3/19/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – PRE-ORDERS AVAILABLE NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms for the March 22nd release! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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Late Hitters I Like

ADP (select Main Event in the second column)

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I’m headed back from a weekend in New York City after participating in the 15-team Tout Wars mixed auction and a NFBC Main Event league. It was great catching up with everyone and meeting some new faces such as our first president. The weekend didn’t completely consisit of bagels and beers. I had work to do and compiled a couple of teams. Here are my thoughts which other fantasy owners may find helpful.

Pre-weekend thoughts (written before either event).

• Historically the Tout Wars hitter/pitcher split has been a steady 70%/30%. With pitchers being taken earlier and earlier this season, I wonder if this split will change. I’m creating my values with the 70/30 split but know I may need to adjust the split on the fly. Read the rest of this entry »

3/18/19

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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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer/Co-Host

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Notable transactions

• Jung Ho Kang wins 3B
• Carlos Gonzalez to CLE

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The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) drafts have now reached their completion. If you read this website often, you are already familiar with the invitational. The compilation of 21 leagues of industry experts was created by our own, Justin Mason. Each are NFBC-style 15-team leagues, with the collection vying for an overall prize – to win industry bragging rights. Last season, I had the misfortune of playing in the same league/division as the eventual winner, Clay Link. I managed a decisive 2^nd place finish in the division, but alas, there was no stopping the champ.

Today, I thought that I would provide some general observations on the TGFBI drafts, review my personal team makeup, and highlight some of my player selections along the way. My goal here is not to boast about how great my team is (or not), but rather to use the experience to convey information to you about the drafting landscape of 2019. Hopefully, some nugget of wisdom found here will assist you with your draft preparation.

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Allow me to break the fourth wall (more than I normally break the fourth well) and say I’m glad a few of you have enjoyed my recent (mock) draft recaps, especially the format of them. It can be tough to make that kind of content both interesting and informative, so I’m glad it has achieved at least the minimum thresholds in both regards.

(Mock Draft Review: RotoBaller Friends and Family Draft)
(Draft Review: The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational)

I was fortunate enough for the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) to sponsor a “Beat Alex Chamberlain” high-stakes league. It was my first time competing in this specific contest: the $350 Rotowire Online Championship. With that kind of buy-in, I knew I would likely face some sharp competition despite having no prior exposure to any of the other owners.

The league specifications are as follows:

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In this series, I have previously uncovered potential undervalued speedsters, power bats, batting average and RBI hitters. To round out the standard fantasy offensive categories, let’s tackle the sluggers who are due to wear out the third base line, en route to crossing the plate this season. Let’s look at some potential high runs scored batters going for a discount at the draft table this year.

In 2018, there were 43 players with least 85 Runs. There were 22 players above the 95 mark, and 9 with 105 runs scored. World Series champion Mookie Betts, and Francisco Lindor led all of baseball with 129 R. Finishing in 3^rd in the runs department with 119 was Colorado outfielder Charlie Blackmon.

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2/26/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – PRE-ORDERS AVAILABLE NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms for the March 22nd release! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer
• @RotoGut – Guest

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Note: there’s some choppiness in the audio that I didn’t notice until editing. Not entirely sure what went wrong there, but it shouldn’t impact listenability of the ep.

NOTABLE NEWS

• Clayton Kershaw check-in; where y’all picking him? (:50)

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Previously, I uncovered potential undervalued speedsters and power bats by comparing the Steamer projections to the current NFBC ADP. The exercise now continues for batting average.

In 2018, there were 43 qualified players with least a .280 batting average. There were 32 players above the .290 mark, and 16 above .300. Mookie Betts led all of baseball with a .346 BA, followed by his teammate, J.D. Martinez who hit for .330.

Prospective projections though, are typically more conservative. Steamer only projects 11 regular players to bat over .290 in 2019, and only 5 players to hit for at least .300. For the following analysis, I will focus on all players with a Steamer projection of a .280 BA or more. That should give us a nice group of players who can greatly help your team’s batting average in upcoming fantasy season.

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 January 24 to present).

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I read a piece this week from Will Leitch about 10 dark-horse MVP candidates for 2019. I love pieces like that I wanted to bring that similar idea to the fantasy landscape. Replacing “MVP” with “top 10 hitter” which is essentially first round was easy part, but I wasn’t sure what threshold would be worthwhile and highlight some players we’re not already full hyping.

There is only one top 10 hitter this year who had a 2018 ADP later than 66 (Ronald Acuña at 128) and only Christian Yelich (66, obviously) joined him outside the top 33, but I thought inside the top 100 was too easy. Or not necessarily “easy” because identifying the players who will jump into next year’s top 10 hitters is insanely tough once you get past pick 30 or so, but getting drafted within the top 100 is essentially a co-sign that you could surge into those top two rounds. I decided to use 150 as my starting point.

I’ve got 10 hitters currently going outside the top 150 capable of having that dream breakout season needed to make “the leap”. I’ll identify the evolution we could see in their skills to reach the lofty heights worthy pushing to the 1st-2nd round area. After writing them up, I’ll give a 600 PA projection of what the dream season could look like if it comes to fruition. This is a mix of their career performance, their skills profile, projections, and then some dream dust sprinkled on top to get them into the 90th+ percentile of their potential outcomes.

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Introduction:

The catcher position in 2019 is the weakest offensive position in our beloved fantasy baseball competition. It is no secret. Every reasonably astute or semi-intelligent fantasy player is aware of this phenomenon. The more experienced competitor is also cognizant that the position has been getting even weaker over the past few seasons.

Unlike the middle infield positions which I have discussed here, it is clear that the catcher player pool demands a correction to account for “positional scarcity.” A boost is required to the otherwise dreadfully low values that the position would manufacture on its own.

This may be elementary to some, but the idea is as follows:

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