Chris Mitchell22 posts

It’s that time again. The Week #4 hitting planner: Who Starts and Who Sits. It’s where I examine the upcoming major league baseball schedule and the matchups to help Fantasy owners create their optimal lineup. Last week, I focused significantly on the disparity in games played. This week that same disparity exists and it will have its place in this space, but it is less relevant than it was last week because there are fewer teams with a five-game slate. I sat Xander Bogaerts and Andrew Benintendi because of the schedule last…

We are more than 10 games into the season and it couldn’t be an odder, or better, way to begin a season. We all thought we knew what Major League Baseball’s 2019 season would be and now that it is here, we couldn’t all be more wrong. Early season Trends are developing and at the very least, Noteworthy performances are occurring. March Madness just ended and it couldn’t have been more chalk. Baseball just started and it couldn’t be any less. That's Fantastic. It makes for great watching and even better and more relevant,…

Chris Mitchell presents his Week 3 Hitting Planner; a look at some of the week's toughest start/sit decisions and the reasoning behind them.When making a tough Start/Sit decision there are a few basic places to focus your attention. How many games does a batter have compared to the possible alternatives, which pitchers will they face, and finally, left/right splits. Left/right Splits and the ballparks they are playing in aren’t necessarily definitive and they matter the least, but they matter.Owners shouldn’t start a…

The first week of Fantasy baseball is in the books in many leagues and a full series of games for all of Major League baseball's 32 teams has been scored. That means we have early season small sample sizes of dominance, mediocrity and even some of the dismal variety. The fact that we have data at all means we have something NoteWorthy to examine.  Sample sizes of anywhere from three to six games mean it’s too early to rationally call anything a Trend, but it does mean we can speculate, and that’s what “Trends and…

Draft season is over and the official scores are in. The 2019 Fantasy Baseball season has begun!!!! Who were the best values and worst overdrafts of the 2019 Fantasy baseball season by Average Draft Position on Fantrax.com? Who was left unowned, abundantly available and what should we be watching for on the early season waiver wire? What Trends did we see and what's been "NoteWorthy" as the Fantasy season has begun? Let’s take a look.The regular season is upon us! Don't worry, there's still time to add that "one more…

For those of us playing in the four-day opening series there are Start Em/Sit Em decisions to be made and because it is the first set of games that actually count, there isn’t recent data to rely on to make them. Spring Training is practice. They are the warm up games. They aren’t irrelevant, but spring training performance shouldn’t be considered determinant. They should enlighten us along the fringes of a decision rather than be the main factor that on-field data can be. Opening weekend is four days and in some cases,…

It is amazing how quickly draft season flies. It feels like just yesterday there was snow on the ground and ridiculous Average Draft Position numbers for players on Fantrax.com. Oh wait. There is snow on the ground and Vlad Guerrero Jr. is still being drafted in the top 50. Well, draft season has still flown by. Spring training is wrapping up, the regular reason has technically begun, and we have our last chance to find sleepers, bargains and draft busters. We have ourselves some Spring Training Trends and NoteWorthy's to…

I have to say up front. I haven’t drafted a starting pitcher in the first round of a baseball draft in probably 20 years. Even in points leagues or leagues with Quality Starts as a category. That's been my playbook for a long time and I have consistently stuck with it, as many experts do. It’s the consensus.There’s an article by every site, every year, justifying the Average Draft Position of the first pitcher selected, but it’s a backhanded compliment. The premise is “this pitcher has fallen far enough that NOW he is a…

The Hot Stove has been a bummer, but draft season always delivers. Who is being drafted when, is second to statistical projections in importance at this time of the season, and it’s a lot more interesting to discuss than where Machado and Harper were going to sign. It’s far more interesting discussing a player's Average Draft Position than haggle over how many home runs or stolen bases he’s going to finish the season with. I have a few articles on the horizon and a lot of them are ADP based and today, that will be the focus…

One of my weekly Fantasy baseball contributions to Fantrax will be Podcasts and another will be a column I like to call “Trends and NoteWorthy’s.” The goal of this weekly article is to highlight players, or circumstances, that are either isolated and therefore “NoteWorthy,” or in the process of developing and therefore “Trending.”If someone or something is “NoteWorthy,” then it’s just that, worth noting. More often than not, when a player appears in the “NoteWorthy” segment, I am trying to prevent owners from…