Some fans call him Superman, and for good reason. He hits for average and for power; he draws walks and barely strikes out; he plays premier defense at a premium position. He’s won Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, three Silver Sluggers, a batting title, a Gold Glove, and oh by the way, three World Series rings. Read the rest of this entry »
This marks the fourth consecutive spring for tracking new pitches at Fangraphs. In 2014, the series was launched with a piece featuring both a retired and current pitcher and their insight into adding new pitches during the offseason and/or in camp. The 2015 tracking was done at RotoJunkieFix where I serve as the CIO which is just a fancy title for the guy that keeps a 20+ year old fantasy community up and running in his spare time. By popular demand, the 2016 New Pitch Tracker gained front page real estate here and I updated it throughout the spring with help from Jeff Zimmerman and others scraping the stories from the web and the crew at BrooksBaseball helping validate the pitches. That same support model will be in place this year for the extended 2017 Spring Training.
We’re going position by position this week and next with our initial roll out of rankings. We will update these in March based on Spring Training activity and injuries.
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:
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.
Key:
Previous Editions:
Our report on the first half of our NFBC Slow Draft received reviews that were decidedly, um, mixed. But mixed reviews didn’t deter the producers of Batman vs. Superman from offering a sequel, and they’re not deterring us. We won’t revisit the background information about the draft or the strategy with which we approached it; it’s there at the start of the first installment. We’ll just report our selections, and comment when comment seems called for. And remember, folks, this is the second half of a 50-player draft. If everything goes perfectly, which of course it won’t, almost none of these guys will crack our starting lineup. Many of them are strictly spare parts. So “Ewww! Eduardo Escobar” is uncalled for.
Draft Position 374. Scott Schebler and 377. Francisco Liriano. Liriano, at least in 2017, is the kind of pitcher you take when you have a deep bench. We suspect that his career as a starting pitcher is over. He was very bad with Pittsburgh in the first four months of last season—his ERA third time through the order was 10.04–and while he helped Toronto a lot in the August and September, he still had trouble getting past the fourth inning in his 8 starts: ERA, innings 1 through 4, 1.97; ERA thereafter, 5.28. We’re not counting on him. But we got him cheap (his NFBC Average Draft Position is 324), he can still get strikeouts, he’s already penciled in to the Blue Jays’ rotation, and maybe we’re wrong about him. Read the rest of this entry »
Over my many years of fantasy experience, I’ve come to recognize two methods of building a roster. Method 1: an owner targets very specific players and fills around those as needed. Usually, the owner aggressively shops those filler players. Method 2: Every player is treated as a generic asset, sorted into classes. Today, we’ll talk about the pros and cons of both approaches.
Yahoo launched their fantasy baseball site for 2017 over three weeks ago, which means that by now, there should be some solid trends to analyze in their average draft position and auction value data. There’s some surprises to be found in the early returns, so let’s dive right into the top 12 by average auction price. (When looking at the 2016 values, keep in mind that Turner and Gordon each played roughly half a season, and Carpenter dealt with an oblique injury.)
The section below before I reveal my team is going to be similar to previous LABR recaps since little has changed and there’s no sense in rewording things.
It’s mid-Feburary, so you know what that means…another super eeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrlllllllyyyyyyy LABR Mixed draft has been completed! Tout Wars auctions don’t take place for another month, my local league’s auction is in the same boat, and opening day is still six weeks away! The early timing of LABR Mixed presents some interesting challenges in that there are many position battles yet to have even begun and poor Pedro Alvarez still finds himself teamless. So on one hand, it requires us to perform serious research and really know the depth charts, but on the other, we’re all just speculating, crossing our fingers, and hoping for the best.
2/20/17
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We’re going position by position this week and next with our initial roll out of rankings. We will update these in March based on Spring Training activity and injuries.
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:
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.
Key:
Previous Editions:
Over the next two weeks I’m going to be reviewing 12 rookie hitters and 12 rookie pitchers that could make signifiant waves at the Major League level — and aid your fantasy squad, as a result — in 2017. Today, we’re taking a look at six freshmen hitters with another six to come later in the week.
Potential Impact Rookie Hitters for 2017:
Willy Adames, SS, Rays: The Rays have some middle infield depth with the likes of Matt Duffy, Brad Miller and Nick Franklin in house but the emergence of Adames could help the cost-conscious Rays move on from Brad Miller, who is set to make more than $3 million in 2017 and is said to be tired of moving around the diamond. Adames, 21, had a breakout 2016 season despite being aggressively pushed from high-A (where he produced modest numbers in ’15) to double-A. He strikes out a fair bit but the young shortstop produced a .372 on-base percentage thanks to 74 free passes in 132 games and he began to tap into his raw power on a more consistent basis. Adames has 20+ home run potential and could also add double-digit steal totals. He’ll likely open the year in triple-A but it wouldn’t be a shock to see him in The Show as early as June.