Author Archive: Paul Sporer

Some of this is being repeated from the Primer piece that went up this morning. 

We’re bringing them to you earlier this year, but that also means that they’re far from set in stone so take that into consideration as you peruse them. There are still superstars on the free agent market, let alone all the moving and shaking that happens once players start reporting to camp.

We’re using Yahoo! eligibility requirements which is 5 starts or 10 appearances. These rankings assume the standard 5×5 categories and a re-draft league.  If we forgot someone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure he’s added for the updates. If you have questions for a specific ranker on something he did, let us know in the comments. We can also be reached via Twitter:

• Paul Sporer
• Jeff Zimmerman
• Zach Sanders
• Mike Podhorzer
• Dan Schwartz
• Brad Johnson
• Paul Kastava

There will be differences, sharp differences, within the rankings. The rankers have different philosophies when it comes to ranking, some of which you’re no doubt familiar with through previous iterations. Of course the idea that we’d all think the same would be silly because then what would be the point of including multiple rankers?!

Think someone should be higher or lower? Make a case. Let us know why you think that. Like I said, it’s early. Things are going to change.

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We’re starting our annual Depth Chart Discussions, reborn as Playing Time Battles. This is the central housing unit for them. I will link each piece as it goes up. You can access this chart by click Depth Chart Discussions in the Draft Tools box on the right. You can also follow the DC Discussion tag if you prefer that.

Alex kicked it off with Toronto’s pitching!

Later today, we’re starting the first run of our 2016 Rotographs rankings. We’re bringing them to you earlier this year, but that also means that they’re far from set in stone so take that into consideration as you peruse them. There are still superstars on the free agent market, let alone all the moving and shaking that happens once players start reporting to camp.

We’re using Yahoo! eligibility requirements which is 5 starts or 10 appearances. If we forgot someone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure he’s added for the updates. The position order for the rankings roll-out will be as follows:

• Outfielder (Jan. 18-today)
• Starting Pitcher (Jan. 20)
• Shortstop (Jan. 22)
• First Base (Jan. 25)
• Catcher (Jan. 26)
• Second Base (Jan. 27)
• Third Base (Jan. 28)
• DH (Jan. 29)
• Reliever (Jan. 29 courtesy of the Bullpen Report crew)

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Episode 297

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

• Notable Transactions
  • Wei-Yin Chen to MIA
  • Gerardo Parra to COL
  • Yasiel Sierra to LAD
• Strategy Section
  • How much – if at all – does ADP affect your rankings?
  • Follow-up: can you give us 2 SPs who you’ll be way different than ADP on?
• Twitter/Email Questions
  • Adam Roberts on Carlos Gomez

We have a new email address for questions: sleeperpod@gmail.com. Send your fantasy-relevant questions. You can send keeper questions, but those are much better for Twitter. Questions most likely to get selected are those that apply more broadly, as opposed to specific trade or keeper queries. However, if you do ask a league-specific question, please include the league size and categories.

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If you’ve been reading any of my writing this winter or listening to the podcast, then you’ve heard me reference a draft I started back in November (click link for pics of first 23 rounds) during a trip to Arizona for Baseball HQ’s First Pitch Forums. It’s one of the NFBC Draft Champions 50-round draft-and-hold leagues. We did the first 23 rounds live and we start the final 27 today.

I picked 15th out of 15 in this draft and part of that was for today. I knew that 15th pick gets the first pick of the second part and the time in between often pushes some strong options up the rankings who otherwise would’ve been gone if we started from round 1 today. By the way, NFBC does the Kentucky Derby Style draft slotting where you pick your spot from what’s available. So I was 5th or 6th I think to make my selection and once 1, 2, and 3 were gone, I decided to jump back to 15 to be on the elbow with added benefit of the first pick in the winter session.

I’m interested in who y’all think I should take. Mind you, I’m not polling and then automatically taking the top choice, especially if it’s not a runaway vote. I just find this split-draft really interesting and I’d like to cash in my advantage so I figure talking it out with y’all will help.

I’m on the clock as of noon central with an 8-hour timer. I’m certainly not looking to take very much of that time at all since I’ve been sitting on this pick for quite some time. So after about 1 pm central, comments on who I should take will be moot as the selection will have been made, but then you can just make fun of me for picking incorrectly.

Before we get to who is available, let’s take a gander at my team (who says “take a gander”?):

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Episode 296

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

•  Notable Transactions
  • Drew Storen / Ben Revere trade
  • Denard Span to SF
  • Edwin Jackson to MIA

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Episode 295

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris are back for 2016! It’s the first episode of the year and the guys have a few signings to discuss including Kenta Maeda, Scott Kazmir, and Alex Gordon. They also talk about two recent pieces from Eno:

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That headline is not the slogan for Twitter, but it could be!

I got home from softball last night and really wanted to draft a baseball team. I wasn’t sure if anyone else was feeling the same, but figured I’d see if Twitter could fill up a mock draft over at CouchManagers and I was surprised when it filled in minutes. I was just doing their default setup which I didn’t realize was a non-standard roster construction of 18 rounds: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, UT, P, P, P, P, P, and Bench x4. To be honest I was a little bummed by that because I don’t play in any leagues with that format making it tough to draw much from the exercise.

So I decided to set up a second draft to run concurrently that ran a standard 23 rounds with the usual C, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, UT, P x9. I figured the first draft would be just a feeling out of where players are going very generally while the other draft would offer a better idea of team construction and give a bit more info about the market. By the way, I’ll be doing more evening (and even some midday) mocks over at CouchManagers during the winter so stay tuned on Twitter for info.

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Some might have you believe we just finished the most wonderful time of the year, but it’s actually coming up. Sleeper season is about to kick off for the 2016 fantasy baseball season and it promises to be another fun year of debating what actually constitutes a sleeper, who’s asleep and who’s just going at-cost, and whether or not you should include injury comebacks on your list. Another fascinating feature of Sleeper season is the group of guys who appear on virtually every list thereby negating their sleeper status by the time Draft season actually gets here: the wide-awake sleepers.

Examples from last year include Carlos Carrasco, Marcus Stroman before his injury, Michael Wacha, and Matt Harvey (especially by mid-Spring Training). They were all in 40s or later among starters in the winter magazines (which are written in the fall), but all were early-30s or higher by March. Stroman obviously fell off once he suffered the torn ACL, but Harvey surged all the way through draft season, winding up 14th among starters and top-50 overall. Being a part of this list isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

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Playing a little catch-up from the holidays, here are the fantasy implications from the latest impact moves and they aren’t all former Cincinnati Reds:

(Remember, you can follow all the move analysis here)

Johnny Cueto signs with SF

If a pitcher who struggled mightily like Jeff Samardzija gets a major boost by joining the Giants, then you can only imagine what it could do for Cueto. Overall, he had a fantastic season and has been  one of the best pitchers in baseball for the last five seasons. He sputtered some with KC, allowing a ton more hits while striking out two fewer batters per nine innings. He closed strong with a World Series complete game, but he’s likely thrilled to return to the Senior Circuit.

Homers usually get Cueto when he’s off. He had a 1.1 HR/9 with KC including outings of 4 and 3 HR. AT&T Park is the spot to stifle homers. That’s something Fangraphs, Statcorner, and ESPN can all agree upon when it comes to measuring park factors. This is a great move for the Giants to solidify their rotation with a big three in Madison Bumgarner, Cueto, and then Samardzija. All of a sudden, the burden on Jake Peavy and Matt Cain is much lower and Chris Heston is now the fill-in if one of them fails.

Impact: ++ for Cueto, – for Heston

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