Opening day is finally upon us! I conclude this year’s (condensed) Pod’s Picks series with starting pitchers. If you missed them, here are the infielders and outfielders. The bullish group will only include those I ranked within my top 75 and the bearish only players the consensus ranked within their top 75.
Yesterday, I opened 2015 Pod’s Picks season with my infield bullish and bearish selections. Today I’ll finish my look at hitters by moving into the outfield. The bullish group will only include those I ranked within my top 60 and the bearish only players the consensus ranked within their top 60.
Due to the busy preseason schedule of posts I had to publish, the 2015 version of Pod’s Picks is being unveiled later than ever before. But I refuse to skip a year because it’s always fun comparing my rankings to the rest of the rankers and discovering who was closer at season’s end. Rather than drag things out by posting just one position a day like I have in the past, I’m grouping them into infield, outfield and starting pitchers to bring us into the start of the season (finally!).
I calculated the average rank of the three rankers in the Rotographs Rankings Update and then compared to my ranking within each position. As usual, I will limit my Bullish picks to those I have ranked as startable players in a standard 12-team league and Bearish picks to those the consensus has ranked as startable.
For many reasons, the majority of fantasy leagues in aggregate spend between 65% and 70% of their total auction budget on hitting. Though I haven’t kept all of my auction results since I founded my home league back in 2003, I’m fairly confident that I have exceeded that typical hitting budget nearly every year, if not in all of them. But I don’t believe I have ever spent as much as I did during my auction on Sunday. For some context, my local league is a shallow 12-team 5×5 (we switched to W+QS instead of Wins last year and it was fantastic, though it devalues closers a bit) mixer, with standard 23-man rosters and a six player bench acquired via snake draft after the auction.
With just a week to go before the 2015 baseball season is underway and my social life comes to an end as I hole up in my condo in front of my Extra Innings packaged up television, it’s time to shed some tiers. Starting pitcher tiers of course. And specifically, American League starting pitchers.
My tier rankings are based on projected value moving forward with no accounting for what the pitcher has already done (which of course is nothing at the moment, but is important to remember when perusing through my mid-season updates). Essentially, these represent my value projections if you were to draft a team on this very day. Though tier rankings are supposed to consider all pitchers within a tier as essentially interchangeable, this initial set of rankings is a straight copy and paste from my projected dollar values, so it will begin in order.
Before diving into the tiers, you must understand how heavy a role innings pitched plays when valuing pitchers. That would explain a lot of some of the more controversial ranks. Furthermore, do not mistake this list as a precise order in which I would personally draft these pitchers. This is certainly not the case. When it gets toward the later tiers, I tend to prefer a younger, potential breakout performer than an established veteran whose value is primarily driven by his 180-200 innings (propping up both wins and strikeouts), rather than strong ratios.
For your debating pleasure, my tiers have been named after the brilliant FXX show, Man Seeking Woman (of which I hope more than two of you readers actually watch).
Yesterday, I took our bold predictions one step further by unveiling my bold hitter league leaders. It’s not easy picking a league leader that could both be considered bold, and yet still not outrageous. Today I turn to pitchers, who with two ratio categories, are perhaps a bit easier.
Every season, in addition to posting my standard bold predictions, I up the ante with my bold league leaders. If you thought nailing a bold prediction was tough, the bold league leaders is even more difficult! Just getting one right is worthy of celebration. Because these are bold, I automatically disqualify players I don’t personally believe should be considered bold. So I challenge myself and it typically causes me to bat .000. But, at the very least, might push you to go the extra buck on these players, which, after all, is what these bold predictions are all about.
We’ll start with the hitting league leaders in each of the five categories, split up by league.
I’ve been playing in auction leagues since about 2001 and believe it to be far superior to snake drafts. Why choose a draft format that immediately prevents you from acquiring players as soon as you know your draft slot isn’t number one? I want the opportunity to buy Mike Trout for $48 damn it! Okay, enough standing on my pedestal and rehashing why I think auctions are best. Let’s just talk about some random things that have popped into my head since my Tout Wars auction on Saturday.
My inaugural season in the famed AL-Only Tout Wars league didn’t work out very well last year. Although my team heading out of the draft was heavy on OBP (not by design, but because those turned out to be the most undervalued hitters), I ended up finishing just ninth in the category, en route to a pathetic 10th place finish. My offense was decimated by injuries and despite spending $205 of my $260 budget on hitting, I tallied just 28 of 60 possible hitting points. So after a disappointing first showing, did I plan to do anything differently this time around? Yes, but the strategic change was rather minor.
Are you Bold Prediction’d out yet? Of course you’re not! As the proud founder of the Bold Prediction series, it is my pleasure to now present to you 10 events that will occur this upcoming season. My crystal ball reading skills regressed last year, as I declined from hitting .300 to just .200, but a full off-season working with Miss Cleo should get me back on track.
