Baseball is back! The nostalgic diamond traditions of cracker jacks, oat sodas and intricately-designed grass patterns have finally returned. Most importantly, the boys of summer are once again fine-tuning their five tools for the upcoming season.In 2016, Major League Baseball expanded its research on exit velocity and launch angle by introducing Barrels. Barrels not only analyzes the results from a hard-hit ball, but also the trajectory when bats meet the ball. The findings were startling. [...]

2018 was a banner season for baseball's Marianos, as Mariano Rivera was headed full steam ahead towards a unanimous Hall of Fame entry and yours truly was cruising with the most accurate fantasy baseball ranks of the season per FantasyPros, unbeknownst to me until recently. I'm still riding high off of that and you're all going to have to hear about it.Some nice hits from last season's bold predictions piece included the resurgence of Trevor Story and Xander Bogaerts, the excellence of [...]

2018 was a season to forget for yours truly, both in terms of fantasy performance and hit rate on bold predictions. In the first three years as a participant in this feature, I connected on three per article, with a few others in the realm of respectable. Last year? An 0-fer, and most of them were impressively lousy.Does that mean I plan to be any less audacious as a result? Hardly. That would defeat the purpose of the exercise. Besides, regression is inevitable! Right? Right?![...]

It is such an honor to have been selected to hit lead-off for the 2019 RotoBaller staff Bold Predictions. Sure, I asked for it due to time constraints but that's not how I will tell my story to the grand-kids. Bold predictions are everyone's favorite articles. They are fun, not always entirely plausible, while still possibly providing fantastic, league-winning advice.The majority of these predictions hinge on some serious injury risk, but no one ever remembers the guy who finished in second plac[...]

Last year 14 players hit over 35 or more home runs; the year before that it was 18. The point is, narrowing such an impressive pool of players down to 10 is challenging.The list is realistic but I wanted to be slightly bold as well. It wouldnt be much of a prediction if we just chose the top home run hitters from last year. Coincidentally, there are three sets of teammates, and in two cases, its essentially 50/50 who will lead their team by season's end.There are obviously some notable omissions[...]

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After San Francisco Giants president Farhan Zaidi announced that the team might use an opener this season, Madison Bumgarner messaged Bruce Bochy: If you use an opener in my game Im walking right out of the ballpark.In addition to giving us the most Madison Bumgarner quote of all time, the news prompted me to reconsider for the umpteenth time if elite starting pitchers are currently undervalued in fantasy baseball. Given baseballs adoption of the opener, it seems possible that the 34-year-old Ma[...]

Platooning in major league baseball is becoming more common every year. With this mentality, teams play lefty/righty matchups to get the daily batter versus pitcher advantage. They also use this method to try to defend players against a potential injury and keep them fresh.[...]

We're back with another list of 2019 impact prospects. Today the focus is on the outfield. With a whole host of candidates ready to make the jump to regular roles, this might be the deepest prospect position heading into 2019. [...]

Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno said the team has had internal contract-extension discussions regarding outfielder Mike Trout, but there have been no formal talks. The Angels would obviously like to have the best player on the planet beyond just the two years remaining on his current deal. Trout is a five-category producer and is the consensus No. 1 overall pick in fantasy drafts.