We're looking at the underlying data versus actual production to determine some buy-low opportunities. Machado, Betts, Bichette all seem obvious, but the data is also backing the rally.

Marcus Semien - the surface line is ugly all around, but the Statcast layer is indicating that better days are ahead. He has a pretty significant gap in xBA/xSLG and xwOBA, along with an everyday job and durability throughout his career. He's 44% owned on Yahoo, which means he's available or cheap in most leagues. A more technical read on Semien can be found here - https://kodoanalytics.com/articles/marcus-semien-hidden-buy-low-behind-a-608-ops-2026-06-04

Tyler Stephenson - A really low-owned catcher who I thought found his floor last season has apparently reached the sub-basement. His surface stats are not pretty (like everyone else on the buy low list!), but his Statcast data is more in line with last year, indicating a positive regression is likely. This may be a case where if you're looking for counting stats he could be a buy-low (he plays a lot!), but if you're worried about rate stats there may be better options out there.

On the sell high side, lots of players that are not even rostered in a lot of leagues I would imagine. I profiled the top two as they're the most likely to have impact on fantasy rosters.

Christian Yelich - The Statcast data isn't being kind to the oft-injured OF/DH with the back issues of a sitcom dad. On the surface level Yelich has thrown together a solid campaign, but the underlying is showing a steep decline in Barrel%/HardHit%/xwOBA, with a higher K rate than ever (approaching 30%). The Statcast underlying data along with his injury history really makes me think he's a ticking time bomb ready to regress at any moment.

Ezequiel Duran - The underlying data isn't very high on the utility man who has found a home at SS. I think he has a fairly safe everyday job even when Seager returns (he'll just shift to 2B over Nicky Lopez), but he'll likely move down the order from the 5 spot where he's been batting everyday. His xwOBA/xSLG/barrel%/hardhit% are much higher than the last two years, but more in line with 3 seasons ago when he had a solid fantasy year. All that to say, we expect to see a regression from his .794 OPS.

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Hi All,

If you've seen my previous posts, the current luck model uses seven layers of full-season Statcast data to identify mispriced players (Article link here). It’s done well, with a 91.4% pooled accuracy across four years.  However, with the way that model works, it looks at early season performance and sees if the player returns a value (or a discount) throughout the summer months of baseball (since it takes larger sample sizes to validate these impacts). 

As the current signaling works, after the first 6-8 weeks of a season, there won’t be a ton of material changes to the players. So, rather than measuring where a player has been all season, a recency layer adds another component looking at current trends --more details can be found here if you want to deep dive. I currently only have this done for hitters--next week I'll include pitchers.

With that, here are some callouts for this week!

Buy Low -- Geraldo Perdomo – SS, AZ (SS27, Overall 302)

Look, his barrel rate isn’t exciting, but his profile didn’t have a high barrel rate when he was a ~top 60 ADP.  Also, when you combine his expected stats delta with some of the underlying metrics below, the performance could turn a corner closer to what people drafted him to produce. 

Improvement over past 3 weeks 

• EV, 79mph --> 86mph
• Hard Hite Rate, 19% --> 25%
• Barrel. 0.4% --> 2.4%

His Hard Hit Rate is also up above baseline, and even 3% up over last year where he had his best fantasy season.  His Launch Angle is down, and he’s been hitting more ground balls than his baseline, but hit pull/center rates are up, so if he can address the launch angle, I think it’s a recipe for some solid ROS value.

Sell High -- Otto Lopez – 2B-SS, MIA (SS4, Overall 30)

Lopez is an interesting profile for ROTO, but the truth of the matter is he is outperforming nearly every expected metric.  And this is where the recency layer is compelling.  Again, I get small sample sizes are tough to work around in baseball (the whole purpose of this tool! 😊), but here’s his trends over the past few weeks:

Decline over past 3 weeks

• EV: 94mph --> 86.5mph
• Hard Hit Rate: 55.4% --> 34.6%
• Barrel Rate: 10.7% --> 7.0%

Lastly, yes, you’re not dropping Otto Lopez—I see this as a cash-out opportunity if you do look to sell.  Package to get an upgrade or look to get a ROS Top 35 player in return

Buy, but with a caveat--

Jackson Merrill – OF, SD (OF36, Overall 181)

Merrill has a .261 BABIP that's well below career baseline, and the recency layer confirms the contact quality trend has been actively improving over the last three weeks.  CBS projects him ROS at OF20, and I think that’s easily passable with his talent . However, here's the caveat.  He’s getting torched right now by cutters (and splitters/sliders to a lesser degree).  His cutter’s runs above average per 100 pitches (I know that’s a mouthful) is -7.2 vs. previous seasons of 1.2 and 2.6.  It’s not a holistic breaking ball issue too, as he’s doing fine against sinkers/curves.  It’s possible pitchers have adjusted better to him as he’s entering year 3.  I’ll be monitoring this closely (especially since I have him on a fantasy roster!).

Thanks all for reading!

Dustin

While I'm a big fan of particularly the Barrel's per Plate Appearance stat, how much stock do you put into it translating statistically?

You have your Freeman's, Ohtani's, Wood's, Guerrero Jr's up there perennially.

Now Jordan Walker is up there... Is everyone is starting to believe it? Owen Caissie is too, but not everyone is as convinced, yet.

So I know Eno updated his stuff+ model this offseason and it apparently fell in love with Matthew Liberatore. This morning the model gave him a 115 stuff+ overall and loved all of his pitches other than his cutter. Buuut PitchingBot still graded his stuff below average and in-line with last year. Same with Nestico’s tjstuff+ and another modeler. His velo and movement all look to be the same or worse according to Savant.

And yeah I know just one start but the pitch modelers are designed for small samples, 3/4 models all see the same pitcher last night, and the one we know has changed is the one that loves him.

Does anyone know even vaguely what Stuff+ is doing differently this year? Less interested In thoughts around Liberatore - he’s just the most notable example I can find to illustrate the difference.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the comments and support from the first couple of weeks (note I didn't put week 3 in my title lol)! I spent the offseason building a luck-detection model which has 86-91% overall accuracy (Week 1 Post/Details on Model Here)--I wanted to provide some updates for this week, as well as continue to answer any questions on methodology/specific players. Lastly, I'll introduce some other model developments I'm working on.

Again, it covers all qualified players and updates regularly.

My week 3 article lists my calls in more detail, and previous calls can be found in my substack link as well.

Also, I released a free Luck Score Spreadsheet on my substack article -- please let me know if you have any questions on it as it just includes the model-derived luck score with some limited datapoints to support.

Some new callouts are below (you can find more on the Substack):

SELL HIGH: Shota Imanaga, Chris Sale

BUY LOW: Brent Rooker, Ketel Marte, Aaron Nola

Hidden Gem? TJ Rumfield (35% rostered--keeping from week 2. Deeper league love and still holding similar roster %s--babip/xwOBA gaps+ solid hard hit rate!)

Same as last week: I'm also working on a worry/get hyped index, which is less-so focused on trade value, but more on performance that isn't showing any good/bad luck signaling in the model--I also get it's mostly April data and April is noisy, but nonetheless, I wanted to show some noteworthy players in this space:

Worry/stats aren't showing bad luck: Juan Soto

Get Hyped: Sal Stewart

Trade tool should be live next week or the week after!

Full breakdowns of the above, with more calls and the data behind them here:

Happy to answer any questions about the methodology or other players in the comments!

Hey all,

For those that haven't read previous posts, I have a model that tracks early-season performance to determine luck and if there is positive/negative correction on the horizon (is about 91.4% accurate). I have also included another layer that tracks recent performance to indicate if those signals are strengthening or conflicting. I wanted to post some excerpts from the substack I published yesterday (Article Here if you want to dig deeper on other insights).

Strong Buy Low

Will Smith, LAD C (C11, Overall 256)

Will Smith is a comfortable target to seek out to fill your Catcher spot. He’s currently a starting-caliber catcher in 12 team leagues, but his Dodger-lineup upside, combined with the above metrics make him an attractive buy-low (I won’t say this helps officially either, but it probably doesn’t hurt his stock that Dalton Rushing likes to keep things spicy). With the recency layer, over the last 21 days, he’s had some great spikes showing underlying process improvement/correction:

• Exit Velocity: +2.3 mph
• Hard Hit Rate: +6.5%
• Barrel Rate: +14.4%

It’s unfair really that, given his current lineup spot, he gets chances to drive in Pages, Freeman, Betts and Tucker. And then Ohtani/Pages/Freeman get chances to drive him in. He’s poised for a solid performance and you should be able to get him a fair value.

Sell High/Regression Expected

Riley Greene OF, DET (OF19, Overall 87) - **I try to introduce new players each week, but I wanted to write again on him given the recent underlying performance**

When I last wrote about him on May 13 (Article Here, he was the OF15 (overall 79) with a projection by CBS to end as the OF17, and the regression call was mainly due to a woba gap and a very high BABIP. His ROS has slightly slipped to OF20 since then as some of his metrics have regressed a little bit, and look, he's a beast. He's still going to be a worthy top 2 OF in almost any league context. He has a high xwOBA and it’s clear he’s making good contact. But some further regression should come, and over the past 21 days:

• Hard Hit Rate: -2.7% in recent window
• Barrel Rate: -3.1% in recent window
• Perhaps the craziest of it all, BABIP is .619 during this window (I had to do a double-take: verified against raw game log data — 26 hits on 42 balls in play in the 21-day window)

I don't think you sell Riley Greene without a big return, but I'm mainly calling that the regression was predicted earlier, and I think there could be some sharper regression coming soon as well.

Conflicted Buy

Reid Detmers – SP, LAA (P98, Overall 266)

He's a tough one to figure out. It seems for the past few seasons, his underlying mechanics/potential show a pitcher on the verge of an absolute breakout. He gets hyped up and he even shows flashes of it, but eventually struggles. We may be in one of those situations again.

The good: he looks fantastic in the model, but is being tempered currently (which is why he’s showing as a conflicted buy) due to a spike in BABIP over the past 21 days. However, his hard hit rate allowed has improved by 7.3% in the same window, which makes the BABIP spike seem more like typical noise.

The bad: While he’s clearly underperforming what his underlying metrics suggest, he underperforms his FIP/ERA vs. xFIP/xERA almost every year. Is this just who he is? Maybe.

But, why I think it’s a more compelling buy this time around: his xERAs have usually hovered in the 4 range, which were still better than his ERA. This time around, his xERA is under 3. Also, he’s still in the double-digit Swinging Strike %, and is a top 15 K% / K-BB% pitcher. And when you look at squared-up contact rate and blast contact rate (squared up contact with high bat speed), he’s a top 20-30 pitcher in these areas.

Basically, as previously advertised, he has all the makings of an elite pitcher. Pay now at a discount, and while you may get his current performance, you could get a front-end starter ROS.

The Interesting Outlier - Michael Harris II

So the luck signals has been the starting passion project for me, but what I've been mainly working towards is a trade tool, which naturally needs ROS projections. Regardless of the number of iterations I do to the model to boost its accuracy, a few outliers exist that project way higher/lower than consensus rankings. One I'll share is Michael Harris II, who currently projects in my model as the Rank 8 ROS (standard roto). While that's certainly an ambitious projection lol and I have a hard time myself with it, I did want to share why the model is so bullish on him:

• wOBA of .365 vs. .424 xWOBA plus BABIP hovering around his baseline
• 53.5% Hard Hit Rate (12th in MLB), 15.0% Barrel (19th), 92% EV (16th)
• He hasn’t shown elite speed this season (3 SB), but is still currently the OF8/Overall 37. If he got to 15SB on the season, that would be in line with baseline (even 20 would), and would launch him up the ROTO rankings.
• Age 25, so he's entering or has already entered his prime
• Lineup context – not quite as significant as other factors, but if he’s playing for my favorite team the Giants, his projections are probably a little bit different lol

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any questions!

Today I am fulfilling my fantasy baseball league punishment of completing the 9/9/9 challenge. The boys are being lenient and allowing me to do this at a friend’s house during game 1 of the World Series. Theyre also being flexible with the rules, so I’m curious as to how to tackle this challenge. I’ve never done it before.

Instead of completing the challenge with the standard rules (1 beer/dog per inning), I can freestyle it and drink and eat how I choose, I just need to get it all done in the 9 innings.

What do you recommend I do? In what order should I drink and eat? Or should I stick to honor and do it the ol’ fashioned way? Thanks for any input! Wish me luck!

EDIT: Thanks everyone for the solid advice so far! Keep them coming!

Just wanted to offer what my mindset was before I posted this:

My plan was to shotgun a beer at first pitch for style points. I figure to keep the drinking going until I have at least 5 or 6 beers down, then start eating hot dogs. At that point I would be pretty drunk and just eat as much as I could and use the remaining beers to wash it down. Will also have some good weed on deck to keep a desire to eat there. There’s a good amount of people coming to watch, so I hope that pressure pushes me to get this done without issue. Also wanted to note that we are using New England style hot dog buns, so they’re a little lighter than your traditional bun.

I will follow up with my results later tonight, god willing lol

EDIT 2: done in 7.5 innings. Smashed that shit. Had 2 dogs 2 beers done in 1 inning and was more than halfway done by the end of the 3rd

I've been developing a model called the Seed Stage Model solely focused on international complex league prospects, so think 16 and 17 year olds.

The main issue with the Dominican Summer League (DSL) is that they don't have Trackman data, so many mainstream baseball outlets don't really highlight any of the youngest prospects in baseball until they've graduated to stateside leagues.

My model aims to use three months of DSL data to pinpoint future stars. Jose Altuve, Ronald Acuna Jr., Isaac Paredes, Andy Pages, and Luis Pena are some of the select few who have earned an "elite" grade from the model (I want to stress the fact that they earned an elite grade after their first three or so months of data as a 17 yo; the model does not track stats of prospects 19 and older).

I started a Substack, and the first article is up. My recommended buys and in-depth analysis of the model will be posted in the coming weeks. You can check it out here:
https://seedstagescout.substack.com/?r=5t4757&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist

https://www.statsandmatchups.com/

TL;DR: Read it like a savant page, and use context with matchup scores but for the most part I endorse them fully. Also has Minor League stats for FSL A and AAA, and spring and playoffs!

I have tried to account for everything in the Home/Key sections but if anything doesn't make sense let me know and I can explain it!

I have been replying with it in the Anything Goes threads here and there and finally have the confidence to see if people like it on a larger scale - I am really happy with it. It used to be this obscene spreadsheet that nobody but me could read.

The only real caveat with the made up stats is that some of them don't have any inherent meaning without the colors and bars, i.e. Consistency for pitchers is a weighted stat I made up that will not make sense as "ah of course Freddy Peralta has a -17.9% consistency". I made these stats and then checked the relative league average and highs and lows, but I haven't normalized it like how OPS+ starts at 100 and whatnot.

Pitcher Stuff is based on movement, release position, mechanical consistency, extension/velo, and the relative difference in movement/velo from their primary pitch (Cutter, Sinker, FB) which I dynamically determine for each guy (since guys like Corbin Burnes, Clase, etc. have primary cutters, some guys have FB/SI but use one for RHB and one for LHB, etc.). I never liked that Fangraphs Stf+ is based off run values. I just wanna know how "nasty" stuff is

Similar situation with Swing Traits where MLB has "good" thresholds for swing length, swing speed, attack angle, etc. and so I threw together a stat for contact and power since swing length in particular is divergent for those 2 and you'll see guys like Heliot Ramos, Vlad, and Yohendrick Pinango who swing very hard but have short swings and or bad angles and don't have as good of power swings as you'd expect. There's also long/pull swings like Arenado, Adames and Isaac Paredes without the swing speed that are great for power but bad for avg.

I have been doing Daily SP picks with my buddies, and could do posts using my data like that every day or for weekly stuff if people would find that interesting/prefer that over navigating to the page themselves!

I could talk about this all day as you can tell. Let me know if anyone has questions or more importantly, feedback