The Trading episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Fred Zinkie

Strategy Section

• Trading
  • General trading philosophy
  • When should you look for a trade vs. getting help off of the waiver wire?
  • How to trade in this high information environment?
  • How does your current league standing matter in trading?
  • Don’t stay complacent in 1st place!
    • Stay active in the trading market!
  • Keeper league trading
    • Picking a lane – buy vs. sell
  • Approach individual owners for trades, or make a trading interest public?
  • Lowball offers?
  • Ian Kahn and trading
  • Should you trade with players close to you in the standings?

Waiver Wire

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

Closers who may lose their roles at the trading deadline

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The Reaction episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Michael Govier

Willie Mays

Strategy Section

• Where to look for news
• How to react to transaction news
• Playing time should be the center of your thought process
• What to look for in prospect callups?
• How to react to injury news
• How to react to over/underperformance?
• Why Michael didn’t draft Ronald Acuna Jr. at 1.1 this year in a league.

The fun of playing fantasy baseball

• Favorite and least favorite parts of the game
• How can rooting for your home team & rooting for your fantasy teams co-exist?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Injured List Debate episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Injured List Debate

• A full in-depth debate about the pros and cons of playing with an injured list in fantasy baseball.

Twitter/X Comments

• Your Twitter/X comments on the pros and cons of playing with an injured list in fantasy baseball.

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The NFBC episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Greg Ambrosius

NFBC

• History
• What makes the NFBC stand out?
• Auctions
• What is most impressive about the NFBC players?
• Trends in the FAAB spending
• Tilt toward pitching

NFBC Format

• Category changes (OBP, Holds, etc.)
• Prospects not eligibile in player pool
• No Injured List
• 2x a week hitter lineups

Strategy Section

• How should you constrruct your bench in NFBC leagues?
• How much should you consider the upcoming schedule for setting lineups?

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Prospect episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: James Anderson

Prospects

• The top prospects already in the major leagues
• Has the new incentives for rookies changed the timing of prospect call-ups?
• Prospects to make an impact in 2024
• Prospects to make an impact in 2025

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Strategy Section

• Hit rates for prospects
• What translates to short term success for prospects?
• What translates to long term success for prospects?
• How much FAAB should you bid on prospects when they come up to the majors (NFBC)?
• How early should you pick up prospects off of the waiver wire (home leagues)?
• When should you trade for/away prospects in keeper leagues?
• When should you cut bait on a prospect in redraft leagues?

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Mailbag

Injury Update

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The Memorial Day episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Catching Up

• High School Baseball
• Adult Softball
• Manhattanhenge

Strategy Section

• Memorial Day Checkup
• What should you take stock of?
• Is it too early to punt certain categories?
• Should you focus on categories you are struggling in, or categories which are tight?
• Time to trade
• Evaluating what went wrong and why

Waiver Wire

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Relief Pitcher episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Doug Dennis

Strategy Section

• The value of rostering a closer handcuff
• The value of middle relievers who won’t close games
• Key Middle Relievers
  • Reed Garrett
  • Bryan Abreu
  • Yennier Cano
• Timing of when to pick up closer handcuffs off of the wire
• Looking at overall skills vs. recent performance
• How much FAAB to spend on new in-season closers?
• How to deal with closers potentially being traded mid-season?
• When to drop a struggling or demoted closer?
• Decisions are context dependent
• Closers on bad teams

The Doug Dennis Strategy

• Tout Wars expert league strategy

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Bullpen Situations

• Phillies
• Orioles
• Rays
• Twins
• Dodgers
• Nationals

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Value episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Larry Schechter

Larry’s new book – The History of Fantasy Sports

Strategy Section

• Auction Draft Strategy
  • General Strategy
  • Bargains & Relative Bargains
  • High priced catchers
  • How to bump up catchers for replacement level
  • Valuing closers
  • Preparing with market values
  • How to incorporate risk in your values
    • Baked into player projections via playing time
    • Aggregating risk
  • Using projections
• Mono vs. Mixed leagues
  • Valuing players in a mixed league
  • FAAB
• In-person vs. online auctions

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Hot episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Sky Dombroske

Introduction

• Tout Wars H2H
• Head to Head format
• Not having an injured list
• Mike Trout injury

Strategy Section

• Hot Starts
  • What metrics should you look at to determine if hot starts are for real?
  • Using pre-season players projections based partially on prior injured seasons
  • Which do you believe more – hot pitcher starts or hot hitter starts?
  • How quickly to act on picking up hot players off of the waiver wire?
    • How much should you pay in FAAB?
  • Trading
    • Trading for a hot player
    • Trading away a hot player
  • How long do you keep rolling with hot players in your active lineup?
    • Hitters vs. pitchers
  • How to know when a player has “cooled off”

Hot Start Hitters – How to handle?

• Elly De La Cruz
  • Process vs. Results
• CJ Abrams
• Marcell Ozuna
• Tyler O’Neill
• Colton Cowser
• Brice Turang
• Alec Bohm
• Taylor Ward
• Starling Marte
  • Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Isaac Paredes
• Brandon Marsh

Hot Start Pitchers – How to handle?

• Shota Imanaga
• Ranger Suarez
  • Name Game
• Jose Berrios
• Nick Lodolo
• Reed Garrett
  • What league size / depth should he utilized in?
• Erick Fedde 페디
• Zack Littell
• Jack Flaherty

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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The Cold episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Sara Sanchez

Catching Up

• Las Vegas
• Eclipse
• Red Sox Opening Day
• Softball
• High School Baseball

Strategy Section

• Starting Pitcher injuries
  • Velocity related?
  • Does MLB have a problem on its hands?
  • How should we alter our fantasy strategy?
  • Sholuld we be spedning more or less draft capital on pitching?
• Cold Starts to the season
  • When to bench?
  • When to drop?
  • How to tell injury from a cold start?
  • What stats to look at to determine bounceback?
  • Hitters vs. Pitchers

Underperforming Pitchers – How to handle?

• Griffin Canning
• Josiah Gray
• Louie Varland
• Bailey Ober
• Miles Mikolas
• Kyle Gibson
• Max Fried
• DL Hall
• Jesus Luzardo
• Luis Castillo
• Blake Snell
• Jameson Taillon
• Jordan Montgomery
• Carlos Rodon

Underperforming Hitters – How to handle?

• Nick Castellanos
• Riley Greene
• Jorge Polanco
• Jose Abreu
• Andrew Vaughn
• Francisco Lindor
• Mitch Garver
• Henry Davis
• Andrew Benintendi
• Whit Merrifield
• Victor Scott II

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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