Archive for 2024

I have a spiel I recycle each time I make bold predictions. It goes something like this: bold predictions should be bold but actionable. They should be founded primarily in logic with a little bit of wish-casting. A bold prediction made blindly is worth nothing. It’s all about the process.

Often my success with bold predictions is indicative of my success during the season. I am mostly in keeper/dynasty leagues, and my indifference to fantasy baseball the previous two years proved costly. Still, I had my best season since 2021 and turned a positive return on investment. It’s hard to ask for much more than a positive ROI, except for an even bigger one.

So, let’s see how I did here. I use Razzball Player Rater (12-team) values as my primary source of dollar values because it’s widely known, but I actually prefer my Pitch Leaderboard values (also 12-team; subscriber only). To me the scaling is more realistic and reflective of actual roster construction. To be clear, though, the difference is primarily the scale. Ryan O’Hearn, for example, despite being worth $7 according to my model, is the 131st-best hitter; for Razzball, at $2, he’s 137th-best.

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So, yeah: I came 3rd place. That’s cool! I didn’t win, so it’s not that cool, but it still feels good. In our league there are a lot of sharp folks whom I respect. Given the sheer number of leagues in Tout Wars now it’s easy to accuse the talent pool of being diluted. It’s also easy to defend it as being not diluted, seeing as I directly participate and thus have an incentive to save face, but nevertheless. It’s a solid crop of talent.

Additionally, I am categorically bad at 15-team leagues (thus, it feels good to do moderately well at something you’re bad at). For 15-teamers you must have that encyclopedic knowledge of the player pool. It is imperative to minimize mistakes because they cannot be rectified as easily through waivers. You know what it takes to develop that encyclopedic knowledge? Time. You know who doesn’t have time? Parents of toddlers. Or people with full-time jobs outside of fantasy baseball. More than half my opponents do fantasy baseball full-time! How can I possibly compete?

Rather than make excuses, I wanted to prove to myself I, indeed, could compete. Read the rest of this entry »

One bold prediction for each position, in order (except there’s two each for outfield and starting pitcher). No preamble. Just go.

1) Jake Rogers is a top-12 catcher.

Rogers does not boast an especially unique skillset among catchers: he hits for power and not much else. To Rogers’ credit, however, he hits for a lot of power, definitely for catchers and even relative to non-catchers, too. With his strong pulled fly ball tendencies his path to 20-plus home runs is relatively frictionless.

Carson Kelly, a former 2nd-rounder and top-100 prospect, watched his blue-chip prospectdom expire long ago. Aside from breaking out during 2019’s juiced-ball season and a decent showing in 2021 he has unquestionably disappointed. He figures to fulfill the shallow side of a possible platoon with Rogers, one that would net him the usual one-fourth of the available plate appearances. That leaves perhaps 450 PAs, rather than the 360 PAs he’s projected for and that he accumulated last year, to push Rogers over the top as a catching option.

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This is my fourth year in the 15-team mixed league auction, with batting average replaced by on-base percentage (OBP). No one tracks these things closely (except for Josiah Tindor), but I’ll be the first to admit I’ve fared quite poorly in this league. If my memory serves me correctly, I finished 14th, 8th, and 15th. That’s… pretty bad! Embarrassing, even. I expected to perform badly in my first year — I have never quite gotten the grasp of 15-team leagues, with 12 teams being the sweet spot for me, and I had never played in an OBP league before. In 2022, with a year under my belt, it went better but it still wasn’t great.

Last year, though, was an unmitigated disaster. It was time to face the facts: I simply hadn’t devoted enough time and attention to fantasy baseball. My daughter was born during the 2020 season, so before the 2021 season she was still small and decidedly less of a rascal, which allowed me to prepare as I normally would. But as she has gotten older I have found myself with less and less free time. I thought I could simply ride the momentum of my existing knowledge of the player pool. To some extent, it worked; the 2022 season wasn’t so bad, although it was my first losing (overall negative ROI) year since 2011. That should’ve been enough of a red flag. 2023 was somehow worse and, frankly, downright humiliating.

I told myself, not again. Read the rest of this entry »