2/13/18

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
• @jasoncollette – Co-Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer/Co-Host

Paul and Jason talk through their strategy heading into the LABR Mixed Draft on February 13th. They pick 14th.

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The lights-out middle reliever is making a huge inroad as being a valuable fantasy asset. Some are throwing nearly 100 innings and with 10 K/9 or better. Along with their great rate stats, they are a cheap option instead of many back-of-the-rotation arms. Al Melchior did a great job highlighting some of these arms this past week. I’m going to take his list and find out when they are going in NFBC drafts and compare them to the starters going around them to find any possible values.

One note to remember is that NFBC drafts are 15-team leagues with 9 pitchers per team with a decent number of pitchers on the bench for streaming. My plan is to acquire one of these non-closing studs and use him as a “streamer” when one of my pitchers has a tough matchup (e.g. road game at Colorado).

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Today we are kicking off our annual series on ottoneu FanGraphs points league rankings. This year the rankings will include values from myself, Trey Baughn, and the default values from the FanGraphs Auction Calculator using the ottoneu FanGraphs points preset (Steamer projections). We are presenting our individual dollar values, plus the weighted average of all three rankings (2:2:1 weighting with the Auction Calc weighted less). In addition, the tables below include ottoneu eligibility (5 games started/10 games played in the prior year). Players are ranked only at their most valuable position, and the hierarchy we are using is C/SS/2B/3B/OF/1B (with 3B and OF being a coin toss in terms of replacement level, we chose to include 3B/OF eligibles at 3B).

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Keepers, keepers, keepers. We talked about keepers! Here’s the transcript.

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I’ve spent nearly the entire off-season discussing hitters, as Statcast and xHR/FB rate took over my life. Let’s move on to pitchers for now, and begin with another of my xMetrics, xK%. I updated the metric’s coefficients last season and it’s probably the best xEquation out there given its sky high adjusted R-squared.

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2/12/18

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!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer/Co-Host
• @pitcherlist – Guest (& RG Contributor!) Nick Pollack

During the show, we discussed how their Twitter handle was ThePitcherList while the website was just Pitcherlist.com and literally after we recorded Nick found out that they finally got PitcherList for their Twitter handle so that’s pretty cool! But I wanted to say something in case folks were confused while listening.

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Major league talent drop is not linear and it shouldn’t be treated as so in fantasy baseball but it does for many owners because we love our simple ordinal rankings. The talent drop from the best shortstop to the 10th is more than the drop from the 10th to the 20th. As soon as an owner moves away from using just rankings and goes to an overall production value they will gain a leg up on the competition. The whole idea can be explained by the talent distribution curve.

The talent distribution curve can be created with auction dollars. Other values can be used such as raw Standings Gain Points. But setting our auction calculator to the standard 12-team roto settings. Here is the talent distribution curve:

Note: While only 276 players are needed for this example, I extended the data out for deeper leagues. For those in 12-team -Only leagues, they will be picking at the 552 mark where the talent really begins to drop.

I’m not even sure if it has a shape. Maybe a sideways ‘S’. There is an extreme drop for about 100 picks and then starts to level off. Owners want to acquire as many players in this first group. In this part of the draft, talent needs to be prioritized over a position since talent differences exist more at this level.

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As I prepare for my fantasy drafts, I always pay close attention to average draft position (ADP) data to help identify where I might find bargains in my drafts and auctions. It’s a great way to figure out who I’m higher (and lower) on compared to my fellow fantasy owners, which is arguably as valuable as determining my own rankings in the first place. I’ve already done columns on shortstops and second basemen, and today I’ll take a look at the hot corner.

Thanks to the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC), we already have a healthy sample of draft data for 2018. I don’t think it’s any secret that third base is a much more productive position than it once was in fantasy, but there’s still some wacky stuff going on with these ADP values. For example, Kyle Seager and Adrian Beltre are currently being drafted as the No. 17 and 18 3B, respectively. To be fair, Seager hit a career-worst .249 last year, and Beltre played just 94 games due to hamstring and calf strains. Still though, both Beltre and Seager were fantastic fantasy assets as recently as 2016, when they were the No. 5 and 6 third basemen in fantasy.

“But maybe they’re not young and sexy enough,” I thought to myself. “With so many youthful studs at the position, maybe fantasy owners are simply getting bored with vets like Beltre and Seager.” That also appears to not be the case. What I’m coming to realize is that I might just have vastly different 3B rankings than other owners, at least once we get past the No. 10 slot. (For reference, you can view these ADP values paired with Steamer projections right here.)

I think the top 10 3B by ADP are quite reasonable, but when we get into the double digits, madness ensues. Madness! For example, let’s take a look at these two picks, who constitute my underrated/overrated comp for third base.

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Fantasy catchers typically have limited value to teams — although outliers like Buster Posey exist — so it doesn’t make much sense to spend much money (in auction leagues) or a significant draft slot on the position. As a result, rookie catchers can often provide a good option in fantasy — especially for the second slot in two-catcher leagues — because they can be had for little financial commitment/be snatched off the waiver wire and some possess untapped offensive potential.

Jorge Alfaro, C, Phillies: Alfaro could develop into one of the top catchers in baseball on both sides of the ball thanks to his plus power and rocket arm behind the plate. From a fantasy-only perspective, he has the potential to be a Top 10 option before his rookie season is over. However, he needs to be more selective at the plate if he’s going to realize his full potential. His strikeout rate of more than 30% at triple-A was down right scary and his walk rate throughout his minor league career has hovered around just 5%.

Again, catchers don’t have to be great hitters to be valuable to a big league team so Alfaro’s 20+ home run potential (and ability to hit the ball really hard) is enough to get excited about. The big obstacle for the rookie backstop in 2018 is the presence of decent big league catchers Cameron Rupp and Andrew Knapp. However, both of the more seasoned catchers have remaining minor league options while Alfaro does not.

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