03/12/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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RELIEVER PREVIEW

• Here is the NFBC Average Draft Data, but we didn’t follow it in order for this one.

THE SUPER 3 (6:46)

• Josh Hader
• Aroldis Chapman
• Kirby Yates

THESE GUYS ARE GOOD, TOO (18:05)

• Edwin Diaz
• Roberto Osuna
• Kenley Jansen

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OK, I thought shortstop was the deepest position this year, but I thiiink I’m anointing third base even deeper. Keep in mind that my main league focus is a 15-team mixer so I see someone like Solak down at 39 (11 games at 3B) and get pretty excited about it. For me, when a position is remarkably deep, I don’t necessarily let it sit and just take someone later but rather I’m more apt to dive in and leverage that depth for multiple positions. I could see myself getting 3B, CI, and UT out of this pool.

If you want to check out my list from September with some commentary on the Top 30, you can still find that here.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

UPDATE: Frazier & Camargo added

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03/11/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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CATCHER PREVIEW

• NFBC Average Draft Data (set to Online leagues and start date of 3/2/20)

THE SUPER 5

• J.T. Realmuto
• Gary Sanchez
• Yasmani Grandal
• Willson Contreras
• Mitch Garver

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Transcript from today’s chat. Thanks for coming out!

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03/10/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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SECOND BASE PREVIEW

• NFBC Average Draft Data (set to Online leagues and start date of 2/29/20)

The Studs (1:13)

• Gleyber Torres
• Ozzie Albies
• Jonathan Villar
• Ketel Marte
• José Altuve

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We often hear the adage “you can’t win your draft in the first round, but you can lose it.”

No, you can’t.

Even a total flop of a first-round pick doesn’t preclude you from winning your league. It’s just not how baseball drafts work. Leagues are largely won in the middle and late rounds of drafts. We as a fantasy baseball industry probably spend too much time on the first couple rounds when it comes to article and podcast analysis, but then in October we hear stories from champions about how the picks that clicked from the 10th round and later were instrumental in their title runs.

For today’s exercise, I’m going really deep. Let’s take a look at the average draft position (ADP) data from last year’s NFBC Main Event and put together the best team I can using players drafted after pick 300 (21st round or later). Admittedly, this is hardly a perfect exercise. First off, of course having the answer key makes life easier, but there’s also the fact that not all of these guys emerged immediately so even in cases where they were drafted, many were likely cut before they broke out and wound up performing for a different team.

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03/09/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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FIRST BASE PREVIEW     

• NFBC Average Draft Data (set to Online leagues and start date of 2/29/20)

Superstars (4:40)

• Cody Bellinger
• Freddie Freeman
• Pete Alonso

Studs (13:35)

• Matt Olson
• Paul Goldschmidt
• DJ LeMahieu
• Anthony Rizzo
• Max Muncy
• Jose Abreu

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Shortstop is regarded as the deepest position on the diamond and I agree with that. It is remarkably rich with talent and you might wind up with your SS, MI, and UT from the position in some drafts. I can’t recall a time where that was ever the case.

Any of the top 26 could feasibly be your starter at the position and it wouldn’t be awful. Those guys in the 19-26 range have either already done it or have real upside to be strong starters. That kind of depth is usually reserved for 1B!

The blue bar starts a new tier. I included guys with at least 10 appearances/5 starts at SS to accommodate Yahoo!’s eligibility rules. Please let me know if I forgot to include anyone who definitely belongs on the list (meaning like an obvious top 25 type… there are some guys toward the end you might like but I likely didn’t include them because they’re not good enough)

If you want to check out my list from September with some commentary on the Top 30, you can still find that here.

Let me know what you think in the comments! What’s your gameplan at SS? Are you looking to pile up multiple studs at the position or are you going to push you luck and wait for the depth to come to you?

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The keystone is probably the weakest non-catcher position, but it’s not awful. I can’t get on Brad Johnson’s train that 2B is deeper than SS, but I will concede that the lack of depth at 2B has been overstated.

The blue bar starts a new tier. I included guys with at least 10 appearances at 2B to accommodate Yahoo!’s eligibility rules (I forgot to do that at 1B).

If you want to check out my list from September with some commentary on the Top 30, you can still find that here.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

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03/04/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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STARTING PITCHERS Pt. 5 (#81-101 + 10 more!)

• NFBC Average Draft Data (set to Online leagues and start date of 2/26/20)

81-86 (1:40)

• Johnny Cueto
• Brendan McKay
• Steven Matz
• Michael Pineda
• Ross Stripling
• Reynaldo López

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