[FREE] Finding batters who set career highs in plate appearances goes a long way to winning a fantasy baseball championship. Which players might take take that leap in 2013?

There's been an increase in the popularity of daily fantasy baseball games, where you can draft a new team each night. One statistic that some might use to help decide who to roster is how well each particular batter has performed in previous AB against the scheduled starting pitcher.

"Which pitcher do I start?" are probably the most commonly asked words during the fantasy baseball season—whether wondered silently to oneself, asked to a friend, or posted on a message board. In the never ending chase for the elusive win, we all struggle with the decision of who to start and who to bench. Fortunately, we've got an app for that.

One of the pleasant surprises of the 2011 was Jeff Francoeur who earned a career high roto value of $27, which was driven by 20 HR and a career high 22 SB. While the 20 HR weren't completely out of line for him (he had hit 29 HR in 2006), the SB seemingly came out of nowhere, after posting a previous high of just eight SB in 2011. Even in hindsight, there's no way we could have seen this outburst coming. Right?

As spring nears and baseball (rightfully) regains the attention of the fantasy landscape, many a new strategy article will bloom across the Internet with some version of the popular adage "You can't win your draft in the first round, but you can lose it." It seems a reasonable proposition, but is it accurate?

Is there a way we can avoid drafting players who are about to suffer epic collapses?

A statistic frequently used to fuel speculation is the number of doubles a player hits - there is often conjecture that a player with a lot of doubles in one year might turn them some of them into HR the next. But does this actually happen with reliable frequency?

A new and improved xBA that includes hard-hit balls and the Spd metric.

Back in 2009, we began a series of research articles looking at hard-hit data for both batters and pitchers. The research confirmed what you might expect—pitchers with lower hard-hit rates (HH%) generally had better results: higher Dom, lower hr/f rates, and subsequently, lower ERAs. However, at the time of that original research, we didn't have enough years of data to conclude whether pitchers actually had any control over their hard-hit rates. Now we do.

Translating ADP data into likelihood that a player is available at a given draft position...