Strategizing for Scoresheet

It’s that time of year again: Scoresheet prep time! For those of you unaware, Scoresheet is a league where you build a full 25-man-type roster (you get up to 30 active players) complete with bench players, full bullpens and so on.

Here’s our league page, for instance.

I’ve had fairly good clubs over the last couple seasons. I was 88-74 last season as “Jedd, Ed and Eddie” and 95-67 in 2015 as “Wasted Aces” — because I had Yu Darvish, Marcus Stroman and Masahiro Tanaka. Welp! The 2014 season was also solid (95-67), as my team was named aptly as “Ricky Nolasco is not very good.” Basically, I haven’t finished under .500 since team “new Warne order” — don’t ask — went 76-86 in 2013, so maybe I’m starting to get the hang of it?

The way Scoresheet works is that you keep major league players and minor league players. Any player who is still eligible to win Rookie of the Year is considered minor-league eligible. Those players cost you picks starting from the back of the 35-round draft. So, if you keep five rookies, your last pick would be in the 30th round. Keeping MLB players costs you picks at the front of the draft, so there’s obviously some strategy at play here.

We have a soft-10 keeper rule, which means you can keep 10 MLB players and as many minor leaguers as you’d like. With that said, keeping more than five or six minor leaguers is inadvisable due to roster crunches, and the other tough part is that a lot of players are no longer minor-league eligible, but also not particularly useful as big leaguers yet. I’m running into that situation with a few players this season.

Also, it’s worth noting that keepers are due at the end of the night on Feb. 15, so there isn’t too much time left to make moves.

Here’s the year-end 2016 roster I’m rolling over in 2017 (asterisk denotes minor-league eligible):

Starting Pitchers:

Marcus Stroman
Masahiro Tanaka
Ervin Santana
Matt Shoemaker
Danny Salazar
Yu Darvish
Jose Berrios
Mike Clevinger
Nick Tropeano
Jeff Hoffman*
Kohl Stewart*
Mike Minor

Relief Pitchers:

Joseph Biagini
Ryan Pressly
Brad Ziegler
Matt Bowman
Joakim Soria
Taylor Rogers
Brandon Kintzler
Mark Lowe
Casey Fien
Shawn Armstrong*
Glen Perkins
Trevor Cahill
Seth Maness

Catchers:

Yasmani Grandal
A.J. Ellis
Chance Sisco*

First Basemen:

Jose Abreu
Justin Bour

Second Basemen:

Scooter Gennett
Carlos Asuaje

Third Baseman:

Trevor Plouffe

Shortstops:

Xander Bogaerts
Eduardo Nunez
Jedd Gyorko
Isan Diaz*
Brendan Rodgers*

Outfielders:

Stephen Piscotty
Jason Heyward
Melvin Upton Jr.
Eddie Rosario
Trayce Thompson
A.J. Pollock
Alex Kirilloff*
Lewis Brinson*

—

So, that’s a pretty solid roster, right? I like to focus on pitching and up-the-middle talent when thinking about keepers, and I don’t think I’m unique in that regard. The four starters I’m keeping are kind of a slam dunk, with Stroman, Tanaka, Darvish and Salazar. There’s ample risk, but a very, very high ceiling and I’m already 80 percent to a full rotation. I’ll always spend picks on possible guys to round out the rotation like Tropeano, Shoemaker or Santana — all of whom are decently interesting and will be thrown back into the player pool to choose from.

Up the middle, I’m keeping Grandal, Bogaerts and a trio of outfielders — Pollock, Heyward and Piscotty. Abreu is a solid first baseman and that’s strangely not a position that has a ton of depth in the draft each year, but I feel pretty confident going into the draft needing just a second and third baseman, a fifth starter, a bullpen and a bench.

I think that’s a fairly good foundation.

I’ve never kept relievers, but I’ve also never had much in the way of stud relievers. For the most part, I can usually cobble together a solid bullpen. This year’s was…..not so great, I guess. I’m hoping for a Heyward bounce back as far as outfielders are concerned, and simply having a healthy Pollock — knock on wood — will help me a ton here just like with the Ottoneu team I wrote up last week. Overall, this is a solid, if unassuming outfield bunch.

Prospects-wise, I’m kind of on the fence with a few guys. Let’s take a look at my projected keeper list, and then break down the prospects afterward:

Grandal
Abreu
Bogaerts
Piscotty
Heyward
Pollock
Stroman
Salazar
Tanaka
Darvish

I don’t think there are any arguments in those 10. In previous years, I had tougher decisions — like if Carlos Gomez was going to bounce back prior to last season, for instance — but this year it’s a pretty cut and dry bunch of 10.

The minor leaguers are far tougher. As of right now, here’s who I’m thinking of keeping:

Stewart
Hoffman
Sisco
Diaz
Rodgers
Kirilloff
Brinson

Seven keepers is a lot, but if I get to a point in the draft where I don’t like any players enough to take the plunge — let’s say, round 15, for instance — I can also flip that pick and trade back for a couple more. There are no roster limits, just a limit to how many players you can activate each week. So in 35 rounds, an owner could have 40 picks if they played their cards right. That makes strategy interesting once guys fall out of the race toward the end of the season. They might flip a player they don’t plan on keeping anyway for an 18th-round pick. Then, come next draft, they have an 18th round pick as a bonus and the other owner not only took that player on, but has to find a way to keep or move them or else they lose them back into the player pool. As a result, 3-for-1 deals where teams try to consolidate into higher quality over quantity happen from time to time.

I know Stewart hasn’t struck anyone out in his minor-league career, but he’s still well regarded in prospect circles and still throws fairly hard. I want to take a year and see how he evolves under a new brain trust. I’m not terribly enthused about owning any Rockies pitcher, but he missed out on exhausting his rookie eligibility and if he pans out, I have a ready-made fifth starter. It would have been nice if this was true for Berrios as well, but them’s the breaks. Sisco had a nice year in Double-A last year and catching prospects always carry a little more weight. Diaz is a top-100 prospect who projects as a very good up-the-middle talent. The same is true of Rodgers, who just wound up No. 16 on the Baseball America top-100 list. He’s a little ways off, but that’s OK. Brinson was No. 27 on this year’s list, and could provide me with another bat who could DH if I can’t find room in the outfield, or else insurance for Heyward/Pollock if their 2016 issues persist. Kirilloff is a long ways off as well, but has a well-regarded bat and could move quickly in the Twins system.

Overall, am I missing anything? Are there any players I’m keeping that you wouldn’t? Let me hear it.