Yesterday, I put together my All Sleeper Team, identifying a group of players being drafted outside the Top 200 who could greatly exceed that draft day cost. While those guys are outright recommendations by me, today’s group is a bit different. We’re looking at the All Bum Team, a group of players with quality track records and high draft status in 2017 who ended up being terrible.

The idea is that these guys could reasonably bounce back, especially with health as most were injury flameouts, and the price to see if they will is worth taking a shot. This is more of a cost v. upside situation as opposed to me standing firmly behind them as investments. I’m not trying to hedge or anything, just stating the difference between yesterday’s and this piece. If you believed in these guys last year, then you should probably double down in ’18 because the price has tanked. I will be clear about the ones I’m most interested in buying with the write-up.

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Today’s notes are me catching up on news and games after getting a couple other articles finished.

2/26/18 Games

Mets vs Tigers

Noah Syndergaard was hot during and after his last start.
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Our annual Player Caps went live on the site yesterday for your viewing pleasure! The bulk of players profiled have both a Profile and Quick Opinion. The former dives into their skills and outlook for about 200-250 words while the latter is more of a fantasy baseball focused summation of the player, often including direct fantasy advice about investing in them (or not). Some players didn’t really need a full on Profile so they only got the Quick Opinion and in many of those cases, there is no particular advice because they aren’t fantasy viable regardless of league type.

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Yesterday, I discussed nine hitters that my Pod Projections forecast for a lower AB/HR ratio than Steamer, giving them home run upside, in my opinion. Today, I’ll check in on a group of hitters I see as possessing significant downside compared with Steamer.

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Yes, I know that “sleepers” don’t exist in fantasy baseball as they used to with the Information Age uncovering every potential gem so that no one is truly hidden, but it’s still a term we use to connote an undervalued asset. For this exercise, I’m putting together a lineup with someone at every infield position and three outfielders going after pick 200 in the NFBC average draft position. ADP is coming from our projections page, by the way.

LINEUP

C: Yasmani Grandal | Dodgers, Pick 228 – Grandal is penciled in as the primary starter and yet he’s going a good bit later than his backup, Austin Barnes. I’m a big Barnes fan, but he’s now dealing with an elbow issue and sits on the short end of the platoon. Grandal is a batting average liability, but he’s clubbed 49 homers over the last two seasons and at this cost, there’s a chance he’s your second catcher.

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In a few days, the Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational will begin drafting. The invitational is the combination of 13 different 15-team leagues full of the industry’s best and brightest (and Howard Bender). We’ve been given our draft positions and I got the third pick. After Arizona installed the humidor and dinged Goldschmidt’s value, the pick has no easy options. Instead of focusing on the first-round pick, I’m going to dive into my second and third round options to hopefully make a better choice with the first one.

With any draft or auction in which my draft pick is known, I plan my first two to three picks. Beyond that point, the variables increase, plan is out the window, and owners need to target values and needs.

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Last year, I transformed my series pitting my Pod Projections against Steamer projections into a categorical comparison. I’m going to continue that this year, but instead of comparing counting stats extrapolated over my plate appearance projection, I’m going to go straight to ratios. As an ardent supporter of ratios over counting stats, I have no idea why I didn’t do this to begin with!

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2/26/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer/Co-Host
• @joepisapia17 – Guest

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This offseason, I decided to roll out this series as an extension of my own fantasy draft prep. By sifting through National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) draft data, I’ve gone position by position through average draft position (ADP) info to identify players who I believe my fellow fantasy owners are overrating or underrating. By doing so, I’m able to better identify potential sleepers, and get an idea for what price I’ll pay for them. So far, I’ve written posts on third basemen, shortstops and second basemen, and today I’ll take a stab at first base.

As you might have guessed from reading the headline above this article, today’s comparison involves Rockies rookie Ryan McMahon and Brewers veteran Eric Thames. I’ll lead off by saying that this one boggles my mind more than any of the other underrated/overrated pieces I’ve written this offseason.

Let’s take a quick look at where these two are being drafted:

Essentially, Thames is a 16th-round pick in 12-team standard leagues, and McMahon is a 30th rounder — or in other words, he’s basically being drafted as an NL-only guy. I wondered if these numbers might be changing as we get closer to the season, so I took a look at Yahoo, which has only even had their fantasy baseball site up for a little over week. However, it’s the same story there, where Thames is 86% owned, compared to just 9% for McMahon. My goal for today is to help close that gap.

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Last week, we looked at the five rookie outfielders with the highest potential for impact in 2018 — given enough playing time. Today, we’ll dig a little deeper for some sleeper players that could also make significant waves during the coming season.

Willie Calhoun, IF/OF, Rangers: Calhoun, a former second baseman, is more likely to see time as a left fielder or designated hitter. His all-bat-no-hit profile lowers his real-life value but doesn’t hurt him in fantasy. In fact, if he plays enough games at second base, he has added value due to versatility.

He’s a smallish player but he hits the ball hard. He went deep 27 times at double-A in 2016 and followed that up with 31 long balls in triple-A last year. Calhoun, 23, also rarely strikes out so he puts a lot of balls in play. His willingness to use the whole field could help hit for average (along with the power) at the big league level. The Rangers got themselves a good one in last year’s trade with the Dodgers.

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