We are live more than a month earlier than last year which helps those diehards drafting through the winter while the living, breathing document aspect of them allows us to keep these relevant all the way through draft season in March. The Hot Stove is positively blazing which has brought about several updates before even going live. Chief among them being a pair of premium lefties joining the AL East.
The updates will come regularly as I fill in the profiles over the coming weeks while also reacting to the news as it happens. We still have an ace who needs to be signed, plenty of trade rumors already in play, and the inevitable out of nowhere trades that we will get at some point this offseason. Feel free to leave comments about guys who don’t yet have a profile, but just know that one is coming. I intend to write up all 200 before we reach Spring Training.
First update is finally here in early-January and they will be much more frequent now that we’re out of the holiday season!
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My body decided to get a nastyyyy flu at quite literally the worst time of the year. I’m finally starting to feel a bit better today so those more frequent updates I promised last time will actually start coming through consistently.
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OK, I reworked the ranking quite a bit instead of just going 1-200+ within each tier. A lot of y’all had been asking for that after the first release, so there you go. I still have lots of profiles coming so stay tuned for those!
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Profiles will continue to flow as we approach March. As I dive deeper on pitchers, rankings will continue to shift. I obviously don’t want to be making sweeping changes to the them in mid-and-late March so y’all can have confidence in them as your drafts come up so I expect the massive swings to slow down after the next couple of updates. I’ve been battle-testing my rankings with multiple drafts recently and that’s been a key driver behind a lot of movement. I had my TARF draft last Sunday (board can be found here, I’m team 4) which is part of the EARTH set of drafts as well as the LABR mixed draft (board) this past Tuesday and both were eye-opening in terms of where I sit with a lot of pitchers.
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More rankings movement, more profiles and unfortunately more injuries. We’re at that time of the year when the injuries will start rolling in with way more frequency than any of us want.
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Mid-March, we are in the thick of it now! Good bit of movement again today as things really start to develop with Main Events starting over at the NFBC. We’ll be through the Top 100 profiles w/the next update, but if you have questions about anyone without a profile yet, please don’t hesitate to drop a comment.
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Another big update here on March 20th because the injuries just won’t stop! Last massive draft weekend before the season starts and then one more draft weekend for those who go right after the season gets going. I’ve battle tested these rankings in several drafts so I made some big moves based on guys I kept passing over at their current ranking and others I’ve been zipping up my board.
Paul Sporer: Welcome to the chat!! Thanks for coming out!
1:01
Guest: Hi Paul. Pick one or two to keep in a 12 team roto league. No CI or MI and 3 OF: sale 5th, Naylor 9th or Flaherty 16th. If I keep one I get a first round pick. Other keepers are: Betts, Soto, j. Ramirez, J. Rodriguez and Crochet. Thanks!
1:04
Paul Sporer: Let’s pair the guys traded for each other and lock in Sale for the 5th rounder!
Paul Sporer: Ya that’s in line with his Main Event ADP. I’m a big Grant Holmes fan, I’ll pay that price
1:05
Matt: Need and CI and OF to cover injuries for the first few weeks. Do you go high floor or high ceiling? Going with A CES/Jordan Walker, or a safer Nate Lowe/Larnach or Abreu?
It’s Main Event season!! For the unaware, the Main Event is the high-stakes marquee contest over at the NFBC where everyone competes in 15-team leagues but also in one giant 700+ team league against everyone. If you want to get into the NFBC but don’t quite want to jump into the Main just yet, they have leagues at all sorts of price points to get started. This is not an ad, but I’m a huge fan of the NFBC so I’m happy to gas them up to anyone looking to get into the mix!
Anyway, with the Mains rolling I wanted to take a look at who’s moving up so far. Starting pitching is notoriously priced up in Main Events as teams don’t want to be left short on the mound and as injuries pile up in spring, a lot of managers start to move their favorite SPs up the board. I took a look at the first 3 Main Events and compared SP prices to the Rotowire Online Championship leagues which is a 12-team format that functions similarly to the Main. It’s at a lower price point so there are far more teams, but it has that same overall component that makes these NFBC events so unique.
I broke things down by pick range instead of just looking at the biggest movers overall or else all 15 guys would’ve been from the later rounds. Without further ado, 15 significant SP risers through 3 Mains (there has been a 4th since I pulled the data, but I’d already made my charts and everything so I didn’t get it into the mix):
Paul Sporer: Welcome, thanks for coming out! I’ve got an SP rankings update coming out later today so we’ll probably be on a tight hour, let’s dive right in!
1:00
Flippy: Josh Lowe – Top 25 OF or Top 15 OF by end of the year?
1:01
Paul Sporer: Very comfortable w/the top 25 but can def see a Top 15 if he really thrives in that new home park as many of us believe he can. I’m in on the buyback!
1:02
hurt people hurt people: Favorite IL stash dart throw (in an AL league with unlimited IL)?
Bradish? Bieber? Christian Javier? Ha-Seong Kim 김하성? Pablo Sandoval? David Fry? Or something else?
(Kutter/Neto/Meadows/Grayson back too soon to expect a discount)
1:02
Paul Sporer: Probably going for Kim there. Those pitchers are too far out with 2nd half returns. And I know you meant Patrick Sandoval, but Pablo is a funny typo!
1:02
Ted: Does Verlander have 1 more good season left? He blew Lawrence Butler away a couple times yesterday at 96
