The 60-game season fostered a lot of unexpected stat lines. Of course, the standard six-month seasons deliver them, too, but obviously the smaller sample breeds more volatility so let’s take a look at four big risers and see if we want to buy in for 2021.

Alex Dickerson, OF SFG | .298/.371/.576, 10 HR, 27 RBI, 28 R, 0 SB in 170 PA

Let’s get this out of the way immediately. He did get 30% of his home runs in one beautiful night at Coors Field, but that alone didn’t sustain his line. In his final 66 PA after the 3-homer game, he hit .356/.424/.627 with 3 HR, 7 RBI, and 12 R. He did have a meager .694 OPS in the run up to that career night, but a .231 BABIP was doing some heavy lifting there as he was still pacing toward a useful 22 HR/76 RBI full season.

His massive platoon split tempers the fantasy upside. He has a .278/.348/.514 line with 24 HR, 81 RBI, 84 R, and 4 SB in 551 PA v. righties while posting just a .687 OPS in 102 PA v. lefties. This will likely keep him relegated to a platoon role with guys like Austin Slater and Darin Ruf 러프 filling in for Dickerson against lefties. As such, it makes Dickerson a deeper league option.

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10/27/20

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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2021 TOO EARLY MOCKS

The Closing Pool

• Josh Hader & Liam Hendriks only top 100s
• Who’s reliable beyond that?
• Changing of the guard
• Up and Comers

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Every year I run mock drafts at the end (or right before the end) of the regular season. The idea is to get some gut reactions of the industry on where players are likely to be taken in early drafts for the following year.

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10/22/20

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

2021 TOO EARLY MOCK HITTERS

The Catching Pool

Catchers Discussed: J.T. Realmuto, Salvador Perez, Christian Vazquez, Gary Sánchez, Austin Nola, Sean Murphy, Daulton Varsho, James McCann, Mitch Garver, Max Stassi, Joey Bart, Danny Jansen, Tyler Stephenson, Omar Narváez

Where is Hitter X Goin?

• Yordan Alvarez 88
• Kyle Lewis 103
• Randy Arozarena 111
• Alec Bohm 119
• Dylan Carlson 162
• Wander Franco 176
• Gavin Lux 192
• Jo Adell 199

Favorite Post-200 Hitters

• Cedric Mullins
• Ke’Bryan Hayes
• Ty France
• Kolten Wong
• Carter Kieboom
• Evan White
• Cesar Hernandez
• Elvis Andrus

—

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Approximately 91 minutes of joyous analysis.

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Justin is running his annual Too Early Mocks and the wonderful Smada has once again compiled the average draft data for our perusal. Check out my 11 interesting pitching prices, too.

Christian Yelich 10.9 ADP – I was very interested in seeing how much the superstar would fall on the heels of a disappointing 2020 and unfortunately the market hasn’t overreacted as I’d have loved to catch a huge discount. Instead, he was still a firm 1st rounder ranging from pick 7 to 13 (these were 15-team leagues) and with good reason. It’s not at all unreasonable to suggest he’d have worked through his issues versus righties (1.068 OPS vL) in a full season as his .213 BABIP would’ve likely worked its way back to his career .354 while the 11-point jump in strikeout came in lieu of lower swinging strike and O-swing rates. I’m happily buying, even at this price.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every year I run mock drafts at the end (or right before the end) of the regular season. The idea is to get some gut reactions of the industry on where players are likely to be taken in early drafts for the following year.

Read the rest of this entry »

In this time of uncertainty, we have seen fantasy players do some unorthodox activities in order to scratch the itch of not having fantasy baseball in their lives. Whether it is KBO DFS, OOTP Baseball, Retro Drafts or MLB the Show, fantasy players are doing their best to fill time. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Last week, I recapped the first 10 rounds of my the Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) draft. I’m feeling good about it so far, which is a somewhat predictable feeling to have, since I probably shouldn’t hate my team yet. But it’s more than I can say about last year’s draft, which went poorly. Of course, I’m writing this intro through 14 rounds, and anything can happen in the next six or 16.

If this is your first time hearing about TGFBI, you can click my last post in the first sentence for more information. Ditto, some of my pre-draft planning. Otherwise, here’s my roster through 10 rounds:

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It’s draft season, which means it’s also draft recap season. Last year, I partook and subsequently recapped a few of my drafts. Folks seemed to enjoy them and/or find them beneficial. That’s good!

Incidentally, and unfortunately, all the drafts I recapped turned out terribly, and all my good teams (my league-winning National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) Online Championship team, my 3rd-place Tout Wars team, etc.) I let slumber. One of those terrible teams was my Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) squad. I’ve returned to fight off my demons.

I will say: I feel much more well-prepared than I did last year. I feel more cogent, more lucid. Last year, I barely prepped. I was overconfident because of my 2018 success, in part, but primarily I was overwhelmed and burned out. I held firm convictions about hardly any player, which goes against every fiber of my fantasy baseball being.

This year, the opposite. I’m eager to correct my flaws from last year, starting, first and foremost, with actually preparing. Doesn’t mean I won’t totally botch this draft. I don’t fancy myself particularly good at 15-team leagues, excelling instead at 12-teamers, especially auctions. But, hey, no excuses. At least this time, someone else, instead of my own damn self, will have beaten me.

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