This season, I was lucky enough for a couple print publications, Lindy’s and The Fantasy Baseball Guide, asked me to contribute their fantasy preview magazines.  While the quality of both magazines is top notch, print publications have limited room for explanations and no ability for back-and-forth discussions. Today, I am going to go over my contributions which I feel could use more explanation and will answer any questions on my thought process.

Lindy’s

For Lindy’s, I participated in their 12-team mock draft ( standard team except 1 C, 4 OF, 8P) and I picked out of the 3rd position. Here is my team

Position – Name (Round Drafted)
C – Buster Posey (3)
1B – Hanley Ramirez (7)
2B – Rougned Odor (2)
3B – Adrian Beltre (4)
SS – Marcus Semien (12)
MI – Jung Ho Kang (17)
CI – Albert Pujols (10)
OF – Andrew McCutchen (5)
OF – Mark Trumbo (9)
OF – Marcell Ozuna (14)
OF – Matt Holliday (16)
Util – Mike Moustakas (18)
P – Clayton Kershaw (1)
P – Chris Archer (6)
P – Rich Hill (11)
P – James Paxton (13)
P – Michael Pineda (19)
P – Jharel Cotton (20)
P – Andrew Miller (8)
P – Shawn Kelley (15)

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I have been playing in dynasty and keeper leagues as long as I have been playing fantasy baseball. There is something satisfying about being able to attempt to build long term contending teams and scour the wire for future talent. I also find that they stay the most active from the beginning to end of a season and in the off season. For a fantasy junkie like me, that is a fix I often need. However, there is a dark side to leagues like this…

*Cues the gloomy music* Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody everywhere talks about diversifying your assets. This obviously applies to fantasy baseball too. Today, the topic is using picks to manage volatility. I recently participated in an industry mock draft, the results of which are supposed to be private. The organizer said it was alright to tweet out a few picks. I take that to mean I can also write about my first three selections.

I picked first. When it comes to mock drafts, first is my least favorite spot to select. It’s boring. Yes, of course I picked Mike Trout. What kind of philistine doesn’t pick Mike Trout. Remember last year when some people actually thought it was a good idea to select Bryce Harper instead? It wasn’t.

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Johnny Cueto: Sabermetric Anomaly

I am on a mission, to try to explain why some pitchers don’t fit into normal molds. I created pERA to help explain the advantages pitchers who have a mix of high and low groundball pitches experience. I tackled the Robbie Ray/Michael Pineda group of pitchers who can only throw their fastball for strikes. The next pitcher whose production can’t be explained by the above methods is Johnny Cueto. He just a hard player to figure out and here is why.

• Over the past six seasons, his ERA-FIP is the 4th lowest (-0.59) among all starters with at least 600 IP. The other pitchers surrounding him are low ground ball pitchers (and R.A. Dickey) who will see their BABIP suppressed because flyballs and popups are easy outs. Cueto’s 48% GB% is by far the highest among the ERA-FIP leaders until Doug Fister says hi at #22. Read the rest of this entry »

A little while ago, a bunch of industry dudes participated in a way-too-early slow mock draft aptly dubbed the Too Early (#2Early) Mock. On Tuesday, I dissected the team I drafted with some limited analysis for each pick. Some people find this helpful, entertaining, what-have-you. Personally — and while a particular owner’s strategy is certainly interesting to ponder — I prefer a more macro characterization of the draft.

There are several ways to approach something like this, the most prominent of which, in my mind, being to comb through each round or to comb through each position. I’ll take the latter route here, identifying a “reach” and a “steal” (or plural) at each position.

I rely heavily on my own projections and rankings come draft day. Alas, I must apply a caveat to this analysis: these reaches and steals are more of, uh, feelings. Like, it feels too late or it feels like a great price. I hope I can support some of these feelings with evidence. I typically hate relying on feelings, given I’m all about doing away with emotion, biases, and impaired thought processes to exploit market inefficiencies. But, hey. Let’s give this a shot.

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I’ll lead with a series of questions: What’s the preferred way to analyze a mock draft? Would you rather read about the writer’s breakdown for his or her specific draft results? Or breakdowns by position? Of each owner’s team?

I plan to take the former-most approach here in regard to the Too Early (#2Early) Mock Draft, as curated by Justin Mason and graciously hosted by Couch Managers. A 15-team slow draft that began as soon as the season ended, I did not hesitate to vocalize my discomfort in drafting, even in the spirit of mockery, with absolutely zero planning.

Alas, that’s the fun of the Too Early mock (or so David Wiers tried to convince me): just wing it. Or see what happens.

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We haven’t even closed the book on 2016, but I’m already in a mock draft for 2017. What do you mean I have a problem? I don’t have a problem, you have a problem! I would normally say something trite like “it’s never too early to start studying for 2017”, but of course it can be too early. If I had done something in mid-May about the 2017 season, that definitely would’ve been too early. And let’s be honest, this current mock draft with the InThisLeague guys & company might also be too early for any sane person, but I take these bullets for y’all.

You’re welcome.

We’re just wrapping up the third round as it’s a slow mock so we’re going to focus on the first round of this 12-team standard 5×5 draft. Before we do that, let’s look at the ESPN Player Rater for the year so far. I obviously don’t think the top 12 from this year should comprise the first round, but I am interested to see how many of them go in the first round.

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I don’t know if y’all are familiar with Tanner Bell. He recently joined the RotoGraphs staff and has wasted no time churning out quality post after quality post. He performs analysis, but he also offers technical advice regarding the “offline” components of fantasy baseball such as building cheat sheets in Microsoft Excel. It’s good stuff, even for people who consider themselves proficient in Excel — I do and, alas, it never occurred to me to conditionally format my draft prep workbook to strike out players already drafted.

Similarly, it seems Tanner recently experienced an epiphany (or two) of his own in regard to player projections and valuations. I mentioned to him I wanted to respond, so to speak, to his post, not as a criticism but as an expansion. A validation, I guess.

Also, rarely, if ever, do we engage in back-and-forth call-and-response posts. I don’t intend for this to be one of those. It’s just that Tanner inspired me, but I have some thoughts of my own to add.

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Over the past two nights, I completed another two drafts – the 12-team MLBTR League and the 14-team experimental Fire and Forget. The following is a collection of player picks and strategic advice for unique formats. Let’s start with the easy one…

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It was 2:16pm on a Thursday afternoon. I was sitting on my couch, watching a DVR’d episode of Better Call Saul, when I got the DM that would unknowingly change the course of (the next few hours of) my life. Read the rest of this entry »