Do you like historical baseball players? Do you like current baseball players? Do you like assembling a mixture of historical and current baseball players into teams, perhaps with some constraints around which ones you can use? You’re in luck, because today at 11:30 AM PT/2:30 PM PT on FanGraphs Live and the FanGraphs homepage, Paul Sporer and I are drafting a squad in Out Of The Park Baseball 22 Perfect Draft, hopefully a treasure trove of Remember Those Guys and former legends.

Will we aim for a team of sluggers and skimp on pitching? Will we focus on up-the-middle defense and try to manufacture runs? How important are backups in a contest between similarly-assembled teams? And what is Perfect Draft, anyway?

Join us as we try to answer those questions in OOTP 22 and chat about the 2021 season while we do it.

Last year, with no major leagues in sight, I decided to run an experiment: what if the readers of this website crowd-managed a team? We were assigned the Brewers in an online Out of the Park Baseball league and we spent 2020 striving and failing to make the playoffs. Despite that, the exercise was a ton of fun for me, and hopefully for the audience of crowd-managers as well.

Real baseball has returned. Because more is always more, however, the OOTP league is still running. Last year, the Brewers fell victim to the miracle Pirates, who blew away the NL Central en route to the World Series. It’s a topsy-turvy world in OOTP, and our decisions couldn’t outweigh some bad injury luck and those indefatigable Pittsburghers.

This time, the Brewers are headed into the year with a new-look infield. Nick Allen, gloveman extraordinaire, is the newest Milwaukee infielder. He joins Scott Kingery on the left side of the infield. That pushes Luis Urías to second base, a defense-first alignment that ended with a move to first base for Keston Hiura — sometimes art imitates life. Read the rest of this entry »

Join me and Kevin Goldstein this afternoon at 1:00 PM PT/4:00 PM ET for another Prospect Film Session live on the FanGraphs homepage, or our Twitch channel. We’ll be discussing my looks at the unique co-op scrimmages going on in Arizona and the prospects therein, including Jarred Kelenic, Erick Pena, Davis Wendzel, Nick Loftin, the prospects I wrote about here, and more. Read the rest of this entry »

Join us this evening at 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET for the final preseason episode of The RosterResource Show live on the FanGraphs homepage or our Twitch channel. I’ll be discussing all of the latest roster developments as teams have set their Opening Day rosters, the biggest surprises over the past few days, and potential impact players who could be called up early in the season.

As always, keeping close tabs on how each roster came together from the beginning of the offseason until Opening Day has been a blast. I hope explaining my process for managing RosterResource on this new platform has proven to be entertaining and informative. Thanks to all of you who have tuned in over the past few weeks!

I will also be joined for a live segment by Jon Becker, one of our new RotoGraphs contributors, who will be helping me at RosterResource. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Clemens is once again prepared to change history.

Utilizing the power of Out of the Park Baseball 21, Ben is getting in the driver’s seat of the 2010 Tampa Bay Rays, with just one change: What if he had drafted Buster Posey first overall two summers earlier?

Join me, Ben, and Kevin Goldstein for our live stream as we revisit Posey’s remarkable Rookie of the Year campaign… assuming that he had instead joined the 96-win Rays and tried to help take them deeper into the playoffs.

“I hope we can Bust out of our recent funk and strike a Pose atop the AL East,” said manager Ben Clemens when asked for a quote. “What, these aren’t clever? Too forced? Look, Buster Posey is great and we’re going to beat the snot out of the Yankees.”

The stream starts today at 12 PT/3 ET over on our Twitch channel or on the FanGraphs homepage. And if you can’t make it in real time, all of our previous broadcasts can be found archived on our channel page as well.

We hope you can make it!

In a preview of my soon-to-be-launched weekly live stream, I explain a few of our RosterResource features while also giving my thoughts on some recent roster developments and things to keep an eye on as spring training gets underway.

The live version will be focused more on roster-related questions from viewers, as well as regular explanations of how the latest news around the league has affected playing time or Opening Day roster projections.

Our RosterResource features are updated as often as necessary to keep up with baseball’s fast-moving news cycle. It’s important that our readers have multiple ways of knowing what changes are being made and why. And while it’s easy enough to just ask me a roster-related question on Twitter, this stream will allow me to answer your questions while also utilizing our RosterResource pages to help show how I came to my answer. In essence, it will be a tutorial, live chat, and roster roundup all in one. Check out the preview episode and stay tuned for the first live stream in the near future. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Clemens is prepared to change history.

Using the magic Out of the Park Baseball 21, Ben has gone back in time to alter the destiny of the Pittsburgh Pirates, starting with giving them Mike Trout in the 2009 draft.

It is now 2013. Pittsburgh’s 21-year-old Trout is the reigning NL Rookie of the Year, playing in left field next to Andrew McCutchen, who is in his contract year. James McDonald is the staff ace. Charlie Blackmon was acquired to play right. And after finishing their 20th straight losing season, the Pirates have another young star ready to help get them over the top.

“Get ready, NL Central,” said manager and omnipotent time-god Ben Clemens. “We might have lost 95 games last year, but we drafted Kris Bryant, who is skipping the minors to start at third on Opening Day.”

Bring your coffee or lunch and join us on Tuesday, January 12, at 9:30 AM PT/12:30 PM ET on the FanGraphs homepage or on Twitch as Ben attempts to go back to bring a championship to the simulated Bucs.

We hope you can make it!

With no in-person Winter Meetings this year, the FanGraphs crew is getting together on Zoom to see some of our friends across the industry. We’ll enjoy a beverage and discuss a range of baseball-related topics with guests including The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler and Sahadev Sharma, Baseball Prospectus’ Craig Goldstein and Shakeia Taylor, Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman of Céspedes Family BBQ, Dennis Wyrick of Rosenhaus Sports, and Emma Baccellieri of Sports Illustrated.

So grab your crispest business casual and your drink of choice, and join us Tuesday at 4:30 PT/7:30 ET on the FanGraphs homepage or on Twitch.

We hope you can make it!

Tonight as the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays face off in Game 2 of the World Series, the FanGraphs crew will be watching along on our Twitch channel, and you’re invited.

Ben Clemens and Eric Longenhagen will be joined by Meg Rowley and Paul Sporer as they chat with readers and each other throughout the game. As usual, there are no tickets, fees, or asterisks, just us watching the baseball game together via the World Wide Web and welcoming you, our readers, to join us. So tune in to the game tonight and then find us here, on the FanGraphs main page, or over on our Twitch page, and bring snacks. We hope to see you then! Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever wanted to watch a baseball game with the FanGraphs crew? Well, while we won’t be holding any in-person meetups this year, we would like to welcome you to the next-best thing.

Tonight as you settle in to watch the Tampa Bay Rays take on the Houston Astros in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, so, too, will Ben Clemens and Eric Longenhagen. The duo will be watching along from their respective abodes, chatting with each other and you about the game while sharing analysis and discussing article ideas, all live on our Twitch channel.

There are no tickets, fees, or asterisks, just us watching the baseball game together via the World Wide Web and inviting you, our readers, to join us. Tune in to the game tonight and then find us on the FanGraphs homepage or over on our Twitch page directly. We hope to see you then.