All posts under "Key Articles" - Page 2

2011 Top of the Prospect Class It is at this point every year when I am charged with telling you all about prospects who I think will make in impact in 2011. Last year at this time we talked about...

Thomas Diamond – SP Chicago Cubs Injuries has dimmed the once bright outlook for Thomas Diamond, the 10th overall pick in 2004. Possessed of incredible stuff and a lamentably flawed guidance system, Diamond was derailed by TJS prior to 2007,...

Mike Minor - SP Atlanta Braves The Braves will start Mike Minor against the Astros tomorrow as the left-hander will make his major league debut. The Braves' first round pick last year out of Vanderbilt, Mike signed for $2.42M with...

Brett Lawrie – Second Base Milwaukee Brewers The Brewers Brett Lawrie may already be, at 20 years old, the best second base prospect in the minors, especially from a fantasy standpoint where you can throw out his defensive limitations. Except...

Casey Kelly - Starting Pitcher Boston Red Sox The Red Sox 2008 first round pick wanted to explore his two-way capabilities for a while, but finally arrived at the conclusion himself this past winter that his future was on the...

Drew Storen - P Nationals In my fantasy career, I have, more than once, cut a pitcher during his appearance but I don't know how many pitchers in major league history have been promoted to the majors during a relief...

Eric Young Jr. – 2B/OF Rockies The Rockies recalled Eric Young Jr. on May 1 to replace the injured Brad Hawpe on their roster as the club searches for an answer to the struggles of Clint Barmes. Young has been...

Domonic Brown - OF Phillies Guys like me love guys like this. There's usually a backlash in prospect circles against highly-athletic players. The assumption usually is that that you can't be an elite athlete and and a "baseball player" at...

Tyson Ross - RP Oakland A's It was a mild surprise that Tyson Ross came north with the A's, opening the season in Oakland's bullpen. The A's instructional staff tinkered with his landing area last year and that produced great...

Aroldis Chapman - SP Cincinnati Reds This 21-year-old Cuban defector probably played a pretty big role in many fantasy drafts around the country last month and for many it will be interesting to revisit this spring's distribution in a couple...

If you play in a Rotisserie league and would like to give different weights to each Roto category that you select, you can with our player projections software. Within the Setup|Edit League Settings section, select the Rotisserie scoring option and...

Consistency Factor Consistency Factor: an indicator designed to measure a player's Weekly and/or Daily quality production output using Fantistics Fantasy Production Indicator (FPI). For anyone who has played in a Head to Head league, you probably already know the...

Hi Folks, Welcome to the start of the 2010 season! One of the ways I open a new season is by taking a look back at the previous one. Below is the link to the Historical Fantasy Values and some...

Randall Delgado - RHP Atlanta Braves Prospect junkies are always interested in the latest model off the line of the Braves' pitching factory. Let's talk about 19-year-old Randall Delgado. The 6-3/180 right-hander's stat line below for 2009 may not seem...

Junichi Tazawa - RHP Boston Red Sox The reeling Red Sox recalled right hander Junichi Tazawa from Pawtucket and threw him onto the breach on Friday night against the Yankees in the Bronx. The designation of John Smoltz may be...

This week we deal with some names we haven't covered yet that changed teams at or near the trade deadline this week ... most of whom are headed to Cleveland ... Jason Knapp - RHP Cleveland Indians Not to be...

Deolis Guerra - RHP Minnesota Twins Yes, he's still around ... and he's still only 20. Deolis Guerra came to the Twins in the Johan Santana trade and I talked at the time about how I feel that despite the...

Cooperstown and the Roids

Hi folks, as we all know the second portion of the season is pivotal in our quest to have an admirable finish. I always say that you need two things to win a fantasy championship: Skill & the absence...

Alcides Escobar - Shortstop, Milwaukee Brewers Alcides Escobar, Baseball America's Top Brewers prospect will be playing SS for the World Team in the Futures game coming up in St Louis on July 12th. The 6-1, 175 Venezuela native was signed...

The preliminary rosters for this years Futures Game have been released. Let's start by taking a look at some of the players on the US team that we haven't talked about yet this year... Kyle Drabek - Starting Pitcher Philadelphia...

Every year about this time ... actually a week later than this time ... I recap the first few picks of the MLB First Year Player Draft. And every year I get a few emails saying that these players are...

Jesus Guzman - First Base, San Francisco Giants The Giants purchased the contract of Jesus Guzman from AAA Fresno on May 21st. As they begin their tour of AL parks in this year's interleague play they will likely want to...

Nolan Reimold - Outfielder Baltimore Orioles Adam Jones' hamstring injury and a hot and fast start to the season in AAA conspired to land Nolan Reimold in the majors for his MLB debut on May 14th. A 2nd round pick...

In our continuing series on player recommendations, today we take a look at the pitchers who are deviating from their projected production. I want to start this year's Pitcher segment by saying: historically pitchers have a much more difficult...

Luke Hochevar - SP Kansas City Royals Well, well, well .. Looks whose back .. in a big way. The Royals' 6-5, 205 righty Luke Hochevar has pushed his 2009 record to 5-0 with 8 shutout innings in AAA this...

Brian Matusz - LHP Baltimore Orioles The Orioles landed the best pitcher in last years draft at #4 in Brian Matusz. The 6-4 lefty from the University of San Diego is already physically developed and his pitching skills are highly...

Jarrod Parker - SP Arizona Diamondbacks Jarrod Parker was the 9th overall pick in the 2007 draft and played the entire 2008 season as a teenager in the Midwest League. His 6-1, 180 listing is suspect but Parker generates seemingly...

Deserved Wins:  One of our simplest Sabermetric formulas is Expected or Deserved Wins. We define Deserved Wins as Quality Starts multiplied by a factor of .74.  Typically a pitcher wins 74% of his Quality Starts (a Quality Start as...

Within the player projections software we have a column for player notes where I post a some of the technical indicators that influence our 2009 projections, here's the latest round of analytic notes as we kick off the 2009 campaign....

Second Half Rankings Pitchers Edition (Posted 7/02/08)Every season we come across players who unexplainably perform at higher or lower levels during certain periods of the season.  One possible explanation behind the phenomena: second half "positive trends" are due to...

With the half way point officially upon us, it's a good time to look at the production (rankings) we expect from the top 300 position players in the second half of 2008. Subscribing to the regression to the mean...

As many of you already know, Fantistics uses sabermetric theories to create it's player projections model. These theories are the foundation to our successful forecasting history. One of my favorite forecasting models that we monitor here at Fantistics is...

Within the player projections software we have a column for player notes this season where I post a few of the technical indicators that influence the 2008 projections, here's the latest round of analytic notes. For those new to Fantistics,...

Get your Mock on...our new Mock Draft module may become one of the most addicting fantasy tools that you've ever utilized. Fantasy GMs can now simulate a fantasy draft before draft day while utilizing their specific scoring rules. More...

I was only a week or two into my Lamaze classes in preparation for the birth of my first child, my now 12-year-old daughter Sarah, in the late winter of 1995. As a first-time-parent-to-be who came from a small...