MLB announced the season would be delayed by at last two weeks on March 12. Since, it’s become pretty clear that the season will start much later than previously anticipated. The later start will have a dramatic effect on many players’ values. As I’ve discussed recently, there are a bunch of less obvious players who should see a boost in value, as well as a group of players who should suffer a decline in value. Are NFBC drafters correctly making those adjustments? Let’s compare March 1-11 ADP (pre-delay) to March 18-24 ADP (post-delay) to find out. I chose to start the post-delay period on March 18 somewhat arbitrarily, but wanted it to be more recent to account for the assumption that we won’t have baseball until sometime in May, at the earliest.

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In my previous post, I looked at the hitting landscape for The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) drafts. I also analyzed my own personal team from league #14, which was dubbed as the “league of death.”

Onto the pitching …

General Observations

Starting Pitchers

Let’s first compare starting pitcher ADPs from the past two seasons of TGFBI.

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The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) drafts have now approached their conclusion. Avid readers of this website will already be familiar with the invitational’s format. TGFBI (created by our own Justin Mason) is the compilation of 390 industry experts across 26 leagues. Each division runs as NFBC-style 15-team leagues, with the collection vying for an overall prize – to win industry bragging rights. The only operational difference is that TGFBI drafts are run with a 4-hour clock – i.e., TGFBI is a slow draft. During the season, the format is virtually identical to the NFBC main event.

Check out TGFBI central and follow your favorite fantasy analysts’s teams at TGFBI.com.

As a bonus, I am honored to host the Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational Podcast – Beat the Shift – along with my friend and fantasy partner, Reuven Guy (@mlbinjuryguru). Last season, Reuven managed to win his league while finishing second in the overall TGFBI competition.

Check out the latest episodes of The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational Podcast – Beat the Shift, found here. Follow me on Twitter at @ATCNY.

This is the 3^rd year of the Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational, and I have participated ever since its inception. In 2020, with so many talented fantasy analysists in my division of TFGBI – my league (#14) was tabbed by many as the “League of Death.” Using the ATC projections, as well as my Replacement Level Drafting (RLD) method, I drafted what will hopefully be a championship caliber team.

Today, I will provide a few observations on the TGFBI drafts, review my personal team makeup, and highlight some of my player selections along the way. My goals of this article are to use the TGFBI experience to convey information to you about the drafting landscape of 2020, as well as to illustrate my team construction process. Hopefully, you will be able to take some nuggets of wisdom from my recap to assist you with your draft preparation.

Before we get further into it – draft standings analysis based on projections are generally irrelevant. But just for fun, here is what FantasyPros had to say about my team.

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We often hear the adage “you can’t win your draft in the first round, but you can lose it.”

No, you can’t.

Even a total flop of a first-round pick doesn’t preclude you from winning your league. It’s just not how baseball drafts work. Leagues are largely won in the middle and late rounds of drafts. We as a fantasy baseball industry probably spend too much time on the first couple rounds when it comes to article and podcast analysis, but then in October we hear stories from champions about how the picks that clicked from the 10th round and later were instrumental in their title runs.

For today’s exercise, I’m going really deep. Let’s take a look at the average draft position (ADP) data from last year’s NFBC Main Event and put together the best team I can using players drafted after pick 300 (21st round or later). Admittedly, this is hardly a perfect exercise. First off, of course having the answer key makes life easier, but there’s also the fact that not all of these guys emerged immediately so even in cases where they were drafted, many were likely cut before they broke out and wound up performing for a different team.

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Our undervalued player series continues now with the final offensive scoring category for 2020 – Runs Scored.

For those of you that are new to this series – in each article, we uncover potential undervalued players by comparing the Steamer projections to the current NFBC ADP. So far I have gone through undervalued speedsters, power bats, outstanding batting average players as well as possible RBI Bargains.

In 2019, there were 60 players who scored at least 85 runs. There were 41 players who exceeded the 95 runs threshold, and 20 hitters scored at least 105. Four players managed to eclipse the lofty 120 runs plateau. Leading the majors were a pair of Red Sox – Mookie Betts (135) and Rafael Devers (129). Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves followed them with 127 runs.

Once again, just as in runs batted in, prospective projections are far more conservative than the final season long distribution. Steamer only projects one player – Mike Trout – to score more than 120 runs. Only four additional players are projected to score over 110 runs (Francisco Lindor, Mookie Betts, Christian Yelich and George Springer).

Teams that win fantasy leagues are often highly correlated with the runs scored category. Finding a few undervalued players that can help pad your fantasy team’s run totals is a worthwhile exercise. For this year’s analysis, I will focus on all players with a Steamer projection of at least 85 runs. This should give us several helpful players.

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Over this off-season, I have uncovered potential undervalued players by comparing the Steamer projections to the current NFBC ADP. So far I have gone through undervalued speedsters, power bats and outstanding batting average players. The exercise now continues for runs batted in.

In 2019, there were 57 players with least 85 RBI. There were 28 players who exceeded the 95 RBI mark, and 17 with at least 105. Anthony Rendon of the Nationals led all of baseball with 126 runs batted in. Jose Abreu led the American league with 123. Following them were NL East first basemen Freddie Freeman (121) and Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso (120).

As we have seen in batting average, prospective projections are more conservative. Steamer projects J.D. Martinez to lead baseball in the RBI category with only 119. Only six players are projected to knock in more than 110 runs.

For this year’s analysis, I will focus on all players with a Steamer projection of at least 85 RBI. This should give us a group of players who can greatly help your team’s RBI totals in the upcoming fantasy season.

For today’s draft value comparisons, I look at:

• The player ranks as computed by the FanGraphs Auction Calculator with Steamer projections (standard NFBC 15 team roto league settings).
• The current NFBC ADP (of all non-auction leagues from January 27, 2020 to present). 48 leagues in total were observed.

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You should either buy an upper-tiered backstop, or you should stream catchers.

I will make the above case by analyzing what would have happened over the past couple of seasons in two-catcher formats. We will take a look at the hit & bust rates by catcher price point. We will also as examine the profitability / return on investment of each backstop tier.

Last month, my colleague, Jeff Zimmerman wrote about the volatility of catchers. He concluded that catchers are a relatively safe fantasy baseball position to invest in. Today, I will go a bit further and break down the various parts of the catcher curve. We will explore the segments contributing to wiser investments, and the parts where you ought to stay away from, if possible.

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01/17/19

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10 PLAYERS WHO COULD SURGE IN MARCH DRAFTS

Current Price is January 1st-17th Draft Champions ADP

• Fernando Tatis Jr. from 2nd to mid-1st (4:36)
• Chris Sale from 3rd to late 1st-early 2nd (11:25)
• Mike Clevinger from 2nd late-1st (17:00)
• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. from 5th to late 2nd-early 3rd (22:15)
• Austin Meadows from 3rd to mid-2nd (27:48)

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In my last two columns, I uncovered potential undervalued speedsters and power bats by comparing the Steamer projections to the current NFBC ADP. The exercise now continues this week for batting average.

In 2019, there were 55 qualified players with least a .280 batting average. There were 36 players above the .290 mark, and 19 above .300. Tim Anderson led all of baseball with a .335 BA, followed by National Leaguers Christian Yelich and Ketel Marte who each hit .329.

Though 2019 had almost two dozen players who hit at least .300, you won’t find a projection set that will have that many BA studs. Projections are typically more conservative. Steamer only projects 17 regular players to bat over .290 in 2020, and only 5 players to eclipse the .300 mark.

For this year’s potential batting average bargains, we will focus on all players with a Steamer projection of a .278 BA or more. This will give us a number of players who can greatly help your fantasy team’s batting average in in 2020.

For these draft value comparisons, I look at:

• The player ranks as computed by the FanGraphs Auction Calculator with Steamer projections (standard NFBC 15 team roto league settings).
• The current NFBC ADP (of Draft Championship leagues from December 4, 2019 to present).

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I recently released my top 125 starting pitchers for 2020 and I couldn’t believe that nobody had a single question about them and everyone who saw them found them to be perfect top to bottom. OK, dumb joke. Anyway, I appreciate everyone getting in the comments and discussing the rankings with me. I’m still responding to questions and comments if you want to ask me about someone in the rankings.

Today I want to look the biggest differences between my rankings and the early average draft position (ADP) information at the NFBC in their Draft Champions leagues (50-round draft-and-hold format). On their list, they group all pitchers together so I took out the relievers making it more of a 1:1 comparison with my SP ranks. This will be a two-part piece with the first being the pitchers where I’m higher.

10 Where I’m Higher

Jeff Samardzija, SF | 107th SP in ADP; 52nd SP by me

I wouldn’t even say I’m a huge fan of The Shark, but his current ADP seems like a great price for someone who finished 33rd among SP on Razzball’s Player Rater last year. Even if you don’t fully buy the 3.52 ERA, he offers high volume with a strong WHIP. At the very least, he has Oracle Park protecting him for half of his starts. It’s a boring investment, but I’ll gladly take him outside the top 100 SPs.

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