TravJ14

Baseball Analyst with some Dynasty FF

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

The best thing you can do for your dynasty teams is to set a year or a range of years. Always pushing it down 1-2 years can lead to it never being the year. If someone is trying to throw off your window, it needs to be worth your while.

That being said, the best managers know when or how to adjust their windows if they can see that their team won't be ready by then or that they can benefit more from trying to extend their window rather than going all in on one year.

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

@RealSkipperBudd @dynasty_im Now that's just robbery lmao

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Who are we taking at the 1.06 in rookie drafts? Most experts I've seen are taking Concepcion there, but it seems like the consensus is leaning towards Price.

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

@NathanAchane @FantasyScape_ The post says "value pick". He's gone up over 1000 points on KTC since the 2025 NFL draft, making him a good pick, regardless of actual production. Besides, no one drafted him thinking he would score many points last year.

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

I don't know if this is the end for Brandon Woodruff, but it has been a great career. One of the best pitchers on the planet when healthy for a 5-year span. Only accumulated 18.3 WAR in his career, but if he never comes back the same, he's got my vote in the Hall of Very Good. #brewers #mlb

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

As someone who was considering buying Eli Heidenreich, I'm concerned about the draft capital. Going in the 7th round isn't a death sentence, but passing on a guy with his profile so many times is a clear indicator of what the NFL thinks of him.

Still hoping to pick up post-draft in my leagues to throw on the taxi, but I think it's clear that picking him in the 3rd is a mistake.

At this point, I would rather take any running back drafted before Heidenreich. The only exception is Kaytron Allen, who I have not liked the entire draft process.

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Initial Rookie Tiers

Jeremiyah Love

Carnell Tate
Jordyn Tyson
Makai Lemon
Fernando Mendoza

KC Concepcion
Jadarian Prive

Omar Cooper
Kenyon Sadiq
Denzel Boston
Ty Simpson

Eli Stowers
Antonio Williams
Germie Bernard

After this point, it's pick your poison. Branch and Chris Bell are interesting because of their landing spots, but hard to take either of these with the 2.03

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Who are we taking at the 1.12 in rookie drafts? Eli Stowers, Germie Bernard, Antonio Williams? Defaulting to Stowers because I think he's the safest with Rd 2 Draft Capital, but it's a weird spot to be in upcoming drafts.

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

There's a point in every man's life when the NFL Draft is more exciting than Christmas

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Highest fWAR for free agents. Bellinger and Cease lead the way, on pace for 6.4 fWAR. Tucker, despite having the largest contract of the group, by far, has yet to kick into gear in LA.

Catchers are leading the way on the hitter side, 1.8 WAR for $17.8M combined. This doesn't seem to be caused by ABS implementation; each catcher has less than half a run added due to the system, rather the catchers have all randomly had hot bats to start the year.

#mlb #baseball

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

@walkofflabs @Yankees @Angels @AaronBoone Gotcha thanks for the help!

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

I get it, unfortunately, baseball doens't seem to be solvable 😅. Have you guys ever considered using more advanced stats instead of raw outcomes? Also, is there a basis behind using 500 PA as the most recent chain? I would think a shorter chain, like 200-300 PA (1/2 season) could help capture mid-season adjustments which could be benefitial. Even if it didn't carry as much weight, I would think it would be helpful in making adjustments for players who have recently made tweaks in their game (new stance, new pitch, rookie adjustments).

[walkofflabs @walkofflabs]

During the @Yankees vs. @Angels series this week, manager @AaronBoone benched Ben Rice two games in a row against lefties Yusei Kikuchi and Reid Detmers, saying, "Having the ability to cherry-pick when I fire Benny Rice in a big spot, I like that". Boone has received a lot of criticism for his reasoning because Rice has had a great start to the season, leading the league in OPS at the time (2nd to Yordan Alvarez now).

I put our player projection model and the Tuesday's lineups (against Detmers) into our game-theoretic solver to see what it had to say. Before even solving the game, our player projection model was not looking good for Boone; Rice had a positive win probability added against nearly every Angels pitcher on the roster, while alternatives like Goldschmidt did not.

However, once I solved the game and stepped into the first inning, the solver preferred to keep Rice on the bench. Because of the possibility for defensive switches, Rice could have pinch-hit for anyone in the starting lineup, but the solver said every option would have deviated from the Nash equilibrium (losing win probability). I walked through the entire game one play at a time, and every time Ben Rice had a pinch-hitting opportunity, the solver said no.

Until the bottom of the 8th inning. Right-handed Chase Silseth had just entered the game (fantastic matchup for Rice) and there were runners on 1st and 3rd with one out. With Ryan McMahon up to bat, the solver called for a pinch-hit from Ben Rice. The Yankees only had a 1% chance of winning at this point so the win probability added was small, but changing the score to be tied increased the value of the pinch-hit to be +1.1% (very good decision). This is exactly what Boone did, leading to the sacrifice fly that scored Grichuk. For added measure, the solver also approved of pinch-hitting Chisholm for Goldschmidt on the next play.

This still didn't fully convince me, because pinch-hitting Rice is not the same as starting the game with him (pinch-hitting him means losing Goldy or McMahon for the rest of the game). A fairer comparison is to contrast the win probability of starting with Rice on the bench against starting with Goldschmidt on the bench. Starting with Rice on the bench gave the Yankees a 56.1% chance of winning. Starting with Goldschmidt on the bench would have given them a 55.8% chance of winning (-0.3%).

After looking through hundreds of billions of scenarios and computing the Nash equilibrium management strategy for every possible game state, our solver concluded that Aaron Boone's strategy regarding Ben Rice was not only defensible, but that it was perfect. Despite understanding that Ben Rice is one of the best batters on the team, there was something about the Angels starting pitcher and bullpen that made him more valuable as a pinch-hitter on Tuesday. Kind of mind-blowing.

#Yankees #AaronBoone #BenRice #MLB #Analytics #GameTheory

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Pitchers who pitch as well as they have over an entire season tend to finish with an RA/9 around 3, with 4 being around the ceiling. For example, below are last year's leaders, each of which has a worse per pitch score than our current top 10. #mlb #baseball

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Top 10 pitchers on a per-pitch basis in 2026 (ERA-):

Keider Montero - 79
Sandy Alcantara - 65
Nick Pivetta - 116
Braxton Ashcraft - 58
Bryan Woo - 55
Nolan McLean - 58
Max Fried - 72
Bryce Elder - 19
Cam Schlittler - 47
Andrew Painter - 118

#mlb #baseball

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

The best pitcher on a per-pitch basis? Keider Montero. A reminder that it is still early in the season, even with stats with large sample sizes. 20/162 (12.3%) is equivalent to 9:05 left in the first quarter in week 3 of the NFL season.

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Some good old-fashioned pithing in Miami last night. Coleman Crow and Jansen Junk didn't overwhelm, neither having over a 16% whiff rate, but they hit their spots like no other. Seemed like the only hits were on good spots, but didn't have the stuff to get out untouched. #brewers

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Despite this, I'd be looking forward to Sproat as a Brewers fan. His cutter looks pretty good, and if he can find even average command with these pitches, we could be looking at a 3.5 ERA guy. #mlb #baseball #brewers

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

Arsenal changes lead to a dominant outing for Sproat. Prior to last night, Sproat was throwing 36.5% sinkers with bad whiff rates, bad locations, and nowhere near enough strikes. He cut his sinker usage in half last night, leading to his best performance. #brewers

[TravJ14 @TravJ142]

The cutter and 4-seam replaced it with the cutter leading the way, and he threw it very well last night (82% good location). Every pitch besides the sinker had a plus location last night, which could mean that we could expect a downslide from the performance last night.