My 2019 Portfolio

When you play a lot of leagues, things start to blend and you might forget who you have and where you have them. For the last several years, I’ve put together my portfolio to keep track of who I have in my leagues. Over the last few years, I’ve scaled back my league load. Now when I say this number, some of you will still faint, but I promise it’s a major cutback. There are 13 leagues accounted for in my portfolio and only 10 of those require regular work (daily/weekly lineups and FAAB). I think the first time I made a portfolio, it was for 20 leagues.

One aspect to remember when doing this exercise is that the top guys are never going to be the studs from the first couple of rounds unless you get lucky enough to pick in nearly the same spot throughout the leagues. Drafts start to open up after pick 75 so that’s often when you start accumulating your multiple shares of players, often because you comfortable taking them ahead of their ADP since you believe in them. This is even more true of pitching specifically.

That said, my top two guys are hitters this year!

The Dynamic Duo

I actually got two guys in over 50% of the 13 leagues, coming in at seven times apiece. Do you want a second to guess who they are silently to yourself… or you can yell their names at your computer, I don’t care.

Creating.

 

A.

 

Spoiler-free.

 

Zone.

My top two guys for 2019 are Garrett Hampson and Ryan O’Hearn. Hey, at least I put my money where my mouth is as I didn’t stop talking about either of them all year. Hampson is still battling for playing time, seemingly even after the Daniel Murphy injury thanks to Mark freakin’ Reynolds while O’Hearn has played 4 of 5 games for the Royals at 1B or DH. He’s a regular for sure.

4-5 Shares

Pitching takes centerstage in this section which gets back to what I mentioned earlier regarding the pitching pool opening up mid-draft. It’s essentially The Glob™ theory at play. There’s a vast group of pitchers where the differences in true talent aren’t that significant, so identify your favorites and get those guys. Whether you’re projecting a leap, using soft factors like team context, or just finding the same 2-3 guys available when you’re taking pitching, it’s easy to start accumulating shares in The Glob™. Personally, I targeted these guys and I’m really happy that the 11 pitchers in this group of 18 players are on 4 or 5 of my teams:

This is another group of names you should recognize if you listened to the podcast this winter. I understand the trepidation with Dodgers pitchers and their innings, but I love the skills and felt that both Stripling and Maeda were nicely priced, especially Stripling before the injuries started to pile up in the rotation clearing his path.

Woodruff was my choice in the battle for the fifth starter role with Corbin Burnes, but then both won roles (as did Freddy Peralta) as Milwaukee truly went with their most talented instead of just favoring tenure. I ranked Thor and Taillon over the industry standard at 5 and 12, respectively. Even still, I was happy and somewhat surprised to get them as frequently as I did. Two of my Cole shares were keepers.

Musgrove is someone I see real breakout potential in for this year. Peacock is similar to my Stripling/Maeda love where I just want to invest in Houston pitchers and kinda let the playing time figure itself out. I was targeting Strop as a second closer as I think he can take hold of the job and just keep it even after Brandon Morrow returns. Lugo should already be in the rotation over Jason Vargas, though his outing yesterday doesn’t help matters. Either way, he’s cheap enough to take the shot and see how it plays out. Sanchez was just dirt-cheap, and I can’t quit his filthy stuff.

Albies and Barnes are buybacks from last year. Despite falling off after his fast start, Albies still had a great season so it’s not like he’s a buyback on a flop, but Barnes absolutely is that. He was brutal in the little playing time he got while Yasmani Grandal ran away with the job. Grandal’s now in Milwaukee and Barnes is getting a full chance to shine. I love Cutch’s price and thought he was somewhat slept on in that insane lineup.

The 20 (3+ leagues)

I’m pleased with the studs in this group of 3-leaguers. Obviously I was blessed to nab Trout thrice, all with the first pick of the draft which I only point out because there were some drafts where he went second to either Mookie Betts or Max Scherzer. I got two of my absolute favorite players in this group with Chapman and Laureano. I wish Olson wouldn’t have gotten hurt so I could complete my Oakland triumvirate. Or maybe I could’ve gotten one more share of Chad Pinder to complete it in Olson’s stead.

Having three of Miggy and Jimenez is leaning on each of the spectrum in hopes of a similarly strong result: the proven superstar looking to rebound and the rookie who couldn’t be less proven with zero MLB playing time coming into the season. Speaking of rebounds, I took the discount on Seager and felt good about it. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that two of the Wong shares were pickups. I can’t pretend I drafted him or even considered doing so all that often despite a cheap price.

The Rest

I got 69 guys at least twice which is just so, so nice. My favorites in that group include the aforementioned Pinder, Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Jackie Bradley Jr., Rafael Devers (at least the Sox are super-awesome so far!), Blake Snell, Jacob deGrom, Anthony Rendon, Victor Robles (and just missed on two more!), Luis Castillo, Zack Wheeler, Justin Verlander, Yu Darvish, Rhys Hoskins, Joey Votto, Yasmani Grandal, Wilson Ramos, Jimmy Nelson, Kirby Yates, Marco Gonzales, and Matt Strahm (eek!). In a perfect world, I’d have gotten more of several of these guys, even the ones off to slow starts, but drafts don’t always break your way.

I have 134 guys just once. There is no doubt some in that group that I’d have liked more of, too, but it’s a lot harder to complain about it when I had 13 chances (well, 11 since there are two keeper leagues). If I really wanted them – especially those outside of the top 50 or so – I should’ve made a more concerted effort to get it done.

If you’re a multi-leaguer, who are your most-rostered guys? Who are your biggest regrets on the short end (non-obvious like 1st-3rd rounders)?

Is anyone a one-leaguer? I’m always fascinated by that as I’m fairly certain I’ll never be that again. I like the idea of just getting your guys and those 23 are yours for the summer. Of course, if you had 3-4 of major injury guys so far this year, that’d make pretty sad to be a one-leaguer.





Paul is the Editor of Rotographs and Content Director for OOTP Perfect Team. Follow Paul on Twitter @sporer and on Twitch at sporer.

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FrodoBeck
4 years ago

I have Khris Davis and Joey Gallo in every league and I’m ecstatic about it. Unfortunately I also had Scooter and Matt Olson in every league too.

Also ended up with Moustakas in every league, not even intentionally. He just happened to always be there right when I needed him to be. Must have been fate.