4/15/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Corey Kluber & Carlos Carrasco smashed (2:40)

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It is a bi-polar week for possible FAAB bids. Not one arm stands out as a must bid. On the hitting side, a few wallet busters exist with some possible fierce bidding.  I’ll start with the hitters.

I’m a little under the weather so I provide as much information as possible and owners can make their own estimates. I might add some more analysis tomorrow morning.

As usual, I utilize CBS’s ownership rates to find potential movers since CBS allows daily pickups. The projected costs are for the 15-team, 30-player roster NFBC Main Event teams. Individual owners are going to need to adjust the values to their own league size and tendencies.
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Fantasy owners this past week found several players in demand, so owners needed to decided who headed to the waiver wire. Here are the players released and why in the NFBC Main Event.

Injury

• Troy Tulowitzki (30): No one saw this coming and by no one, I mean everyone.
• Brian McCann (21): His replacement, Tyler Flowers is a decent replacement especially in an on-base league.
• Jake Lamb (17): It’ll be interesting to see how much playing time Lamb gets if Christian Walker continues to smash.
• Tyler Anderson (14)

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We are another week into the season and it’s an interesting week of FAAB bidding. Some bids over 10% may occur if the player wasn’t rostered during the last week’s FAAB process. Otherwise, it’s some nice popup names as playing time begins to settle down.

As usual, the bids are estimates for the 15-team NFBC Main Event leagues which use $1000 in FAAB budget and a $1 minimum bis. CBS’s ownership rates are used since daily pickup leagues are allowed in some of their leagues so the ownership rate can increase before the weekly FAAB transactions run. I used a cutoff at 25% ownership in the previous week to add the player.

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4/1/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Main Event & TGFBI bidding

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Another week into the season and another week of drops. I’ve categorized all the drops in 10 or more NFBC Main Event Leagues and some other names I find interesting.

Hurt

• Steven Souza Jr. (27)
• Hunter Strickland (21)
• Andrew Heaney (14)
• Mark Trumbo (12): The 33-year-old is out at least two months and his owners are likely dealing with a roster crunch. On one team, I dropped Justin Upton.
• Corey Knebel (11)
• Elias Diaz (11)

Demoted

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Last season, I started collecting FAAB bids from the NFBC Main Event to help estimate the player costs. It’s time to start the 2019 estimates for week two. The process is far from perfect but it does provide a bidding guideline. I use the NFBC Main Event because it contains 37 15-team leagues but each individual league is going to have its own unique dynamics. Understanding and trackings the differences are key for each owner. Owners need to take these player guesstimates and see how they compare to their own league. It may seem like too much work but can really help to determine how much to spend.

In our book, The Process, Tanner Bell and I broke down the 2018 FAAB bidding in detail going over the various trends. We found that player bids fit into three types:

1. Minimum bids: These are $1/$0 bids for players only the person bidding desires. Owners need to find the corresponding ownership rates and the bids which won these players and stick to it. So many dollars are wasted on early season overbids on players only one person needs to fill in for an injured player.
2. Middle ground: I feel this area is where leagues are won and lost. Owners see players with new skills and/or playing time. The key with these players is to understand they can’t be had for $1 but an owner doesn’t need to drop >10% of their budget on them. It’s more of an art when bidding in this range.
3. Wallet openers: These players are going to go from anywhere between 10% to 50% of a budget. Usually, these players are rookie call-ups or new closers. The key may not be winning the bid as much as setting a limit to not cripple your team in the future.

Here are this week’s estimated FAAB with the ownership percentages from CBSSportsline and bid estimates for the NFBC Main Event ($1000 Budget, low bid of $1). I use CBS’s ownership rates since they divide the ownership by weeks but also allow daily pickups. An early player demand rate can be seen from these daily pickups.

Thoughts:

• My FAAB formula has the minimum bid this week at $25 dollars. I know bids can be lower, but teams historically have spent a few more dollars early to get their guy. Last year, over two-thirds of the week-two bids were over $10. The above players are in demand and will not be won for a minimum this week.
• There could be several wallet openers this week if the players slipped through the cracks and are available (Holland, Peralta, Lauer, Tatis, Beckham, Hernandez). The surprise jump for me is Eric Lauer. While I picked him up in several places as a streaming option, he now has some real trade value with his dominating win.
• In leagues where Tatis is available, I’d not be surprised at all if he goes for 50% of total FAAB. Personally, I’d max out around 20% to 25%.
• I added a few closer options, especially with the Hunter Strickland injury. The one arm I’m a little surprised is so low is Blake Parker. He may be Minnesota’s closer and only has a 14% ownership rate. Last week in Tout Wars, I pegged him as Wallet Opener and spent over $100 in FAAB on him. The next highest bid was $37. I should have used my own work to limit my bid and not waste the $70 in FAAB.
• For reference, here are players picked up the most last season along with the average bids.

I’m experimenting with a new article format this year. Instead of concentrating on the most added players, I’m going to concentrate on those poor souls owners are throwing in the towel on. Most of the discarded players will have been demoted to the minor or dinged up. It’s the few who don’t fit into either of these two categories who I will focus on. Sadly, there aren’t many this first week.

To find which players are being dropped, I’m going to use the NFBC Main Event leagues. They are 15-team roto leagues which have some depth and most of the owners will be trying since each posted a $1K+ entry fee. The league will contain active owners making overall trends easier to spot. This week, I have the adds and drops from only 18 leagues since some leagues haven’t drafted yet and included my top-three choices at the end.

Injured List

Jason Kipnis: 7

Kipnis and the scrubs the Indians are using in the infield should be monitored closely. Kipnis should get his job back once healthy and he could be a reasonable buy a week early for a team needing infield help.

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