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NASA employees bond over unique Fantasy Football league

H-Town Showdown, a fantasy league made up of NASA employees, has been in existence for more than a decade. (Photo via H-Town Shodown)

No one likes the graveyard shift. No one. You’re working while the world sleeps. You’re sleeping while the world works. It’s the shift you don’t want.

Unless, of course, you’re working for NASA and a member of H-Town Shodown, a Fantasy Football league that’s been playing together for a decade and a half. In that case, the graveyard shift isn’t so bad, because on your breaks it gives you several hours advantage on your peers when it comes to the waiver wire. Or at least it used to.

“After a few years we were like, ‘We gotta fix this,’ longtime H-Town Shodown member Marc Spicer said. “Working graveyards, it definitely was an advantage at times.”

It’s just a small glimpse into how dedicated the members of H-Town Shodown — a league started by NASA workers at the Johnson Space Station in Houston — are to their craft. Work, of course, comes first, but fantasy dominates the banter outside of the office.

“I wasn’t a huge football fan (before the league started),” Steve Rosenbaum said, “but I like numbers and stats, and fantasy was a way to have competitive fun with that.”

And so a league was formed in 2002, and H-Town Shodown formally started in 2005. And since 2008, it’s been the same 14 owners battling for the title.

This year, though, Fantasy Football took on a new meaning — and a backseat — for the group. With Hurricane Harvey devastating Houston, the aftermath has been dedicated to piecing peoples’ lives back together.

“Like the rest of Houston, we have all turned our focus towards meeting the immediate needs of our communities and neighbors,” Rosenbaum said in an email. “Every neighborhood has been affected differently and we all live in different places around Houston, so outside of keeping tabs of each other through Facebook posts, we really haven’t had much communication with each other during this time.”

And as with all natural disasters, the people affected are eager to respond and come back stronger.

This fantasy league remains as close as ever, backed by an inclusive and tradition-heavy environment: Every year, the group convenes to think about how the next campaign can be even better. “We add little things every year — I try to think of five things the league can vote on to add,” Rosenbaum said.

“The Bobble” was one of those additions, brought in by Aaron McDonald by 2004 and first awarded to the league champ in 2005. It’s gone through several iterations, growing bigger and more impressive as the years have gone on.

  The Bobble through the years (Photo via the H-Town Shodown Extensive League History)

“It really is the ultimate bragging right,” 2015 champ Marc Spicer said. “When I got it I actually brought it into work for a short while so I could get the plates on it when we expanded it. Because I work in a different area than the rest of the guys, I had streams of people coming over like ‘Hey so what’s this thing?’ I spent so much time that day explaining what the trophy was and explaining our league to people.”

And while a lot of leagues will give a trophy to the champ Stanley Cup-style — returned at the end of each year for the next — H-Town Shodown doesn’t stop there. Each champ also gets a stein to keep forever along with a membership in “The Brotherhood of the Bobble.” And there are other awards, too, like Best of the Rest (for fifth place, one spot out of the playoffs), Bottom Dweller (a toilet seat for 14th place), Limp Leg (given to the player who gets the fewest points out of his kicker), and Nostradamus (given to the player who has the lowest score by leaving points on the bench).

On top of organizing get-togethers throughout and after the season, Spicer and Paul Gramm help come up with the awards every year.

“We’ll come with some ideas. We have some standard awards. But then we also try to think of ‘did someone make some silly mistake?’ There are some obvious things we can make fun of somebody about. It’s really once we start talking, we start feeding off each other so much that by the end we’ve got a ton and we have to figure out which ones we actually want to do.”

Many of the awards are meant to be half-honors and half-jokes, and all are an easy tool for either sparking trash talk or being on the end of it. Rosenbaum has kept an Extensive League History to make sure past accomplishments and past failures are never forgotten.

“I’m a data guy so I like keeping the data,” Rosenbaum said. “It’s something fun. Everyone loves looking through it because it holds memories. We look at it and say ‘Wow we’ve been doing this for so long.’ It’s all the little things.”

“The history is great because it’s such a great source for ribbing each other,” said Joe Kitchen, the league’s Stats Stiff. “We’ll go back sometimes. I do the stats during the year and I’ll usually send out the stats every week, usually try to give a little summary, and I’ll oftentimes go grab one of those old awards just to remind somebody of it.”

H-Town Shodown’s success has come from a group of owners who have bought into having fun and sticking together. Every year, there are new wrinkles, new traditions and new opportunities for glory — or embarrassment.

“Everybody has kind of done their own part to bring something to the league,” Spicer said. “Everybody feels a piece of ownership.”

“I think we stay together because we have built so many traditions, and we respect that,” Rosenbaum echoed. “Leaving that would be losing that.”

It’s been a tragic year for Houston. The damage done cannot be rectified in days or weeks or months. Many peoples’ lives will never be the same. But rallying together in the face of adversity is one thing H-Town Shodown has been able to do. If the league can provide any solace whatsoever, it’s doing its job.

“One of the biggest things we all value about our fantasy league is the sense of community,” Rosenbaum said in an email. “There is not a more effective way of building that sense of community then selflessly giving your time and energy to helping your neighbors, which is happening all over Houston since Harvey. I am proud of all the Houstonians who are out helping each other in so many different ways, making a difference and strengthening community bonds.”

If you would like to donate to Hurricane Harvey disaster relief, here’s how you can help.

More Fantasy Football stories from Yahoo Sports

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Fantasy draft philosophy to avoid RB and WR busts tied to bad QB play

The idea of avoiding players on teams with bad quarterbacks is pretty obvious but not something I thought was worthy of a rule until trying to assess the odds of a resurgence for two previously productive players.

I found that having a quarterback as bad as Brock Osweiler made any chance that DeAndre Hopkins or Lamar Miller would bounce back practically hopeless — a 25% chance for Miller to be fantasy relevant and about a 0% chance for Hopkins.

I had no shares of Hopkins and Miller because even though Osweiler uncertainty was built into their average draft position, theoretically, it just never occurred to me to take them anywhere. I practically red-lined them. But what if I really red-lined them? What if instead of subscribing to the zeroRB philosophy (where you don’t draft a running back with a premium pick), you substitute zeroBadQB?

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All this means is that you don’t take any players on teams that are led by a quarterback who you expect to be bad. And I don’t mean bad in a relative sense like we sometimes get from Eli Manning and Joe Flacco and Ryan Tannehill. I mean straight up bad.

Now everyone who hears this theory says, “Of course I try to do this. Go to where the points are.” But I’m not talking about trying; I’m talking about doing. Just keep drafting players on teams with QBs who are okay or better and avoid the ones who play with QBs who are probably bad to terrible. Please note that this is not merely a strategy for drafting wide receivers but applies equally to running backs (and obviously tight ends) too. The result: you forget about a 30% of the player pool through at least five rounds and hopefully for much longer.

The best support for the zeroBadQB method happens to involve wide receivers and is provided by Jacob Rickrode (@clutchfantasy) via Rotoviz (subscription required).

“When projecting Top 24 (wide receivers) history has shown an average of 12 NFL teams will not have one. The Nos. 13-24 WRs since 2011 have averaged 125 targets on the season.”

Yes, those are most likely to be the receivers on the teams with the bad QBs. If you play with one, you can’t be expected to crack the top 24 in the end-of-the-season rankings. So at a minimum don’t rank one of these wide receivers in the top 24 at the position. And furthermore, we see that the target volume that we generally feature prominently in our rankings is overrated; if the wide receiver has a good quarterback, each target is worth more (and vice versa). So 125 targets from Drew Brees is worth at least 150 from, say, Blake Bortles or Carson Wentz. Better efficiency costs you volume, but that doesn’t mean it costs you fantasy points.

So now we have to decide which teams have quarterbacks that are so likely to be bad that we have to avoid all their players. Again, these players generally have low floors and low ceilings, so who needs them?

You can calibrate this however strictly you want. The quarterback and teams that are to be avoided on my cheat sheet are:

Jared Goff (Rams) DeShaun Watson/Tom Savage (Texans) Trevor Siemian (Broncos) Josh McCown (Jets) Cody Kessler (Browns) Mike Glennon/Mitchell Trubisky (Bears) Brian Hoyer (49ers) Blake Bortles (Jaguars) Carson Wentz (Eagles)

You can get into a game where you say, “If Bortles, why not Eli Manning.” But I have a hard line. And Manning has consistently supported elite performers. Bortles did in 2015, it’s fair to say. But I think he’s terrible and can’t stand the idea of having to watch him try to support my players. That’s a personal decision though. And maybe you like most Eagles fans think Wentz all evidence to the contrary is the man instead of Mark Sanchez 2.0. You have to work this out. The toughest calls for me on this list are Kessler and Siemian. I actually think Kessler is good, but the Browns don’t seem to agree and he’s a big injury risk regardless. So no Isaiah Crowell. But I’ll catch Kenny Britt (who has proven he can rise above terrible QB play) at a practically free price, currently going in the 120s.

Guys on my dead list in the crucial first five rounds due to zeroBadQB according to current ADP are Jordan Howard, Todd Gurley, Leonard Fournette, Hopkins, Miller, Allen Robinson, Demaryius Thomas (this one hurts but as great as he is, five TDs last year), Crowell, Alshon Jeffery, Carlos Hyde and C.J. Anderson. Only 11 players through 60 picks. So we’re sort of doing this anyway. But my advice is to go all in on keeping these guys off your roster.

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My Yahoo Fantasy Football story: Tell us about your league

The Yahoo Fantasy Football 2017 season is right around the corner, and this year we want to meet the fantasy players who help make our game possible. Share your league’s story below and we might feature you in our upcoming series. And don’t forget to sign up for Yahoo Fantasy Football if you haven’t already!

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One of the more powerful stories we have come across is a group of Iraq War veterans whose league has held together through battle, tragedy and distance.

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Fantasy hitters worth picking up: Keon Broxton is binging

You’re a fantasy owner in need of hitting stats, and our analysts are here to help. Let’s begin with a review of players who can provide a power boost.

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Q. Here’s a partial list of widely available players who’ve each hit five or more homers over the past two weeks:  Matt Adams, Mike Zunino, Matt Davidson, Keon Broxton, Ian Happ and Yangervis Solarte. From that list, who are you most interested in adding for the remainder of the season?

Andy Behrens: I’m on the record as a big fan of Adams and Happ, but, for me, the answer here has to be KEON BROXTON. As of this writing, he’s one of only seven players in MLB who’s hit at least 10 homers and swiped 10 bags. Four of the seven were consensus first-round fantasy picks (Trout, Goldy, Betts, Altuve). Somehow, Broxton is only owned in 41 percent of Yahoo leagues. Let’s correct that problem, people. 

Scott Pianowski: MATT ADAMS is hard to deny, given the binge he’s been on since joining Atlanta (12 homers in 31 games, .661 slugging, 156 OPS+). Eventually Adams will get shifted or traded; I don’t buy Freddie Freeman shifting to third. Solarte was turning into a fun story until he injured his oblique. I love his position flexibility and on-base skills. 

Dalton Del Don: MATT ADAMS. There’s little doubt he’s been playing over his head, but Adams did hit 16 homers in fewer than 300 at bats last season. He’s batting .314/.365/.569 against right-handers this year, and he’s locked into the middle of Atlanta’s lineup now that Freddie Freeman is moving to third base once he returns from the disabled list. 

[Pitchers worth considering on the waiver wire]

Q. Give us a corner-infielder, available in shallow fantasy formats (10-12 teams), who deserves more attention?

Andy: OK, here’s where I give a nod to MATT DAVIDSON. He’s not going hit for average, in all likelihood, but he’s already up to 16 home runs, plus he does his hitting in a favorable home environment. 

Scott: I’ll sign off on Davidson, too; I realize it’s a season where everyone reaches the seats, but 21 percent looks awfully light. And what’s it going to take to fix the TREY MANCINI ownership tag? He fits in well with Baltimore’s softball team of DH types; .337-15-5-15 over the last month, and he doesn’t run, either. If you’re looking for the center cut of Boom Boom ownership, check him out against righties (.342/.392/.624) and at home (.337/.378/.615).

Q: Please offer up a corner who’s available in deeper, larger leagues.

Dalton: LUCAS DUDA. The batting average isn’t great, but he’s knocked out 12 home runs over just 165 at bats. Rarely will you find someone with an .892 OPS owned in just 12 percent of leagues.

Scott: Obviously the four-homer game was a monumental fluke, but SCOOTER GENNETT is viable in a deeper format. He holds three positions of eligibility (2B, 3B, OF), his playing time is safe with Zack Cozart hurt, and he’s generally slotted No. 2, right in front of Joey Votto. A .284 average moves the needle in today’s game, and Gennett has 23 homers over his last 653 at-bats.

Q: Kyle Schwarber was sent to Triple-A, which made at least one Yahoo expert cry real tears. It’s been a rough year for fantasy catchers generally, so give us a widely available backstop who’s worth a long look. 

Dalton: I gave poor Andy a hard enough time about Schwarber’s demotion during our recent podcast, so I won’t pile on here. Seriously, what a down year for catchers. As for a possible replacement, give me AUSTIN HEDGES (his recent injury isn’t supposedly serious). He’s on pace to finish with 24 homers with 76 RBI and is available in 22 percent of leagues.

Andy: I am shattered by the Schwarber demotion. Broken. Weeping. It gave me no pleasure to add TYLER FLOWERS as a replacement across my fantasy portfolio, but that’s what I’ve generally done. We knew Flowers had legit power entering the season. So far this year, there’s far less swing-and-miss in his game, and he’s delivered a career-best line-drive rate (25 percent). 

[yahoo-roto-arcade-blog]

Closing Time: What's a Mike Trout owner to do?

Closing Time is not designed to be an injury-focused blog, but we go where the stories go. And when the best baseball player in the world gets injured, it’s a forced lede for us. Mike Trout owners, we feel your pain.

As you likely saw over the weekend, Trout jammed his thumb on a head-first slide Sunday at Miami. Monday, the other shoe dropped — he has a torn ulnar collateral ligament, needs surgery, and will be out 6-8 weeks.

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Even in an injury-ravaged season like 2017, fantasy owners have every reason to feel blindsided. Durability has been a key part of Trout’s game through the years. He’s averaged 158 games a year over the last four seasons, never needed a DL stint before now. Trout’s built like a tank, well-equipped to handle the wear-and-tear of the grind. Sunday’s injury tells you more about the foolishness of head-first sliding than anything else.

Trout was the consensus No. 1 pick in the Yahoo game this year, and to this point he’s still graded as the No. 1 stat-grabber: .337-36-16-36-10. That’s something that rarely ever happens. When you make that first pick, you’re merely hoping for a great season, a cornerstone — expecting the player to actually outscore everyone else is an unrealistic ask.

So what’s a Trout owner to do? Play the position. Evaluate your team, your short-term and long-term goals. Calibrate the league context. In other words, do the things we already do on a daily fantasy basis.

The first matter of business is picking up an outfielder. Obviously you’re not going to find some magical replacement, but depending on your league size, maybe you can get some of those numbers back. Here’s a shopping list:

— Very Shallow Leagues: Dexter Fowler (55 percent) is back at the top of what still could be a fun St. Louis lineup . . . Aaron Hicks (54 percent) has category juice, a discerning eye, a prospect pedigree, and is needed to play while Jacoby Ellsbury heals . . . Brandon Drury (45 percent) can help in four categories, enjoys a deep lineup and fun park, covers three positions . . . Hernan Perez (43 percent) hasn’t run like last year, but he plays most of the time and covers four spots . . . The Dodgers are using Chris Taylor (41 percent) more often than not, and he’s off to a tidy .312-20-6-19-1 start . . . Josh Bell (40 percent) took a step back in May, but his power and patience still have me intrigued.

— In Medium Leagues: Any piece of the Houston offense looks fun to me, including Carlos Beltran (39 percent) . . . Melky Cabrera (36 percent) has started to hit; he posted a .268-17-5-23 line in May . . . Cameron Maybin (35 percent) is running wild, though he’ll miss Trout’s presence in the lineup . . . Hunter Renfroe (29 percent) quietly posted an .895 OPS in May, and he’s hit five home runs in each of the first two months . . . We promoted Jayson Werth (29 percent) in the Yahoo collaborative every week, and yet he goes largely unclaimed. Deep lineup, variety of skills . . . Max Kepler (28 percent) can be especially fun if you just take the platoon-advantage work: .282/.371/.500, five homers, three steals.

— In Deeper Leagues: Kevin Kiermaier (18 percent) has started to hit, and stole five bases in May . . . Tommy Pham (seven percent) has forced his way into the Cardinals lineup, with a nice run of 69 at-bats (.333-13-5-14-4). Randal Grichuk isn’t in the way for now, sent to Triple-A . . . Reflectively we want to run from the Royals offense, but note Whit Merrifield (five percent) perked up in May (.308-14-5-10-4) . . . Matt Adams (nine percent) is the Braves first baseman while Freddie Freeman rehabs. The Atlanta park looks like a favorable place to hit . . . Michael Taylor (four percent) worries us with contact issues, but so far so good (.274 average, some category juice).

No, there’s not a blossoming superstar in the mix. That’s not how these things work. You lose a Trout, you’ve going to feel it. At least take solace in the fact that your opponents are getting ripped by injuries, too.

Trout owners could also consider trading him, liquidating the asset. Sometimes this move is dismissed out of hand by fantasy pundits, which makes zero sense to me. Trout has name-brand recognition and a track record that sells itself. Shouldn’t you at least calibrate how your opponents feel about his comeback? Maybe someone in your league will carry more optimism than you will.

[Why do we call Lance McCuller’s a sell-high? Listen in]

Keep in mind, the Angels are a team miles away from contention. The club wants Trout to return quickly and all that, but it’s not like the urgency of a playoff race is driving the timetable. Trout still has his entire career to think about. And maybe it will take some time for him to get back up to full throttle.

Obviously this isn’t a “sell at any cost” recommendation. Just do what any reasonable and measured person does in these types of spots, consider every alternative. If I owned Trout anywhere — and because I didn’t do well in the draft lottery, I do not — I’d let my league mates know he was available. Heck, my entire roster is in play at any time, because having untouchables doesn’t make sense. You never know what type of heavy overpayment someone might be willing to assemble.

• I don’t know what Alex Avila is having for breakfast these days, but pour me a bowl of it, too.

You might remember Avila’s salad days — he was a star back in 2011, posting a .295-19-82 line. His game fell apart over the next few years, and he was backup for Detroit and Chicago in 2015 and 2016.

No idea where it came from, but every Alex Avila at-bat is a work of art. He’s a craftsman. Spitting on borderline pitches, using park.

— scott pianowski (@scott_pianowski) May 22, 2017

Avila returned to Detroit this year — swapping his old 13 for a new 31 — and initially he was just a backup catcher and infield fill-in. A familiar city to start his 30-something seasons. Alas, a hot start and some Tigers injuries elsewhere have pushed Avila into more playing time than expected, with juicy results: .323/.447/.591, six homers, 21 walks in 93 at-bats.

Avila’s batting eye isn’t a new thing — as Dave Cameron of Fangraphs pointed out, Avila’s plate discipline has been outstanding for several years. Avila’s ridiculous .453 BABIP sticks out, though he’s driving those results to some extent (28.8 percent line-drive rate and 57.4 percent hard-hit rate, both well above league average).

James McCann, Detroit’s regular starting catcher, is currently on the DL. It’s a hand-laceration injury, not something that should need an extended recovery. Nonetheless, Avila has turned into an auto-play for two-catcher formats, and I’m even rolling him out in a few leagues that require a single backstop. The at-bats have been that pretty, and the position has been a fantasy wasteland. Let’s take production where we see it, and when we can get it.

• If Trout was the injury of Monday, Hunter Strickland was the insult. San Francisco’s combustible reliever decided to throw a heater at Bryce Harper’s midsection, an obvious retaliation for a couple of moon-shot homers Harper cranked off Strickland in previous playoff meetings.

A gloriously-absurd brawl ensued.  Harper, for some reason, sucks at throwing his helmet. How come Buster Posey didn’t enter the mix? (Makes you wonder how Posey and Strickland get along these days.)

In honor of Bryce Harper’s helmet toss. 5 worst throws near mound pic.twitter.com/Ak7w1qz9jO

— Batting Stance Guy (@BattingStanceG) May 29, 2017

Harper is obviously headed for a suspension, it’s just a matter of when it falls, how many days it is, and how Harper decides to approach it. Strickland will be suspended too, not that fantasy owners need an answer for that.

[yahoo-roto-arcade-blog]

Pitchers fantasy owners should buy or sell on trade market

Since Ks and BBs have stabilized for pitchers, let’s get a full accounting of the ones who are radically under- and over-performing their peripherals. This means that their ERAs are way out of whack given their ranking of (Ks-BBs) divided by innings pitched.

There of course is not guarantee that pitchers are going to continue to post similar K and BB rates going forward, though our Stat Stabilization Chart (courtesy of our friends at Fangraphs) says that is at least even money (and an even more likely as the season wears on). And we’re only picking the extreme outliers, meaning guys who are top 15 in Ks and BBs but way worse in ERA and vice versa.

We hear all the time how “sell high, buy low” is a myth. I vehemently disagree. You can definitely deal Dylan Bundy right now for Jeff Samardzija, for example. But there are dumb ways to try to do this. In other words, if you offer that straight up, your trading partner is likely going to see how you’re thinking. But if you get Samardzija for Bundy AND the better hitter for the worse hitter, you are masking your true intentions AND doubling your investment upside because you seem to be losing on the pitching side of that deal despite being at least even money to win it.

But I fear that trading is a lost art.

Note for the recommendations below that the league average is 0.54 Ks minus walks per inning. So basically if you pitch six innings and have less than three more Ks than walks, you’re pitching poorly.

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ERAs Should Be Way Better

Samardzija is fourth in the stat entering Tuesday with exactly one more K per inning than walks, yet his ERA of 5.26 is 80th among qualifying pitchers. I would bet on Samardzija being at least top 20 in ERA going forward while also being helpful in Ks. Samardzija is unowned in only 27% of leagues but should be easy to pick up in a trade in a manner like I stated above.

Jake Arrieta is not as good as he was but should not be nearly this bad. His 5.44 ERA is way inflated given his (Ks-BB)/IP is ranked 14th (0.806). If these aligned closely, as they tend to do, his ERA would be around 3.00 (the 14th ERA now is 2.60). Do not trade Arrieta because you are likely only locking in bad stats that should get much better (as long as the Ks and BBs remain the same or better).

Nate Karns is seemingly struggling with a non-helpful 4.46 ERA but is 11th in the stat. We don’t have a lot of data on Karns but he’s available right now in 73% of Yahoo leagues. He should be owned in all 12-team formats on the basis of 48 Ks in 40.1 innings alone.

John Lackey is seemingly heading for the exits in his career given a 4.29 ERA but he’s 12th in the statistic. You can’t leverage this easily however since he’s so highly owned. But he’s an inviting trade target. The same can be said for Rick Porcello (10th in the stat at 0.872) and Luis Severino (8th, 0.881), both owned in over 85% of leagues.

But if you want another easy pickup, look to Charlie Morton, who is 15th in the stat (0.794) despite ranking 50th in ERA (3.97). Morton is not owned in 53% of leagues.

ERAs Should Be Way Worse

Here’s where I get hate in the comments, but blame the model. Maybe these guys will defy gravity. But as my buddy Scott Pianowski says channeling Radiohead: Gravity always wins.

Ervin Santana is a joke right now, ranking second in ERA (1.50) while sitting 71st in the K and BB stat (0.370). Maybe he’s found the secret to pitching to contact but we say that about every pitcher who does and most of them end up on the side of the road with their ERAs in pieces. Santana is a top-20 most volatile pitcher in baseball history but more on that another day.

Gio Gonzalez isn’t even that extreme a ground-ball pitcher anymore. And he’s giving up homers at a high rate. So ranking 11th in ERA (2.47) while sitting 78th in the stat (0.314) make zero sense.

Derek Holland is 11th in ERA and 65th in the stat but owners are buying giving he’s 60% owned. I will bet a lot of money that Morton will out-earn Holland for the balance of this season.

Dylan Bundy was supposed to be a fireballing strikeout artist and his ERA suggests that he’s arrived (2.26). But he ranks 60th in the stat (0.464). Thus Bundy’s ERA is likely to be at best league average going forward while hurting you in Ks. Yes, he could develop an out-pitch but what’s he waiting for? His fastball velocity is also down.

Mike Leake is pitching to contact as always but has a 1.94 ERA despite ranking 57th in the stat. Leake and Bundy are owned in over 85% of leagues so if you have them make sure you trade them. I bet you can get Lackey or Samardzija for either one in the manner I advised earlier. But shoot for Arrieta first.

Finally, while we’re back to the hitters next week, be sure to read my Wall Street Journal piece on Freddie Freeman and the simple reason he’s so good: the vast majority of the pitches he takes are balls. The strikes, he swings at. I wish we had easily accessible data on this and am trying behind the scenes to make this happen. It’s very important for power hitters to not take more than 25% strikes when they choose not to swing and taking a much higher percentage of strikes than league average (about 30%) is a sign of passivity that typically leads to poor hitting outcomes.

[yahoo-roto-arcade-blog]

Closing Time: Aaron Altherr in midst of fantasy breakout

The 40-percent ownership area for fantasy pickups is basically Last Call Saloon. Those players are long gone in the more competitive leagues. For a productive player to be standing in this corridor, we’re talking about leagues with low transaction limits, or very modest roster requirements.

Be that as it may, it’s last call on Philadelphia outfielder Aaron Altherr. And if you picked him up weeks ago, you may downshift to victory lap mode.

The Phillies added some ordinary outfield veterans over the winter, but the answer was in their own backyard the entire time. Altherr currently stands as the No. 14 outfielder in the Yahoo game, with a juicy .351-19-7-21-3 line. He ripped two homers in Wednesday’s victory over Seattle, giving him four in three days.

The 26-year-old Altherr cuts an imposing figure at the plate — 6-foot-5, 215 pounds. There’s a broad set of tools in the toolbox. I compared Altherr to Jayson Werth, a former Philly outfielder, in this space a week ago. The real Werth made the same comp a few days later.

It’s convenient to laugh off Spring Training as a meaningless exercise, but sometimes breakout players are morphing — and improving — before our eyes. Consider what Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said about Altherr in late March, as told to David Lauria of Fangraphs.

A guy who jumps out to me is Aaron Altherr. He’s adjusted his setup and his swing path. He’s gone from a long swing to a shorter swing, and he’s getting good results because of it. [Hitting coach] Matt Stairs changed him. You have to give Aaron credit, too. A lot of guys aren’t really receptive to making a change from how they’ve swung the bat their whole life. He was willing to do it, so I tip my hat to Aaron.

“The key is to go directly to the ball from your launch position. Instead of A to B to C, what you’re looking for is A to C. [Altherr] has his bat on his shoulder now. He had been starting with his hands up high, and it looked uncomfortable. I always felt his swing looked a little too long. He made the correction.

If you want Altherr’s breakout validated in the secondary numbers, you’ll have no trouble. He’s trimmed his strikeouts, nudged forward his walks. His hard-hit rate has spiked from 29.5 percent to 43.4 percent. He’s swinging at less pitches out of the strike zone.

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If you want help buying high, I can offer some ideas. I’d trade Jose Bautista for Altherr, zero hesitation. The Hunter Pence apologists should make this swap. Ben Zobrist might be starting to show his age, don’t you think? Yasiel Puig has slowed down significantly after a slow start. (If it’s pronunciation help you need: ALL-tair.)

Perhaps some of those trade ideas would be dismissed out of hand. You know your league members better than I do. But Altherr is less owned than everyone in the above paragraph, and it’s time to fix that for good. For once, it’s sunny in the Philadelphia outfield.

• We’ve seen plenty of long-forgotten veterans get back on course in 2017. The Yonder Alonso story is something. Ryan Zimmerman is the NL MVP to this point. Mark Reynolds is crushing in Colorado.

Dropping down a level from those guys, maybe Logan Morrison is another fantasy commodity, back from the dead. Perhaps he’ll turn into the poor-man’s Alonso.

Morrison made the majors at age 22, seen as a promising, pure hitter. He posted an impressive .283/.390/.447 slash in his first 62 games with the Marlins, and clocked 23 homers (in 123 games) the next year. Alas, Morrison took a step back over the next five years; a .239/.314/.398 line doesn’t play in mixed leagues. No one targeted him in March.

Morrison isn’t on a ballistic tear with Tampa this year, but a .250/.344/.528 line is respectable, especially in OBP leagues. He’s cranked nine home runs — four in the last week — and he’s locked in the cleanup spot. A nifty BB/K rate and an increase in fly balls are reasons to believe in this story, on some level.

If you’re a little thin at the corner, Morrison is owned in just 13 percent of Yahoo leagues. And give him a modest bump forward in OBP formats.

• With Zach Britton out indefinitely, the Orioles need some answers in the ninth inning. Maybe Brad Brach is that guy, and maybe he isn’t. Brach has four saves over his last nine appearances, but it’s been a white-knuckle ride: 9 IP, 13 H, 8 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, 2 HR. He had a messy blown save (and loss) Wednesday against the Nationals (small solace to the DC area, soul-crushed over the Capitals Game 7 no-show against the Penguins).

Darren O’Day was terrible to open the year, but he’s turned things around over his last 12 outings (2.31 ERA, 3 BB, 11 K). In leagues where you need to be an early speculator to possible save turnover, O’Day is worth investigating. He’s owned in just 11 percent of Yahoo leagues.

• For one night at least, the Marlins and the Rangers got it right. You want high-OBP hitters at the top of the order, and you want the OBP-drains at the bottom, but sometimes silly things (like short-term samples and age-old strategy considerations) rule the day.

Shin-Soo Choo is Texas’s best on-base man by far, and yet he’s only hit leadoff three times this year.  Contrast that to the 13 starts Choo’s logged in the bottom third of the order. But Choo might be in the leadoff spot for a while, after reaching base four times on Wednesday. He’s slashing .269/.383/.426 for the year. (Don’t get me started on Jeff Banister, International Man of Superstition. His favorite player tends to be any guy who played well yesterday.)

Dee Gordon usually bats first for Miami because he’s fast, not because he fits the job’s other responsibilities. Gordon dropped to ninth two games ago. Perhaps the move sparked him — Gordon had two hits, a walk, and two steals in Wednesday’s loss. He’s now up to 11 bags, and his OBP improved to .326.

If Gordon has to move down, the No. 9 slot is better than the No. 8 spot. You don’t want the pitcher in back of him, where occasional bunting will take away from Gordon’s stolen-base opportunities. I suspect Gordon is going to be back at leadoff soon enough, but at least Don Mattingly was thinking outside the box for a moment.

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Fantasy Baseball’s most radical movers in newly favored stat

Hit trajectory is the rage today with hitters like Yonder Alonso, Daniel Murphy and Ryan Zimmerman all recently seeming to remake their careers due to focus on hitting the ball in the air rather than on the ground.

While the season is still young, the sabermetricians say that it only takes about 80 balls in play for ground-ball and fly-ball rates to stabilize. We’re about there for hitters unless they have struck out an incredible amount. So let’s look at all these rates now for qualifying hitters, through Sunday, to see which have improved the most vs. last year in this seemingly concerted effort to change the plane of the swing in order to get better loft on the ball when hitting it squarely. And we’ll also see who is losing this battle as pitchers and teams are also aware that ground balls are far less threatening when it comes to altering the scoreboard and are presumably trying harder than ever to induce them.

I pulled only hitters whose rate of ground balls is at least 10 percentage points different year to year. What this means, given that stabilization of a statistic only says that it’s reasonably at least half skill, is that even if we cut the rate in half and attribute the rest to completely random factors, the result is still at least five percentage points of hit trajectory change (meaningful).

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So let’s look at Alonso, who has gone from a 44.6% ground-ball rate in 2016 to 26.5% this year. That’s the major reason his homer total of nine matches his career high. But let’s ballpark his rate going forward at half that difference — or 35.6%. That’s still a radical change so the bottom line with Alonso is that it’s likely he will continue to hit far more homers than we projected in March. I would bet on about 16 more for the balance of the season.

Some players have improved their rate of fly balls without boosting their homers. Others have seen dividends. The complete list of hitters at least 10 percentage points better at avoiding grounders this year vs. last year are, in addition to Alonso (the MLB leader): Jed Lowrie (13.6 points better), Zimmerman (12.2), Jay Bruce (12.2 from a previously extreme fly-ball level), Trevor Story (12.0 and also previously extreme), Joe Mauer (11.7), Orlando Arcia (11.4), Josh Reddick (11.4), Francisco Lindor (11.3), Scott Schebler (11.0), Jose Bautista (10.5 and previously extreme), Jose Ramirez (10.5) and Josh Harrison (10.4).

Lowrie has only two homers. But he hit 16 in 340 at bats in 2012, albeit in a better park (Houston). He otherwise has an OPS 27% better than the league average. If the power comes as this stat predicts and Lowrie reverts to career norms of HR/FB of 6.5-to-11%, he should hit 10-to-12 homers for the balance of the season and thus become playable in 12-team formats batting at the top of the A’s lineup.

Reddick has hit 32 homers in the past and is worth rostering in all formats if you believe in this stat. I’m not trying to hedge on that but we don’t have a lot of data on hit trajectory and power in this league-wide context of hitters trying to change it. Reddick also has an OPS 17% better than average through Sunday. And he’s 11% owned. I’ll bet on 20 homers the rest of the season.

Lindor’s power spike seems bettable. Ditto his teammate Ramirez. I’ve liked Schebler since March given how his park plays for lefty power, but the issue for him was hitting too many grounders, like worm-killer Christian Yelich (still up to his old antics). But now that this problem has been seemingly rectified in dramatic fashion, I love Schebler going forward as a legitimate source of 30-homer power.

Harrison is translating his fly balls into homers and it does not seem like a fluke. If you’re too late on Harrison (he’s 45% owned), just get Lowrie (4% owned but profiling the same and with more power historically).

Guys to worry about — meaning they’re doing the opposite of the current trend by hitting more ground balls: Alex Bregman (20 percentage point spike in ground-ball rate), Kevin Kiermaier (16.8), Alex Gordon (15.7), Trevor Plouffe (15.7), Travis Shaw (14.7), Brandon Belt (14.0), Robbie Grossman (13.5), Gregory Polanco (13.2), Freddie Freeman (12.5), Justin Upton (12.0), Xander Bogaerts (11.4), Jose Altuve (10.7), Yasmani Grandal (10.6), Brian McCann (10.6), Victor Martinez (10.5), Asdrubal Cabrera (10.2) and Charlie Blackmon (10.0).

There are some interesting counter examples of hitters smacking homers despite apparently going the wrong way on hit trajectory. So you can look at Freeman and Shaw and feel confident that if their HR/FB normalizes (career high 37.9% for Freeman and 28.0% for Shaw), they can maybe hit more fly balls in line with their historic rates. So I’m not selling either based on this. But the players above who are not hitting homers may struggle to do so all year unless their now stable rate of hitting ground balls proves against the odds to be a radical fluke.

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Fantasy Baseball draft kit: Cheat sheet to help you win a title

Our experts are here to help you win a Fantasy Baseball title in 2017. Check out what’s new on Yahoo for this season and then sign up to play. But before making your picks, we’ve rounded up all our advice in one place, so you can study for your draft and come out on top.

Note: This page will be updated as we continue to preview the upcoming season.

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Rankings Overall top 250 | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | C | OF | SP | RP Printable rankings: Positional cheat sheet Big Board: Top 50 assets heading into 2017 Mock Draft now: Get ready for the real thing

Draft strategy Sleepers to target | Four breakout candidates | Bust alert: Players to avoid National League fantasy season preview | American League predictions Nine bold fantasy predictions Who our experts are repeatedly drafting Players on rise after hot springs | Guys falling Most reliable options that get overlooked Inside one expert’s draft portfolio Podcast: Auction tips | Review of expert’s auction How much should spring training impact drafts? Podcast: Sleepers, MVPs and division winners Dream draft scenarios and expert tips Guys who need a fast start to season Players most likely to take a step back Guys Yahoo experts covet most in drafts All upside-team: Players who could deliver Old faces in new places with most appeal Three-round mock starts in controversial fashion Rookies with chances to have immediate impact Steals and reaches of experts’ draft | Podcast recap Auction strategy: Review of industry league Players to follow during World Baseball Classic Price check on AL players in early drafts | Price check on NL players

Hitters Biggest bargains bats heading into season Parks that help or hurt homers most Six cheap speed options Delino DeShields Jr. a lottery ticket worth buying Most overvalued hitters by position Debating which great shortstop to draft Position debate: Buster Posey or Gary Sanchez? Five infielders with injury questions | Schwarber among outfielders to monitor

Pitchers Arms you should avoid paying full price for in drafts Parks with most impact on pitching Relievers our experts are targeting | Non-closers worth taking How to draft closers | Bullpen Depth Chart Spin Doctors: Johnny Cueto or Stephen Strasburg? Case for taking Kershaw with the top overall pick in drafts Seven undervalued pitchers in drafts Five pitchers with injury questions

Video Analysis Sleepers: Guys to chase late in drafts Busts: Four players to avoid drafting Breakout Candidates: Players set to become studs Rookies: 2017 class lacks immediate impact

What to do with the 1st overall pick | 2nd pick | 3rd pick | 4th pick | 5th pick | 6th pick | 7th pick | 8th pick | 9th pick | 10th pick | 11th pick | 12th pick | 13th pick | 14th pick

AL East AL East preview podcast: Sleepers, busts and more Blue Jays: What’s the Encarnacion replacement plan? | Bautista being undervalued Orioles: Are you paying up for Kevin Gausman? Rays: Any late-round steals in Tampa Bay? Red Sox: What is Andrew Benintendi ready to do? Yankees: New York is a trick team to figure out

AL Central AL Central preview podcast: Sleepers, busts and more Indians: Just how good is Francisco Lindor? Royals: Danny Duffy ready to make leap Tigers: Which Justin Upton shows up this year? White Sox: What to expect from the kids and when will they arrive? Twins: Berrios has something to prove in WBC

AL West AL West preview podcast: Sleepers, busts and more Angels: Does lack of supporting cast hurt Mike Trout? A’s: Which young player is worth your pick? Astros: Time to buy in on Alex Bregman or pump the brakes? Mariners: Is Felix Hernandez in the beginning of a decline? Rangers: Is Elvis Andrus a sucker play as a mid-tier shortstop?

NL East NL East preview podcast: Sleepers, busts and more Braves: Dansby Swanson among MLB rookies to watch Marlins: Two of Miami’s top players could be fantasy busts Mets: Health tops list of questions for New York Nationals: Washington has star appeal but not all is certain Phillies: Will the baseball gods cut Nola a break?

NL Central NL Central preview podcast: Sleepers, busts and more Brewers: Will Villar be as good as last season? Cardinals: Does St. Louis have sneak name-brand appeal? Cubs: Plenty of impact options to pick from Pirates: Is Andrew McCutchen really the third-best outfielder in Pittsburgh? Reds: Peraza has become a player of interest

NL West NL West preview podcast: Sleepers, busts and more Diamondbacks: Can A.J. Pollock and Zack Greinke bounce back? Dodgers: Is there any Yasiel Puig intrigue left? Giants: San Francisco a better team in reality than fantasy Padres: Was Myers’ breakout for real? Rockies: Any reason to be leery of Charlie Blackmon?

Player Profile Videos

First Base: Eric Hosmer, Brandon Belt, Josh Bell, Tommy Joseph

Second Base: Rougned Odor, Dee Gordon, Matt Carpenter, Devon Travis, Hernan Perez, Didi Gregorius

Shortstop: Trevor Story, Elvis Andrus, Troy Tulowitzki, Brandon Crawford, Dansby Swanson, Freddy Galvis, Ketel Marte, J.P. Crawford

Third Base: Maikel Franco, Eugenio Suarez, Mike Moustakas, Nick Castellanos, Ryon Healy, Yulieski Gurriel

Catcher: Welington Castillo, Tom Murphy, Stephen Vogt

Outfield: George Springer, Marcell Ozuna, Khris Davis, Domingo Santana, Shin-Soo Choo, David Peralta, Hunter Renfroe, Yasiel Puig, Tyler Naquin, Max Kepler, Ender Inciarte, Jay Bruce, Austin Meadows, Mitch Haniger, Lonnie Chisenhall, Josh Reddick, Lorenzo Cain, Jacoby Ellsbury, Matt Holliday, Leonys Martin

Starting Pitcher: Justin Verlander, Jose Quintana, Felix Hernandez, Danny Salazar, Eduardo Rodriguez, Adam Conley, Matt Moore, Tanner Roark, Jon Gray, Dallas Keuchel, Jameson Taillon, Adam Wainwright, Ivan Nova, Junior Guerra, Joe Ross, Dan Straily, Gio Gonzalez, Jason Hammel, Chris Tillman, Alex Wood, Tyler Skaggs, Jordan Zimmermann, Alex Cobb, Cole Hamels

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Top Fantasy Basketball pickups for title push

As we near the end of the season, many teams are giving increased roles to young players widely available on the waiver wire.

Ownership and stats are accurate as of the end of Thursday’s games.

By Alex Rikleen Special to Yahoo Sports

Tyler Ulis, PG, Phoenix Suns, 36% owned Eric Bledsoe has been shut down for the season, which makes Ulis the starting Suns point guard for the rest of the way. His ownership rates are skyrocketing since the announcement – right now, you should open up a new tab, and go add Ulis, and then come back to reading the rest of this article.

The Suns’ rotation now features only two players older than 25-years-old, as they brazenly turn their attention towards the future and give up any remaining pretense of caring about their current record. In his first game as a starter, Ulis racked up 13 points, 13 assists, and two steals in 39 minutes. Since Ulis became a regular cog in the rotation (the third game after the All-Star break), he is averaging 15.2 points, 9.5 assists, and 1.9 steals per-36 minutes.

Next week’s schedule: at Mia, at Bkn, at Bos, at Cha

Ivica Zubac, C, Los Angeles Lakers, 35% Zubac’s ownership was also rising quickly – until he produced only two points and two rebounds in 11 minutes during what seemed to be a favorable matchup against the Rockets on Wednesday. Though it was a terrible fantasy performance, owners should ignore it.

Zubac started, but got into early foul trouble, impacting his play and his time on the floor. Coach Luke Walton’s comments after the game seemed to imply that he still wants Zubac to play with a starter’s workload, and that it was just the foul trouble that dictated Wednesday’s outcome. Walton said he plans to start Zubac for the rest of the season, and fellow center Timofey Mozgov has been shut down. In his two starts before Wednesday, he averaged 17.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks in 24.5 minutes. Though he only has two assists through his first three starts, he averages 1.4 per-36 minutes this season, which is not bad for a center.

Next week’s schedule: LAC, Min, Por

Willy Hernangomez, C, New York Knicks, 43% Hernangomez has been a roller-coaster, and the flips and turns have intensified since the All-Star break. As it stands, his value seems to hinge on Kristaps Porzingis’ (thigh) health. The Knicks have four days off after Thursday’s game, which Porzingis sat out. Porzingis said Thursday that he expected to play in the Knicks next game (Monday), but he’s been out or limited due to injury in five of the Knicks last 12 games.

If Porzingis is fully healthy, then Hernangomez’s value is limited, and Hernangomez can be left on waivers in most 10-team leagues. But when Porzingis is sidelined or limited, Hernangomez is a great add even in 8-team leagues. Hernangomez was limited by foul trouble Thursday, but in the other four of those games that Porzingis was out or limited, Hernangomez averaged 10.8 points, 15.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.3 blocks, and 1.0 steals in 31.3 minutes.

Next week’s schedule: at LAC, at Uta, at Por, at SA

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Malcolm Brogdon, PG/SG, Milwaukee Bucks, 42% Brogdon’s value varies a lot based on his role. He has much more fantasy value as an off-the-bench facilitator than he does as a starter. In the former role, he is averaging 5.8 assists per game since the All-Star break; in the latter, he is averaging only 2.0 assists per game. Assists aren’t the only statistical difference between Starter Brogdon and Backup Brogdon, but it is the most important. He has played five games in each role since the break, with the following results:

As a starter – 28.6 minutes, 12.6 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.0 steals, 46.2% FG

Off the bench – 27.0 minutes, 13.8 points, 1.6 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 1.0 steals, 52.0% FG

The Bucks went 1-4 with Brogdon starting, and 3-2 with Brogdon off the bench. Coach Jason Kidd has fiddled with his rotation all season, but the recent results should give fantasy owners reason to believe that Brogdon will stay in his more productive bench role.

Next week’s schedule: at Por, at Sac, Atl, Chi

Richaun Holmes, PF/C, Philadelphia 76ers, 35% If you missed out on Zubac and Porzingis is healthy, Holmes is a decent consolation prize. His role has been very consistent since the All-Star break, only once seeing fewer than 21 minutes in 11 games. He is averaging 12.6 points, 6.0 rebounds, 1.0 steals, and 1.5 blocks in 23.5 minutes while shooting 62 percent from the field during that span.

This is the first time in the sophomore’s young career that he has had a stable role for this long of a stretch, and it has been good for his development. Importantly, his play is improving as he gets more familiar with his first stable role, and his numbers over the last five games are slightly improved over the first six.

Next week’s schedule: at Orl, at OKC, at Chi, at Ind

Jordan Crawford, PG/SG, New Orleans Pelicans, 30% In his first five NBA games since 2014, Crawford is averaging 14.2 points, 3.2 assists, and 2.8 threes in 23.4 minutes per game. He’s shooting 50.1 percent from the field, and 51.9 percent from behind the arc – and yes, those numbers are listed in the right order.

Despite being six games and five spots behind in the race for the final playoff spot (and with only 14 games remaining), the Pelicans still believe they have a chance. They’ll need Crawford’s ability to score and spread the floor if they are going to stay in the hunt – and their next eight games are all against Western Conference teams ahead of them in the standings.

His limited statistical profile means that he won’t be a good fit for every fantasy team, but he is an excellent source of scoring and threes without damaging a team in field goal percentage, which is a hard combination to find on the wire.

Next week’s schedule: Mem, at Hou, at Den

Joe Ingles, SG/SF, Utah Jazz, 8% Ingles is only a deep-league option at this point. He entered the starting lineup for Rodney Hood (knee) Thursday, and played 36 minutes. Over his last three games, Ingles is averaging 14.0 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 3.0 threes in 29.7 minutes. Hood has been dealing with knee problems all year, and is more important to the Jazz during the playoffs than during the regular season. Ingles has played at least 23 minutes in every game in March, in part to limit the load Hood has to bear.

Next week’s schedule: at Ind, NY, at LAC

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Fantasy Baseball’s most overvalued hitters by position

A few caveats about this all-overdrafted team. Remember, all Major League players are great at baseball. So please place this criticism in that context. And good fantasy players may choose to pay ADP for guys on this list for roster balance either at the time of the pick or anticipating that they’ll need, say, Jonathan Villar’s projected steals in their overall roster construction.

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I’m also refraining from analyzing players I’ve already addressed. For that and more, check my up-to-date 2017 draft prep archives.

C — J.T. Realmuto (ADP: 144): I get that bonus of the steals, which cracked double digits last year. But I’m not a fan of either betting on catcher steals or betting on 8-12 steals. Steals at that level are rarely evidence of any bettable skill. And it’s also unwise to bet on batting average such as Realmuto’s .303 last year when the well-hit rate is low.

According to big-league stat provider Inside Edge, his number, which includes Ks (it’s well-hit percentage of at-bats) was just .147 last year (MLB average was .138). That’s exactly Realmuto’s well-hit average in 2015, when he hit .259. A decent player but just doesn’t move the needle enough for me to forgo waiting much longer on catcher — especially in one-catcher formats. Yadier Molina is going seven rounds later, for example, if your objective is to gain batting average at the position.

1B Todd Frazier (ADP:  70):  Had a terrible well-hit rate (.142) even including the strikeouts. For comparison’s sake, Chris Carter’s was .202. Frazier projects to strikeout 150-plus times and if he does that he’s probably a .235 hitter. I can’t take on this batting average hit with a single-digit pick. Remember, 111 guys hit 20-plus homers last year, a record. You can get lots of power later than this after you build up some average surplus. So forget Frazier and grab Hanley Ramirez, who goes a few picks later on average.

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2B Javier Baez (ADP: 153):  He’s not that young anymore. What you see probably is what you get. But you’re still paying a prospect and Cubs tax. Wait a couple of rounds for the less sexy but probably more productive Jonathan Schoop or about five more rounds for top-of-the-order MI bat Logan Forsythe.

SS Jonathan Villar (ADP: 44): I already wrote about Villar here and don’t see any other notable problems with how the deep class of middle infielders is coming off the board. I prefer Jean Segura three rounds later to Villar.

3B Kyle Seager (ADP: 50): There’s nothing wrong with owning Seager but he’s more of a 25-homer hitter and it’s hard to project him over .270. Give me ageless-wonder Adrian Beltre (about 10 picks later on average) who has hit .300 or better in five of the last six years (.287 the other year). Remember that Hall of Famers like Beltre defy standard aging curves. Beltre’s K/BB ratio (66/48) is something out of the 1950s.

OF Billy Hamilton (ADP: 85): Don’t do it. You can finesse steals in today’s game by picking your spots without sacrificing too much other-category juice and still walk out of the draft room with 110-to-120 projected steals. Hamilton could easily lose his job if the Reds decide to put Jose Peraza in center and prospect Dilson Herrera (who they traded Jay Bruce for) at second base.

OF Ryan Braun (ADP: 27): He was discounted last year given his injury and PED risk at ADP 43. You have to expect at least one DL stint and who knows how that is going to affect performance before and after. I’d take Daniel Murphy with this pick, or a host of other players. Position is irrelevant this high. I think you’re paying close to retail and likely to buy some problems.

OF George Springer (ADP: 32): He said he’s not going to steal much anymore in an interview on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. Springer said that the pitchers and catchers are way too good compared with the minors so he’s basically mothballing that part of his game. Remember he was 9-for-19 stealing last year. But that ADP requires at least 15 bags and remember last season was his one healthy year.

[yahoo-roto-arcade-blog]

Cliff Notes for last big weekend for Fantasy Football drafts of 2018

This is it, the last week or so of heavy duty fantasy football drafting. The offseason feels longer than ever — but it’s all a labor of love.

If you were headed into a draft in 30 minutes and just had a few moments for some advice, a tip, some “swing thoughts” from a caddy — here’s what I might tell you. (As always, your mileage will vary, you know your league better than I do, and of course it’s all contextual — that’s the understood disclaimer to any general discussion we have.)

If you’re looking for a deeper dive on the latest player and team situations, we have you covered there, too.

The Obvious Stuff 

• You have to know your rules backwards and forwards. This is so blatantly obvious, I feel sheepish even saying it. But if you’re in as many leagues as I am, it’s not always obvious what the rules are. Do your homework.

• A plan is good, but keep it in pencil. Stay flexible. The only unbreakable rule is no unbreakable rules.

• Listen to all you respect, but make your own decisions. It’s YOUR team. You’re the guy or girl who has to like it.

• My fantasy football experience goes back to the mid-90s. I’ve never seen a year with amazing quarterback depth like we have in 2018. If you’re in a start-one QB league, I beg you, play the value game. You will never feel “stuck” at quarterback.

• Sometimes a too-cute owner will stockpile quarterbacks with the idea that you can trade one from a position of strength. That almost never works, and the surplus is meekly cut soon thereafter.

• I’ll glance at snap counts and shares in-season, but what I mostly care about is how someone is used when they play. And when a part-timer starts to produce, it’s usually reasonable to expect a role increase. The takeaway: if someone is producing but on less-than-full snaps, I don’t care about the latter point. They’re producing.

The Green Bay Packers just gave Aaron Rodgers a massive contract, but that doesn’t mean you need to overpay for him or any quarterback in your fantasy draft. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, File)

The Golden Rule

• Play fantasy football with a microscope, not a telescope. Play for Today. Look at the current slate, and short look-aheads. We’ll worry about the playoff weeks later (hopefully, when we’re 6-2 and sitting pretty.) It’s a mistake to try to win Week 15 in August. Win the first month. Win the first game. I can’t say this enough — so much is going to radically change. Live in the present.

General Thoughts

• Any strategy can work if you pick the right players, but I want one of my first two picks to be a running back, if possible and if reasonable.

• Wide receiver is deep as usual, but remember some of the guys who are easy to pick in the middle rounds might not be easy to start. Running back is my main priority at the top, but I don’t want to completely tank on receivers, either.

• I don’t draft into injury problems unless I get a significant discount. Some of you have heard me say this 1,000 times. It means, sadly, I do not have any recent Doug Baldwin shares. The market, at least where I have been, has not adjusted.

First thing you do for an online draft is scribble down all the names you think are grossly underranked. You could also queue them, but I don’t like to do too much of that, because I want the better talent visible in queue. Anyway, know where buried treasure is. Awareness is key.

— scott pianowski (@scott_pianowski) September 1, 2018

  • If an NFL team has a nothing set of tight ends, don’t let wide receiver gridlock spook you. The Lions are the cleanest example of this.

• If I’m starting any kind of a new league, it’s a multiple-flex league where one of those flexes can also be a quarterback. So, basically, a two-QB league. I also like leagues that start a bunch of players and have modest benches — the more difficult choices a league asks me to make, the more I like it. And with heavy starting requirements, one outlier performance (good or bad) doesn’t automatically swing the result.

• I want a fast start. I want leverage. I want to be aggressive early with waivers. And I view bye weeks as a fantastic opportunity to improve my winning chances, both short-term and long-term. (Your first extensive league audit should coincide with the first bye week, Week 4.)

• I like to put at least one “points scored” team in the playoffs, manually, no matter the won/loss record. Yes, Yahoo’s game allows the commish to do this.

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• If you can find someone who shares your NFL world-view, partnering up is practically a cheat code. And you’ll always have someone else who cares about your team, and someone to share the grunt-work with. (If you’re not going to have a co-owner, at least identify 2-3 good friends you can discuss stuff with, privately. We all need someone to hash stuff out with; to talk us out of an occasional bad idea; to tell us the truth, as they see it, in blunt terms.)

• As soon as the real games start, I’ll divorce myself from preseason thoughts quickly. Consider the new information. Play the new position. Anchoring old opinions tied to dated information is the ultimate dinosaur move. Play For Today is as much about not looking back as it is not looking too far ahead.

Did I miss your favorite player or biggest conundrum? Hit me up on Twitter: @scott_pianowski

More from Yahoo Fantasy Sports

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Harrison Bader, back in our plans

Harrison Bader (left) is back in play for the Cardinals (AP Photo/Jim Young)

Tommy Pham came out of nowhere with the Cardinals in 2017, a waiver-wire wonder, a league-winner. And a year later, out of nowhere, he’s a deadline trade piece, a quick goodbye to a surprise breakout performer.

The Rays scored Pham on Tuesday, in exchange for three prospects and some international slot money. (I will be dangling international slot money in my fantasy negotiations all week.) Pham’s fantasy value stays close to lateral — Tampa Bay and St. Louis are just about even in OPS, though the Cardinals have outscored the Rays. Certainly, Tampa Bay is going to play Pham, that’s not an issue.

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The new fantasy intrigue centers on the St. Louis outfield — a regular spot opens with Pham’s departure. Harrison Bader could be a fun fantasy player down the stretch. Although his OPS+ is barely over the league average, courtesy of his .265/.338/.400 slash, he does have six homers and nine steals over 200 at-bats. Power-speed combos are much rarer than they used to be; heck, when any of my players steals a base, I want to start hugging strangers.

Bader probably will be the new center fielder, though contract-albatross Dexter Fowler could always slide over from right field. The Cardinals have also recalled Tyler O’Neill; he was tearing up the PCL for Triple-A Memphis (.311/.388/.711, 26 homers in 61 games).

If you’re in the mood to speculate, Bader and O’Neill are both owned in a mere three percent of Yahoo leagues; Bader is my first priority. Place your bets under the Archway.

Yahoo fantasy crew on Twitter: Andy Behrens, Dalton Del Don, Bradley Evans, Matt Harmon, Liz Loza, Scott Pianowski and Tank Williams

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Maximizing fantasy values when you draft in .5 and PPR leagues

Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams presents more fantasy value at his current ADP than some running backs going earlier in .5 PPR drafts. (AP Photo/Don Wright)

Fantasy Football drafts are a combination of calculating maximum points with each pick and the expected depth of the various positions. To help guide us I used the Pro Football Reference database and adapted it to Yahoo’s new default half-point PPR scoring. Since 2012, I calculated the points on average for the top-scoring player at each position, as well as the fifth, 10th, 15th, 20th and so on.

It turns out that owners early this draft season are not acting entirely rational when they’re on the clock. They are leaving the higher probability of more wide receiver points on the table to venture too deeply into the running back pool for players who can only return the value if they beat ADP. That’s drafting uphill. Taking the receiver with those picks is drafting downhill because wideouts in that range will beat the running backs if both finish in actual positional points in accordance with where they’re being drafted.

Yes, leaving running backs on the board in the second and third rounds frightens us because it feels like RBs 20 to 40 are hopeless reaches. But is that true and if so to what extent? What kind of drop off has there been, actually? In other words, is getting, say, the 30th most points with the 30th running back drafted good enough to win in this half-point scoring format or is the loss of points too steep?

Here are the results by position (slot averages end of season scoring 2012-2017):

Quarterbacks points

QB1: 346 points QB5: 300 QB10: 271 QB15: 248

Obviously quarterback points don’t fluctuate between standard, .5 PPR or PPR, but the context with other positions is important. We’ll deal with the strategy of the QB position and whether and how long you can wait in the coming weeks.

Running back points

RB1: 333 RB5: 250 RB10: 202 RB15: 178 RB20: 161 RB25: 140 RB30: 126 RB35: 117 RB40: 109

Receiver points

WR1: 284 WR5: 243 WR10: 216 WR15: 194 WR20: 177 WR25: 163 WR30: 154 WR35: 144 WR40: 137 WR45: 127 WR50: 120 WR55: 111

Tight End points

TE1: 212 points TE5: 167 TE10: 129 TE15: 106

So what are the takeaways from this data as it relates to the current draft season? How can we use it?

Yahoo drafters are wise to draft a running back first overall and to exhaust the pool of possible RB1s at the top of the draft. But by taking the 10th running back (who on average happens at this writing to be Dalvin Cook) at 17th overall, they must have the back finish the year better than RB10 (on average 202 points in .5 PPR) to make that pick work.

So unless you think you’re getting a steal at running back, the play in the second round is to draft wide receivers. So far this year, the 10th WR is available through the end of the second round and has averaged 216 points in .5 PPR.

Receivers also have less injury risk and less projectable touch/target separation at that point of the draft. So I think they are better bets even assuming a perfect projection, which is plus-14 points for the WR10. Additionally, you need to assess whether the WR10 has a better chance to finish as the WR5 than the RB10 does RB5. I believe the answer is yes but we can put names on these players: RB10 is Dalvin Cook and WR10 is Davante Adams. Who has a better chance to finish five slots higher? Give me Adams, but in fairness that’s 48 points for Cook (250 vs. 202) and just 27 (243 vs. 216) on average for Adams.

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The receiver pool as it relates to historic scoring at the various slots degrades more slowly than running backs: Running back actual scoring declines from RB10 to RB30 about 43% more than at WR. This has been interpreted to mean that we can afford to wait longer to draft a wide receiver than a running back.

But we can also start up to twice as many wide receivers (if you have a three-receiver league plus a flex). So rather than believing you can wait for receivers in this ADP range, I take this to mean that we should be drafting them. (Another key point here is that this data is telling you that even in half-point PPR, your default plan should be to flex a wide receiver whether you’re in a two or three WR league — that’s the cheapest way to get more points out of the flex.)

My reading of this data is that it’s perfectly fine to pick three backs from running backs 25-to-40 range of your draft. Ideally, you’re combining them with one of the five or six backs that could conceivably be an RB1 or close to it. But even if you have to start two of these guys and they just finish in scoring where you drafted them, they’ll post enough points if you bank three or four wideouts who match or beat their expected points. And that’s assuming the backs you pick finish the year where you drafted them. People who draft wide receivers aggressively and those who draft running backs aggressively do seem to agree that beating ADP with wide receivers is easier — it’s just that the floor for the wide receiver picks is also higher.

Yahoo leagues are taking the top three tight ends, who all could be plausible TE1s, around WR10 in accordance with the data. Some owners are ruling this out — preferring to focus on RBs and WRs in these spots. And Yahoo drafters are also appropriately drafting the pool of plausible TE5s, who have beaten WR25. If like me you think this group of plausible TE5s extends a few more players until about the 10th round, where George Kittle goes, that gets you all the way to WR46. I think Kittle (or Jordan Reed or Trey Burton) has a better chance of finishing TE5 than the WR46 (Danny Amendola) has of finishing in the year about 20 slots higher.

Understanding the drop in production at positions as you get further in your draft should help you maximize points and give you an advantage over your opponents.

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Closing Time: Buster Posey's missing power

San Francisco Giants’ Buster Posey has fantasy owners searching for power (AP Photo).

• Buster Posey was never a huge power guy (he’s never hit 25 homers in a season during his career and hasn’t reached 20 since 2014), but it’s all but evaporated this season, as he’s gone yard just once over his past 112 at bats and is slugging .404 on the year (his lowest since 2011). He had a nice walk-off hit Wednesday but entered as the No. 343 ranked fantasy player. The Giants have even tinkered with batting him second in the lineup recently, a spot where his low K% makes sense but his slow base running and propensity to ground into double plays don’t. 

He’ll hit in the middle of San Francisco’s mediocre lineup regardless, and Posey’s underwhelming counting stats (he’s on pace to record just 48 RBI) are especially troubling given the usually extremely pitcher-friendly AT&T Park has benefitted hitters more in 2018, something that figures to regress. His pitch framing numbers are way down as well, so it’s safe to say Posey is in decline. Here are his HR/FB rates since 2012, respectively: 18.8, 10.0, 13.4, 11.0, 9.8, 8.4, 6.3. That’s not an encouraging trend (although he has hit more Barrels this season (16) than he did all of last (15), for what it’s worth). Posey is still a good hitter, and he’s the rare fantasy catcher who helps batting average, but the utter lack of power really limits the former MVP’s upside. He’s skipping the All-Star game in order to receive an injection in his hip that’s bothered him all season, so hopefully that helps Posey bounce back in the second half.

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�� Carlos Rodon picked up a win by holding the Cardinals scoreless over 7.1 innings Wednesday and now sits with a 3.56 ERA and 1.19 WHIP after seven starts since returning from shoulder surgery. He has control issues, and wins won’t be easy pitching for the White Sox, but Rodon was the No. 3 pick in the 2014 draft and owns a career 10.0 SwStr%. He’s just 20 percent owned in Yahoo leagues but expect that number to climb after Wednesday’s outing.

• Quick Hits: A Shelby Miller start in Coors Field screamed disaster, and the Rockies didn’t disappoint by scoring 19 runs. Daniel Descalso entered in relief with one out in the fourth, making it the earliest a position player has pitched in a game since 1979. Carlos Gonzalez (who entered averaging the longest HR distance (425 ft) in MLB) and Ian Desmond combined for three homers and 11 RBI…Not to be outdone, Cleveland also scored 19 runs Wednesday, thanks in part to Jason Kipnis, who homered twice and reached base eight times over the three-game series against the Reds. Maybe Kipnis’ bat is finally awakening from a season long slump, and he’s out there in 70 percent of leagues. Few parks in baseball boost run scoring like Progressive Field.

Jacob deGrom took yet another no-decision Wednesday despite tossing eight scoreless innings. After 18 starts, he has a 1.68 ERA with a 0.97 WHIP and a 5-4 record to show for it…Greg Bird homered and recorded four RBI for the second straight game. He’s still available in more than 60 percent of leagues…Right after I hyped him, Lance McCullers was hit hard Wednesday, allowing six runs over just four innings versus the A’s. He walked five batters while fanning only one and goes into the All-Star break on a down note…Brandon Nimmo had seen his OPS fall from 1.013 to .878 over the last three weeks before his pinch-hit, walk-off homer Wednesday…Marco Gonzalez impressed again while winning his third straight start and now sports a 2.35 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP over his last 11 outings (72.2 innings). He’s up to 10 wins on the season…I’m beginning to think Garrett Richards might be injury prone.

Will Smith tossed another two scoreless innings and now sits with a 0.95 ERA, 0.67 WHIP and 38 strikeouts over 28.1 innings. He’s also currently acting as the Giants’ closer, and I won’t stop writing about him until his ownership surpasses 40 percent…Chris Sale turned in his fifth straight performance with at least 11 strikeouts and one walk or fewer (becoming the first pitcher ever to do so) and sports a 0.94 ERA with 78 Ks over his last seven starts (48.0 innings). Sale is appointment viewing these days, and his career has been remarkable given he’s always pitched in the American League and in hitter’s parks (it’s crazy he’s younger than Chris Archer). Sale should be a top-five pick in fantasy drafts next year.

Follow the Yahoo fantasy baseball crew on Twitter: Andy Behrens, Dalton Del Don, and Scott Pianowski

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Fantasy Football Booms/Busts 2018: The Los Angeles Chargers

Drill down on Melvin Gordon’s advanced stats profile and you might be surprised at just how good he is. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

As the mercury rises and we inch closer to the open of training camps, our resident fantasy football sickos, Brad Evans and Liz Loza, will profile their favorite booms/busts of every NFL team. Today’s topic: The SoCal Stepchildren.

Based on ADP, what player unleashes the loudest BOOM this season?

Brad – PHILIP RIVERS. In a classic game of rock-paper-scissors, the passer is an old trusty chunk of metamorphic. Similar to other venerable vets Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Matthew Stafford, Rivers sports a high floor. Every year he slips in drafts. Every year he exceeds expectation. Eight of his past 10 seasons he’s finished inside the QB top-12. Oh, and he hasn’t missed a single start since joining the league in 2004. Rivers should be a cover athlete for the Fantasy Safety Commission.

Last season, the 36 year old underwhelmed in multiple completion percentage categories. However, his receivers dropped 44 total passes, the third-most in the NFL. The loss of Hunter Henry stings, but with Keenan Allen, Melvin Gordon, Tyrell Williams and up-and-comer Mike Williams (Sidenote: I stand with Loza in her breakout prediction of Williams) comprising the arsenal he should again rank at or near the top in yards per attempt, air yards per attempt and pass yards per game. The crystal ball says 4,300 passing yards with 28-30 TDs and 12-14 INTs is on the horizon. Pull a fast one on your opponents at his 120.4 ADP (QB12).

Liz – MIKE WILLIAMS. After being selected in the first round by the Los Angeles Chargers, the seventh overall pick promptly herniated a disc in his lower back during the first practice of rookie minicamp. He eventually made it onto the field by Week 6 (converting his lone target for 15 yards), but then hurt his knee (bone bruise) heading into Week 12 and missed another two games. The coveted rookie closed out his first professional campaign with an 11-95-0 stat line.

Heading into 2018, however, Williams has a chance to turn things around. At 6-foot-4 and nearly 220 pounds, the 23-year-old is large and in charge. He has an impressive wingspan and plump mitts, both of which help him win contested catches and dominate in the red area of the field. Unfortunately, he’s slow and his routes are raw. While he’ll never be a burner, a proper offseason – which includes both counsel from Keenan Allen and regularly facing off against Casey Hayward and Jason Verrett – should add polish those trees.

The Chargers organization undoubtedly believes in Williams’ talent. But will Philip Rivers target the novice wideout enough to make him fantasy relevant? With Hunter Henry lost for the season (ACL), the father of seven won’t have much of a choice. Expected to run more three-wide sets, Los Angeles’ second-favorite team will prioritize getting Williams involved in the red zone. A 6 TD season is well within the second-year player’s massive reach.

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BELIEVE or MAKE BELIEVE: Melvin Gordon (11.7 ADP, RB8) finishes No. 10 or better in .5 PPR leagues at the RB position.

Liz – BELIEVE. Don’t even start with that “but his YPC” garbage. Averaging nearly 4 red zone touches per game and racking up 11 goal line carries in 2017, Gordon traded “efficiency” for TDs. A top-seven FF producer in back-to-back seasons, the Wisconsin product has managed 12 total scores for two consecutive years. He’s also honed his pass-catching skills, drawing over 83 targets (#7) last year. Per OC Ken Whisenhunt, that number should grow with Hunter Henry lost for the upcoming season.

A workhorse who catches A LOT of balls, Gordon is an elite option at the position. Assuming he stays healthy again this go-around, the 25-year-old should minimally deliver 1,500 total yards and 10 scores in his fourth pro effort.

Brad – BELIEVE. On the surface, Gordon resembles a never-ending drive thru lane at the local In-N-Out. His sub 4.0 YPC marks in consecutive seasons combined with horrid efficiency numbers (40 percent success rates on run and pass plays in ’17) suggest patrons should turn away. In fact, according to Sharp Football his 42 percent run success rate the past two seasons ranked dead last among RBs with at least 425 attempts. But stick it out and numbers equivalent to the caloric intake of a double-double with a side of animal style fries awaits.

Commanding the sixth-most vigorous opportunity share last season (71.5 percent), Gordon ranked top-10 in red-zone touches, breakaway runs, evaded tackles and yards after contact. His testy naysayers will argue volume had everything to do it, which is true, but fantasy worth is often tied to workload and situation. Gordon, who registered 21.4 touches per game last season, stands out in both.

You’ll occasionally see Austin Ekeler on “expert” sleeper lists this summer, a waste-of-time viewpoint. Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn is committed to Gordon. Knowing L.A.’s on-paper potency, on both ends, along with its o-line upgrades (6th-worst in run-blocking in ’17) and Gordon sports one of the safest floors in virtual pigskin. Target him with supreme confidence at or near the turn in 12-team leagues. Another 1400-1600 combined yards with 10-plus touchdowns is imminent. He’s firmly entrenched as my RB8.

At his 16.1 ADP (WR6) in .5 PPR formats, is Keenan Allen OVERVALUED, UNDERVALUED or PROPERLY VALUED?

Brad – UNDERVALUED. Miracles do exist. The fact Allen’s various extremities survived an entire 16-game slate was undeniable proof. Whatever MacGyver-like contraption surgeons fixed to his repaired knee did wonders. In 2017 he returned to greatness, enticing 27.7 percent of the target share (WR6) while tallying 102 receptions for 1,393 yards and seven scores. Equally spectacular in advanced categories, he finished No. 10 or higher in red-zone targets share, total yards per catch, yards per route and fantasy points per route. His overall 55 percent receiving success rate also moved the meter.

Allen’s downside is obvious, but if his health sustains over another full season, he’s a tremendous Round 2 option in .5 PPR. With Hunter Henry’s 5.2 targets per game up for grabs, it’s possible he could exceed 160 looks. Linking him with another elite WR or prominent RB from Round 1 is a fantastic 1-2 punch to start your draft.

Liz – PROPERLY VALUED. Free of lacerated kidneys and non-contact knee injuries, Allen proved his rookie season was no fluke. The 2017 Comeback Player of the Year converted 102 balls (via 159 looks) for nearly 1,400 yards and 7 scores. The picture of health, Allen additionally beasted after the catch, racking up the second most yards post-reception of any WR in the league.

A top-three fantasy producer, the stud wideout made NFL history from Weeks 11 – 13, becoming the first player to haul in 10 balls, 100 yards, and 1 TD in three straight contests. That’s something that neither Antonio Brown or Julio Jones – both of whom are consistently drafted ahead of Allen – have ever accomplished. The fact that Allen did it late in the season also allays any fears about his health. He’s my no-questions-asked WR6 heading in 2018.

Bring the blitz on Twitter. Follow Brad (@YahooNoise) and Liz (@LizLoza_FF).