OK, it’s time to start getting these going as I’ve fallen behind a bit due to an unexpectedly busy offseason.

OTHER TEAMS:

• Pittsburgh Pirates
• Seattle Mariners
• Houston Astros
• Baltimore Orioles
• Cincinnati Reds
• Los Angeles Angels
• Miami Marlins

3 QUESTIONS

Can Jake Odorizzi repeat his success?

Odorizzi was a standout pitcher in his second year with the Twins, posting a 3.51 ERA and 1.21 WHIP in 159 innings. He even made the All-Star team. In his debut with the Twins back in 2018, he had a 4.49 ERA and the Twins likely realized one key issue with the right-hander: he couldn’t go deep into games. His OPS was .627 the first time through, .659 the second time, and then soared to 1.159 the third time.

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02/10/20

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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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Mookie Betts deal final
• BARF league review

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Transcript is below!

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The New York Yankees announced that top starter James Paxton will be out at least 3-4 months after undergoing a microscopic lumbar discectomy to remove a peridiscal cyst. It’s absolutely brutal news for the 31-year old lefty, who has battled injuries throughout his career as Jay Jaffe outlined in his piece about the injury. It does look like the timeline is for his return to the field so late-May/early-June is the target, but I’d plan for mid-to-late June just to be safe.

In leagues with IL spots, I have no real issue stashing him, even if it were for the full three months of the regular season. His price will plummet, and you need to decide where you’re comfortable grabbing him as a stash. There was only one NFBC draft last night after the news and he went 224th, which put him around the likes of Ian Kennedy, Giovanny Gallegos, and Griffin Canning as far as pitchers. Now it’s worth noting that the NFBC doesn’t have IL spots so anyone drafting him must eat one of their seven reserve spots.

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02/05/20

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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• @sporer – Host/Producer
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host

Paul and Justin take you through their entire LABR Mixed league draft. You can find the full results here:

• Draft Board
• Tweet thread

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02/05/20

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.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host/Producer
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host

Paul and Justin set up their gameplan for Tuesday night’s LABR Mixed league draft (a 15-team 5×5 league).

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02/05/20

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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• @sporer – Host

Paul gives his thoughts on the massive trades that went down on Tuesday night with Mookie Betts, David Price, Kenta Maeda, Joc Pederson, Alex Verdugo, Brusdar Graterol, and Luis Rengifo on the move, plus some prospects and a pending “big league starter” (plllleeeaaassseee be Ross Stripling!!).

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Players who play multiple positions are being valued more and more every year. The act-first nature of FAAB has made the flexibility very useful. If you can find room for the best free agents every week by shifting players around the lineup to ensure you’re cutting your worst (or perceived worst since there’s obviously some guesswork with it), you’re adding value. There is no real consensus on how much extra value to give players with multiple positions so it’s more art than science. At the very least, I’d use it as a tiebreaker, favoring the guy with another position or two.

Let’s take a look at the guys with multiple positions heading into 2020. The industry standard is 20 games so we’ll start with that, but I’ll do this with 10+ games and list the games played at each position so you can see exactly where they qualify and apply your league rules. I’m going to go position-by-position using their primary as the starting point. I really don’t believe you should ever use a catcher at a different position so I’m not listing those.

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Some of the best investments at the draft table can be the players who were hyped up the year before but failed to deliver on expectations. Often their price plummets and unless their profile greatly changed for the worst the year before, they still carry the upside that made them so popular in the first place. Here are 10 guys I’m looking at rebuying in 2020 drafts:

Travis Shaw – 3B – TOR | 2019 ADP approx. ~85; 2020 ADP: 357

After a pair of really solid 30+ HR seasons, Shaw melted down with a 47 wRC+ effort in 270 plate appearances last year. In a recent Mining the News, Jeff had a tidbit about how Shaw revamped his swing a bit to disastrous results and he was too far gone once he tried to revert back. Despite the overall nightmare, I am heartened by the fact that Shaw put up a 147 wRC+ in 174 PA at Triple-A so he didn’t completely forget how to hit. At this price, how could I not take a shot on him reverting back to his 2017-18 form?

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One potential avenue to finding a playing time gem is searching for those who are out of options and thus cannot be sent down to the minors without having to clear waivers. Some of these guys would clear waivers and wouldn’t be great even with some playing time, but I’m still including them just to be thorough. I’ll obviously highlight my favorites. The new 26-man roster will definitely save quite a few of these guys.

• American Leaguers

NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST

Atlanta Braves

Adam Duvall – We’re getting further removed from his back-to-back 30+ HR seasons (2016-17) and there’s no room in the Atlanta outfield right now. He’s a capable 4th OF and would make a nice power pickup if extended time opened up.

Charlie Culberson – He gets more at-bats that his profile page suggests because he definitely plays a handful of games every year in Dansby Swanson’s jersey and I simply cannot be convinced otherwise.

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