Hopefully everyone had a wonderful All-Star break and found the time off enjoyable and rejuvenating. We're just a few weeks away from baseball's non-waiver trade deadline and we're certainly in the midst of the most important...

It's that time of year - I can feel it in my sweat-soaked fingers. The weather is heating up and contending major league general managers are beginning to feel pressure from their fanbase to upgrade their rosters for the playoff...

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! Dylan Cease (CWS) - The White Sox called up prospect Dylan Cease to start against the Tigers on Wednesday. After tallying two quick outs in the first inning, Cease made things interesting by walking three straight...

And just like that, we're at the halfway mark of the season! In honor of being halfway done, we're going to do a little "on pace for" analysis for the closer pool. Personally, I hate using "on pace for" numbers...

Jason Vargas (NYM) -Jason Vargas was twirling a gem before his manager pulled him in the 7thinning on Wednesday after just 77 pitches. Facing the Phillies in Philadelphia, Vargas finished with a line of 6.1 IP, 3H, 2ER, 2BB...

If you're still reading this column in June, it probably means you check your fantasy baseball teams every day. In fact, you're probably the subject matter expect on just about any player on your active roster. That's a good thing!...

There's always a better way. World-class companies don't become the best by being complacent. Likewise, industry standards are always changing, so world-class companies must innovate to keep an edge on their competition. The same is true for fantasy baseball. Think...

Christian Yelich (MIL) -Another day, another home run for Christian Yelich, who now has 27 and has hit a homerun in 9% of all his plate appearance this season and improved his slash line to .345/.441/.743. Yelich started the season...

Maybe leading in saves isn't such a good thing after all. As most of the avid readers know, I'm heavily involved in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) drafts each spring. I'm a firm believer that the players who play...