Sleeper week continues. Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to deep sleepers. Today and tomorrow we’ll look into stolen base threats. Most of these guys are waiver wire fodder in standard leagues. You should be able to stream them. Certain notably steals threats like Jose Altuve and Billy Burns were excluded because they aren’t sleepers in any sense of the word.

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As you may recall, the Annapurna that we have been preparing to scale this season is the NFBC Auction Championship: mixed league, 15 teams, 5×5, standard-issue 23-man roster with a 7-round snake draft for reserves. Well, we had our auction last week, and it was…humdrum. Somewhat to our surprise—about which more below–bidding was restrained and prices were temperate. Once we caught on to this—Bryce Harper for $41 and Mike Trout for $44 did the trick—we accomplished most of what we set out to do, and don’t think we overpaid or underpaid by more than a dollar for anyone. Possible exceptions are noted below. Our roster is barely worth reporting, and certainly not worth analyzing in detail. Nonetheless, for the record, here it is, with our picks listed in order of acquisition by way of giving you an idea of where we went with our endgame. As always, we invite your comments: Read the rest of this entry »

About four years ago, Matt Swartz helped me find that strikeout and walk rates posted during spring training for starting pitchers do have some predictive value. It’s very small, of course, but it’s there, and using the data improved the pre-season projection. The findings were validated when Dan Rosenheck completed an exhaustive study and discovered the same thing a year ago. It’s not the surface stats that matter, which we knew, but the underlying skill metrics, like strikeout and walk rates, that hold some value. It’s not much value, but it’s not nothing like some of us may have thought.

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We’re really almost there. Opening Day is Sunday. There are a few days left to draft, and then we’ve made it.

On the agenda:
1. Matt Harvey is OK, kind of
2. Can C.C. Sabathia claim a rotation spot?
3. Hyun-Soo Kim headed to the minors
4. Will Smith opts against surgery
5. Last call on Trevor Bauer
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Yesterday, a trio of fifth starters were announced. They are all worthy of different levels of excitement, but Vincent Velasquez, Aaron Sanchez, and Nate Karns all won jobs, and now we’re all scrambling to re-rank them based on this new information. Here’s the thing, though — don’t move them very far.

The announcement is nice, because it’s like the closer’s role. You either have the fifth starter’s spot, or you don’t, and if you don’t, the innings are hard to find. But you might be surprised how little those announcements may have meant.

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You can’t please everyone. Not that being a fantasy baseball analyst is like being the president, but being a fantasy baseball analyst is like being the president. You can never make everyone happy, and Eno Sarris occasionally asks you for foreign policy recommendations. Worse, the people who are happy don’t vocalize their contentment while the people who are pissed are more than happy to let you know. Such is the nature of the beast.

It’s all good, though. This is my second year ranking National League outfielders, and you know what? I’m ready. My skin is a little thicker, my stomach a little rounder. It’s a new year, new me. Put it on a shirt!

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Last Friday, we looked at some AL lineup gems – guys who are slated to bat in the top four of their order while going at pick 200 or later in NFBC Drafts. Sometimes just batting high in the order regularly can spike a guy’s value and spur a breakout. When Charlie Blackmon was having his insane April back in 2014, one of the main reasons anybody took a shot on him was the fact that he was batting atop the Colorado lineup. Even if he couldn’t maintain that pace (he couldn’t), he would at least be collecting plenty of PAs atop a stellar lineup in the game’s most hitter-friendly environment.

Here are 15 National Leaguers projected by Roster Resource to bat in the top four of their team’s lineup, available at pick 200 or later:

LEADOFF

Scooter Gennett [MIL, 454th pick overall] – Gennett got off to a brutal start last year and then a hand injury cost him two weeks in late-April. He wasn’t much better upon return and then got sent down for about a month. He was kinda left for dead at that point and so I don’t think many realized he returned and looked like the guy we’d seen in 2013-14. He hit .287 with 5 HR in 322 PA the rest of the way. The 26-year old got a late start to his Cactus League campaign, but is expected to be ready for Opening Day.

John Jaso [PIT, 533rd] – Unfortunately Jaso is DH-only in most leagues with just 8 games in the outfield last year, but the dude can flat out hit when healthy. Of course, health has eluded him as much as defensive skill, so he’s yet to log 110 games in a season. He’s best deployed in leagues with daily lineups so you can slot him against righties-only. He has a career .797 OPS against them in 1631 PA and has batted under .272 just once. He will add 1B eligibility pretty early into 2016, though he doesn’t really have the power to carry that position, so he’s more of a CI/UT option.

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The NL version came yesterday. Today we’ll shift over to the AL. The point of this exercise is to identify a handful of little known players who could become fantasy relevant this season. In most cases, it will be better to track these guys than rush out to pick them up.

While the NL has teams like the Phillies, Braves, Brewers, and Reds poised to deliver substantial time to unknown players, the AL is a much more competitive league. A few teams have an unsolved position or two, but nobody has thrown in the towel with a full rebuild.

Edit: I somehow overlooked Tyler White, but he’s easily the top name for this list. He’ll be a sleeper for another 30 minutes.

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At last, it’s the final Pod’s Picks and Pans, as we finish things off with catcher. In the past, there have been years I haven’t even published a catcher version because there just wasn’t much disagreement. Which is strange because often times we all know the top tier, which is Buster Posey first, a couple of guys in the next couple of slots, and then a massive tier where we could make a reasonable case for a slew of guys to finish the season at said ranking at season’s end. Luckily, this year there does seem to be some disagreement worth discussing. Here are the updated consensus rankings.

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Today’s Roto Riteup comes to you live from Dunedin, where Rotographs was on hand for some fantasy-relevant news on Monday.

On the agenda:
1. Aaron Sanchez wins a starting job
2. Matt Shoemaker does, too
3. Matt Harvey has a mysterious medical issue
4. Nick Swisher got released, bro
5. Freed Dan Straily
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