The 2024 Preseason Plan

GM's Office

Brent Hershey

Feb 12 2024 3:06am

The 2024 Preseason Plan

Brent Hershey

Feb 12 2024

So … What’s new?

This innocuous question has some second- and third-level meaning for us at this point in time at BaseballHQ, as anyone who had dropped by previous home in the past 12 years can tell you. Yes, we have gone through an amazing makeover in the past few months behind the scenes and just “flipped the switch” over to our new surroundings on February 4, 2024.

So in that sense, there’s tons that’s new. A new look, more functionality (mobile!), some things in slightly different places. But what hasn’t changed is our core coverage set of articles and tools that have given our subscribers a leg up on their competition for more than 25 seasons. Our plugged-in staff remains, and they continue to provide accurate playing time calls that feed our player projections, dissect the MLB playing time situations at a high-level with realistic conclusions, analyze player performance from every angle to identify the real breakouts from the small-sample flash-in-the-pans, and dish out gameplay and strategy tips to help your roster succeed in whatever your format. BaseballHQ is at the ready and winning the goal.

But let’s get specifics. Both for returning subscribers but also for someone considering to take the plunge, what follows is a high-level roadmap for what to expect from our award-winning team over the next 6+ weeks until Opening Day. Take in the outline below and check out the free samples. Both will give you a window into the type of analysis you'll find on these digital pages that have been helping to fuel winning teams for the past quarter of a century. We think we’ve got a pretty great setup here—and hope you do, too.

MLB NEWS AND FANTASY IMPACT

PT TODAY (or PLAYING TIME TODAY) serves as our transaction analysis headquarters, where BHQ analysts translate what MLB transactions and team news mean for MLB playing time, and how that affects our rest-of-season projections. It’s a second-level analysis of “why” and “how” the news affects MLB playing time—perhaps the most crucial piece of projecting player performance. These writers, each assigned to at least one MLB team, are also responsible for maintaining accurate rest-of-year playing time that drive our projections. PT TODAY is your daily dose of what happened, what it means in a fantasy context, and their judgement of how the items affect MLB AB and IP totals.
Schedule: Currently on an as-needed basis—in other words, as much as the news dictates. Likely showing up two or three times a week to start spring training, PT TODAY will grow into a six-times-per-week column.
Sample article: PT TODAY from early February, headlined by the Burnes-to-Baltimore trade.

While PT TODAY spins the current comings and goings, PT TOMORROW looks to the future. With one column per MLB division, PT TOMORROW takes a broader view of each MLB roster and tries to extrapolate what could happen before it does. The impetus? That you can take preemptive steps instead of reacting with the masses. So questions like "Who's the backup closer?", "How would Swingman Y perform in the rotation if Starter X's minor elbow pain persists?", and "Can we trust the manager's assertion that LF is an open competition?" are customary in this space. It's some of our best work on the site; a result of our writers' commitment to knowing individual team situations and applying BHQ tools and metrics to project the future so that subscribers can glean hidden fantasy value.
Schedule: Currently one column per week, but starting February 19, PT TOMORROW will publish five divisions per week.
Sample article: PT TOMORROW from late December.

PLAYER PERFORMANCE

FACTS & FLUKES is the robust kernel of performance analysis at BaseballHQ.com. It’s where our analysts take the long view of a player's skill set, including a host of factors such as age and historical trends, and attempt to answer one basic question: Is the player's current statistical performance sustainable? During the offseason, this target is static, as we have complete years of data to compare. Using traditional stats as well as BHQ and other established metrics, Facts & Flukes examines the whole player pool—from the aging veteran to the prime slugger to the rookie fireballer—in five-player chunks. Each analysis ends with some implication of what to expect from the player from this point forward. Which—let's face it—is what really matters.
Schedule: These have been running several times a week since January and will be up to four times per week through Opening Day.
Sample: FACTS & FLUKES from late January.

BUYERS GUIDES are the place to look for hidden value from a contextual perspective. Three weekly columns—Starters, Relievers, and Batters—examine the player pool, looking for impending breakouts on a skill-based level. Here, player performance analysis happens over a shorter term than Facts & Flukes but reading the skills for a key of upcoming season performance is the goal. So you might get a quick-hit list of starters who saw an increase in strikeout rate over the past month. Or setup relievers who have the skills to handle the closer role. These are must-read columns as you prepare for your draft.
Schedule: During the pre-season, most weeks have three columns: Starters on Saturdays, Relievers on Sundays, Batters on Mondays. There will also be some pitch-mix-heavy Aresenal Report columns that fall under this category, also.
Sample: Batters BUYERS GUIDE from last week.

PLAYER VALUE

MARKET PULSE is where BHQ subscribers get to see their potential profit pockets, position-by-position (say that five times fast). The premise is simple: to compare current Average Draft Position (ADP) from the National Fantasy Baseball Championship to our BaseballHQ rankings. And who doesn't want to go into their draft knowing that the traditional wisdom values Cal Raleigh as a 10th-rounder, while BHQ sets his value in the 14th? One of our most practical columns this time of year.
Schedule: Market Pulse started in January and runs weekly throughout the pre-season. Its popular All-Value Team will publish on March 15, followed by the All-Avoid Team on March 22.
Sample: MARKET PULSE on the 2024 catchers and DH pool.

SPECULATOR is our contrarian column, "designed solely to open readers' eyes to possibilities they may not have previously entertained, and in doing so, provide a different perspective on the future," as the disclaimer reads each week. Though the assertions are founded on some element of fact, these are our "20% percentage plays," and an excellent reminder of the importance of the process over results in player evaluation. You want some sleepers/longshots? Speculator brings ‘em in droves.
Schedule: Weekly columns began on January and will run each Wednesday throughout the preseason.
Sample: SPECULATOR from January that examined stats purely based on a 600-PA baseline.

RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

RESEARCH is where our heavy-duty number-crunching lives. When you want to dig deep into player evaluation, correlations, the best draft rating tool, all told with fancy graphics and charts, this is the place. But non-math geeks, have no fear: Our writers go out of their way to present these topics in a clear and accessible manner, and they always include actionable conclusions that you can use.
Schedule: Approximately two times per month.
Sample: Given the distinct advantage this column gives BHQ subscribers, we rarely make these free. But past topics include Draft-Level Analytics and a look at a new measurement of playing time that subscribers will see incorporated into our site metrics very soon.

PROSPECTS

ORGANIZATION REPORTS is where our minor league analysts examine each MLB club, ranking and reporting on the top 15 fantasy prospects. While the Org Reports are fascinating reading during the winter months, they also are an invaluable resource throughout the season—for mid-season call-ups and fantasy trade discussions, especially. Those in dynasty and keeper leagues will especially find these reports essential as they build their squads for the future.
Schedule: The Org Reports began in late November and were published through mid-January.
Sample: 2024 ORGANIZATION REPORT for the Mets.

PROSPECT LISTS/COMMENTARY slices the prospect coverage a different way, from presenting the top 100 prospects in baseball (HQ100) to our helpful positional prospect rankings, which will be starting soon. This also includes the popular Minors Drafting Grid, which will take on a new look with the 2024 site upgrade. You won’t want to miss it!

GAMING/STRATEGY

STRATEGY articles rotate through the many different specific game formats—Rotisserie, Head to Head, Scoresheet and Simulations, NFBC—and strive to give game-specific advice tailored to that format. While specific players may be mentioned, in these columns the players serve as examples of how to employ a strategic edge. Game theory, auction dynamics, and the many different draft philosophies and strategies will be examined with the goal of giving you another edge in addition to player performance.
Schedule: These pieces are ramping up to three times per week now through Opening Day.
Sample: STRATEGY article on list release for the Scoresheet format from early February.

Whew. And those are just the formal articles and doesn't mention things like the award-winning BaseballHQ Radio as well as our prospect podcast,The Eyes Have It; our exclusive projections and extensive, flexible toolset. They all provide infinite ways to slice and dice the numbers as you prepare for your fantasy drafts. PlayerLink is our massive player database, where you can search a player’s BHQ essay and stat archive, dig into his splits, view his historical stats and 2024 projection, and more. The Custom Draft Guide (CDG) is an interactive draft tool powered by BHQ projections. Plug in and save multiple league formats, and CDG will provide you with customized cheat sheets using our projections. All of these are updated daily to reflect the constant shifting of playing time on each MLB club, so that you know you have all the most recent information to take with you into your drafts.

Baseball's back, we’ve go a new site (with some exciting things still to introduce) and we couldn’t be more hyped about what we have in store for subscribers in the 2024. You can trust the tradition of BHQ to provide clear insight on the season ahead and put you in the best place to end 2024 at the top of the standings. Visit our subscription page for all the details on how to become a part.

Let’s get to it; 2024 is going to be great!