Monday is the day you’ve all been waiting for…OPENING DAY!
(Um, Mike, Opening Day was yesterday, and that doesn’t even include the two games the Mariners and Athletics played in Japan.)
(clears throat, starts over)
Yesterday was the day you all were waiting for, with a FULL SLATE of regular season baseball games kicking off the 2019 season in earnest (happy, weird commenter who showed up in my article for some reason?) For those of you who joined us this winter, you were rewarded with the best fantasy coverage in the industry. But just because you’ve drafted a kick ass team doesn’t mean you should stop reading now. We’ve got a full season of coverage designed to win you all your leagues.
Starting on Monday, April 1, here are the articles you’ll see at Baseball Prospectus every week:
Monday (the day Garfield hates for some reason)
Expert League FAAB Report
Want to know how the FAAB bids went down in LABR and Tout Wars? Mike Gianella and Zach Steinhorn join forces to run through the goings on in Tout Wars Mixed Auction and LABR Mixed (Zach), and NL LABR and AL Tout Wars (Mike). (Editor, please insert a picture of me and Zach high fiving or eating a delicious, comically large banana split here.)
TUESDAY (the day Wimpy pays for his hamburgers)
Closer Report
I’ll miss Matt Collins too, but don’t worry, you’re in capable hands with newcomer Tim McCullough, who comes to us with years of experience at RotoExperts. Worried your closer is on shaky ground or looking for the next diamond in the rough? Tim’s going to help you find those gems on the waiver wire.
The Weekly Game
“I love your pre-season bid limits”, many of you told me this offseason. “But is Baseball Prospectus ever going to rank players in-season?” Well guess what, chief? Now we will. Rob Silver, who knows more about Canadian politics than you ever will, is going to break it down for you throughout the season. Using his top secret rankings system, Rob will look back at the previous week and determine which players performed well enough during that seven-day period to deserve a starting roster spot in 15-team mixed leagues. Will there be any weeks where Mike Trout doesn’t make the cut? I doubt it, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
WEDNESDAY (I was going to do five of these jokes but ran out of ideas)
The Buyer’s Guide
Fantasy baseball owners are always looking for some kind of sign of a sustainable breakout. The trick is to figure out before everyone else whether an increase in production is just a hot streak or the emergence of a new fantasy star. Scott Delp will analyze a recent call-up or hot player and let you know if you should buy…or even sell.
Darius Austin is going to have a column!
I don’t know the specifics yet, but rumor has it that the column will have something to do with depth charts. Regardless, if Darius is attached to it, then it’s going to be great. And I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise, unless they’re trained in hand-to-hand combat because really what would that prove except that I’m susceptible to pain and bruise easily?
THURSDAY (the day in the 90s when NBC’s “Must See TV” lineup kicked all kinds of ass)
Free Agent Watch
Are you in a shallow mixed league? A deeper mixed league? An -only league? Regardless of what format you play, Mark Barry is going to help you navigate your league’s free agent terrain and pair your team up with the free agent of your dreams.
The Stash List
Every Thursday, J.P. Breen ranks the top 25 “stashes”: infrequently rostered players you should add to your team. This is one of the best columns in the industry, folks. I find at least 2-3 players from this list every year who wind up helping me before my competitors even know who they are.
FRIDAY (the night the boys are back to town)
Starting Pitching Planner
Jon Hegglund tells you which two-start pitchers you should start, which ones you should consider, and which ones you should sit. Read this every Friday and you’ll know who should be in your lineup…and who should be on your bench or in the free agent pool.
The Deep League Report
We know, we know, most fantasy coverage these days is geared toward people who play in 12-team mixed leagues where Andrelton Simmons sadly sits in the free agent pool, whispering “pick me” while tears stream down his face. Each Friday, Kevin Jebens is going to run through AL and NL-only players to consider adding or monitoring.
Don’t worry, we’ll also be running plenty of our popular “Fantasy Freestyles”, where our staff takes a deeper dive into topics of the day. This is the kind of deep analysis you won’t find at other sites, I guarantee it.
If this smorgasbord of articles isn’t enough, our fantasy podcast will keep you informed and entertained throughout the summer. On Flags Fly Forever, you can listen to me and Zach Steinhorn discuss our FAAB buys in LABR and Tout as well as delving into breaking news every week.
Finally, it wouldn’t be Baseball Prospectus without a series of online chats to keep you informed and amused throughout 2019. We will periodically feature chats with one of our fantasy scribes from Opening Day right up until the end of the season. If you miss us there, you can find almost all of us on Twitter, where we’ll try to answer as many questions as we can…and may even hold an informal chat or two. Of course, if there’s a question you just can’t wait to get answered, our Bat Signal is always there for your most pressing questions. Our fantasy answering service is like nothing else offered in the industry. You ask the question, we generally answer it within 12-24 hours and the answer is confidential, away from the prying eyes of your opponents.
We helped you build your juggernaut this spring. Now we’re going to help you finish the job! I’m excited and proud to be part of the best fantasy team in the industry and the sole baseball-only team in the industry with the combination of real-world industry league experience and the combination of LABR, Tout Wars, TGFBI and NFBC Main Event titles to prove it. While other subscription websites start ramping up their fantasy football coverage in June, we’ll be here giving you top-notch advice all season long! I wouldn’t ask you to subscribe to a website I wasn’t proud of and didn’t believe in, and this year we’ve kicked it up yet another notch. Let’s get this show on the road.
Thank you for reading
This is a free article. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Subscriptions support ongoing public baseball research and analysis in an increasingly proprietary environment.
Subscribe now