The FantasyPros Blog

Fantasy Baseball Sleepers from Every Expert (Part 2: Hitters)

Posted by dave on February, 28th 2012 Tweet

Last week we revealed sleeper pitchers from 25 fantasy baseball experts. This week we’ve one-upped ourselves by pulling together sleeper hitters from 26 experts. Amazingly, only three players were named multiple times and no player had more than two mentions. I guess if everyone had the same sleeper he wouldn’t really be a sleeper.
 
Before we dive into the picks, if you haven’t already set up your leagues, you should consider creating a free one at Yahoo. By doing so you’ll be able to use our coolest product, My Playbook, to import your leagues directly from Yahoo. Our soon-to-launch My Playbook feature provides free lineup alerts, news and advice…all customized for your fantasy teams. We’ll support a few other league commissioner services too, but we’re shamelessly promoting Yahoo for now since we’ll receive a small referral fee for new sign ups (this is where I tell you about my family’s rising diaper costs and my dwindling beer fund).
 
So let’s get to the sleeper picks. To view a player’s Expert Consensus Ranking and which experts like/dislike the player, just click on his name. We also encourage you to visit each expert’s site to get more insight and advice.
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posted in: Featured Pros, MLB, Sleepers

Fantasy Baseball Sleepers from Every Expert (Part 1: Pitchers)

Posted by dave on February, 21st 2012 Tweet

Is there anything better than nailing your sleeper pick? Well, maybe winning your league, but the two often go hand in hand. To help put some sleeper candidates on your radar, we’re doing a series of posts that will reveal the top fantasy baseball sleepers from every expert we track.
 
For this first of three posts, we asked 25 experts for their top sleeper pick among pitchers (SP or RP). Next week we’ll follow up with hitters [update: go to hitters]. Then, in mid March, we’ll document – objectively – each expert’s sleepers (or value picks) based on his player rankings vs. ADP. We’ll also track all this data so you know whose bold predictions were the most accurate.
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posted in: Featured Pros, MLB, Sleepers

Featured Pros: Championship Week Sleepers

Posted by andrew on December, 20th 2011 Tweet

Quick…what do Josh Freeman, John Kuhn, Jerome Simpson, and Jared Cook all have in common? We’ll accept 3 answers:

 

1. Their first names all begin with the letter “J”.
2. All have been relative non-factors for fantasy purposes this season.
3. To everyone’s surprise, each player produced at a top 5 fantasy level during week 16 of last season.

 

Obviously, we’re not saying #3 will happen again this year (we’ve seen enough of Josh Freeman to make such a claim). The point, however, is that someone will step up as an unexpected championship week stud.  It happens every season and you can bet that it’s likely to occur again.

 

For this week’s edition of Featured Pros, we’re calling on the industry’s top “out of the box” experts to give us their sleeper picks for championship week. These are the pundits who aren’t afraid to go against the grain and they frequently hit the mark when doing so. Simply put, if anyone is going to have a read on surprise performers, it’s most likely these experts. Let’s find out who they like to step it up with fantasy titles on the line…

 

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posted in: Featured Pros

Featured Pros: Who will disappoint in week 15?

Posted by andrew on December, 16th 2011 Tweet

Here’s a quick test for you. Name the players who put up the following numbers last week (images to the right):

 

Tough test, right? Without the benefit of multiple choice, you’re maybe thinking to yourself that Player A’s line looks like a typical Donald Brown game. And perhaps Player B is a Josh Cribbs caliber player. Or…. you know we’re setting you up.

 

If you guessed this guy (Player A) and this guy (Player B) then you’re correct, and you obviously watch way too much football (that’s a good thing). Either way, no one would have predicted those numbers for those players – the #2 RB & #1 WR – heading into last week. But if there’s one thing we’re certain of it’s that there are bound to be a few surprising underachievers every week.

 

For this week’s Featured Pros, we’re jumping ahead of the action and asking the most accurate experts at each position to predict the top underperformers before the games happen. A novel concept, we know. Without further ado, let’s find out who the experts think could disappoint their owners in week 15.

 

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posted in: Featured Pros

Bold Predictions for the Fantasy Playoffs

Posted by dave on December, 13th 2011 Tweet

If someone in the preseason had told me Rob Gronkowski would lead all tight ends and wide receivers in fantasy scoring this season, I would have called him nuts. But this is the kind of bold prediction that could have nudged me into drafting Gronk a round before my competition (Yes Andrew, you were right!).
 
Predicting the unpredictable is always fun (and sometimes helpful), so we asked 21 experts to give us one bold prediction for the fantasy playoffs. Felix Jones, Jake Locker, and Tim Tebow scored multiple mentions, but there were a few other noteworthy players that you might think about rolling the dice with this weekend. Enjoy…
 

“Felix Jones will be our game’s top scorer during the most important two-week stretch of the fantasy season. There it is. Bold enough? Hope so. Felix is about to face the NFL’s most generous defense in terms of points-allowed to running backs (Tampa Bay), and then he’ll face the ninth-most generous D (Philadelphia). He’s also the last man standing in Dallas’ backfield. Add if you can.” – Andy Behrens, Yahoo! Sports
 
“Felix Jones will be a top 10 RB in weeks 15 and 16. With matchups against the Bucs and Eagles, the fresh-legged RB will run wild against these suspect run D’s and could carry many teams to a fantasy championship.” – Tommy Rowan, TOFantasySports
 
“Felix Jones will be a top 10 fantasy running back over the next two weeks.” – Sigmund Bloom, FootballGuys
 
“Felix Jones will be the leading fantasy scorer at all positions for Weeks 15 and 16.” – Derek Lofland, FantasyFootballManiaxs
 
“Rob Gronkowski will be outscored by at least one other tight end in week 15 or week 16.” – Greg Smith, TheFakeFootball
 
“Some lucky fantasy enthusiasts will secure a spot on the finals because they started … wait for it …
Jake Locker. Not me, I’m starting Eli Manning in all of my important leagues. But somebody who lost a quarterback this week (like Ben Roethlisberger owners) will start Locker and get 322 yards, 2 passing touchdowns and 34 rushing yards.” – Adam Rank, NFL.com
 
“Jake Locker will finish the season as the Titans starting QB and he will post top 10 fantasy football stats helping savvy waiver wire vultures pull off a championship.” – Kurt Turner, FantasyKnuckleheads
 
“Jake Locker will be a top-10 QB over Weeks 15 and 16, throwing for over 500 yards scoring four TDs while throwing only one interception.” – R.J. White, Fantasy Cafe
 
“Jake Locker starts for the Titans and ends up a QB1 for Week’s 15 (Colts) and 16 (Jaguars) while out-producing the likes of Sanchez, Flacco, Freeman and Roethlisberger, to name a few.” – Keet Bailey, NFL Soup
 
“Texans RB Ben Tate will be a top 10 fantasy back over the fantasy playoffs.” – Josh Moore, 4for4
 
“With three dome games against Jacksonville’s injury-depleted corners, the Bucs’ dead-men walking defense, and a potential shootout with the Saints, Julio Jones finishes as the No. 1 fantasy receiver over the final three weeks.” – Chris Wesseling, Rotoworld
 
“Lions WR Titus Young produces 200+ receiving yards and two TDs over the next two weeks. Neither Young’s recent target numbers nor his upcoming matchups (Oakland and San Diego) really justify this; it’s strictly a gut feeling. As opponents continue to go all out to stop Calvin Johnson, the time seems right for Young to finish his rookie year with a bang.” – Pat Fitzmaurice, ProFootballWeekly
 
“Despite two tough matchups, Philip Rivers will finish in the top three in fantasy points among QBs in Weeks 15 and 16.” – Kevin Hanson, EDS Football
 
“TJ Yates will be this years Billy Volek.” – Ken Moody, DynastyLeagueFootball
 
“Roy Helu has proven himself as an integral part of “Fantasy Satan” Mike Shanahan’s evolving offense. With matchups in Weeks 15 and 16 against the Giants and the Vikings, my bold prediction is that Helu will be the highest scoring runner (on average) over the final two weeks of the fantasy season, thanks largely in part to his receiving production.” – Alex Dunlap, RosterWatch
 
“After failing to go over 80 yards against the Cleveland Browns in week 14, Rashard Mendenhall breaks out in week 15. Mendenhall, not only rushes for 127 yards, but scores the first touchdowns (yes, plural) on the vaunted 49′er rush defense, vaulting his owners that took the chance on him, into their Fantasy Bowl Championship. Mendy goes for 127 and 2 scores against the 49′ers in week 15.” – Mike Woellert, FantasyFootball.com
 
“Ben Roethlisberger gets hit so hard that his flesh splits proving once and for all he is an android!” – Ken Zalis, FansFantasyFootball
 
“Tim Tebow will throw for 300 yards and run for 100 yards in a win vs. the Patriots in week 15.” – Nelson Sousa, scoutPro
 
“Fantasy owners around the world will start a Hasselbeckian quarterback over Tim Tebow in the playoffs because ‘there’s no way Tebow can keep doing this, right?’ They will regret it until at least Week 1 of 2012.” – Eric Pehowic, Chinstrap Ninjas
 
“Tim Tebow will guide the Broncos to three more consecutive wins, finishing 11-1 as a regular-season starter for the Broncos in 2011. This will have the Broncos finishing the 2011 NFL regular season with an 11-5 record. Want bold? Tebow will do all of this while playing like a top 5 fantasy QB! And, no, we’re not jumping on the wagon here… if you read our article posted back in August, which called out the media-driven hate directed to Tebow, well, then you can see that we helped construct the Tim Tebow wagon. NFL greatness is already upon us… fantasy greatness is the next step. Enjoy the show!” – Smitty, FantasyFootballXtreme
 
“Tim Tebow will be a top-5 fantasy quarterback for the final three weeks. Tebow is clearly progressing as a passer and he continues to carry value as a dual threat. He has a terrific matchup in the passing game against the weak Patriots pass defense in week 15, a dream matchup against an overall pathetic Bills defense in week 16, and a matchup with a sunken Chiefs team to end the season. The Broncos will fight to the finish every week until the season ends, while even in his worst outing, Tebow has never dipped under 14 fantasy points.” – Kevin Roberts, NFL Soup
 
I want to thank all the experts that gave us their crystal ball readings. Your bold predictions are in print now… let’s see if anyone nails these long shots!
 
Which reminds me, if you’re ever curious about which experts were high or low on certain players with their preseason rankings, just click on the “Draft Rankings” tab on any of our player pages. You’ll instantly see who really loved/hated the player.
 
Got a bold prediction too? Let us know!
 
Photo Credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6

posted in: Featured Pros