The 60-game season fostered a lot of unexpected stat lines. Of course, the standard six-month seasons deliver them, too, but obviously the smaller sample breeds more volatility so let’s take a look at four big risers and see if we want to buy in for 2021.

Alex Dickerson, OF SFG | .298/.371/.576, 10 HR, 27 RBI, 28 R, 0 SB in 170 PA

Let’s get this out of the way immediately. He did get 30% of his home runs in one beautiful night at Coors Field, but that alone didn’t sustain his line. In his final 66 PA after the 3-homer game, he hit .356/.424/.627 with 3 HR, 7 RBI, and 12 R. He did have a meager .694 OPS in the run up to that career night, but a .231 BABIP was doing some heavy lifting there as he was still pacing toward a useful 22 HR/76 RBI full season.

His massive platoon split tempers the fantasy upside. He has a .278/.348/.514 line with 24 HR, 81 RBI, 84 R, and 4 SB in 551 PA v. righties while posting just a .687 OPS in 102 PA v. lefties. This will likely keep him relegated to a platoon role with guys like Austin Slater and Darin Ruf 러프 filling in for Dickerson against lefties. As such, it makes Dickerson a deeper league option.

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10/27/20

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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2021 TOO EARLY MOCKS

The Closing Pool

• Josh Hader & Liam Hendriks only top 100s
• Who’s reliable beyond that?
• Changing of the guard
• Up and Comers

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Every year I run mock drafts at the end (or right before the end) of the regular season. The idea is to get some gut reactions of the industry on where players are likely to be taken in early drafts for the following year.

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10/22/20

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
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

2021 TOO EARLY MOCK HITTERS

The Catching Pool

Catchers Discussed: J.T. Realmuto, Salvador Perez, Christian Vazquez, Gary Sánchez, Austin Nola, Sean Murphy, Daulton Varsho, James McCann, Mitch Garver, Max Stassi, Joey Bart, Danny Jansen, Tyler Stephenson, Omar Narváez

Where is Hitter X Goin?

• Yordan Alvarez 88
• Kyle Lewis 103
• Randy Arozarena 111
• Alec Bohm 119
• Dylan Carlson 162
• Wander Franco 176
• Gavin Lux 192
• Jo Adell 199

Favorite Post-200 Hitters

• Cedric Mullins
• Ke’Bryan Hayes
• Ty France
• Kolten Wong
• Carter Kieboom
• Evan White
• Cesar Hernandez
• Elvis Andrus

—

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed. Please rate & review the show in iTunes letting us know what you think!

Approximately 91 minutes of joyous analysis.

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Justin is running his annual Too Early Mocks and the wonderful Smada has once again compiled the average draft data for our perusal. Check out my 11 interesting pitching prices, too.

Christian Yelich 10.9 ADP – I was very interested in seeing how much the superstar would fall on the heels of a disappointing 2020 and unfortunately the market hasn’t overreacted as I’d have loved to catch a huge discount. Instead, he was still a firm 1st rounder ranging from pick 7 to 13 (these were 15-team leagues) and with good reason. It’s not at all unreasonable to suggest he’d have worked through his issues versus righties (1.068 OPS vL) in a full season as his .213 BABIP would’ve likely worked its way back to his career .354 while the 11-point jump in strikeout came in lieu of lower swinging strike and O-swing rates. I’m happily buying, even at this price.

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Justin is running his annual Too Early Mocks and the wonderful Smada has once again compiled the average draft data for our perusal.

The Top 3 SPs: Jacob deGrom, Shane Bieber, Gerrit Cole – deGrom went 1 in one league and Cole went 4 in another, but otherwise they averaged 7.7, 9.2, and 10.3, respectively. It’s not that I’m against the hitters going top 6 (Betts, Acuña, Tatis, Trout, Soto, and Turner), but I don’t understand how the mega aces aren’t more often in the top 3. I feel like the community at large is pushing pitching up (and not just the NFBC ecosystem), but the best of the best still don’t go high enough as far as I’m concerned.

Dinelson Lamet 53.7 ADP – He was unquestionably excellent as he flipped his pitch mix to throw the slider 53% of the time and his fastball was the best we’ve ever seen it, but he’s still at best a two-pitch guy and ended the season with a biceps injury that cost him the playoffs. That said, his slot as the 19th starter off the board matches where I put him in my initial rankings. Short of developing a third pitch, my biggest questions are whether or not the fastball can remain a plus offering and if he can continue to keep the ball in the yard – those are no doubt related as the fastball improvements played a big role his 8% HR/FB rate.

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Introduction

The key to succeeding in fantasy baseball:

Maximize the value of your accumulated roster.

At the start of a draft, each fantasy owner is handed a set of draft picks. Each owner receives a 1^st round selection, a 2^nd round selection, a 3^rd round selection, and so on. If your league chooses to hold an auction rather than a more traditional serpentine draft – each team is handed $260 at the auction start. Players are then purchased throughout the auction with the use of these finite funds.

The key to gainfully drafting is not to draft a 3^rd round player in the 3^rd round, or a 9^th round player in the 9^th round, etc. The key is to draft a 3^rd round player in the 10^th round, and a 9^th round player in the 20^th round.

In an auction, if you purchase every player at his projected value, you will have paid $260 of auction dollars for $260 of value. What you will have is an average team. You won’t finish last, but you won’t finish first. Instead, with your $260 – you need to buy some $290 or $300 or $310+ of total value.

The key is to make a “profit” on as many roster spots as you can. The goal is to purchase players at bargain prices.

I have asked this question before – but it is worth asking every now and again. Suppose that you competed in an NFBC fantasy baseball auction back in July this season.

Which player was the better purchase?

Bryce Harper (OF, PHI)

OR

Andrew McCutchen (OF, PHI)

Before opining on the better Philly outfield purchase of 2020, let’s take a look at their final 2020 stat lines:

On the surface, it seems like a pretty obvious answer. Harper had more HR, SB, R and a better batting average than McCutchen. He had just one fewer RBI.

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10/07/20

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
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• LDS Playoffs

TOO EARLY MOCKS

First Round review

• Surprise at the Top?
• Mookie Betts 1st 6 times
• Other 1s: Fernando Tatis Jr., Ronald Acuña, Jacob deGrom
• No Mike Trout & he’s only 2 in 2 drafts
• 5 OF, 4 SS, 3 SP, 2 1B (one w/OF), 1 3B
• Biggest 1st rd split: Freddie Freeman peak 6, low 21

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Every year I run mock drafts at the end (or right before the end) of the regular season. The idea is to get some gut reactions of the industry on where players are likely to be taken in early drafts for the following year.

Read the rest of this entry »

The playoffs are a great time for all of us to collectively watch the best the game has to offer and when they have major performances, it can stick with us. Those memorable moments are fun, but they can result in a Playoff Tax for us as the fantasy draft table the following year. This isn’t inherently bad as there are plenty of times when these showcases make us look deeper into a player and realize he’s someone we want on our team.

I remember seeing the exact moment that Walker Buehler skyrocketed up draft boards in October 2018:

The playoff fantasy tax will have Walker Buehler regularly going among the top 10 SPs in fantasy drafts next year.

— Paul Sporer (@sporer) October 27, 2018

He ended up going 12th among starters in Main Event drafts, so I was pretty close.

American League version

Here’s one player from each National League team who could make a big move with a strong October performance (ranging from studs to low/mid-tier options for deeper leagues):

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