I love the idea, almost to a fault, of taking one or two of the top 5 SPs in the first and/or second round. The reason I like getting these top arms is that they provide a ton of strikeouts with great ratios. This base in ratios allows me to ignore pitching for almost 10 rounds and then bottom feed. One problem I’ve run into with this strategy is that I won’t have this option available if I’m picking in a draft’s first few spots. I’m not passing on the five-category hitters and according to the current NFBC ADP (average draft position), the top Aces will be gone by the time my second pick comes around. If I’m forced into this situation, I’m considering going with the what I’ll call the “Streaming WHIP” plan.

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How different are these two pitchers?

• Pitcher A: 3.67 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 24% K, 7% BB, 3.18 FIP
• Pitcher B: 3.77 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 28% K, 7% BB, 3.41 FIP

I’d probably lean toward B as I’m a strikeout slut, but the idea that they’re markedly different wouldn’t really hold up. Even if you look at their pitches, I’m not sure there’s a clear difference:

• Pitcher A: -4.2 FB, 10.0 SL, 1.4 CB, -1.3 CH
• Pitcher B: -4.8 FB, 11.2 SL, 4.8 CB, -3.2 CH

Pitcher B has a stronger second-best pitch with that curve, but Pitcher A’s fastball and changeup were both better while the pair shared similarly strong sliders. After his campaign, Pitcher A was taken as a top 40 SP in most drafts. Currently, Pitcher B is going among the top 25 SPs, which means yes, it’s two different seasons for these stat lines. Both also happen to pitch in the most hitter-friendly environment the game has ever seen.

By now you’ve likely guessed that both are Colorado Rockies.

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Earlier this week, I did a breakdown of 1B using the NFBC ADP data. I grouped them according to the draft slots and gave some thoughts on who I liked and disliked at their current costs. Since I was using the NFBC draft data, it was only listing those who are currently qualified by the standard 20-game threshold (the industry standard and also what most sites use, while Yahoo! is most lenient at just 5 games).

I was so zeroed in on the group of NFBC-eligible first basemen that I didn’t even think about a very worthwhile group of players: those certain or very likely to gain 1B eligibility early enough in the season that you can draft them with the intention of being your primary option at the position and those who fell below 20 games, but still had enough to qualify at sites using a 5- or 10-game qualifier.

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It’s time to get nerdy. Very nerdy. While I’m going to post some auction values end the article’s end (I just lost 99% of the readers), the focus of the words is to concentrate on setting a pitcher-hitter split by just using Standings Gain Points (SGP). It’s not going to work with every league type. Not even close but it’s a theoretical solution which can help an owner the best chance to get the most value out of every draft pick or auction dollar. It’s definitely a better option when trying to set in-season values.

The following process is definitely ripe for discussion and argument. While writing The Process, Tanner and I debated this idea and even brought in others to determine if the pitcher-hitter split can be done by using SGP values. We published without including the concept as we were still ironing it out. We are still not in 100% agreement but here is the idea.

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Last year was an ugly season at 1B. It’s usually a power-focused position, filled with homers and RBIs aplenty, both categories often coming from several players. The 30+ HR hitters at first base were sliced in half last year, dropping to just seven after 14 in 2017. The number of 100+ RBI guys at the position has been dwindling for a while now but sank to just three in 2018. There were a whopping 13 in 2009 followed by 9, 9, 8, 7, 7, 6, 5, and 5 before only Jesus Aguilar, Edwin Encarnacion, and Anthony Rizzo reached the mark last season.

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Unless you plan on attempting to punt categories at your 2019 draft, at some point, one must acquire stolen bases. If you plan on completely ignoring the SB category – you can stop reading this article now. But for the rest of us, here is a look at where some potential bargains for speed may present itself in drafts.

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 1, 2018 to present).

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This morning, baseball Twitter has noisily hopped aboard the Joey Gallo hype train. Industry folks noticed his Steamer and THE BAT projections which suggest he should be far more highly regarded than is currently the case. Consider these projected fantasy lines:

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It’s time to start discussing pitcher rankings and fantasy managers need to know it’s a new landscape for two reasons. First, the idea of every team having one or two 200-inning starters is *over*. The top arms are putting up similar stats to the past. The change now is with the floor. It has just fallen. Starters are just not going as long and the Wins and Strikeouts they accumulate are gone. Second, many bullpens are now going to more of a committee approach where there aren’t 30 set closers but more like 20. The lack of Saves in a concentrated few closers boost their value and the overall value of every Save.

It’s time to get to the rankings. I used the 15-team Standings Gain Points (SGP) Formula from The Process to create these rankings. I used FanGraphs Depth Chart projections (stats in the table) along with three other sources (not to be named). I ranked them by the average SGP value and also included the standard deviation in all the values.

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A couple of days ago, I released some hitter rankings and now I’m going to dive into some players with the biggest value divergence. By going through the most different players, the value averaging makes any effects of an outlier less meaningful. Also, remember that these are the most divisive projections. Other player projections involve less disagreement.

It’s not always one projection being “wrong”. Each one as some instance of diverging. By using several projections, the faults of one are lessened.

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Why does redraft get all the nice things like a helpful Average Draft Position (ADP) to indicate the most auspicious time to target a specific player?

To my knowledge, ADP basically doesn’t exist for deep dynasty formats – and probably for a good reason. Deep dynasty is a snowflake ecosystem. Every league has its own unique nooks and crannies. They’re conducted on a variety of different fantasy platforms with offline components. More to the point, there probably aren’t very many first year drafts. Most dynasty leagues have been rolling for years.

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