The draft for League 32 – Fantasy Field of Dreams is scheduled for this Sunday and I’m facing a dilemma. If you’ve been following along with this series, I’ve been detailing my journey through rebuilding this team that began last season. In my last entry, I wrote about some general draft strategy for rebuilding clubs, but as I sit just a few days away from actually entering the draft room, I’m having trouble deciding which direction to take my team.

Here’s where my roster currently stands:
Hitters:

Pitchers:

I’m spending $249 on 30 players leaving me $151 to spend on my 10 remaining roster spots. I don’t have the highest total available cash in the draft — five other teams have more to spend — but I do have the highest available cash per roster spot by a pretty wide margin, giving me some nice spending power to fill the holes on my roster.

Before we really dive into the available paths forward, I want to take a step back and talk about my approach to draft prep. I’m a big believer in budgeting per position and creating tiered lists of players to give me a pretty easy path towards ensuring I’m wisely allocating my resources across my roster. I really don’t want to head into a draft without some sort of plan in place and a decent idea of how much money I want to spend on each roster spot I need to fill. Here’s what my ideal budget would look like for the roster spots I need to fill:

If I start out the draft by winning, say, Bryce Harper for $40, based on my budget, I know I’ve got an extra $10 to either allocate to another position or bank for the waiver wire during the regular season. And if I end up splurging on, say, Mike Trout for $60, I know I’m going to have to reallocate some resources from another position to account for the overage.

The way I see it, I need two first basemen, a starting outfielder, a second catcher, a couple of starting pitchers, and a couple of relief pitchers. Those last two roster spots can be pretty flexible and that’s potentially the source of my dilemma. Currently, I’ve got Jorge Polanco and Max Muncy penciled in at second base and third base but the ongoing injury issues of the former give me some pause. For the latter, Muncy’s dual eligibility at second and third give me some options with how to proceed, though he’s probably better deployed at second from a value perspective.

Of course, the available talent pool at second is a lot deeper than it is at third which just adds another compilation. The keystone has players like Mookie Betts, Brandon Lowe, Ozzie Albies, Ketel Marte, Gleyber Torres, and Jonathan India all available while the best third baseman in the pool is either Anthony Rendon or Matt Chapman with very few options after that. Spending a bit on a second baseman and playing Muncy at third is probably the best course of action, all things considered.

At first base, I had a solid plan in place until yesterday when Rhys Hoskins tore his ACL. He was clearly the top available option at the position and the rest of the available players are a pretty significant step-down. Spencer Torkelson seems like the best fit for my roster and where it is in the competitive cycle. Beyond him, the options are down to veterans like C.J. Cron and Wil Myers or utility players like Brandon Drury and J.D. Davis. Luckily, most of the money I thought I was going to be spending on Hoskins can now be spent elsewhere because no other first baseman is going to command the kind of salary he would have if he was healthy.

Because I have a lot of cash to spend per roster spot, I can play around in the top tiers of the available outfielders, picking from Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Betts, George Springer or Masataka Yoshida. But the amount of money I spend on this position will have some pretty significant downstream effects on the kinds of players I can afford later on in the draft. I could go big and grab Trout and spend a lot less on my other roster spots or try and pick up Harper for a discount because of his elbow injury.

On the pitching side of things, there are relatively few top-tier options in the player pool right now; Max Scherzer and Blake Snell are the best available starters and I’m definitely not going to pay top dollar for any relievers at this point in my rebuild. I’m perfectly comfortable picking from the wide range of mid-tier starters that are available and then picking the best $1 relievers with upside I can find at the end of the draft.

I have three paths in front of me depending on how I want to allocate my resources, and I’m asking you, dear reader, to help me decide which way to go.

In this scenario, I’d split the majority of my cash between Betts and Harper while picking up a few solid depth pieces elsewhere. I have a lot of money budgeted for Harper, and while his recovery process has been better than expected, I still expect to get a pretty big discount on him since he’s still projected to miss a large chunk of the season. Targeting him is more about trying to acquire him for a reasonable salary so I can keep him next year, a little further into my rebuild. Betts is clearly the top 2B available, and depending on his salary and position eligibility, could be keepable next year too. He’ll also make a really enticing trade chip this summer if I’m looking to continue building my team for the future.

The problem with this plan is the lack of planned salary room at the end of the draft. I’ve budgeted nearly every available dollar, and while I expect some of those players to come in under budget, I probably won’t have much cap space to play on the waiver wire during the season.

If I’m going to budget that much money for an outfielder, I might as well go all the way and spend on the best option available. Like Betts, Trout could be a keeper next year if his salary is reasonable, but he’s almost certainly going to be used as a trade chip at the trade deadline. India is a solid bounce-back target who is still super young, and with the depth at the position, I could spend a little more on someone like Marte or Torres if I had some extra cash available. I also allocated a few more resources for my starting pitchers in this scenario, but I could save money there too by sticking with my mid-tier plan from the first scenario.

This scenario is all about spreading my resources out as widely as possible across my roster. Rather than targeting one of the top options at any given position, I’m looking to pick up solid contributors at every position. The other benefit of this approach would be a larger amount of cash left over to use during the season. I think if I weren’t rebuilding, this would be the way I’d want to go. It gives me a ton of points across the board, lowering my risk in case one of these players doesn’t work out as expected.

If you want to try and craft another approach with other available players, here’s a list of free agents in the league.

So, which approach should I go with?

The 2023 Draft Recap episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Steve Cozzolino

The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI)

• Steve’s TGFBI Draft Board – Team 9
• Reuven’s TGFBI Draft Board – Team 8
• Ariel’s TGFBI Draft Board – Team 8
• General snake draft strategy
• KDS Strategy
• First five rounds strategy
• Saves strategy
• Steals strategy
• Catcher strategy
• Easiest draft decisions
• Toughest draft decisions

LABR Mixed Auction

• Ariel’s LABR Draft Board
• Altering strategy based on knowing how the other competitors draft
• General auction strategy for a 12 team mixed league
• Shohei Ohtani at $26 as Ariel’s most expensive player
• Saves strategy in a 12 team mixed league
• How to pull off obtaining so many value bargains in an auction

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The 2023 Pre-Draft Injury episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Strategy Section

• Injury Overview / Ortho 101
• Injury reoccurrences
• World Baseball Classic injury concerns

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The Relief Pitcher episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Greg Jewett

Strategy Section

• General closer landscape
• Optimal closer strategy last year
• Is a closer who gets a half a year’s worth of saves a successful draft pick?
  • Closers who are traded mid-season
• General closer draft strategy
  • Is drafting a 2nd round closer cost prohibitive for the rest of your roster?
• What is the best way to throw a cheap closer dart?
• Is it worth buying split closer situations?
• Is it worth skipping out on reliable closers and acquiring saves in-season via FAAB?
• Should we purchase middle relievers in drafts?

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On Tuesday, just hours before I dove into the auction for league 1199, I laid out the challenge I faced for the brilliant minds that read this site, and promised to return with news of how things played out. This is my foretold return.

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Last week I built two hypothetical fantasy teams. The first team, the ATC Swiss-Army Knives, was comprised of players from each of the first ten rounds (12-team) with the lowest ATC IntraSD measurement. The second team, the ATC Scary Single Blades, was built in the opposite way, taking the player in each round with the highest IntraSD. For kicks, I then built a third team that was a healthy mix of the two. Read the rest of this entry »

This post won’t be long. And it has more questions than answers. But it’s the most immediately relevant thing I have ever written (at least to me). What do you do in auction where you have a choice between getting a star or building a balanced team and you can’t realistically do both?

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Do you remember being a kid and really wanting a swiss-army knife? They were always locked up in a case, out of reach of 10-year-old grips which would happily test the product right there in the store if the guy with the keys would let them. The swiss-army knife could do it all and would turn any youngster into an adventuring hero instantly. But next to the super utility red magic instrument were the scarier single-blade knives that you were sure, positive, your mom would say no to. In fact, you weren’t so sure yourself if you could handle such an object. If fantasy baseball players on draft day are knives spinning in the display case at your local hardware store, ATC’s IntraSD provides instructions on how to use each one.

Spend a moment sorting by IntraSD on the ATC projections page and you’ll quickly understand what the metric seeks to explain. Players like Seiya Suzuki and Fernando Tatis Jr. have very low values and represent your swiss-army all-around player. Players like Pete Alonso and Jake McCarthy have high values and represent your scary, yet very sharp and useful, single-blade knives or category-specific players. IntraSD, in essence, measures how equally, or unequally, distributed a player’s roto category values are. Here are our four examples in both roto-values as created by z-scores on our auction calculator and the raw projections that generate those values:

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My favorite way to approach a draft is to target the low IntraSD value players. I’m all for drafting Tatis and Suzuki because of the spread of their values. You can see that both players have fairly even values across categories and Tatis provides a little bump in the mSB value. Alonso’s value is mostly tied up in mRBI and mHR while McCarthy’s is isolated to mSB.

I love spreading the value around and I don’t like having one-category players on my team. However, many fantasy managers have great success in balancing a team with those solo cats. So let’s experiment with this season’s player pool. Let’s build two teams using two different strategies. We’ll use ATC’s IntraSD to build one team that has players whose value is equally distributed across offensive categories. Then, we’ll build a second team that isolates specific skills. I’ve only included hitters in the first 10 rounds because pulling in pitchers to this analysis makes things complicated. I’ll write up a pitchers-only version of this post next week. For this analysis, I’m using ATC projections and ranking players based on 12-team leagues and average draft position (ADP) from NFBC drafts. I’m also not using a specific draft position, rather, I’m simply pulling out the highest IntraSD hitter and the lowest IntraSD hitter per round. Here are the two players per round who meet those qualifiers:

If you have the number two pick and you skip over Acuña for Tucker, you’re bound to get some funny looks in the draft room. This analysis is a little unfair in the first round, because all players with first round ADP and high dollar value will naturally have high value in each category. But without going through this exercise, I would have never realized that Kyle Tucker (33) is expected to hit more home runs than Acuña (29). In the end, Acuña’s mSB and mR values edge out the total dollar contest.

You know what’s going on here. Tatis provides stolen bases and Alonso doesn’t. Alonso is expected to hit more home runs (38, Tatis 31) and Tatis has better potential batting average value. Tatis is a perfect example of an all-around player and should be the captain of the ATC Swiss-Army Knives.

Realmuto’s value is on par with Arenado’s because of a huge positional adjustment and while Arenado looks like the better player from a projections standpoint, every team needs a catcher. To have a catcher with a low IntraSD, one who can contribute in all categories exceptionally well relative to other catchers, has tremendous value.

What an interesting battle this one is. Olson has most of his value tied up in home runs and the rbi that come with those home runs. But Altuve is so well balanced. Could there still be some more pop and stolen base potential in the 32-year-old second baseman? Projections say yes. It’s a tough decision to make.

Round four and round two end up looking very similar. Homeruns, runs, and rbi, or stolen bases and average? Remember that scarcity is built into these raw category (z-score) values, so while Schwarber’s 39 ATC projected home runs is third best in the league, Albies’ 15 ATC projected stolen bases lands him at 48th. However, since it is more difficult to find stolen bases laying around on the waiver wire than it is to find home runs, Albies’ stolen base value rounds out his IntraSD to a lower number.

Another catcher appears on team ATC Swiss-Army Knives and already we can see drawbacks to simply selecting the most category-diverse player per round. Unless you want to go H.A.M. in a two catcher league, I wouldn’t advise drafting both Rutschman and Realmuto. But, this does point out the batting-average drain a player like García can be on your roster. However, that stolen base value is always attention grabbing. Had you selected Realmuto as your catcher earlier and avoided García, your team would be much more balanced.

A lot of times we see a projection line like that of Swanson’s:

G: 151 PA: 648 HR: 23 R: 85 RBI: 79 SB: 14

…and nothing really stands out. But, it’s an incredible line. Compare it with Edman’s:

G: 147 PA: 624 HR: 12 R: 85 RBI: 58 SB: 26

…and you might jump out of your shoes when you see that 26 stolen base projection. But Swanson has him beat nearly everywhere else. Are you noticing a pattern? If a player has high positive stolen base value and is lacking in any other category, their IntraSD increases and they become a little more one-sided.

Henderson holds the third loweset IntraSD among players in this analysis and he has the second lowest IntraSD among projected third basemen. Reds prospect Spencer Steer holds the lowest among third basemen at 0.20. Add to that impressive mark the fact that the third base position has such a steep drop off this upcoming season and Henderson’s value, or perhaps ADP, is likely to continue to go up. But once again, that stolen base inhibition comes creeping into your mouse clicking finger and the the “Draft” button starts pulsing.

Suzuki’s recent injury news came as a heavy blow to a few of my draft strategies. He has the lowest IntraSD among all players projected by ATC and I planned on capitalizing on that fact, making him the tiny little scissors in the swiss-army knife that all too often come in handy. He is projected to be such a useful, all-around player that those less “in the know” may let him slide down draft boards. Add to that the fact that he is not a first year player and the shiney new toy in the draft room and I had Suzuki as one of my most common targets. While his season is certainly not over, oblique injuries are so nagging and tough to assess. Kirk, on the other hand, can start to balance out a team that focused on those stolen bases and home runs early on.

Much like in the way that this exercise allowed me to notice Kyle Tucker’s “better than Acuña’s” home run projections, I unexpectedly notice Torres as a well-balanced player. His playing time is certainly in question as the Yankees have Isiah Kiner-Falefa and DJ LeMahieu, but Roster Resource currently has Torres listed as the lead-off hitter and starting second baseman. I really do believe in a healthy home run total from Torres in 2023 given his HR/FB improvements in 2022 along with his improved ability to hit the fastball. McCarthy’s IntraSD tells us the same old story of how valuable higher stolen base projections can be.

Now, it’s time to look at how our individual teams would fair in standard roto formats. Please, meet team ATC Scary Single Blades and team ATC Swiss-Army:

C: Alejandro Kirk 1B: Pete Alonso, Matt Olson 2B: Tommy Edman SS: – 3B: Nolan Arenado OF: Ronald Acuña Jr., Kyle Schwarber, Adolis García, Starling Marte, Jake McCarthy
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C: J.T. Realmuto, Adley Rutschman 1B: – 2B: Jose Altuve, Gleyber Torres, Ozzie Albies SS: Fernando Tatis Jr., Dansby Swanson 3B: Gunnar Henderson OF: Seiya Suzuki, Kyle Tucker

Fascinating. It turns out that the scary single-blade knife slowly spinning in fluorescent light is the better option. The natural balance of one-sided players ends up producing better totals than seeking a diverse team. Looking at the positional distribution of both teams tells us that selecting from either side of the strategy leaves us with a poorly constructed roster. In the end, Mom knows best and as you stomped around the hardware store begging for her to buy you a knife that you probably shouldn’t have, she suggested you settle for something more age-appropriate, the Victorinox Knife, a useful yet less overly utilitarian option:

C: J.T. Realmuto 1B: Pete Alonso 2B: Jose Altuve, Gleyber Torres SS: Dansby Swanson 3B: Gunnar Henderson OF: Seiya Suzuki, Kyle Tucker, Kyle Schwarber, Adolis García

Finally, here are the hypothetical roto standings of our three-team league:

The results of this exercise would indicate that drafting a healthy balance of high IntraSD players is actually a really good thing. But that caveat of not actually being able to get these players in a snake-draft is a pretty big one. Regardless, it is an exercise you can conduct yourself with your known draft position prior to draft day. A balanced team is a good one, but if you can get players who are the best at certain categories, like the Single-Blades, you will be drafting a very good team. There is one thing that has not been included in this anaylsis thus far and that is, what happens if a player just doesn’t meet their expectations for a category? IntraSD also allows you to spread that risk. If you have a base-stealer who stops stealing bases and no back-up plan, then you better get creative mid-season. Take a look at your personal draft strategy from a perspecitive of balance using IntraSD and you’ll likely gain some insight and perspective that could better prepare you for the season.

The Starting Pitcher episode (Part 2) of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Eno Sarris

Pitching+, Stuff+, Command+

Strategy Section

• Effects of new MLB rule changes on pitchers
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Risk
  • Valuing pitchers returning from injury
    • Chris Sale
    • Jacob deGrom
    • Tyler Glasnow
  • Valuing older pitchers with lots of mileage on their arms
• Shohei Othani
  • Is there extra risk asscociated with rostering the two-way player?
• Starting pitcher strategy
  • General landscape
  • Do you need to draft an ace pitcher in fantasy?
  • Should we avoid the waiver wire for starting pitchers?
    • Should we avoid streaming SPs?
  • Should we tilt the Hitter/Pitcher % split more towards pitching?
  • Should we use more bench slots for starting pitchers this year?
  • Should we be chasing any of the following?
    • Wins
    • Innings
    • High IP / GS
    • Pitchers on good teams

ATC Undervalued Players

• Starting Pitchers
  • Aaron Nola
  • Shane Bieber
  • Kevin Gausman

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A few years ago, a guy named Jabari Blash streaked across the Fantasy Baseball firmament like a doomed comet. He had tremendous raw power, but was a three-true-outcomes guy with a vengeance, and most of those outcomes were strikeouts. His plate discipline, his glove, and his baserunning skills were such that he had to hit a lot of home runs to keep a major league job, and when he didn’t, first the Padres and then the Angels kicked him to the curb. We ourselves didn’t expect Blash to succeed, but we nonetheless took him in various deep drafts out of our sentimental recollection of a story we heard in our youths.

The tale goes like this: A young man’s fantastically wealthy grandfather dies. He leaves his entire estate to charity. To the young man, he leaves only some words of wisdom and advice. The key to success and happiness, says Grandpa, can be stated in a single word: BLASH. But to find out what the word means, the young man must do as the grandfather did in his own youth and seek out a certain guru who lives as a hermit at the top of a remote Tibetan mountain.  After much travail, distress, danger, and expense, the young man scales the mountain and finds the guru. “Guru,” he says. “I have come from far across the sea to acquire the wisdom that you alone possess. What is the meaning of BLASH?” And the guru says, “Buy Low And Sell High.” Read the rest of this entry »