Catcher's Corner Eric Samulski

Sami (@Believe_Sami) and Eric (@SamskiNYC) welcome Eno Sarris (@enosarris) live from the Oakland A’s protest game to discuss his blend of traditional sports journalism and fantasy analysis. Then they dive into the Stuff+ metric, how to use it, and which pitchers Stuff+ may be over or underselling. 



Players Discussed: 

Tyler Glasnow

Taj Bradley

Chris Bassitt

Graham Ashcraft

Clarke Schmidt

Tanner Houck

Kyle Bradish

Zach Eflin

Michael Kopech

MacKenzie Gore



⁠Stuff+ leaderboard ⁠


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Sami (@Believe_Sami) and Eric (@SamskiNYC) blend fantasy baseball analysis with fantasy baseball therapy as they discuss personal biases, blind spots, and why we create such attachments to players on our teams. They end with a therapy-style breakthrough on the best way to approach FAAB.



Through all of this, they’ll discuss Brent Rooker, Nathan Eovaldi, Pablo Lopez, Jake Fraley, Triston Casas, Jake Burger, Matthew Liberatore, and many more.



Rundown


How aware are you of your own biases and are biases just a result of managing out of fear?


What are your blind spots? Can we control our blindspots if we know they’re there? 


Why do we have such blind spots for rookies? We just continually expect them to pop and we hold them too long when not many really hit.


Is there a more efficient waiver wire strategy that caters to the long-term nature of fantasy baseball?






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Sami (@Believe_Sami) and Eric (@SamskiNYC) go back to their roots and just talk baseball. They cover why some pitchers can be ineffective with elite stuff, why pitchers made suddenly lose feel for pitches, and what leads to hitting slumps. Along they way, they discuss a handful of slumping players and discuss when to trust what you see and when to use "the data."



RUNDOWN

- We discuss potentially coaching our kids, even though our kids are too young to be coached

- Sami is pissed that he went against his gut and dropped Bryson Stott. When do you trust what you see over the data points? If you limit yourself, which data should you use?

- Jack Suwinski tangent on how to use Statcast rolling windows



Does This Guy Suck?



Pitchers 

Graham Ashcraft 

Dylan Cease

Domingo German

MacKenzie Gore

Gavin Stone

Sandy Alcantara



Hitters 

Willy Adames 

Jorge Mateo

Brandon Marsh

Brenton Doyle


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Sami (@Believe_Sami) and Eric (@SamskiNYC) welcome KC Bubba (@bdentrek) to discuss hitters who are scuffling of late. Some were early-season waiver wire darlings, others were early-round draft picks. Who should we be worried about? Who should we be trying to trade for? They dig into it all here.



News and Notes:

Luis Ortiz debut on Tuesday

Eury Perez getting the call

Matt Mervis and Christopher Morel both called up

Casey Schmitt called up



Struggling Hitters: Are we buying low or moving on?

Bryson Stott

Andres Gimenez

Ryan McMahon

Josh Naylor

Brandon Lowe 

Nolan Arenado

Seiya Suzuki

Jack Suwinski

Jarred Kelenic



Wrap-up question: When do you cut bait with a waiver add hitters? How different is it from cutting bait with a hitter you drafted in the mid-to-late rounds?




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Eric (@SamskiNYC) welcomes Fangraphs editor and mustache aficionado Paul Sporer (@sporer) for a starting pitching smorgasbord! They discuss all of the recent starting pitching prospects being called up and then dive into some veterans who are over-performing to decide if these starts are real or not.



All music in this episode is made by Brooklyn hip-hop artist Dan Dillinger, whose new album can be found on Spotify



Rundown



Offenses to attack? How much do you factor in opposing offense when starting a pitcher? 



Hitter Call-Ups

Matt Mervis

Maikel Garcia



Ranking the Rookies. Our thoughts on all of:

Tanner Bibee 

Taj Bradley

Mason Miller

Bryce Miller 

Logan Allen 

Louie Varland

Gavin Stone 

Brandon Pfaadt 

Matthew Liberatore 

Bryce Elder



Are you for real? 

Seth Lugo 

Matt Strahm 

Vince Velasquez 

Eduardo Rodriguez 

Domingo German 

Justin Steele 

Drew Smyly

Wade Miley 



Some final words/advice about process and sticking to your evaluations


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Eric (@SamskiNYC) and Sami (@believe_Sami) discuss early-season regrets, both with players they didn’t draft and those they did. They discuss how upset to be about your team in April and then dive into players who could be nearing a breakout. 



All music in this episode is made by Brooklyn hip-hop artist Dan Dillinger, whose new album can be found on Spotify



Rundown



What can we react to in April and what should we ignore?



FOMO Regrets (Players We Don’t Have Enough Shares of)

Josh Lowe

Jarred Kelenic

Matt Chapman

James Outman

Joe Ryan

Jorge Mateo



Buyer’s Remorse (Players We Have That We Wish We Didn’t)

Lance Lynn

Manny Machado

Wil Myers

Isaac Paredes



Likely Bouncebacks: Players We’ll Regret Regretting

Josiah Gray

Jose Berrios 

Jack Suwinski

Joey Gallo



Other Potential Bouncebacks

Miguel Vargas

Josh Naylor

George Springer

Jake Burger

Kerry Carpenter

Matt Carpenter

Trent Grisham

Franmil Reyes


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