Not to long ago Jason Catania, Mike Newman and I took part in Fake Teams’ Expert Mock Prospect Draft. The rules contemplated a thirteen team league using the traditional 5×5 statistics. I followed my strategy, detailed below, and wouldn’t change a single pick. Read the rest of this entry »
There are a few incontrovertible truths in life. The vast majority of people consider themselves good people. They believe that they’re good drivers, and good listeners. And they all believe they can pick saves up off the waiver wire.
The commandment “Thou shalt not pay for saves” is omnipresent, and there’s plenty of truth to it. Of the relievers ESPN ranked in its top 25 in 2012, less than half finished the year in the top 25 in saves. And not even the handcuffs were always predictable: the Athletics went through their entire bullpen twice before settling on the guy they’d tabbed in the first place. It’s easy to throw up your hands at the crapshoot that is the closer position, and let others take the risk on saves.
But before you blindly follow a universal law, you should make sure it applies to your particular situation. Closers are risky, but that level of that risk changes from person to person. Before you fix yourself on the opportunity/talent spectrum of relief choices, ask yourself: will you have the time and opportunity to keep on top of your roster?
Phew. After a nearly four and a half hour snake draft online, I have officially completed the earliest draft in my fantasy baseball career. LABR stands for League of Alternative Baseball Reality, and along with Tout Wars, is one of the two most publicized “expert” leagues. In the past, LABR has had only two leagues, an AL-Only and NL-Only, with both formats using a live auction in Arizona to select players. Last year, a mixed league with an online draft was formed and I participated in the inaugural season as well. With that background out of the way, let’s get into more league specifics.
The names just keep coming. Yesterday, the name of yet another Major League player was reported to be found in the records of Tony Bosch, the director of the Biogenesis wellness clinic in Florida. This time, Tigers shortstop Jhonny Peralta finds himself in the middle. So far, we have learned that a number of players relevant to fantasy owners have been linked to this clinic. They include Nelson Cruz, Gio Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera, Jesus Montero, Ryan Braun, Francisco Cervelli, the aforementioned Peralta, and of course, Alex Rodriguez. Some of the names were tied directly to performance-enhancing drugs in the records, while the connection isn’t as clear for the others. With a full investigation sure to follow and the very real possibility of multiple suspensions handed down, what’s an early drafter to do?
As long and grueling a process as it may have been, deep down, I still love a good old fashioned auction-style draft (yes, I read the comments on Mike P’s draft recap, so hopefully now, that inane debate doesn’t spill over to here). I love snake-style drafts too, don’t get me wrong. There’s usually a little more chatter and pick praise/criticism because people’s focus isn’t split by steady budget calculations. But in a snake-style draft, you automatically know that there are certain players you won’t get based on your draft position and while you may be making your own picks, your competition’s selections have a much greater impact on the choices you make in each round. In an auction-style draft, within reason, you can have anyone you want so long as you have the money to spend. Technically, everyone is up for grabs. You might have to make a sacrifice or two (or three or four even) to get someone, but it remains your choice whether or not to bid or spend. If you really want a guy, you make sure he is nominated at a time when you have the money to afford him, and probably a few bucks extra in case someone else covets him as much.
That being said, it’s time to talk about this particular mock auction along with my strategy and thought process… Read the rest of this entry »
For all the years that I’ve been playing fantasy baseball, I’ve never really understood the idea of punting saves. Not that I don’t understand the concept, but that I don’t understand the rationale behind thinking that it’s a good strategy. You load up on starters with the hope of locking up wins and strikeouts while doing your best to stay competitive in WHIP and ERA. Perfectly viable strategy, right? But what about the fact that Wins is, more or less, an arbitrary category and while your guy goes seven strong and exits with the lead, some clown of a set-up man comes in, walks the leadoff guy and then serves up a two-run shot to tie the game. A great game for your starter, for sure, but you make no advancement in a category you’ve supposedly built your team to excel in. Read the rest of this entry »
And six weeks later, a team was born…
That’s right. After just six short weeks and hundreds of emails, we finally finished the RotoGraphs Ridiculously Early Mock Draft — Slow Draft Style. The process was definitely cumbersome, to say the least, but we all made it through relatively unscathed. Our fearless leader and draft overseer, Eno Sarris, published the results five rounds at a time (the links to all can be found in this post) and now it’s time to reveal our teams. Well, I don’t know if everyone is going to do it, but here’s mine: Read the rest of this entry »
Bill Petti and I have been looking at pitches thrown at the edge of the strike zone over the last few days. Pitchers who throw a higher percentage of pitches on the edge perform better than those pitchers who throw a lower percentage. Edge% is not going to change the core traits of pitcher talent, high strike outs and low walks, but it is a nice tool to help differentiate between two similar pitchers.
Through the first 10 rounds of the RotoGraphs Ridiculously Early Mock Draft, a draft for a single-catcher league, we saw a total of eight backstops come off the board. In an effort to see how our picks matched up with public opinion, we’ve been comparing the results to ADP found on both Mock Draft Central (MDC) and the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC). However, given how unreliable MDC data is right now due to small sample sizes and the fact that they don’t differentiate between one and two-catcher league mocks, we’re basically casting that ADP data aside and just matching up with that from the NFBC, a two-catcher league draft. With the current depth at the position, it should have been safe to assume that the top backstops would go a bit earlier in our draft than in the NFBC, however, in looking back at the comparisons, that was not the case. In fact, save for everyone agreeing that Buster Posey was a consensus late-first round pick, nothing went as expected. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s 2013. I just drafted Lucas Duda again.
I just can’t quit him I guess. No, I’m not a glutton for punishment. I can give you the caveats — it was pick #328 in a 14-team league with five outfielders — and we can talk about Lucas Duda specifically, but that might not be the point in the end.
