Last week, I looked at the 2019 auction hitter bargains at mid-season. Now let’s dive into the most profitable pitchers of the first half.

To remind everyone, we aren’t looking here for the highest earning pitchers of 2019 – we are looking at pitchers with the largest values net of their opportunity cost to acquire. Gerrit Cole has earned nearly $24 of fantasy auction value – making him the 7^th highest earning pitcher. However, with his $36 average auction value – he technically is in the red as far as profitability goes.

For the methodology employed and the terms used in the ensuing leaderboards, please refer to my previous post on the 2019 Fantasy Baseball Auction Bargains at Mid-Season – Batters edition.

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There are two different and distinct ways to kick off each season in fantasy baseball. I am referring to the two popular ways to fill teams’ rosters pre-season – namely snake drafts and auctions. In either method of commencement, the goal is to accumulate the most player statistics for the forthcoming season.

However, drafts differ from auctions in the value proposition of roster slots – which is static for snake drafts. Unless you are able to trade draft picks, you are cemented with those specific slots that in turn correspond to fixed levels of fantasy value. At an auction, the distribution of acquired values may vary more widely.

The predominant first overall snake draft selection in just about any fantasy format (or depth) this year was Mike Trout. The impetus for that is easy to explain. Trout is the player with a tremendous (dare I say the highest) floor of talent, a high upside of statistics to accumulate, and a proven track record to back everything up. In economic terms, he provided the most potential value with the least amount of risk.

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6/24/19

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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• @sporer – Host
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CLOSER NEWS

• Jordan Hicks torn UCL (2:15)
  • John Gant
• Blake Treinen to the IL (6:30)
  • Liam Hendriks
  • Closer Strategy yr-to-yr
• TB Closer Role (14:30)
  • Jose Alvarado still on leave
  • Diego Castillo to IL
  • Emilio Pagan to swipe some saves?
  • Colin Poche
• Other closer news: (19:13)
  • Roenis Elias in SEA
  • Michael Lorenzen in CIN

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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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5/27/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, 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 SLEEPER19!

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS, INJURIES, RUMORS 

• Luke Weaver to IL (2:10)
• Charlie Blackmon to IL (8:40)
• Pedro Strop on rehab (14:55)
• Mychal Givens out as closer (18:40)

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The NFBC kicked off their Memorial Day 2nd Chance leagues last night with three drafts completed and we now have some average draft position (ADP) data to digest. I have my 2CL (is that a cool abbreviation for “2nd Chance League”?) this Friday evening and I’ll be streaming it live on Twitch if you have any interest in watching it. I want to dive in on the biggest fallers here today with some caveats. Or at least one major caveat: my cutoff is the first 15 rounds.

I want to see who is still be taken with some expectation of performance while sustaining a major fall in their cost. The actual biggest droppers without limits are the obvious injury guys. The single biggest fall from the spring Rotowire Online Championship leagues (12-team format to stay consistent with the 2CLs) is Travis Shaw who has the double whammy of injury and severe underperformance. He’s gone from the 95th player chosen on average to the 362nd last night, a colossal 267-pick drop. Miguel Andujar (347th), Jameson Taillon (312th), Luis Severino (280th), and Nathan Eovaldi (390th) are also unsurprisingly amongst the nine players with a 200+ pick dip.

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Introduction

I made the following controversial proclamation earlier this year – that Chris Archer is highly overvalued by fantasy owners. I go even further to say that in all but deep mixed leagues and mono leagues – continually rostering the right hander would be a poor use of fantasy resources.

My contention with Archer’s value stems from his ratio stats:

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For the drops, I use the NFBC Main Event (38 teams) where owners are more likely to stay active with more skin the game. Here is who they are dropping and why.

Injured

● Matt Adams (30): He continues the circle of life of injured Nationals. Ryan Zimmerman makes one of his annual trips the IL and Adams stepped up. And gets himself hurt. Jake Noll and Howie Kendrick have each played first base since Adams went down.

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4/22/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, 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 SLEEPER19!

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Another year, another set of bold predictions, and another introduction to The Process^TM. I did well last year, hitting on Matt Chapman and Miles Mikolas out-earning their teammates Matt Olson and Luke Weaver despite enormous divides in National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) average draft position (ADP) as well as Madison Bumgarner being worse than a not-top-20 starting pitcher (with an asterisk for his late start in 2019). I might’ve hit more bold predictions last year than in my previous three seasons combined.

Bold predictions can but don’t have to be a frivolous exercise. As fun as it is to slap a 40-homer prediction on Franmil Reyes (…should I do that?), I don’t find it particularly illuminating unless it’s supported by evidence (…which exists for Reyes?!). You can make bold predictions without being outrageously bold — it’s exactly what I intended to accomplish last year simply by leveraging what I observed to be extreme market inefficiencies at play. I stuck my neck out for Chapman and Mikolas and Bumgarner, but not as far as folks might think. There was enough evidence in their (and, where applicable, in their teammates’) bodies of work for me to make objectively bold predictions on the basis of draft price or market consensus without them feeling particularly bold to me.

While endeavoring to go 6-for-10 this year just to match last year’s hit rate would be absurd, I do think I can hit another three, at least, in 2019 if I pick my spots correctly. So, here goes: my 10 bold predictions for 2019.

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