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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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 LEAGUE EAST

Baltimore Orioles

Renato Núñez – It might seem odd to call someone coming off a 31 HR-99 RBI season “fringe” but tell that to Chris Carter. That said, he’ll be on the club, likely the full-time DH, and a safe bet for another 25+ HR.

Hanser Alberto – Coming off an insane out-of-nowhere season, Alberto has a secured spot after hitting .305 in 550 PA, but it was heavily influenced by short-side platoon domination. He hit .398/.414/.534 against lefties with a .435 BABIP and .238/.269/.340 against righties with a .237 BABIP. Don’t overpay.

Pedro Severino – Backup catcher with some AL-only 2C appeal.

Richard Ureña – Glove-only utilityman.

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01/29/20

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2020 THIRD BASE PREVIEW

I POSTED LAST YEAR’S JANUARY 29TH POST BECAUSE I’M AN IDIOT AND I’M STILL TYPING 2019 WHERE 2020 BELONGS. IF YOU DOWNLOADED BEFORE 6:09 PM CENTRAL (nice!), PLEASE DELETE & RE-DOWNLOAD. 

Interesting CIs Multi-Positionals (2:00)

• Scott Kingery
• Justin Turner
• J.D. Davis
• Hunter Dozier
• Ryan McMahon
• Yandy Díaz
• Brian Anderson
• Gio Urshela

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The Cincinnati Reds capped off their strong offseason with another big move, announcing the addition of Nicholas Castellanos on a 4-year, $64 million dollar deal (which includes opt outs after 2020 and 2021). Castellanos has been a solid above average hitter the last several years, but then stepped up a notch when joining the Cubs down the stretch in 2019. After posting a 105 wRC+ in 439 PA with Detroit, he was traded over at the deadline and posted an explosive 154 mark in 225 PA.

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The Ottoneu keeper deadline is fast approaching (11:59 PM EST), but many leagues use this date to set rosters before the season really begins.  I polled several owners of the Ottoneu community recently for their keeper deadline advice, so hopefully you’ll find some application for the thoughts below. Consider this a keeper Q&A for new players, but even if you don’t play Ottoneu, feel free to post your most difficult deadline decisions in the comments and I’ll do my best to weigh in.

Brad recently covered some specific Ottoneu keeper deadline advice here.

Q: What process do you use to determine the best number of players to keep on your Ottoneu roster?

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A couple weeks ago, I looked at 10 pitchers where I’m higher than the market with the promise of a second part looking at the pitchers where I’m a good bit lower than the market. I’m using the early average draft position (ADP) information at the NFBC in their Draft Champions leagues (50-round draft-and-hold format).

10 Where I’m Lower

Dallas Keuchel | 73rd SP in ADP; 113th SP by me

My rank is almost certainly lower than he’ll finish on a player rater if he gets at least 150 innings, but I don’t understand taking him in the top 75 when you can easily replicate his worth much later than that… possibly even as late as I have him. He doesn’t miss bats, he’s allowed more than a hit-per-inning in three of the last four seasons, his new team’s defense is unlikely to help, and he moves back to the American League with the DH after developing a bit of a home run issue last year (1.3 HR/9), so what’s there to like?

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The following is a distillation of a post I ran and later withdrew the other day.

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A team in the throes of a rebuild isn’t expected to do much in the offseason, but the Marlins quietly put together a nice set of moves, acquiring a group of players they can either look to flip and strengthen their system or be some of the veteran pieces of their next quality team years down the road.

OTHER TEAMS:

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

3 QUESTIONS

Is there any hope for Lewis Brinson?

Remember when Brinson hit 5 HR in Spring Training and got a bunch of fantasy managers excited about his 2019? I guess we glossed over the 32% K rate. Or the fact that he put up OPS totals of .937, .973, and .951 in the three Spring Trainings prior to 2019. The spring surge proved to be indicative of nothing positive as he went on to be literally the worst hitter in baseball (min. 245 PA) somehow hitting 0 HR in 248 PA. He now has 709 MLB PA over which he’s been – yep, you guessed it – literally the worst hitter in baseball (min. 700 PA) thanks to an impossibly bad .183/.238/.293 line in that time.

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