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Listenings & Readings – Week Ending February 10th, 2013

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I started keeping better track of what I’m reading…  A lot more content this week.

Listening

  • Baseball Prospectus “Towers of Power Fantasy Hour” with Jason Collette and Paul Sporer had their first base preview episode.  One main point they reiterated several times is that staying healthy and being in the lineup every day is a skill.  Keep this in mind when you’re looking over projections.  Players like Prince Fielder and Billy Butler who play 155+ games year-in and year-out are locked in production.

Reading

  • CBSSports.com released a 2013 fantasy outlook for each MLB team.  Each outlook includes a summary of offseason transactions, the projected starting lineup/batting order, projected rotation, a player to beware of, a breakout candidate, and some prospects to be aware of.  There is A LOT to read here.
  • Keith Law released an updated Top 100 prospects list (requires ESPN Insider).  For reference, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Matt Moore, and Manny Machado were the top four last year.  Those guys helped some fantasy teams last year.  You need to be familiar with the top names on this year’s list.

Baseball, But Not Fantasy Baseball Related

Geeky and Fantasy Baseball Related

  • I’m overwhelmed by but very interested in this series “Saberizing a Mac“, which takes you from ground zero to creating a database, obtaining data, and running baseball database queries from your mac.  
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Listenings & Readings – Week Ending February 3rd, 2013

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Listening

I listened to more Baseball Prospectus “Towers of Power Fantasy Hour” with Jason Collette and Paul Sporer. I didn’t pay very close attention to baseball during the “Hot Stove” season, so listening to the archives of this podcast have brought me back up to speed.

This week I listened to the following episodes:

I also gave the Fantasy Pros 911 podcast at try, but could not get into it. I just didn’t find the experts as insightful or entertaining as Sporer and Collette. It seemed like a lot of “I think” or “I feel” analysis; whereas Sporer and Collette seem to lead with facts and statistics. Facts + Statistics = Smart.

Reading

I can’t remember how I stumbled across these, but I ended up reading some old articles that sounded interesting to me:

Get your thinking cap on for this one.  An article by Mike Podhorzer of fangraphs.com to predict HR/FB rate.  There are a few layers to this article I’m going to have to peel into someday.  One interesting layer is a tool here to see the average distance a player’s batted balls travel.  Or this tool to see the average flyball distance leaders for a given year.  Both of these are from baseballheatmaps.com.  There’s not an official conclusion, but the article has some data to suggest that Chase Headley’s 2012 season may not be a fluke.

What did you listen to or read this week?

Let us all know in the comments below.

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Listenings & Readings – Week Ending January 27th, 2013

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Listening

I’ve done more listening than reading lately, and have recently discovered the Baseball Prospectus “Towers of Power Fantasy Hour” with Jason Collette and Paul Sporer.  While the name sounds a bit goofy, it really is an all-business podcast.  I have long been listening to ESPN’s Fantasy Focus Baseball podcast, and while I find Matthew Berry and Nate Ravitz entertaining, I find Collette and Sporer more insightful.  The weekly episodes are lengthy (average about two hours), but are packed with “smart” content.  Another bonus is that they have been releasing new podcasts all off-season.  So there is a lot of good listening available.

Collette writes for Baseball Prospectus and Rotowire.  You may be familiar with Sporer’s annual  “Starting Pitching Guide“.

I really liked episode 29(iTunes, other).  The guys were joined by Todd Zola of Mastersball.com and talked about draft strategy, player valuation, and developing your own dollar values.

Reading

I’m dabbling with the idea of creating my own projections, and would at least like to improve my understanding of how others develop their projections.  Mastersball gives an overview of their process here.

I’m also perusing the Sporting News Fantasy Source Baseball 2013 magazine. Yes, I know. Using a static magazine that was written in December is not necessarily “smart”. But the values in the magazine are used as the player salaries in my favorite league.

What did you listen to or read this week?  Do tell.

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