Author Archive: Paul Sporer

Episode 294

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette are back for one more 2015 episode! Yeah, I thought the last episode would be their last of 2015, but y’all got lucky! Today they’re talking the Chapman trade, some mid-tier signings (Murphy, Leake, etc…) and their early thoughts on the NFBC ADP data released over the weekend.

Who stands out to you based on their early draft position?

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I discovered a Christmas treat over the weekend: NFBC average draft position data is now up for 2016 drafts! I don’t know exactly how many drafts have taken place just yet, but it’s still nice to get an early look at things and see what’s going on. I’ve got some thoughts for every position:

CATCHER:

• Buster Posey is far and away the top catcher for 2015. The 89-pick gap between Posey and Jonathan Lucroy is more than double the next-biggest at any position – which happens to be 42 picks between Carlos Correa and Troy Tulowitzki.
• I like Lucroy for a rebound, but I’m not chasing him so if I don’t take Posey then I’m waiting a bit on catcher. It’s not an endless trove, but Blake Swihart, Yasmani Grandal, Derek Norris, Nick Hundley, Miguel Montero, Wilson Ramos, and Welington Castillo are all going after pick 200.
• Don’t wait too long, though, dollar catchers are the worst investments in dollar days. The Baseball Forecaster by Ron Shandler tells us that dollar backstops return negative value on average.
• Edit: I just realized Kyle Schwarber is listed under OF despite qualifying at C (21 games played) so his 33 ADP makes for just a 13-pick gap between the first and second catcher. 

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Hey AL-only players, you didn’t think Santa Paul forgot about you, did you? I offered two NL arms on the rise on Tuesday, one for all-formats and another geared toward to deeper leagues (at least until he proves himself some more), and I’ve got the same for the American League today.

Carlos Rodon, CWS – pick 238 in early November, pick 158 in a draft last week

I think you can ignore that early November price because you won’t get him that late in other drafts. He jumped 80 picks in less than a month based on nothing and then I did a 12-teamer just this week (the roster setup is different than these other two drafts so I didn’t include the ADPs on purpose) and he was up at pick 140. He’s likely to live in the 130-175 range.

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I’ve got two guys in the Senior Circuit – one for all formats and one for deep-leaguers particularly – who I think could have big seasons in 2016 while costing you relatively little on draft day (especially the second guy). I’ve done two drafts already (I know, right?) and the earliest either of these two went was the 10th round of a 15-teamer so even some winter helium isn’t going to send them into the cost-prohibitive territory where they have to perform to return value.

Raisel Iglesias, CIN – pick 165 (to me) in early November, pick 147 from a draft last week

Iglesias was one of those guys who probably landed on three or four teams throughout the course of the season in your league with the best work coming for whoever had him last.

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My headline would’ve been way better if Todd Frazier was traded somewhere south of Cincinnati. It’s pretty dope, though, right? RIGHT? He was the centerpiece to a three-team trade with the Dodgers, White Sox, and of course the Reds. The Dodgers and Reds each got a three-pack of prospects which we’ll get to shortly, but first let’s focus on Frazier with the White Sox.

Third base has long been an issue for the White Sox. In fact, when they first hired Robin Ventura it was to be the third baseman again, but after informed them that he was 44 years old and wouldn’t be any better than the dregs they were running out there already, he shifted into the manager’s role and they went with Orlando Hudson (50 wRC+ in 51 games) and Brent Morel (11 in 35) before getting the last bit of juice out of Kevin Youkilis for the second half of the season (110 in 80 and then he was done after just 28 games with NYY the following season).

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I did this with three young outfielders and really enjoyed it so I’m running it back with some pitchers. In fact, I might do a couple for pitchers given the remarkably vast pool of arms. Are these guys good? We’ll look at a couple key elements of their game and then give a recommendation.

One guy had some nice highs, but also some remarkably painful lows and injuries have dogged him throughout his career. Another guy held a sub-3.00 ERA through August 21st, but struggled so hard in his final eight starts that he wound up with a mid-3.00s figure by season’s end. Our last guy is 33 years old so we probably already know the answer, but a remarkable 11-start run to close out the season has re-opened the question about his goodness.

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Episode 293

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette have returned for their last episode of the year (Paul & Eno will almost certainly have at least one more) with some big signings to cover with Johnny Cueto going to San Francisco and Jason Heyward to the Cubs. Other notable moves on the docket for them today include Steve Cishek, Mark Reynolds, and an amendment to the Ken Giles trade.

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Episode 292

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris have a huge episode full of transaction analysis. The guys are talking about 15+ moves including Zack Greinke, Jeff Samardzija, Shelby Miller, Mark Trumbo, Starlin Castro, Ken Giles, and Brett Lawrie. It’s pretty great.

*air horn sound*

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of key transactions all winter long here at Rotographs. You can catch up on past deals here. The Winter Meetings wrap up early today with the Rule 5 Draft, but the last full day of action gave us a couple more high-impact trades:

To HOU: Ken Giles

To PHI: Vincent Velasquez, Brett Oberholtzer, Derek Fisher, and Thomas Eshelman

Primary piece(s): It seemed pretty clear that it was a “when” not “if” situation regarding the Astros acquiring a closer. They have been tied to all the available big-time closers and finally landed their guy in Giles. This might actually work out best as others they were targeting either lacked long-term control (Aroldis Chapman – I’m not ignoring his awfulness off the field, but that came to pass when Houston was already out of the running) or cost a pretty penny for said control (Andrew Miller).

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of the Winter Meetings moves all week long here at Rotographs. You can catch up on past deals here. Tuesday night offered up two nice fantasy-relevant deals and then a Wednesday morning deal came in as I was finishing this up!

To NYY: Starlin Castro

To CHC: Adam Warren

Primary piece(s): Warren performed better last year, but he is unlikely to have a role relevant to all fantasy leagues making Castro the piece that matters most here. Castro enters his age-26 with six full MLB seasons – four good, two bad. Unfortunately, the two bad have come within the last three, including 2015. Castro hasn’t really run since 2012 with just a 55% success rate in 33 attempts. His path to resurgent fantasy value is with the bat.

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