I feel the fantasy baseball season is at the part of the season where few “new” call-ups happen. Instead, it’s players we’ve already known about coming into and out of playing time. Garrett Cooper has been around for a couple of weeks but just now he’s seeing his ownership jump. I’ve noticed many of the movers are on 2nd or 3rd division teams. Owners are a little slow at knowing how the playing time shakes out on these sub-.500 teams. Bargains can be found in them.

The guidelines:

• The ownership rates are from CBS since they have some quickdraw waiver wire leagues where players can be picked up at any time.
• The FAAB estimates are based on the 2018 15-team mixed NFBC leagues which used a $1000 FAAB budget. Owners are going to need to convert these values to their own league.
• The ownership values were taken from Saturday and lots can happen in between when they publish and FAAB bids run.
• Only players owned in 50% or fewer of CBS leagues are examined.

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In last week’s “Who is Being Dropped & Why”, I noted the following on Jeremy Hellickson

At home, he faced the Mets and Cubs and they lit him up. I went back over the previous two weeks in the NFBC Main Event to see if owners targeted him for this two-step. In the Main Event, owners typically look two weeks ahead on the two-start pitchers to get a jump on the crowd.

Week: Add Count, Avg Bid
8: 7, $14
9: 5, $5

First, I found it a little funny that the owners hoped to get a jump on the bidding paid more. Second, almost all of the Hellickson shares added were then dropped (12 of 13).

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Today’s data dump is brought to you by Paul Sporer and Justin Mason. In a recent Sleeper and the Bust episode, they were frustrated with not knowing how bidding in a 12-team league compared to a 15-teamer. I decided to go ahead and dive into the bidding in the NFBC’s 12-team Online Championship and the 15-team Main Event.

Note: I worked on this article over the weekend and only had this season’s FAAB data up to week 10. By the time the article publishes, week 11 will be available. The results wouldn’t change much with one additional week.

First, here is some background information on the league types. They are exactly identical in these ways:

• 23 total starters, 9 pitchers, 14 hitters
• $1000 in FAAB to spend with no Vickrey bidding and the results run on Sunday evening.
• No $0 bids.
• Seven bench spots.
• Both have a league and overall prize.

As for the differences, one is obvious, one has 12 teams and the other 15 teams. The less obvious one is that the 12-team leagues, on average, start drafting earlier in the preseason. For this reason, MLB teams have more time to churn their rosters and deal with injuries making the first FAAB period a little more aggressive compared to the 15-team leagues.

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Introduction:

If you are reading this article, you likely play fantasy baseball. You are already well aware of the FAAB extravaganza which occurred two weeks ago. If your fantasy squad is sitting 40 points out of the money, the lure of an impact prospect on your roster was incredibly enticing. The peer pressure of bidding on a top 10 prospect surely lured you in to spend significant free agent resources on those young rookies.

The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI), was created by FanGraphs’ own Justin Mason. It is a compilation of 315 fantasy baseball experts – all who put out content one way or another (writing, projections, podcasts, etc.). The experts were divided into twenty-one 15-team 5×5 mixed roto leagues, with NFBC rules and regulations.

You can find out more about TGFBI and follow the experts here. You can listen to me regularly on the official TGFBI analysis podcast, called “Beat the Shift” right here.

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This past week’s Sunday night’s FAAB bidding was fairly calm after FAAB-ageddon. Even with else action, I find some of the drops interesting.

Note: Normally, I focus on players dropped in 10 or more leagues of the 38 but the five players dropped in nine leagues are the most interesting so I included them.

Injured

• Wilmer Flores (27): Fractured foot means bye-bye.
• Andrelton Simmons (20): I held onto Simmons utilizing the following news. Rostering him with limited roster space comes down to how many other injured players are on the team.

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I’m dragging right since I’m been dealing with groundwater flooding in my basement.  The analysis will be short to non-existent. I will provide the projected FAAB values along with last week’s bids and the bids from a year ago.

The guidelines:

• The ownership rates are from CBS since they have some quickdraw waiver wire leagues where players can be picked up at any time.
• The FAAB estimates are based on the 2018 15-team mixed NFBC leagues which used a $1000 FAAB budget. Owners are going to need to convert these values to their own league.
• The ownership values were taken from Saturday and lots can happen in between when they publish and FAAB bids run.
• Only players owned in 50% or fewer of CBS leagues are examined.

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With FAAB-ageddon over, it’s time to see who were the most dropped players in the 38 NFBC Main Event leagues.

Injury

• Jonathan Loaisiga (32): Shoulder issues have him out at least two months.
• Miguel Andujar (29): Out for the season with shoulder surgery.
• Anibal Sanchez (18): All ready barely startable and the injury made him expendable.
• David Robertson (18): Non-closer on the IL is worthless.
• Jed Lowrie (17): Bum knee and hamstring.

Demoted

• Teoscar Hernandez (22): I was using him as a spot starter on a couple of my teams hoping he’d get hot. It was nice to have the Blue Jays to make the decision to move on for me.
• Jeimer Candelario (20): Another borderline talent coming into the season who was sent down.

Note: In “The Process”, we wrote: “Any major leaguer with an OPS below .635 looks to be below average and could be replaceable.” Candelario was at .573 and Hernandez was at .562. The current low OPS list (min 100 PA) is littered with hitters who have been demoted (Justin Bour and Mallex Smith) or “injured” (Travis Shaw and Ender Inciarte). Any player under a .635 OPS and especially a .600 OPS could be at risk for losing their job.

• Nick Margevicius (16): Optioned to the minors with his 4.96 ERA and matching ERA estimators.
• Delino DeShields (14): A .605 OPS (see the above Note).
• Garrett Hampson (14): A .493 OPS (see the above Note).
• A.J. Minter (13): BS + L = 5. W + HLD + SV = 4. 9.32 ERA. Not the numbers a team wants from their closer.
• Kelvin Gutierrez (11): Nicky Lopez gets the call, Gutierrez heads down.

Other

• Francisco Cervelli (17): He’s not hitting (.505) and losing playing time to Elias Diaz (.537 OPS). It’s a pillow fight between these two.
• Aledmys Diaz (16): He could have been placed under the Injury heading since a hamstring issue may bench him some this week. And Jose Altuve may be back at the week’s end killing all of Diaz’s current fantasy value.
• Nick Kingham (15): He was demoted mid-week to the bullpen but now he may be starting on Wednesday.
• Brandon Kintzler (14): This Saves grab didn’t pan out.
• Derek Holland (14): Moved to the bullpen after struggling (7.36 ERA).
• Ryan O’Hearn (13): While his .648 OPS is above the demotion line, he’s useless to fantasy owners.
• Erik Swanson (13): Nine runs in three innings in his last start. He can’t even be streamed at this point.
• Eric Thames (12): He’s played in 18 games this month and started in only nine of them. The results (.189/.434/.270) are Joey Votto-ish.
• Austin Hedges (11): There are even a baseline catcher hitting thresholds and a .531 OPS doesn’t cut it.
• John Means (11): One start this week at Colorado. A reasonable drop but might be a cheap add later if he gets pounded.
• Julio Urias (11): Administrative leave for domestic battery.
• Junior Guerra (11):’He’s got a couple of Saves but Josh Hader looks to be the closer.
• Lou Trivino (11): Some owners were slow at dropping Trivino after picking him up when Blake Treinen had an injury scare.
• Emilio Pagan (10): Not the official closer but might get 10 Saves with elite counting stats (13.5 K/9, 0.68 WHP, and 0.61 ERA).
• Ian Kennedy (10): Another potential closer in which some owners were tired of holding on to.
• Jackie Bradley Jr. (10): A .421 OPS
• Jeremy Hellickson (10): Owners who took the Hellickson two-step were rewarded with a 4 K’s, 2.13 WHIP, and 9.00 ERA. Congrats.
• Trevor Cahill (10): I was looking to add Cahill when possible this past FAAB period. While I’m not keen on his matchup this week (home versus Minnesota), he has a nice two-step at Oakland and at Seattle next week.

Here are the players dropped in five or more leagues.

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This week’s mixed league FAAB run, especially in The NFBC where Corbin Martin is still available, will have the most money spent that I can ever remember. It reminds of an Only league at the trade deadline. There are just so many moving parts. I’m going to try to cover it all but let me know if any questions come up and I’ll try to answer them.

The guidelines:

• The ownership rates are from CBS since they have some quickdraw waiver wire leagues where players can be picked up at any time.
• The FAAB estimates are based on the 2018 15-team mixed NFBC leagues which used a $1000 FAAB budget. Owners are going to need to convert these values to their own league.
• The ownership values were taken from Saturday and lots can happen in between when they publish and FAAB bids run.
• Only players owned in 50% or fewer of CBS leagues are examined.

Read the rest of this entry »