Fantasy baseball is about having fun. One of my leagues is a head-to-head format against my former college teammates. I use this league as an opportunity to be (a little) less competitive.

My first few seasons – about a decade ago – were frustrating. My attempt to build balanced rosters led to a consistent top two roto score and a sub-.500 H2H score. Apparently, being good-but-not-great in every category is an excellent way to consistently lose over half the categories per week. Then, completely by accident, I stumbled upon a strategy I’ve been successfully using for the last half decade.

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Real baseball starts next Thursday. Let’s wrap up the final full week of the offseason by checking in on an old sabermetric darling.

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Today, I’ve prepared for you a fantasy roster served two ways. The first is a reduction of ottoneu with a head-to-head sauce. For the second, I took advantage of the manager’s special on expiring meats to plate a premium meal on a budget. Enjoy.

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Here’s today’s transcript. Enjoy your drafts everyone!

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Spring Training is interminably inching towards inevitable heat death. With the end of fake baseball comes the advent of actionable fantasy news. Introduction complete.

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Last week, I offered some reasons why the Diamondbacks may prefer to keep Archie Bradley away from closing duties. I’ve been snagging value shares of Brad Boxberger and Yoshihisa Hirano just in case.

One of my strongest arguments was Arizona’s starting pitcher shortage. Although their top five is a talented group, they have no depth. Bradley is probably the sixth best starter in the system. Further, they’ll need to replace Patrick Corbin next offseason. Bradley is an apparent fit for the job. However, once a pitcher becomes a successful closer, it’s very rare for them to return to starting.

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Yep, that’s right. It’s bold predictions season. Unless you’re a newbie, you already know how this game is played. I predict 10 things I think are plausible but unlikely to happen. I’ll be aiming for a 20 to 30 percent success rate. You comment about how I wasn’t bold.

Last year, I did an informal experiment. I found I was more accurate when making negative predictions. Thus, to increase the difficulty level, here are 10 positive predictions.

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The transcript is up. I wasn’t grumpy.

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Narratives are the life blood of sportswriters. And so, it’s easy to summarize Jake Arrieta with a series of narratives. Scott Boras overreached, leading to a complicated three-year, $75 million deal rather than the $200 million target. The target was never realistic because Arrieta has declining peripherals. Pitchers tend to mysteriously disappear overnight in their early to mid-30s. Not all pitchers. Many. Most?

These are all familiar narratives regarding Arrieta’s surprisingly long stint in free agency. After signing on March 11 to join an awkwardly positioned Phillies roster, we now have a number of new tales to add to his storybook.

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Over on Twitter.com, Phillies prospect guy Matt Winkleman had an interesting thought. Behold.

You know what is really funny in a way. Given the way the offseason has gone, everything would have started falling the Marlins way if they wanted to contend

— Matt Winkelman (@Matt_Winkelman) March 9, 2018

Indeed, the Marlins could have had a very fun offseason. Jeets would be feted as the savior of Miami. If team failed to get off the ground, he could have sold all the same assets at a mid-season mark up.

By now, you may notice this isn’t about fantasy baseball. Strictly speaking, it’s a fantasy about baseball. Kinda adjacent, right? Sure.

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