The season may not happen, and nearly all of my industry and high-stakes drafts are complete (not my home leagues, though), so I feel like it’s as good a time as any to publish My Guys — or, not My Guys, exactly, but The Guys I Absolutely Can’t Ignore at Their Prices. I’ll call this latter group, for short, my mortal locks. Incidentally and hardly coincidentally, the overlapping portion of the Venn Diagram of My Guys and my mortal locks is quite large.

My mortal locks (a term my uncle uses that I absolutely love): the guys who I can nearly guarantee will turn a profit at their National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) average draft position (ADP). The average draft produces a 65% return on investment (ROI). In other words, that’s a 35% loss, or roughly $90 of a $260 auction budget poorly spent. If you can at least break even, let alone turn a profit, on every player on your roster, you are already setting yourself up for success. It’s nearly impossible, but it doesn’t make it a bad goal.

If you Google “mortal lock,” the first result is a website called waywordradio.org, in which it defines mortal lock as “a cinch, an odds-on favorite, a guaranteed thing or event.” The next result, though, is Urban Dictionary — far more reputable — which defines mortal lock as “a bet that is virtually guaranteed winner, but in reality it is just a coin flip.”

This post embraces both definitions. My mortal locks are mortal locks precisely because they have proven to be as close to guaranteed as anything or anyone else. In reality, nothing is guaranteed. But I’ll convince myself something must be.

The criteria are a bit loosey-goosey, but this is generally how I determine if Player A is or is not a mortal lock:

• His ADP is lower than his most recent end-of-season ranking, if not for multiple years, per Razzball’s Player Rater.

That’s not everything, but it’s pretty close. Obviously, you want to use some discretion in terms of the trajectory of a player’s peripherals. Regardless, this exercise, to me, is an efficient way to identify bias and uncover values in your draft. Again, I don’t swear by every player here — in fact, this exercise has turned me onto players I may not have previously targeted — but I do like a whole lot of them. My favorites are curated below.

I intend to use this post as an experiment. Should the season play out, I will revisit this post and assess both individual and overall profitability among the group. Ideally, it beats break-even; at the very worst, it out-earns a 35% loss.

The only rules:

1. No players whose ADP has been affected by injuries. With the season’s start date in flux, many players who were healing up through the first couple of months of the season might be ready for Opening Day. This makes Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Andrew McCutchen, Willie Calhoun, Rich Hill, and more significantly more appealing than their current ADPs let on.
2. ADP spans 293 drafts during the month of March (March 1 through 30).
3. Only picks outside the top-75 (first five rounds of a 15-teamer, roughly the first six rounds of a 12-teamer). I try not to lock myself into a fixed core-building strategy, which this exercise might encourage me to do. This entire premise best caters to middle- and late-round targets.

Enough goofin’. Here are…

Twenty Mortal Locks of Varying Degrees of Certainty Outside the Top-75 ADP

Nelson Cruz, MIN UT (ADP 77.48)

If you have followed my work a while, you know I love Cruz. I will reach one, two, even three rounds ahead of ADP to grab him and have done so consistently for the last half-decade or so.

Cruz boasts top-65 finishes the last two years and compiled top-20 finishes each of the four years prior. He’s 39 and utility-only, which caps his price but not his value. Under the hood, Cruz legitimately looks better than late-career David Ortiz, who retired on his own terms and will enter the Hall of Fame exclusively for his accolades with a bat. If you’re not quitting on Justin Verlander or Max Scherzer, you shouldn’t quit on Cruz, either.

Tommy Pham, SDP OF (ADP 80.76)

Three consecutive top-70 finishes. The power didn’t keep pace in the juiced ball environment and, for whatever reason, he suffered an extreme dearth of runs. Hard to complain about a cheaply priced, steadily contributing Starling Marte, though.

Eugenio Suárez, CIN 3B (ADP 80.95)

This very nearly violates Rule #1. However, Suárez underwent shoulder surgery early in the offseason and was tracking to maybe play Opening Day, if not barely miss it. He’s obviously a lock to play whatever the new Opening Day becomes. With two top-35 finishes under his belt and ample extra time to recover, it seems incredibly strange to me we haven’t re-calibrated our expectations for Suárez.

Nick Castellanos, CIN OF (ADP 88.73)

ADP is so juicy in this vicinity (just take a look at how closely clustered the next three players are).

Castellanos is absolutely a dude whom I mentioned before as someone I may not have previously targeted. But with three consecutive top-85 finishes despite the restrictive confines of Comerica Park and considering the hitter-friendly confines of Great American Ball Park, an investment in Casty here feels like a no-brainer, even if the profit potential isn’t as immense as some later-round options may prove to be.

Marcell Ozuna, ATL OF (ADP 90.24)

Top-90 finishes the last two years preceded by a first-round finish in 2017. The latter seems like the outlier, but the former suggest stable break-even production.

Eddie Rosario, MIN OF (ADP 90.72)

I’m not entirely sure why Rosario doesn’t get more love, although I suspect it’s because he grades out lukewarmly (is that a real adverb? probably not) per Statcast. Or his consecutive second-half swoons. He’s a better fantasy player than actual, but we’re playing fantasy, so who cares? With three top-75 finishes, Rosario feels like another no-brainer.

Josh Donaldson, MIN 3B (ADP 90.80)

This one requires a larger health-related caveat. With that in mind, Donaldson is a beast per plate appearance, and last year’s 37-homer, .259-average performance earned him a top-60 finish. He’s older and the first-round upside from 2015-16 isn’t there, but if he’s past the issues that sidelined him in 2017-18, I have little hesitation in targeting him.

Eduardo Escobar, ARI 2B/3B (ADP 116.96)

Escobar fits the Castellanos bill in that he wouldn’t have tripped my sensors without this exercise. It’s easy to look at Escobar’s 2019 season and expect regression, no matter how much his peripherals do or do not support his outcomes. That said, his more-modest 2018 campaign of 23 homers and a .272 average was effectively a top-100 season that year. In other words, even if he backslides fully, he could still pay off his ADP pretty easily in a full season. (Granted, this won’t be a full season, obviously.)

I will say one more thing on Escobar’s behalf: he does a sneaky-good job of optimizing his launch angle. He may not be a contact quality king, but he exists among elite company in terms of making the most out of whatever contact quality he does have. In this regard, don’t sleep on him.

Michael Brantley, HOU OF (ADP 126.80)

There’s an Old/Boring discount happening here, but I think Brantley is being discounted primarily because he stopped running in 2019. It makes him more of a four-tool, rather than a five-tool, threat, and that kind of thinking can cause you to miss a buying opportunity.

Since the start of 2014, Brantley has consistently shown the same 20-homer power while batting .311. The bat-to-ball skills are so preposterously good — literally league-leading, arguably generational — and his inherent speed and power, while modest, keep the batting average on balls in play (BABIP) well above average. All told, his last four fully healthy seasons were all top-70 caliber — yes, including last year’s 3 SB campaign.

So, again: don’t sleep on four-tool Brantley, who is the not-shiny version of my favorite recent breakout Jeff McNeil (ADP 82.27 — that’s, like, four rounds earlier!).

Carlos Santana, CLE 1B (ADP 138.10)

I hate that I’m doing this, because Santana has been one of the most cost-effective buys the last half-decade. It’s annoying that last year’s weird age-33 “breakout” has driven his price back up; it almost certainly will crater in 2021, unless absolutely no baseball is played in 2020, which is looking like a mortal lock in its own right.

Santana is outrageously consistent and has never fallen outside the top-135 by end-of-season ranks since 2013. Alas, while a 50-slot bump over last year’s ADP feels like a premium to pay, Santana should still pay it off. I doubt he’s a top-50 guy next year — he might not even be top-100 — but as long as he stays healthy, which he basically always is, he’s a profit piece.

And, full transparency: even though Santana is one of my “mortal locks,” I don’t have a whole lot of exposure to him this year. And you know what? I look back and regret it, wondering why I took so-and-so at this juncture instead of Santana. Truthfully, I’m just desperately stubborn and refuse to pay breakout prices for a dude I have copped on the cheap for years.

Elvis Andrus, TEX SS (ADP 144.29)

The big question mark with Andrus last year was if his running days were over. Thirty-one steals later — Andrus’ highest single-season total since 2013 — we received a resounding answer. With six top-140 finishes the last eight years, he’s all but guaranteed top-100 value, even with just 20 to 25 steals — as long as he doesn’t revert back to 2014’s two home runs, that is. I have found myself loading up on Andrus as the last bankable speed threat, especially in drafts where I find myself falling behind in that category (or knowing I want to get ahead so I can target cheap power later).

Salvador Perez, KCR C (ADP 152.44)

Tommy John concerns will slowly recede the longer into Perez’s recovery we venture. Still, even before we knew the season would be delayed, Perez represented a buying opportunity, with consecutive top-100 finishes prior to 2019’s lost season and three top-120 finishes from 2015-18. That’s pretty dang good at a position where folks willingly incur losses because they refuse to overpay for a backstop. Frankly, that’s a fair argument. Which is why it makes it all the more intriguing to target Perez.

Kyle Hendricks, CHC SP (ADP 154.76)

I may go back and revise this list, so if I do, just know this: Hendricks is the first pitcher I knew, without looking, would qualify for the criteria I set forth. Like clockwork, he boasts consecutive top-135 finishes with five straight top-200s. Hendricks has been a bargain every year, as close to a lock to profit as anyone, and yet you can see Hendricks is no sure thing at his moderate ADP. He will always be a strikeout liability. But folks underrate the steadiness of his ability to manage contact and, thus, prevent runs.

Justin Turner, LAD 3B (ADP 158.08)

Turner only needs about 400 plate appearances per year to be viable in mixed leagues and only about 550 to be a top-100 hitter. So much of achieving top-100 value is predicated upon lucking into a healthy season. Turner has played more than 135 games only once and yet boasts three top-125 finishes the last four years. The strikeout rate (K%) spiked a little last year, and he’s entering his age-35 season, but, hey — if you know anything about me, that’s simply all the more reaso invest.

Edwin Encarnación, CHW 1B (ADP 159.72)

Like Turner, EE only needs about 500 plate appearances to be a top-100 guy. From 2012 through 2017, he never once fell outside the top-40. We’re entering the twilight phase — this would be Encarnación’s age-37 season — yet he boasts a top-60 and top-120 finish the last two seasons. We might see further age-related erosion, but his base skills are underappreciated, and he would still only need 450 or 500 plate appearances to break even on a 16th-round pick.

Kenta Maeda, MIN SP (ADP 166.17)

Maeda has averaged less than 150 innings in each of his four big-league seasons, yet he boasts three top-150 finishes. (In the one season he didn’t, he threw barely 125 innings and suffered in the categorical Wins department despite a 29% strikeout rate and 3.81 ERA.) It stands to reason the Twins unleash Maeda in a way the Dodgers refused to, making him — ah! — a mortal lock to absolutely crush his ADP.

Khris Davis, OAK UT (ADP 173.98)

I mean… it’s outrageously obvious how much Davis’ struggles linked back to his collision with a wall. Krush has krushed this ADP the three years prior to 2019 and would handily krush his current ADP with just 30 homers, let alone the 40+ we’ve come to expect from the healthy version of him.

Justin Upton, LAA OF (ADP 200.41)

A healthy Upton — entering only his age-32 season, mind you — hits 30 to 35 home runs and bats .250. Before last year, Upton had compiled at least seven consecutive top-100 finishes — and I’m stopping at 2012 only because that’s where my data stops. But in looking at his 2009 through 2011 seasons, his streak was almost certain 10 straight. The profile is Old/Boring, but Old/Boring is routinely profitable, especially post-injury.

Shin-Soo Choo, TEX OF (ADP 236.23)

Old/Boring!!! Choo’s peripherals are remarkably stable despite entering his age-37 year. He has effectively been a 20-homer, .260-.270 hitter each of the last five seasons, with 2016 merely being shortened by injury. The result: four top-130 finishes. This is cherry-picking, but Choo was literally the most profitable player since 2015 if you remove 2016. Even if you incur the huge loss in 2016, though, Choo is still top-20 the last half-decade. Gobble up that cheap ADP, y’all.

Brett Gardner, NYY OF (ADP 307.68)

I don’t know how this keeps happening, but, whatever. Gardner has fallen outside the top-200 just once the last seven years — and that one time was in 2016, when he hit just seven home runs. (He finished 229th on the season.) We keep discounting his ability to find playing time and yet he keeps finding it, playing at least 140 games (averaging 146) and recording at least 550 plate appearances (averaging 625) from 2013 onward. A literal 21st-rounder in 15-team leagues and bench fodder in 12-teamers, it remains astounding to me how we keep brushing off New York’s Shiniest and Most Gigantic Dome^TM.

* * *

Is it a reductive strategy? Sure. Did you read nearly the same thing over and over and over? Sure. Have they combined for roughly $250 in profit the last five years despite injuries and inactivity? Absolutely.