Episode 138
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is now live! Jason Collette and Nicholas Minnix discuss, among other things, the fallout of the Jeff Samardzija et al. trade; the Brandon McCarthy trade; the loss of players in mono leagues after crossover trades; the pending returns of Bud Norris, Dillon Gee, Jeremy Hellickson, and Francisco Liriano; more on the injury front, including the expected departure of Edwin Encarnacion; and the official naming of Santiago Casilla as closer.
As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them on our next episode.
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed.
Thanks to Ian Miller, aka Teen Archer, for the intro music. Approximately 78 minutes of joyous analysis.
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Jason, I’ve got a spot for you in my NL-only league next year. No tough-luck BS, no vetoes. Only the best.
So how does one try to get Runs on their team? I thought Suarez would help but clearly he didn’t this week. I guess the league adjusted to him and he has to adjust back. Or do you think I should replace him? Drafting for HRs and Average is fairly straightforward and naturally drafting Cabrera should cover everything but in a 17-team league, the Miggy’s or anyone close is gone by the 2nd round and virtually impossible to find on a waiver wire. Who is around now for Runs – La Stella and the like (I have La Stella)?
I’m low in Stolen Bases and Average as well so perhaps those stats correlate to the Run stat? Of course, Evereth Cabrera was suppose to help in at least the Runs and SBs categories but he’s really killed me. And I’m in about 4th place in HRs which I guess is inversely proportional to the AVG, Rs and SBs categories.
This is a 17-team standard mixed roto (categories) league. From my CBS league weekly report:
“Gyorkomen had a so-so time of it in the runs category, coming in 6th for the week Coach Butterman certainly can’t blame Miguel Cabrera for not doing his part, as he pitched in with 8 runs. That was the most that any third baseman collected this week. All that good work was unfortunately counteracted by Eugenio Suarez, who logged 0 runs.”
Thanks,
Alex
I’m not really sure I understand what your question is, Alex. I wouldn’t automatically assume that HR are inversely correlated to R; perhaps in the age of increased strikeouts, there’s something to it because there is some association between HR and K’s, but I don’t know. There’s also some evidence that K’s may be on the decline in the future, something Eno mentioned in I believe Episode 136.
If you’re looking for players who are likelier to score runs, then you probably want players who hit in the first third of the order for teams that score often. That’s a very broad way to look at it, obviously. I couldn’t readily find FG lit on which stats correlate only with runs scored. La Stella may be a fine pickup and help you in that category, yes. If there’s more you want to know, please ask.
I understand your case, and thinly veiled sociopolitical analogy, but I love me some tough luck leagues. It adds a bit of randomness and risk-reward to this time of year. Only reason why I still play in -Onlys.
Plus, there are better league formats than -Onlys if the chief goal of playing is to see how good your projections are.
It really is all about your preference, obviously. To see how good your projections are isn’t really the main goal of any league, however, because a draft or auction and team management are at least equal portions of the battle. I think they are more so. And projections really aren’t so drastically different that they often give some owner a great advantage. It’s about playing the entire game, and how much you want your game to be dependent on how well you play the game.
One aspect of crossover trades I forgot to mention is that … owners can anticipate which of maybe a couple of players will be on the trade block, and you may shave a couple of bucks off his price because of that – we talked about that aspect, along with the fact that many others end up being on the trade block who were less expected to be. But those players may be just as likely to be traded within the league as to the other – then it becomes a case of which owners in your league lucked out and which didn’t, because there’s no planning for it. It’s kind of like a lottery. Injuries and suspensions throw enough problems at fantasy players, it’s just unnecessary to allow trades to do so as well. But if that’s your preference, then more power to you and your league mates.
A best of both worlds scenario is having all of the terrible audio, but focusing it on Collette whine fests. I saw the extra long runtime today and like an idiot thought “sweet, lots of extra content!”
Haha I actually posted this mid-listen, so I didn’t realize Minnix is equally to blame. That was a full ten minute whine session that educated no one. Keeping things positive, I love these podcasts because I learn so much. Hearing grown men whine about a league format that they chose to play… Minnix was on the verge, before he backed off, of comparing it to historical war crimes! That’s absolutely not what I’m interested in. The central premise that Collette tried to ram through was that we are trying to simulate an actual ball club.
No we aren’t. At all. We play with wins and saves and rbis and no defense at all. This is a game with completely different rules. I’d only respect this if we saw the exact rant when none of the casters players were involved. What a load of silliness.
Still listening, so clearly I’m a fan. But now we have another whine session about the DH? A true baseball fan and he hates the DH. But remember, he’s all about real baseball… I thought we would get the classic Collette “I’ve had this injury, so let me tell you, he won’t come back before…” but we just missed out.
My recommendation for a podcast I love: next time collette is in such a pissy mood, maybe try again the next day. For all the whining I’ve done in these three posts, it’s not ten percent of what we saw in this absolute worst podcast of the season. Looking forward to the next edition which I’ll absolutely listen to, unless it’s trade season, if Collette is involved.
Your point about the whining is well taken. We should not have spent so much time on the topic and, particularly, why it came up in the first place.
I never compared fantasy baseball rules to historical war crimes. I said that the same type of justification has been used for much worse, but its use is ignominious. There is a distinct difference. I pointed out kind of as you did that in the end it’s preference and we know the rules ahead of time and can decide to go elsewhere.
Thanks for listening.