The White Sox pulled another blockbuster move on the heels of the Jose Quintana trade to bring in more prospects into the organization. They dealt away Todd Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle to the Yankees in exchange for veteran reliever Tyler Clippard and prospects Blake Rutherford, Ian Clarkin, and Tito Polo. Why the Yankees make this move Even though Frazier is a third...

The trade season is heating up (more trades are rumored to happen by the time this goes to press) and the Tigers and Dbacks are getting involved. The Tigers signaled the beginning of their fire sale by dealing right fielder J.D. Martinez to the Arizona Diamondbacks for minor league third baseman Dawel Lugo, shortstop Sergio Alcantara, and shortstop Jose King. Why the Dbacks make...

As we approach the non-waiver trade deadline we are getting to that point where fantasy players are evaluating their rosters and looking for players to move and get. The stretch drive in fantasy is actually a lot shorter than the real game. The playoffs begin at the beginning of September in most leagues, so there are really only six more weeks of competition left. That being said...

The Nationals need for relief pitching has been one of the worst kept secrets in baseball. They spent the offseason flirting with different closers on the trade block (David Robertson) but were unable to make a deal. They finally pulled the trigger when they traded Blake Treinen, Jesus Luzardo, and Sheldon Neuse for Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle. Why the Nationals make this move...

After the All-Star festivities, we’re back to our regular scheduled programming with plenty of baseball on tap. I do still wonder why it’s not arranged to coincide with 04th July to really boost festivities and interest. But I’m not the Commissioner so I’ll let others ponder that. The weekend has helped us dip our toes collectively into the pool of baseball so we can now...

The Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox pulled off the first major trade of the 2017 season when the White Sox agreed to trade starting pitcher Jose Quintana for minor leagers Eloy Jimenez, Dylan Cease, Matt Rose, and Bryant Flete. The trade also marks the first significant crosstown trade between the two teams in some time. Why the Cubs make this trade? Ironically, this trade has...

Third base might be the deepest position on the diamond. Some of you will be more surprised by the players not on the list than the ones on the list. Obviously, that will raise more questions so we immediately go to the methadology for coming up with the list. The primary statistic used is one I call alternative offensive value. It averages batting average and secondary average together...

We head into the All-Star break at a time where so many team’s will consider themselves in contention for a playoff place. That will mean some interest moves before the end of the month as it’s a case of who will blink first and look to bolster their team for a run at the postseason. And a lot of the guys likely to move will be players who wouldn’t have been considered as solid...

The all-star break is always a good time to take stock of where everything has gone. Usually there is some drama as to where the awards go and there has been drama this season, but it may not translate into the awards themselves. This season has seen some players come out of nowhere, but they have dominated their particular categories. In addition to the three major categories we...

We are used to looking at the best position player, starting pitcher, and relief pitcher on the fantasy market, but it is that time of year where everyone comes out with their list of all-star snubs. I’ll join in with the fun and pick one player at each position (plus a starting pitcher and relief pitcher). With the fantasy game set to shut down for a week it is a nice time for...

Before we get going with the Week 14 preview, I need you to cast your minds back a few weeks, all the way back to the Week 10 preview. You may recall that I had to write the piece on the Thursday as I was going away for the weekend. Remember? No? Well we have a case of déjà vu as once again I’m writing this on a Thursday as I am heading off Friday morning for a long weekend and...

We come to another edition of the weekly standard. There is a standard operating procedure in radio that assumes that the listening audience turns over every 15 minutes. We will do the same here and assume most of the people reading are new to the series. The idea is to find the best position player, starting pitcher, and relief pitcher available. Players must be owned in less than...

We have brought you the catcher and first base positional rankings. Today we will bring you second base. The idea was to use a crude but unique statistic I like to call adjusted offensive value. It combines batting average with secondary average to emcompass everything a player does offensively. You are obviously familiar with batting average. Secondary average calculates the isolated...

As you regular readers will have seen, illness has prevented me from making much of a contribution the last couple of weeks. Hampered by the fact every time I typed 50 words I would be out of breath for 10 minutes, I have been neglectful. However, my rehab assignment went well enough to get me activated from the DL and back into the swing of things. And earlier this week, we posted...

Everything old is new again and just in time as there have been some major changes to the catching landscape in fantasy baseball. Of course, major is probably an overstatement as two players were DFA’ed and one was sent back to the minors. Those players were long since dropped in most leagues, but we will cover that territory just the same in case you’ve been asleep at the wheel...

Relief pitchers are the bane of everyone’s existence when it comes to fantasy. The save has become the end all be all statistic everyone craves and yet the save has never been less valuable than it has now. Most teams do not even employ their most effective relief pitcher there as they have discovered that there are other points in the game where an effective relief pitcher is...

Ranking players at this point in the season might seem like a fun exercise and it is, but there are real advantages to looking at the data. First, there is always the remote chance that one of these players might be available in your league. A reader last week noticed that Brian McCann (the number two catcher) was available in his league. Sometimes weird things happen. More importantly...

In the late aughts there was a commercial celebrating the players that made baseball great. They talked about remembering the time I saw this pitcher do this and this fielder do that and it concluded with, “I remember the time I saw Albert Pujols do everything.” So, when we use something like The Hall of Fame Index to evaluate a player like Pujols we are immediately violating...