Ariel Cohen’s 2020 TGFBI Recap – Hitters

The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) drafts have now approached their conclusion. Avid readers of this website will already be familiar with the invitational’s format. TGFBI (created by our own Justin Mason) is the compilation of 390 industry experts across 26 leagues. Each division runs as NFBC-style 15-team leagues, with the collection vying for an overall prize – to win industry bragging rights. The only operational difference is that TGFBI drafts are run with a 4-hour clock – i.e., TGFBI is a slow draft. During the season, the format is virtually identical to the NFBC main event.

Check out TGFBI central and follow your favorite fantasy analysts’s teams at TGFBI.com.

As a bonus, I am honored to host the Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational Podcast – Beat the Shift – along with my friend and fantasy partner, Reuven Guy (@mlbinjuryguru). Last season, Reuven managed to win his league while finishing second in the overall TGFBI competition.

Check out the latest episodes of The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational Podcast – Beat the Shift, found here. Follow me on Twitter at @ATCNY.

This is the 3^rd year of the Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational, and I have participated ever since its inception. In 2020, with so many talented fantasy analysists in my division of TFGBI – my league (#14) was tabbed by many as the “League of Death.” Using the ATC projections, as well as my Replacement Level Drafting (RLD) method, I drafted what will hopefully be a championship caliber team.

Today, I will provide a few observations on the TGFBI drafts, review my personal team makeup, and highlight some of my player selections along the way. My goals of this article are to use the TGFBI experience to convey information to you about the drafting landscape of 2020, as well as to illustrate my team construction process. Hopefully, you will be able to take some nuggets of wisdom from my recap to assist you with your draft preparation.

Before we get further into it – draft standings analysis based on projections are generally irrelevant. But just for fun, here is what FantasyPros had to say about my team.

Today we will focus on the hitters.

General Observations

Speed

As we all have suspected, stolen bases are being pushed up in drafts. Below are all players which ATC currently projects to steal at least 21 bases. In addition, I have listed the pick number where each player was drafted in my TGFBI league (League #14), along with both the TGFBI and NFBC ADPs.

• There is little difference between NFBC drafters and TGFBI drafters as far as pushing up speed. Both sets of drafts equally accelerated the speedster selections. Jarrod Dyson has the largest difference between TGFBI and NFBC – however, that may be due either to a smaller sample size later in drafts, or that NFBC data on FanGraphs contains some older drafts.
• My particular league was even more aggressive for stolen bases than the average TGFBI league. Victor Robles was pushed up 10 picks off of TGFBI ADP. Fernando Tatis was pushed in to the first round. Elvis Andrus went a full round earlier than in other leagues, etc.
• Unfortunately, the Mallex Smith selection at 136 belonged to yours truly. More about that later.

Catchers

Jacob Realmuto’s TGFBI ADP ended at 56. He was consistently drafted in the 4^th round of TGFBI drafts. Frank Stampfl was able to luckily (we think) draft him at pick 80 from league #23. That was a nice relative bargain for him, as a number of catchers were selected in his draft in rounds 7-9.

Knowing when to draft the first catcher is difficult, since it all depends on the point at which all other catchers are scooped up. If the next 4 catchers are drafted in the following 3 rounds, Realmuto is a terrific relative bargain. If no other catcher is drafted for the following 3 rounds, Realmuto would be a relative overspend.

The same can also be said for closers (to be discussed in my next article). Catcher and closer pre-season valuations in a vacuum are moot. Value can only be discerned once the other players of the cohort are selected. For closers, often the market is willing to pay more (or draft earlier) to lock in the saves. For catchers, the market typically deflates theoretical values in 2-catcher leagues and inflates values in 1-catcher leagues.

One other item to note about catchers this year is that the major “run” seemed to occur in the 16^th / 17^th rounds of drafts. That was the time when owners who had not selected a #1 catcher – made sure to populate their roster with a backstop.

A “run” is a number of picks in a row where the same position was drafted over and over (or the vast majority of the contiguous picks are of one position).

Ariel’s 2020 TGFBI Team

I participated in TGFBI League #14 and had the misfortune (according to me) of making selections in the #15 draft slot.

I believe that drafting 15^th is a disadvantage. In fact, so did everyone else in my league. In the KDS, I received the 15^th (final) choice of my draft slot – which meant that all other teams did not want to draft directly on the wheel.

Catchers

• Wilson Ramos (Round 14.1 / Overall 196)
• James McCann (Round 27.15 / Overall 405)

On a recent FantasyPros podcast as well as my own TGFBI show, I dubbed Wilson Ramos as a potential breakout. Ramos who hits so many balls into the ground has worked this off-season on his launch angle. True, he might trade some batting average for power, but he has some BA to give; he hit a fantastic .288 just last year.

I think that whatever off-season mechanics efforts Ramos takes, his batting average will remain high. His 13% strikeout rate is enormous for a catcher, and for anyone in baseball! That sets a high floor for the Mets’ backstop. The main issue for Ramos is staying healthy – and he was able to do so last year.

James McCann was a very late selection – I grabbed him with just 46 total picks remaining in the draft. With almost all 14 other teams taking their 2^nd catcher earlier, I simply waited to the end to secure my 2^nd backstop.

McCann accumulated 2.3 in WAR last season, hitting 18 HRs while batting .273 in 476 plate appearances. If he can come anywhere close to that level of production per game, I will have gotten a steal! And if not, he was taken so inexpensively, that I don’t mind cutting him for a hot catcher mid-season.

Third Base

• Nolan Arenado (Round 1.15 / Overall 15)
• Colin Moran (Round 29.15 / Overall 435)

My very first pick in the draft was a third baseman, and my final hitter was a 3B. I took no other pure 3B in between. [Eduardo Escobar does technically qualify at 3B, but I intend to use him at 2B.]

Simply put, using just about any auction calculator and any projection system – Nolan Arenado is a value at the 15^th pick. Arenado is a strong 4-category player.

According to the ATC projections, Arenado is at least 1.40 standard deviations above the average rosterable fantasy hitter (in the TGFBI player pool) in four of the five scoring categories. In those four categories, Arenado provides me with a very strong and safe base of production. He has returned at least a $33 rotisserie dollar value in each of the past 5 seasons – i.e. Nolan is super-stable! With your first round selection – you should draft a player with a high floor of production, and Nolan does exactly that.

The ONLY drawback of the Arenado selection is his lack of speed. I think it is unwise to over-reach for speed at the very top of the draft, as it passes up on a ton of stable counting stats. Thus, I selected Arenado in the first round of TGFBI.

Colin Moran was the only other pure 3B that I selected on the team. He was my penultimate round selection, merely for depth. I’m not a believer in only drafting extreme upside players at the end. Profitable and reliable production takes precedence, and Moran should get the heavy bulk of the 3B starts in PIT.

First Base

• Paul Goldschmidt (Round 5.15 / Overall 75)
• Eric Hosmer (Round 15.15 / Overall 225)

Quickly on Goldschmidt – Paul has been a stable contributor for the past few seasons. Although his stolen base proficiency likely won’t be coming back – he was a value at pick 15. More importantly, at the time of his selection, there was a large drop between him and the next best 1B. Selecting players based on the Replacement Level Drafting (RLD) method will lead to the highest aggregate value for your fantasy rosters.

Eric Hosmer is a ‘boring’ player that has been productive throughout his career, especially in the run production stats.

I believe that many fantasy owners often disregard or downplay two of the five 5×5 scoring categories. Fantasy players tend to focus on power and speed which are skill based but ignore/belittle the run production categories which are context based. That is a mistake.

Hosmer is not going to hit more than 25 HRs. He might steal half a dozen bases, but not more. His batting average has been variable over the years. However, with a 5-year average of 92 RBIs and 84 runs, his value in a roto format is markedly higher than what the market is pricing him in 2020. Taking Hosmer’s projected production in the end of the 15^th round (pick 225) is an enormous value and comes with a relatively safe expectation of profit.

Second Base

• Eduardo Escobar (Round 9.15 / Overall 135)
• Rougned Odor (Round 17.15 / Overall 255)

Escobar turned in a spectacular 2019 with 35 HR and 118 RBIs. One should expect major regression, but a late 9^th round pick should still return good value. ATC projects Eduardo to hit just 27 HR and knock in 91 runs. Again, for the draft slot – he is a bargain. Value drafters (like me) always think in this manner. Escobar was available on the board in this TGFBI draft far beyond his NFBC ADP of 114.

I have already written about Rougned Odor this offseason. You can read more about him here.

Shortstop

• Marcus Semien (Round 8.1 / Overall 106)
• Andrelton Simmons (Round 23.15 / Overall 345)

Marcus Semien is a “many paths to value” player. He is above average in every single scoring category. Having all positive categorial Z-Scores makes him quite a stable fantasy asset; he won’t fall flat unless injured. I recently talked about looking for combo players in this article. Semien, who returned late 2^nd round / early 3^rd round value in 2019 – was an absolute steal in the 8^th round.

Simmons was simply taken by me for depth. Just last season, I had valued Simmons close to Semien/Polanco and I am betting that he outperforms expectations in 2020. He does not have to do much to earn bench spot value. Simmons is also good for late round batting average stabilization.

Outfield

• George Springer (Round 3.15 / Overall 45)
• Eddie Rosario (Round 6.1 / Overall 76)
• Mallex Smith (Round 9.2 / Overall 122)
• Kole Calhoun (Round 19.15 / Overall 285)
• Anthony Santander (Round 20.1 / Overall 286)
• Kevin Kiermaier (Round 22.1 / Overall 316)
• Jason Heyward (Round 25.15 / Overall 375)
• Ender Inciarte (Round 26.1 / Overall 376)

I’ll touch on a few items here starting with team construct. My first six offensive player picks were as follows:

The value proposition that I acquired was excellent. I couldn’t be happier in that regard. However, I did have a team construct issue – my team was noticeably devoid of speed. Normally, I am (and one should be) very sensitive to making sure that your fantasy team is categorically balanced. After all, TGFBI is now a no-trading league. With your first 6 players, you should have at least one major SB contributor, or two solid players who exhibit moderate speed.

So, what happened?

Why I missed on acquiring speed in this particular draft:

• I acquired as much value as I could. The values presented to me were excellent. Passing over my selections would have lost me value.
• Speed was going extremely early in my draft, even compared to other TGFBI drafts (as seen above). Some of the players that I hoped to “reach” a bit for were not even available to me.
• I drafted from the 15^th slot. Selecting players on the wheel gives one less control over the draft, and that paved the way for a more unbalanced team.

All of those factors left me with one obvious solution at the time … Mallex Smith!

The only player left on the board who would be able to single handedly fix my team’s categorical balance issue was still available, albeit possibly two rounds too early. It is better to jump ahead two rounds in Rd. 10 then to do so earlier in Rd. 6. I then made the decision to grab Mallex at overall pick 136. To that point, I had banked up enough power, RBIs and average … and value … and felt that my team could handle taking on the 1-dimensional Mariner outfielder.

Selecting Smith left me with a more variable team than I wanted to assemble. If Smith is benched or demoted, it crushes my team balance. If he swipes even 30 bags, then he completes his task for me. With the situation that I was faced, I felt that the risk of taking Smith was the proper choice instead of completely punting the category. This was indeed the moment where I had to make that decision (balance or punt) – and I chose to try for balance, even if risky (generating a more variable team).

Later in the draft, I then tried to sure up some more steals by drafting Kevin Kiermaier and Ender Inciarte. I still felt that my team was light in the outfield, so with my later selections, I additionally rostered Kole Calhoun, Anthony Santander and Jason Heyward.

At the top of the draft, George Springer came with a nice ‘Astro discount.’ Perhaps I got a nice price on him because of the trash can banging, but I feel that Springer’s 2020 numbers won’t suddenly decline from his norms.

One of my favorite 2020 undervalued players, Eddie Rosario was my 6^th round choice. I’ve spoken an awful lot about him this offseason, such as in this article. Unfortunately, being at the wheel (15^th slot) made me select him early in round 6. I had to give up any value over ADP, to secure who I thought was the right player selection. If I were in the 7^th or 8^th slot, I’d have the chance to acquire him closer to his ADP and thereby gain a few ticks of value. A healthy full season of Eddie Rosario has the upside of a 1^st / 2^nd round talent.

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I will cover the rest of my TGFBI draft and pitching observations in my next article.