Note: Make sure to read Piotr’s comment. It’s a simpler in-season alternative.

A completely underappreciated class of players is non-closing relievers. With starters going fewer and fewer innings, the gap between the starting dregs and good non-closers has narrow considerably. This past season Devin Williams, Matt Foster, Josh Fleming, and Pete Fairbanks each ended the season as a top-60 pitcher value.  Starters don’t throw enough to get the Win or accumulate many strikeouts. A reliever can easily occur more strikeouts than a single-start starter in a single week. Additionally, the strikeouts usually come with better ratios and the off chance for a Win or a Save. Picking out elite middle relievers is tough, but I have a couple of simple rules to follow to help find them.

Determining who is going to be a good middle reliever in the upcoming season is tough. It’s almost impossible. First, few repeat being lights out each season (e.g. Andrew Miller). Second, the relievers who show the skills to be elite from season-to-season become closers and their price skyrockets. It’s a dynamic group.

The 2020 season added to the chaos. When it ended, MLB and fantasy teams were just settling into their rotations. Middle relievers were just getting to the point of becoming roster regulars. I don’t think they were as valuable in the shorter season where teams had excessive FAAB to spend on a new pitching staff each week.
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I enjoy participating in some early season draft-and-holds because they allow me to dive deep into the player pool before FAAB drafts start. Also, the extra time between picks allows my partners and me to work out our differences before any timed drafts. This past season, my results varied from winning the league to not even being competitive. I’m going to go through my process for dissecting leagues to find any possible future improvements (full drafts at end of the article).

I’m going to focus on the procedure of breaking down a league after the carnage. I know people don’t want to read about my leagues, hell I don’t even care about them as I get ready for 2021 but I need to stop making the same mistakes. Here are the four steps I use to investigate and improve my leagues.
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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.

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• @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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To say the least, the 2020 fantasy baseball season will go down as a one-of-kind. A late start led to a 60 game sprint. Seven-inning double-headers. Weeks of rescheduled games because of COVID-19 positive tests. The National League DH. Twenty-eight-man rosters in September. Each of these on its own would fill the headlines. With the changes coming all at once, they felt overwhelming. I’m hoping to calm everyone if any and hopefully not all of the changes happen again. Here is some advice on how to handle the changes.

The help divided up into league setting and individual manager focus. While I inserted plenty of my own advice, I wanted to make sure as many people as possible contributed so Tweeted out and asked during my chat for input.
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06/16/20

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
• @longenhagen – Guest: Eric Longenhagen

DRAFT REVIEW

• How likely is Spencer Torkelson to debut at 3B?
• You had Heston Kjerstad as a potential Balt. pick, how much of a “reach” was it?
  • Did they maximize the deal w/their other picks? (Westburg, Haskin)
• What’s Nick Gonzales’s offensive outlook in PIT?
• His whole profile made him a potential 1.1, but what kind of fantasy profile did TOR get w/Austin Martin?
• Best fantasy future of the 3 Ps taken early: Max Meyer, Asa Lacy, Emerson Hancock

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Note: This article was written in two parts, with the first half being before the draft and the second half after completion.

Prep

Tonight, I’m participating in a 1999 retro with several other industry analysts. The premise is simple: the owner drafts a 5×5 roto team based on the 1999 season’s final player stats. That’s where the simplicity ends.

I knew these drafts were going on but as I was busy with other projects, I hadn’t dived into them. Then Fred Zinkie contacted me to do an idiot check on his valuations for the draft that happened last Wednesday. I’m a fan of using SGP (standings gain points) for my normal evaluations, but none were available for 1999. Instead, I had to break out a copy of The Process and create the player valuations based on the Z-score method. (Z-score looks at how much a player’s real or predicted stats are above or below the league average for the draftable player pool. It takes several passes to get the correct valuations since the final player pool is unknown. The z-score method is helpful when no league history exists.)

After I was done, we noticed two differences. Fred used a modified SGP for the season and was valuing stolen bases a little more. We aren’t sure of the cause, but he gave catcher and middle infield a little more of a bump. I think the difference was from the different stolen base values. Read the rest of this entry »

The following is the second part of my 2020 LABR Mixed Auction recap. You can read Part I of my recap here. This was the inaugural season of the new LABR Mixed Auction league, and my very first expert auction league.

In my Tout Wars recap series, I talked about how to adjust projections for a particular league format, the proper hitter/pitcher splits to use, and how to create a market pricing curve. I also discussed at length about how to scout your opponents, and to use it to your advantage.

In Part I of my LABR recap, I talked about how to create an initial plan, and how to set an auction budget.

Today’s article will focus on a topic that is barely discussed in the fantasy community. However, I believe it to be a large key in managing your auctions, and crucial in the quest to accumulate the most fantasy value at the draft table. I am referring to player nominations.

“Tactics is to know what to do when there is something to do and strategy is to know what to do when there is nothing to do”. – Gary Kasparov

If fantasy baseball drafts are akin to a game of checkers, auctions are in many ways a multi-player game of chess.

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For the next few weeks or until any real news starts becoming available, I’m going to run a 14-team snake draft using today’s Average Draft Position (ADP) at FantasyPros. The ADP is available from six websites and their average. Simply enough, I gave each ranking two mirrored picks in a 14-team draft. Whichever site picked first got the 14th pick. When it came to each pick, I just took the highest-ranked player without regard to team construction. And here is the draft order:

Before I begin the process, I’m not sure at all what I hope to find. Maybe a site that values pitching more. Should owners go with the average or just go with NFBC where owners have more skin in the game? Are the drafters on some sites just drunk? Here are the results of first four rounds.
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I do not believe in authoring the typical expert draft recap article. I do not believe in writing a recap simply to illustrate one’s favorite players, or as a means to boast about one specific draft outcome. I do not believe in only going through a few undervalued players for the given year which happen to appear on that particular fantasy squad. I do not believe in writing recaps just for the heck of it.

I believe in imparting important lessons that one can take to their own drafts. More importantly, I prefer to communicate wisdom by talking through my process and preparation. I like to discuss various elements of strategy that can be of help to the astute fantasy player – which can be used in any given year.

I hope that in my draft recap series of articles, but especially in this 2020 season in limbo – you will be able to adapt and add many of my strategy components to your arsenal of fantasy baseball tricks.

For the TGFBI draft recap this year, I related the time-specific hitting and pitching landscapes of 2020. In my recap of the 2020 Tout Wars Head-to-Head auction, I provided insights into the process of preparing your own valuations and how to assemble comparative market pricing. I also discussed (at length) how to use your opponents’ tendencies to your advantage.

For my recap of the LABR Mixed auction, I will focus on a few critical strategy aspects:

• Setting an auction budget
• Developing a plan
• Auction nominations

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