Since I’m starting drafts, I decided I needed projections for seven of the players signing from Asia, either new to the MLB or returning. I could just pull a ranking out of my ass, but I figured I should at least start with a projection before inserting my own biases. For the following projections, I averaged the ZiPS and Clay Davenport projections and then add my own playing time adjustment.

Pitchers

Pierce Johnson
From the NRB
Signed with the Padres

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01/17/19

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10 PLAYERS WHO COULD SURGE IN MARCH DRAFTS

Current Price is January 1st-17th Draft Champions ADP

• Fernando Tatis Jr. from 2nd to mid-1st (4:36)
• Chris Sale from 3rd to late 1st-early 2nd (11:25)
• Mike Clevinger from 2nd late-1st (17:00)
• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. from 5th to late 2nd-early 3rd (22:15)
• Austin Meadows from 3rd to mid-2nd (27:48)

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In my last two columns, I uncovered potential undervalued speedsters and power bats by comparing the Steamer projections to the current NFBC ADP. The exercise now continues this week for batting average.

In 2019, there were 55 qualified players with least a .280 batting average. There were 36 players above the .290 mark, and 19 above .300. Tim Anderson led all of baseball with a .335 BA, followed by National Leaguers Christian Yelich and Ketel Marte who each hit .329.

Though 2019 had almost two dozen players who hit at least .300, you won’t find a projection set that will have that many BA studs. Projections are typically more conservative. Steamer only projects 17 regular players to bat over .290 in 2020, and only 5 players to eclipse the .300 mark.

For this year’s potential batting average bargains, we will focus on all players with a Steamer projection of a .278 BA or more. This will give us a number of players who can greatly help your fantasy team’s batting average in in 2020.

For these draft value comparisons, I look at:

• The player ranks as computed by the FanGraphs Auction Calculator with Steamer projections (standard NFBC 15 team roto league settings).
• The current NFBC ADP (of Draft Championship leagues from December 4, 2019 to present).

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I recently released my top 125 starting pitchers for 2020 and I couldn’t believe that nobody had a single question about them and everyone who saw them found them to be perfect top to bottom. OK, dumb joke. Anyway, I appreciate everyone getting in the comments and discussing the rankings with me. I’m still responding to questions and comments if you want to ask me about someone in the rankings.

Today I want to look the biggest differences between my rankings and the early average draft position (ADP) information at the NFBC in their Draft Champions leagues (50-round draft-and-hold format). On their list, they group all pitchers together so I took out the relievers making it more of a 1:1 comparison with my SP ranks. This will be a two-part piece with the first being the pitchers where I’m higher.

10 Where I’m Higher

Jeff Samardzija, SF | 107th SP in ADP; 52nd SP by me

I wouldn’t even say I’m a huge fan of The Shark, but his current ADP seems like a great price for someone who finished 33rd among SP on Razzball’s Player Rater last year. Even if you don’t fully buy the 3.52 ERA, he offers high volume with a strong WHIP. At the very least, he has Oracle Park protecting him for half of his starts. It’s a boring investment, but I’ll gladly take him outside the top 100 SPs.

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On Monday, I laid out my thought process for selecting Mike Trout first overall in 2020. To summarize, we have several legitimate choices. Absent secret information, they’re all a shrug away from the same, albeit in slightly different shapes. Trout stands out because he’s been so consistently good for so long. The alternatives all have shorter track records or a chance to fall out of the top 30 players – even without an injury. By comparison, we know a healthy Trout is a monster fish.

Today we’ll take a peek at all the players you could reasonably select over Trout on draft day. Let’s toss them into a few buckets. ADPs are from NFBC.

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In last week’s edition of this series, we uncovered several undervalued speedsters for 2020 drafts. We did so by comparing the Steamer projections to current NFBC Average Draft Position reports. Today, we will go through a similar exercise for potential power bargains.

For this article’s draft value comparisons, I look at:

• The player ranks as computed by the FanGraphs Auction Calculator with Steamer projections (standard NFBC 15 team roto league settings).
• The current NFBC ADP (of Draft Championship leagues from November 27, 2019 to present).

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Oftentimes, I write out of inspiration. This time, I write simply to write, because the subject happened to creep up into my thick ol’ skull without provocation, which I guess is a type of inspiration in and of itself but not wholly what I had in mind. No one specifically needs this post right now, or maybe everyone does. I don’t know.

Something I do see and have seen before, however, with frequency, are mentions of such-and-such player rising or falling in the ranks, usually by virtue of average draft position (ADP). ADP is a measure of a player’s rank by aggregating data for a whole boatload of snake drafts. It’s a good way of assessing a player’s market value.

The problem with ADP is, unless you have completed research nearly identical to this, you can’t possibly be expected to know how a player’s ADP rank might equate to a dollar value at auction. Having this knowledge, this intuition, is arguably helpful in understanding how much you’re staking on any particular player. Moreover, changes in ADP become easier to digest. Possibly. For me, it does. If you’ve never participated in an auction draft before, maybe it doesn’t.

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There’s a debate going around Twitter. If you want some cheap likes and retweets, try dropping this poll:

Who would you pick first overall?

Mike Trout

Christian Yelich

Ronald Acuna

Other

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A new year and in turn, a new decade is now upon us! We have begun the Roaring Twenties once again. More importantly, fantasy baseball draft season is now upon us.

I am not one for paying large amounts of attention to positional rankings. Knowing who is valued as the 7^th best shortstop, or who the 11^th ranked second baseman is – is helpful no doubt, but that alone will not win you your fantasy leagues. We can spend time debating whether Rhys Hoskins is better than Trey Mancini, but since the duo have similar profiles, the discussion isn’t all that helpful on its own.

To me, the task that needs the higher priority – is the comparison of market prices to player valuations. The greater assignment is to determine the players which the market undervalues. One of the first exercises that I engage in – is to find the players which projections foretell a superior year as compared to where they are currently being priced.

The two needed components to complete this analysis are very generally:

• Projections
• Market

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I going to examine how both Hyun-Jin Ryu‘s and Dallas Keuchel’s fantasy value changed since both signed over the last few days.

Hyun-Jin Ryu signs with the Toronto Blue Jays

Ryu finally pieced together a great season by staying healthy and throwing more innings (182) than any time since 2013 (192). While his strikeout rate was acceptable (23%), he dominated (2.32 ERA) by walking almost no one (3%) and in the juiced ball era, he limited home runs (0.8 HR/9) with a surge in groundball rate (50%).

I hate this move for Ryu’s value with every aspect being a downgrade from the Dodgers. He moves to the AL where he’ll face a DH more often. He goes to the hyper-competitive AL East. He transitions from a pitcher’s park to one that is neutral overall but gives up more home runs than average. Finally, he goes from a nearly average defense to one in the bottom third.

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