We started our positional rankings updates yesterday with outfield and today we’re hitting the mound.

• Outfielders

We’re using Yahoo! eligibility requirements which is 5 starts or 10 appearances. These rankings assume the standard 5×5 categories and a re-draft league.  If we forgot someone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure he’s added for the updates. If you have questions for a specific ranker on something he did, let us know in the comments. We can also be reached via Twitter:

• Paul Sporer
• Jeff Zimmerman
• Zach Sanders
• Mike Podhorzer
• Dan Schwartz
• Paul Kastava
• Justin Mason

There will be differences, sharp differences, within the rankings. The rankers have different philosophies when it comes to ranking, some of which you’re no doubt familiar with through previous iterations. Of course the idea that we’d all think the same would be silly because then what would be the point of including multiple rankers?! Think someone should be higher or lower? Make a case. Let us know why you think that. The chart is sortable. If a ranker didn’t rank someone that the others did, he was given that ranker’s last rank +1.

Brad didn’t get a chance to update his rankings so they’re removed & the Yovani Gallardo ranking for Dan is fixed. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Another AL-LABR draft is the books, and after finishing top half in 2014, and then at the very bottom in 2015, I figured I should change my strategy a bit going into this year’s draft. In some ways, I built the same team I always do for the League of Alternate Baseball Reality — I hate dollar players, and hate spending for the most expensive players, and I dive for the middle — but my preparation was different. You can’t completely change your stripes, in the end. You can only hope to tweak em.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the years, I have written a lot about the concept of position scarcity. In fact, a quick Google search yields four such articles just on the front page (I wonder how many, if any, are hiding on page 2 and beyond!):

The Position Scarcity Post To End All Position Scarcity Posts, March 2011 (oops, guess this article didn’t actually end all position scarcity posts!)
What is Position Scarcity, Really?, January 2012
What is Position Scarcity, Continued, January 2012
On Best Player Available vs. Position Scarcity, January 2015

This time I’ll take a different avenue to discuss the concept. My inspiration was an article posted last week by our friend Rudy Gamble over at Razzball.com. It was titled Debunking Position Scarcity In Mixed League Fantasy Baseball, and in it, Rudy shared his reasons why he believed that position scarcity was essentially a myth in mixed leagues.

Rudy and I have discussed position scarcity a lot over the years and the wonderful thing is that although it appears that we disagree, we both use math and data to support our positions. So it’s a constructive back and forth that allows both us and our readers to learn. After all, we still don’t have a 100% perfect valuation system, so we don’t know for sure who’s even right!

Read the rest of this entry »

I had my first two “normal,” not-mock auction drafts over the past two evenings. The first was a fairly standard 12-team keeper league. The second was the 20-team Utility Wars – a very different experience. Today, I’ll cover a few of the challenges from the standard auction then dip into the details of Utility Wars.

Read the rest of this entry »

So here you are, a month from Opening Day, reading a Deep League Waiver Wire column. If you’re actually perusing the wire, it’s either because you’re one of the few fantasy owners who’s already drafted or, like me, you’re frantically patching holes in a sinking fantasy Spring Training team that’s been decimated by injuries.

I’m writing this weekly column to help those of you looking at rather threadbare free agent pools find suitable replacements, Plan Bs, and maybe if we strike gold together, some…gold. This week, we focus on a couple overlooked catchers who are either going late in drafts or not at all. So, let’s go digging.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Things did not go well for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2015, but it would be difficult to pin too much of that on their pitching staff. With a 3.74 ERA and 3.91 FIP, the Rays’ pitchers weren’t exactly world-beaters, but they weren’t the team’s biggest problem, either. They ranked in the middle third of the league in pitcher wins above replacement, walk rate, ERA, and FIP-. They just kind of were.

The issue, in some cases, was timing. The Rays ranked sixth in strikeout percentage as a whole, but their rotation was much better (fourth) in that regard than a bullpen lighter on gas. That bullpen posted 87 meltdowns, sixth-highest in baseball, which served to squander a bit of what a fringe-top-10 rotation was able to manage, and that bullpen lost lefty Jake McGee, to boot. That could be an iffy area again in 2016, one the .500-bound Rays didn’t see fit to invest a ton in.

The rotation, by the way, only had to go nine-deep a year ago. If it can stay relatively healthy once again, even getting a late-season reinforcement back from the disabled list, the Rays could have one of the better cost-effective rotations in baseball.
Read the rest of this entry »

Damn Rotographs, back at it again with the Outfielder Rankings.

:punches self:

Sorry.

Baseball is back on the TV, the weather is warming up in my city (which is all I care about), and it’s time for a rankings update!

We’re using Yahoo! eligibility requirements which is 5 starts or 10 appearances. These rankings assume the standard 5×5 categories and a re-draft league.  If we forgot someone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure he’s added for the updates. If you have questions for a specific ranker on something he did, let us know in the comments. We can also be reached via Twitter:

• Paul Sporer
• Jeff Zimmerman
• Zach Sanders
• Mike Podhorzer
• Dan Schwartz
• Brad Johnson
• Paul Kastava
• Justin Mason

There will be differences, sharp differences, within the rankings. The rankers have different philosophies when it comes to ranking, some of which you’re no doubt familiar with through previous iterations. Of course the idea that we’d all think the same would be silly because then what would be the point of including multiple rankers?! Think someone should be higher or lower? Make a case. Let us know why you think that. The chart is sortable. If a ranker didn’t rank someone that the others did, he was given that ranker’s last rank +1.

Read the rest of this entry »

On New Years Day, I promised I would create a number of experimental leagues. Today I’m unveiling the second – Fire and Forget. There is a method to my madness when designing these experimental leagues. In recent seasons, I’ve been unable to keep up with the sheer volume of industry leagues I get roped into. Lack of attention to detail means not finishing first, so I’m cutting down on most of them.

I plan to play a dynasty, ottoneu, sim (2005 season), home, college, and MLBTR league. The latter is my only redraft. But I love draft season way too much to have only three normal leagues. These experimental formats will combine my love of unique drafts with a minimum of in-season management.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday I participated in my first ever industry mock draft, organized by Nick Mariano of RotoBaller (who reviewed it here) and which included our own Brad Johnson (who reviewed it here) and Justin Mason filling in for the ever-busy Paul Sporer.

Per FantasyPros’ playbook, which taps the site’s player projections, I — with a thousand air quotes — “came out on top.” Of course, a good draft is but one part of a championship season — thus, the many air quotes.

I never expected to do so well and had all sorts of excuses lined up for when I would rank dead last.

• I didn’t have my cheat sheet. (True, although I have my first six-or-so rounds memorized at this point.)
• I’m terrible at snake drafts. (Also true, at least in my obviously glowing opinion of myself. I adhere pretty strongly to the Studs and Duds strategy, and snake drafts, by their nature, tend to prevent it.)
• It’s my first industry mock draft. (Still true. My heart was racing, which made me feel pretty embarrassed as I sat in my office, alone, eating microwavable pad thai out of a pouch, waiting for the draft to start.)

But, shoot. I pulled it off.

Except… I didn’t actually want to.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spring training has started and that means fantasy draft season is underway. One of my favorite drafts is the slow burn of my annual Scoresheet league, which — perhaps to your dismay — I brief you all on every single year.

Here’s a link to our league page, where you can scope it out for yourself.

For those unaware, Scoresheet is rooted in real-life strategy, where you build a full team complete with backups, bullpens and if you choose, a handful of minor leaguers. You can have 30 players “active” at any time, and can simply designate anyone as “minor leaguer” if you choose not to use them. Unfortunately, I had to do that with Dayan Viciedo last year. Hey, for a low price I took a chance on cheap pop against left-handed pitchers. It didn’t pan out.

Read the rest of this entry »