Flags Fly Forever Fantasy Baseball

We continue with our positional group reviews from 2024, this time focusing on middle infielders. Shorstops were great! Second basemen, not as much. Also, listen to Mike beoming audibly disturbed when Jon whispers the words "Wenceel Perez."  Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy." You can find F...

We're back! Mike and Jon revisit Mike's preseason tiers to see just how the OF position stacked up in 2024. From the first round (what happened to Julio?) to those waiver-wire gems (Brenton, Jurickson, and Lawrence...hello). Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy." You can find Flags Fly Forever...

We did it! In our very first try at the NFBC Main Event, we finished 121st out of 855 entries, which sounds mildly impressive at best. But more to the point, we won our league, completing a dramatic reversal of our early-season misfortunes (well documented in earlier episodes). After briefly patting ourselves on the back, we look at the 2024 season through the lens of our draft, our waiver pickups...

Everyone is already drafting (whether mock or real) for 2025, but we at Flags decide to look back at the board from 2024 and ponder some questions about the first round, about what happened to the elite starting pitchers (spoiler: they were pretty good, Spencer Strider aside, womp womp), about whether drafting elite closers was a good choice, and what types of roster construction seemed to work ou...

Since the last podcast, a lot has happened in the world. One of things that hasn't happened is the White Sox winning a single game. Today we avoid current events to discuss some fallout from the trade deadline, with quite a bit of attention to the closer landscape for the rest of the season. Also, we make some more general observations about a deadline that was low-key interesting, even without a...

Hey, it's (just past) the middle of the season, so Mike and Jon talk a bit about how patience with slow starters and consistent FAABing have worked wonders for their suddenly-halfway-decent Main Event squad. Then we dive into Mike's midseason valuations, which you can find here: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/article/92181/midseason-fantasy-valuation-update-2024/ Sure, the pitching lan...

We have a conversation with Larry Schechter, fantasy legend and author of the new book, The History of Fantasy Sports. We talk about how the history of fantasy baseball is more complex than you might think, some of the people and personalities that led us to where the game is today, and where it might go in the future.  You can find Larry's book at all of the usual online purveyors, though if you'...

Mike and Jon welcome Rotowire's Jeff Erickson for a free-range conversation centering on our midseason process, specifically as it relates to player evaluation, the timing of cuts and adds, roster management, FAAB strategy, and how we balance our time spent on baseball with, you know, living our lives.  We start off with a little DadCast(tm) conversation before getting down to baseball stuff. You...

Mike and Jon talk about the tragicomic Mets, the utility of rolling three-week samples, not holding too tightly to fast starters who slow down, and then we conclude with a little game where we discuss players whose rest-of-season value has changed the most, for better or worse. Sorry, Bo Bichette. Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit base...

What to talk about as the MLB season rounds the first-month post? Well, Mike and Jon text regularly about many things--and a good portion of those are baseball-related. So we looked at a few text exchanges we've had over the last couple of weeks and continued the conversation "in person," as it were. Topics included: - how can we "plant flags" for early-round players that we value when we are inun...

We kick the ass of April doldrums with the help of our Very Special Guest, the one and only Grey Albright of Razzball and ostentatious eyewear fame. After some desultory baseball discussion we talk about New Jersey's favorite defunct libertarian tourist attraction and torture park--I speak, of course, of Action Park! (If you want to know more about this hell/heaven on earth, please watch the HBO d...

We're getting all T.S. Eliot on you, because for us, and for fantasy basebal content, April is kind of a dead zone. Rather than overreact to fast and slow starts, we discuss some process points in evaluating your early-season roster and negotiating FAAB at this time of year. We do this through the lens of our own underperforming Main Event team (at what point does "underperforming" just become "ba...

Hey, it's actual baseball season! After the whirlwind of positional previews and draft discussion, we put a cap on the 2024 draft season by discussing the NFBC Main Event team that Mike and Jon drafted. It was the first time either of us had participated in a Main Event, and we talk about our decision to ante up, our overall strategy, our focused strategy once we knew where we were drafting (7th),...

We take the occasion of the recent Tout Wars auction weekend to do a deep dive on auctions--what we prefer, how we prepare, and some strategies and advice for those new to the format. We love auctions! In this episode we discuss: Why in-person auctions are so fun and rewarding How preparation and strategy are different than a draft Why you should have a Plan A and a Plan B (and possibly a Plan C)...

Bit of a mixed bag this week: We review Mike's Tout Wars Mixed League draft from earlier in the week. (You can see the draft board here: https://www.fantrax.com/fantasy/league/1ojcq64zltc8i9la/draft-results) We talk (again) about your strategy for drafting starting pitchers, and why Mike generally avoids the "blob" of mid-tier starters. We also introduce Mike's auction bid limits and discuss how t...

We talk outfielders this week, and given the size of the position, we did more of a strategy overview than deep dives on indivdual players. It's an interesting year at the position--great, five-category options up top but a fairly long tail of useful players deep into the 200s, and beyond. Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballpros...

We step away from our positional previews to discuss the LABR Mixed League draft, which Mike took part in on Tuesday, February 20. We talk about the difference between stand-alone leagues and larger multi-league competitions, strategies for the first four rounds, how to respond to early spring training injury news, building drafts around your starting pitching strategy, what to do when closers get...

We continue our march through the positions, spending this episode on the somewhat top-heavy position of shortstop. We go through our ADP tiers, discoursing on the following players: Bobby Witt Jr. Trea Turner Francisco Lindor Corey Seager Elly De La Cruz Gunnar Henderson Bo Bichette CJ Abrams Oneil Cruz Xander Bogaerts Dansby Swanson Anthony Volpe Trevor Story (A Very Short Story, or Five Seconds...

Our corners, we like them hot. Mike and Jon discuss just about every third baseman under the sun as we motor along with our positional previews. Featuring: José Ramírez Austin Riley Rafael Devers Royce Lewis Manny Machado Alex Bregman Nolan Arenado Josh Jung (with appropriately bad puns) Spencer Steer Jake Burger Ke'Bryan Hayes Noelvi Marte Alec Bohm Isaac Paredes Max Muncy Maikel García Jeimer Ca...

Hey friends, it's keystone time, and also stick around to find out why Mike utters the sentence, "second base is our kids." Before we go full Dadcast, however, we do discuss the following players: Mookie Betts Ozzie Albies Marcus Semien José Altuve Nico Hoerner (and the Problem of Stolen Bases) Matt McLain Ha-Seong Kim Gleyber Torres Group of Spidermen Pointing at Each Other (Stott, Giménez, Gelof...

New year, new producer, but your same old hosts are back. Mike and Jon talk first basemen for the upcoming 2024 season. We go through tiers of NFBC average draft position, and discuss the following players: Freddie Freeman Shohei Ohtani (UT) Bryce Harper Matt Olson Pete Alonso Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. Cody Bellinger Paul Goldschmidt Triston Casas Spencer Torkelson Josh Naylor Yandy Diaz Vinnie Pasqu...

The season is over, long live the season. Or something. Anyway the lads recorded what ended up being their final episode of the regular season during Game 5 of the World Series. Hear them react to a new champion being crowned. Before that, Mike and Samuel went back and forth on what they feel about this year's playoffs as a whole. It's a thoughtful discussion, which hey is nice! Got a content idea...

Oh hi there. How have you been? We've been fine, thanks for asking. If you want to hear about baseball, this is the episode for you. There's a lot of discussion about fantasy off the top, specifically evaluation in hindsight. Real nitty gritty stuff if you're into that. If you're not, fear not! It then diverges into a discussion of the upcoming ALCS...sorta. One member of the team has lost their f...

There's an amount of baseball on this episode that should probably be described as "surprising." In what direction is up to you, the listener, to discover. We start with a game based around the revolving door of mediocrity that is the Los Angeles Angels. We live watch the Alex Cobb almost near no hitter (spoiler alert even though it was 3 days ago?). We also do our best to jinx Jon's TGFBI status,...

Oh hi, dear listener. It's been a moment, we've all been busy and baseball has baseball'ed in 2023. But we do have a show for you that has a...select amount of baseball discussion. We also talk about food a lot, travelling, and Jon ends the show with a wonderful fatherhood based anecdote. We're having fun, so we hope you have fun as well. Got a content idea for the show? Shoot us an email at flags...