If you’ve been reading any of my writing this winter or listening to the podcast, then you’ve heard me reference a draft I started back in November (click link for pics of first 23 rounds) during a trip to Arizona for Baseball HQ’s First Pitch Forums. It’s one of the NFBC Draft Champions 50-round draft-and-hold leagues. We did the first 23 rounds live and we start the final 27 today.

I picked 15th out of 15 in this draft and part of that was for today. I knew that 15th pick gets the first pick of the second part and the time in between often pushes some strong options up the rankings who otherwise would’ve been gone if we started from round 1 today. By the way, NFBC does the Kentucky Derby Style draft slotting where you pick your spot from what’s available. So I was 5th or 6th I think to make my selection and once 1, 2, and 3 were gone, I decided to jump back to 15 to be on the elbow with added benefit of the first pick in the winter session.

I’m interested in who y’all think I should take. Mind you, I’m not polling and then automatically taking the top choice, especially if it’s not a runaway vote. I just find this split-draft really interesting and I’d like to cash in my advantage so I figure talking it out with y’all will help.

I’m on the clock as of noon central with an 8-hour timer. I’m certainly not looking to take very much of that time at all since I’ve been sitting on this pick for quite some time. So after about 1 pm central, comments on who I should take will be moot as the selection will have been made, but then you can just make fun of me for picking incorrectly.

Before we get to who is available, let’s take a gander at my team (who says “take a gander”?):

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If you don’t have an issue with position scarcity adjustments, then I already furnished 2016 Fantasy Baseball Rankings with Steamer Projections and highlighted sleepers last week.

Naturally, position scarcity remains an argument, but there is one solid way around the argument: find the best value (projections relative to average draft position) within the scarcer positions and prebuild a roster with options heading into the draft; then you can focus on best available value and not position scarcity. I will explain and provide options below.

Below, is an embedded file of updated (1.5.2016) NESN NFBC Average Draft Position and Rotochamp Composite projections (Rotochamp & Steamer). This time, I did not adjust the rankings for position scarcity. Everyone is ranked simply by their relative value (hitters to all other hitters and pitchers to all other pitchers). That value is then compared to ADP. I also included the sorting capability so that you can manipulate the file:

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Episode 294

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette are back for one more 2015 episode! Yeah, I thought the last episode would be their last of 2015, but y’all got lucky! Today they’re talking the Chapman trade, some mid-tier signings (Murphy, Leake, etc…) and their early thoughts on the NFBC ADP data released over the weekend.

Who stands out to you based on their early draft position?

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I discovered a Christmas treat over the weekend: NFBC average draft position data is now up for 2016 drafts! I don’t know exactly how many drafts have taken place just yet, but it’s still nice to get an early look at things and see what’s going on. I’ve got some thoughts for every position:

CATCHER:

• Buster Posey is far and away the top catcher for 2015. The 89-pick gap between Posey and Jonathan Lucroy is more than double the next-biggest at any position – which happens to be 42 picks between Carlos Correa and Troy Tulowitzki.
• I like Lucroy for a rebound, but I’m not chasing him so if I don’t take Posey then I’m waiting a bit on catcher. It’s not an endless trove, but Blake Swihart, Yasmani Grandal, Derek Norris, Nick Hundley, Miguel Montero, Wilson Ramos, and Welington Castillo are all going after pick 200.
• Don’t wait too long, though, dollar catchers are the worst investments in dollar days. The Baseball Forecaster by Ron Shandler tells us that dollar backstops return negative value on average.
• Edit: I just realized Kyle Schwarber is listed under OF despite qualifying at C (21 games played) so his 33 ADP makes for just a 13-pick gap between the first and second catcher. 

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