4 Responses

  1. Kevin S
    Kevin S at |

    I listened to that podcast as well and was thinking how it related to your previous article. I always learn something every time I listen to Zola on a podcast or read his articles.

    The two sites that I have found most reliable and timely for lineup information are rotowire.com and baseballpress.com.
    Rotowire’s daily lineup info is not behind their paywall and seems to be just barely quicker than Baseball Press every now and then. What is cool about the baseball press site is that you can click on the team logo and it will show you the previous 6 days of lineups used. This is very helpful when trying to determine if a platoon player will play that day.

  2. Ralph
    Ralph at |

    You know what, Tanner? It may very well be that BvP numbers would be helpful, however I’m starting to think it’s a “down the list” thing. The first month of the season BvP was pretty much all I used, and I didn’t cash once. Since your series of articles caused me to buy Jon Bales’ book, I’ve started focusing on weather, power splits, Vegas lines and stacks, among other things. The improvement has been dramatic(so dramatic I’ve contemplated buying you a housewarming gift). Weather is just huge. After that, find the market inequalities and pounce. If you’re doing that, you’re already ahead of the game.

  3. Doug Anderson
    Doug Anderson at |

    Todd does a great job of summing up my thinking on BvP. Having played college ball, I have no doubt that certain hitters perform better against certain pitchers, and it’s not related to talent levels. I am certain that true cases exist. With that said I’m also certain that many/most cases are just flukes of sample size. And what’s going to happen to a hitter who has been the beneficiary of extreme good luck? Eventually their numbers will regress and the Fantasy players that use them will pay the price.

    The numbers-only people won’t like this, but I think using a more scouting based analysis on these cases could help disseminate between fluke and an actual advantage. While numbers can tell us a lot, particularly about large groups of players, there’s still room for a scouting approach to help out. I think that’s where baseball is headed. Right now it’s scouting vs. saber. It doesn’t have to be. They can both help us.

Comments are closed.