Archive for review

Allow me to break the fourth wall (more than I normally break the fourth well) and say I’m glad a few of you have enjoyed my recent (mock) draft recaps, especially the format of them. It can be tough to make that kind of content both interesting and informative, so I’m glad it has achieved at least the minimum thresholds in both regards.

(Mock Draft Review: RotoBaller Friends and Family Draft)
(Draft Review: The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational)

I was fortunate enough for the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) to sponsor a “Beat Alex Chamberlain” high-stakes league. It was my first time competing in this specific contest: the $350 Rotowire Online Championship. With that kind of buy-in, I knew I would likely face some sharp competition despite having no prior exposure to any of the other owners.

The league specifications are as follows:

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The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) is a league of leagues in which hundreds of fantasy baseball analysts square off against one another in 15-team leagues and overall. Three hundred and fifteen competitors will face off in 21 separate leagues to test their wits and all that jazz.

I wrote about my performance last year here. After bottoming out in April, finishing the month 12th of 15 with only 63.5 points, I had the 3rd-best team from May onward, finishing the season 4th in my league and 51st overall out of 195 analysts. Of the $900 or so I spent on free agent auction budget (FAAB), roughly half was spent on chasing saves — of which I accrued only 22. It was a preposterously bad performance in that regard. Only one other team above me in the overall standings collected fewer saves, and maybe three others had fewer than 40. Otherwise, everyone had 60 or more. It stands to reason a sharper FAAB performance could have vaulted me up the standings.

This year, I’m running down my picks as they happen, almost like a diary, although I won’t publish this until the draft is complete. Still, you can track my train of thought as if it were real time.

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For the fourth consecutive year, my friends at RotoBaller invited me to participate in the RotoBaller Friends and Family mock draft. The draft room was, in a word, terrifying:

1. Vlad Sedler, Guru Elite
2. Nick Mariano, RotoBaller
3. Pierre Camus, RotoBaller
4. Todd Zola, Mastersball
5. Tim Heaney, RotoWire
6. Heath Cummings, CBS Sports
7. Howard Bender, Fantasy Alarm
8. Nando Di Fino, The Athletic
9. Scott Engel, RotoExperts
10. Alex Chamberlain, RotoGraphs
11. Ray Flowers, Guru Elite
12. Real Talk Raph, RotoBaller

I drew the #10 pick (as shown in the draft order above), immediately understanding I might have a difficult decision to make very early in the draft.

This doesn’t need much preamble, but I do want to say one thing: I maintain that a good way to improve as a drafter (for lack of a better word) is to try something you might not ordinarily try or force yourself into an uncomfortable position you might not normally get into. I embraced this discomfort with my first two picks, assembling a base from building blocks I might not normally use given the options available to me. As you’ll see in my concluding remarks, I think I did pretty well.

Also: we were all on a 30-second clock. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was stressed. My internal monologue was utter chaos.

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On Monday, I wrote about my first foray into ottoneu. This post carries the same warning: This genre of post may not appeal to most readers. I don’t want to waste your time if it’s not your thing. Hereafter I’ll dissect my performance in the first annual Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational organized by our Justin Mason. For the uninitiated, TGFBI is a multi-league tournament of sorts among fantasy analysts, all competing in separate leagues and also overall (thanks to standings compiled by Smada).

Again, this is all about accountability. It’s easy to chalk up your W’s and ignore your L’s. I also think some folks might be interested in seeing how an analyst might actually implement the advice they offer. I’ll be the first to admit having a platform does not make me an “expert” by any means. I research and write to learn more about baseball and fantasy baseball and to be the best fantasy baseball player I can be. I’m not there yet. I’m my own worst enemy, as I’ll show below. Ultimately, I hope taking a fine-tooth comb to my season might help me grow as an owner and, perhaps, help others as well through insight and reflection. (Or maybe you’re reading just to be entertained! That’s fine, too.)

Same word of advice as last time, to myself and everyone: always, always make sure you understand the league rules and scoring format. This is something I screwed up in ottoneu, and it’s something I screwed up in TGFBI. Namely: TGFBI did not impose an innings limit. That’s a huge deal. In 15-team leagues, it’s difficult to actually blow through a 1,400/1,500/whatever-inning limit while accruing worthwhile ratios, but you could do it if you set your mind to it. I wouldn’t recommend it; it requires nearly or fully punting saves. Still, at a certain point last year, I decided to embrace it when my pursuit for saves proved itself entirely fruitless.

League finish: 4th of 15
Overall finish: 51st of 195

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Warning: This genre of post may not appeal to most readers. I don’t want to waste your time if it’s not your thing. Hereafter I’ll pull back the curtains to review of performance in two “expert” leagues: FanGraphs Staff leagues #1 and #2, both constituting my first foray into the ottoneu world.

This is about accountability, which is something I am, as some would say, “all about.” It’s really easy to parade your victories; it’s more difficult to advertise and own your losses, both regading overall performance (league titles and return on investment) and also player-specific analysis. I’m eager to remind readers I called a Jose Ramirez breakout in 2015 (and, again, in 2016, when it actually happened), an Austin Barnes “breakout” in 2017, and Luke Weaver and Madison Bumgarner implosions prior to 2018. What I decline to admit, though, is, in the posts to which I just linked, I declared I’d fade Justin Verlander hard in 2016, when he won 16 games with a 3.04 ERA, or that I thought Chris Davis might out-earn Giancarlo Stanton. Sometimes, The Process^TM finds diamonds in the rough; other times, it mistakes turd-shaped rough for diamonds.

I can chalk those L’s up to a lack of experience and knowledge. I’ll readily admit some of my analyses from only a couple of years ago make me cringe. But I also know that even great calls can fall victim to variance or misfortune (which is why I refreshed my Ramirez breakout pick from 2015 for 2016, and my Barnes breakout pick from 2016 for 2017 — and, spoiler, probably again for 2019). Some losses are unearned, akin to a quality start with a bullpen implosion. Others are downright bad. But, I stand by them! I once believed them. It’s just how it goes.

It’s my first time doing this. Just figured it was high time to hold myself accountable and try to learn from my league-specific performances, both profitable and otherwise.

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When introducing my 2018 bold predictions, I talked about “not being bold just to be bold.” I sought to demonstrate that, by “abiding by The Process ^TM,” I could make bold predictions that, frankly, didn’t feel all htat bold to me. In hindsight, it’s easy to say how they really weren’t bold. But back when I made them, based on available average draft position (ADP) data, they were, by definition, bold.

It would sound arrogant for me to say my bold predictions this year could be used as a clinic on extracting value in drafts (especially with the social baggage that “putting on a clinic” carries these days). However, it might not be untrue: I hit three of my five predictions, all of them relating to guys who played key roles in the drafts of successful teams this year. Please, do forgive the arrogance, then; I’ll do my best to explain how the strategies I employed this year are repeatable.

All end-of-season values will rely on ESPN’s Player Rater.

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I had participated in a too-early industry mock draft that ended a couple of weeks ago. Then I attended First Pitch Arizona (FPAZ), which I reviewed and at which I participated in another arguably too-early draft. This post is about that latter draft. Sorry for all the reviews lately.

The draft, which took place live at FPAZ, is hosted by the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC). It’s a 15-team league, but instead of being a standard 30-round draft (seven bench players) with in-season transactions, it’s a 50-round draft-and-hold with no transactions (don’t worry, this only covers the first 23 rounds). I won’t say it completely changes the dynamic, but it does, or at least should, dramatically alter the plans of owners who take a lot of risks and plan to hedge them using their free agent acquisition budgets (FAABs).

What’s worse is I had, and still have, done virtually zero planning for the 2018 season. Accordingly, I relied on a strategy I outlined in the previously hyperlinked too-early mock draft review. I’m a risk-averse guy, so I typically draft player who are boring — boring because they’re old and/or you know what you’re getting. Low variance, things of that nature. This strategy inadvertently exacerbated this tendency of mine in these drafts, and the draft-and-hold nature of this league further compounded it. Without looking, the average age of my team must be, like, 33 years old.

But I like it. It’s so unsexy, so unapologetically (actually, very apologetically) boring that it’s almost not worth review. Except when I talk about boring, unsexy teams, I hear from guys like Jeff Zimmerman, Mike Gianella and so on — guys in the industry expert leagues such as Tout Wars and LABR — who say this is their jam, and that’s reassuring.

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This review was written with permission — I asked, not the other way around — and was not reviewed prior to publication.

There exists several gatherings for baseball enthusiasts every year, including, off the top of my head, MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, SABR Analytics Conference, Saber Seminar and Pitch Talks. However, I can’t name many, if any, conferences that cater specifically to fantasy baseball enthusiasts other than First Pitch Arizona (FPAZ). It’s not that the other conferences wouldn’t benefit fantasy baseball players — surely, they share sharp, illuminating content — but they don’t synthesize it specifically for the fantasy baseball experience.

Brent Hershey, general manager of BaseballHQ, invited me to speak on a panel with Greg Ambrosius (National Fantasy Baseball Championship, or NFBC), Dave Potts (RotoGrinders) and Brian Slack (BaseballHQ) about 2017 average draft position (ADP) musings. For an event in its 23rd year, I could find scarcely any reviews of the conference aside from these testimonials.

Accordingly, I thought it would be worthwhile to allow readers to learn (more) about the event. I’ll provide a brief overview of everything and then break down the programming by day, almost like I’m writing in my diary, except without the anxiety and self-doubt.

Overview

FPAZ occurs every year the weekend of the Arizona Fall League (AFL) Fall Stars Game (typically the first weekend of November) in Phoenix, Ariz. Registration costs $249 for early birds and $499 for late birds. The conference spans four days, four nights — for this year, the evening of Thursday, Nov. 2 through the morning of Sunday, Nov. 5 — and includes two tickets (or more, depending on availability) to any AFL games playing that weekend and, once available, all of BaseballHQ’s major publications. It also provides breakfast each morning and a buffet lunch on Saturday on site. Exact programming is liable to change from year to year, but a couple of panels (based on cornerstone BaseballHQ content) likely stay the same. Hotel fare is not covered, but the conference took place at the DoubleTree suites by Hilton, which is where most attendees stayed.

Thursday

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In the two previous years I’ve curated the RotoGraphs staff picks, I evaluated them during the post-/offseason to determine which staff writer had the best time pickin’. What good are our allegedly “expert” picks if we don’t hold ourselves accountable?

You can find this year’s preseason picks here. The best pick in each category is an indiscernible blend of talent (duh) and uniqueness (like, Andrew Benintendi as a Rookie of the Year candidate is not very original, so I’d dock you points for that). Most correct (with air quotes) picks wins. Let’s go!

(Shallow) Sleeper (ADP 201-300, per NFBC ADP)

Pitcher: Robbie Ray (Brice Russ, Jeff Zimmerman)
Hitter: Domingo Santana (Al Melchior, Birchwood Bros., Justin Vibber)

There are three standout picks here, but one stands above the rest. I have written repeatedly (aka twice) about Ray’s rollercoaster career and baffling peripherals. He has delivered consecutive seasons of extreme outliers; his true self is probably a perfect blend of 2016 and 2017, which is roughly a mid-3.00s ERA with league-leading strikeouts and potentially league-trailing walks (and, also, league-trailing contact management). He is Yu Darvish’s stateside-produced clone, and early evidence (#2early mock drafts, henceforth) suggests he’ll be drafted as such.

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I talked a big game about my bold predictions this year spawning from research. Like, instead of just being gut instinct types of things, or just being bold for the sake of being bold. Truth of it is I didn’t do as much research as I would’ve liked. My rotisserie-league drafts were not particularly strong, and while I hit the trifecta (1st, 2nd, 3rd) in my three home leagues (I live modestly), I could simply feel my drafts, as well as my bold predictions, were inferior relative to what I hoped they’d be.

You probably don’t care, though, so this is all filler text, for all intents and purposes. You want to cut to the chase. I don’t blame you! Let me drag this out a bit longer. I’ll review each prediction from March with their corresponding midseason “probabilities” of being correct from July before finally reaching a verdict. I don’t remember half the predictions and I honestly have no idea how I’ll do until I reach the end.

1) Alex Dickerson is a top-30 outfielder. (Midseason odds: 0%)

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