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4/6/16

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

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NO TIMESTAMPS BECAUSE I’M A LITTLE TIME CRUNCHED FOR DINNER & SOFTBALL, I’LL TRY TO GET BACK TO IT LATER TONIGHT.

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• Andrew Heaney to DL
• Ben Revere to DL
• Shawn Tolleson implosion

Standouts

• Trevor Story
• Robinson Cano
• Aaron Sanchez
• Steven Souza

Strategy Section

• How do you approach early standouts who were drafted late?
  • On your team
  • On other teams (and being made available for trade)
  • On the wire (let’s say 12-team mixer, just right in the middle)

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Let’s not get worried about Madison Bumgarner because he walked five guys. He’s done that twice before and one of them was his first start of the season in 2013. That, you can pencil into a guy feeling his way back into his mechanics. That’s fine.

Let’s not get worried about Madison Bumgarner because he gave up two homers. He’s done *that* 23 times. Even the fact that it was Scooter Gennett and Jonathan Villar that homered shouldn’t bother us too much. His last official start was one in which he gave up three homers — one each to Enrique Hernandez, A.J. Ellis, and Justin Ruggiano. So sometimes the bottom half of the league can touch one of baseball’s best.

So let’s not really worry about Madison Bumgarner because of his results yesterday. Let’s worry about Madison Bumgarner because of his process yesterday.

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Alas, it’s tier time. Your first chance to either praise my crystal ball or politely ask precisely what it is that I’m smoking. Full disclosure — I’m not a fan of tiers. To be honest, I’m not sure what the point of them is. In my mind, you’re only doing half the work. Calculate dollar values that indicate exactly who you project to perform better, rather than throw up your hands and lump a group of pitchers together arbitrarily.

Reminders:

• This is American League only rankings! No, I did not forget about Clayton Kershaw or your favorite sleeper who isn’t, Raisel Iglesias.
• My rankings are almost a straight sorting of my projected dollar values earned.
• Tiers are determined in the aforementioned arbitrary way. The gaps are easier to separate toward the top, completely random as we get further down the list.
• For the first time, I have made adjustments to the rankings, somewhat reducing the impact of my innings pitched projection. This is the R.A. Dickey Adjustment. You want better ratios and can worry about innings limits later in the season. For now, you just desire the best performance.

Because I’m too lazy to come up with new tiers, once again, they will be named after characters from the brilliant FXX show, Man Seeking Woman.

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Below, you’ll find the RotoGraphs staffs’ picks for the 2016 season. We, here at RotoGraphs — we like to pick things. Make lists. All that.

If you have some heavy-duty drafting to wrap up this weekend, maybe these picks will come in handy. If not, perhaps they can come in handy as guidance for some thrifty, shifty mid-season moves. And if not that, then simply appreciate these for what they are: literally the best preseason picks you’ll see anywhere. Period!

OK, maybe that won’t end up being true. Who knows! None of us are clairvoyant, and that’s a damn shame. But we do our best to pretend like we are. Anyway, enough of this rambling. Here’s what you came here for, split into two tables — 2016 staff picks for hitters, and more for pitchers.

Also, for further clarity, please refer to the category definitions that follow each table.

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Yesterday, a trio of fifth starters were announced. They are all worthy of different levels of excitement, but Vincent Velasquez, Aaron Sanchez, and Nate Karns all won jobs, and now we’re all scrambling to re-rank them based on this new information. Here’s the thing, though — don’t move them very far.

The announcement is nice, because it’s like the closer’s role. You either have the fifth starter’s spot, or you don’t, and if you don’t, the innings are hard to find. But you might be surprised how little those announcements may have meant.

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In 2015, just 41 players hit 25 homers or more. Lowering the cut line to 20 homers bumps the total of players to reach that threshold up to 64. As one of the standard scoring categories, homers are desired, but there are only so many dingers to go around. Getting top-shelf power is usually attached to a premium draft selection, but the following three players hit 24 or more homers in 2015 and are being selected after pick 265 on average in NFBC drafts as of March 24th.

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Each year, before the season, I try to run a set of projected standings for my leagues. It’s not super difficult, though you do have to set aside probably about one hour per league to set it up. But once you have these projections, they can be extremely useful in figuring out your strengths and weaknesses, and giving yourself a realistic outlook for your team.

The specifics below are based on ottoneu, but the theory can be applied to any format.
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Making bold predictions is one of my favorite activities in advance of an upcoming baseball season. It allows me — and the other writers partaking in the bold predictions series — to identify the bandwagons we’re on (or perhaps even driving). While now is the time of fluffy stories about players being in the best shape of their lives and poised for career years, not all is rainbows and butterflies. Below, you’ll find a few not so friendly bold predictions, too.

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I am a huge San Francisco Giants fan. However, if you have followed my work prior to joining Rotographs, you know I hate Gregor Blanco. I will explain further. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been batting over .300 on bold predictions for a while, and I’ve also been getting crap for not being bold enough. So, in the honor of So So Def, I’ll stop slacking on my pimping, and I’ll turn it up.

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