The lack of steals is a knock on him, but 275/18/70/70 would be reasonable if he plays the whole season and that would be pretty serviceable at a MI spot. I definitely wouldn't look at him to be my 3B or CI spot.

It would be in most cases, but you cant really afford to trade any good pitchers. Trout is not going improve your offense relative to the rest of the league as much as losing CMart will hurt you... you're already blowing everyone away in hitting.

If I was going to trade Betts I would have been hitting up the owners of Kershaw, Bum, Sale and trying to get one of them plus an upgrade somewhere else.
Machado/Gardner is prob not much different than Betts/Harrison.

Yeah I agree could have gotten more for betts probably. But that hope my MI was bad and Machado can be kept for 3 more years vs 2 so long term I win pretty handily even if I lose short term.

And really? The league is pretty lopsided in that like 6 teams have really good lineups and the other 6 suck so offense isn't going to be a walk in the park. Also I live and die by trading and know I could then flip trout for one of my other hitters (JDM, Pollock, Springer) for an elite pitcher since their keeper values are pretty good.

I was just playing devils advocate and answering SRM's question about why most leagues are basically ignoring him.
In deep 15+ team leagues where virtually every player with a starting job is rosterable, then sure, he is a viable and practically free option.

Not saying that you got too little for Betts, or anything like that. I just think you could have improved your team more by going after elite SP.

Even if 5 of the other teams have strong offenses, are they really comparable to yours which has 4 of the top 10 hitters, and then another 4 more inside the top 30?
Thats nuts, 8 bats from the first 3 rounds!

Earlier I asked if I should make a trade giving me the 1st and 2nd overall pick and I went ahead and did that. Now the draft is tomorrow.

Its H2H through yahoo, 6 v 6 format. R,RBI, HR, BB, SB, AVG & IP, W, S, HR, K, ERA, WHIP.

Thoughts on who to take? I assume Kershaw is a slam dunk. What do we think of taking Bryant over Trout? In yahoo, Bryant is 3b/OF/1B eligible. Then, I was going to take Villar in the 3rd who is 2B/3B/SS eligible. If it panned out that way it'll have the diamond covered by the third round and flexibility the rest of the way. Thoughts?

Any other recommendations?

For what it's worth this is probably close to my 15th year doing the same league and I've reached the semi-finals once so it's fair to say I stink.

ANY help/recommendations/berating is appreciated.

If you think Trout is the best player; that's who you take. I wouldn't be overly concerned with position flexibility with your starters. Villar having 2B/SS is a nice luxury to have draftwise, but you're drafting him because he's a top 25-30 player, not his positional eligibility.

Also, the more I think about it I would probably take Trout and Altuve in H2H over Kershaw. But, I think SP is much less valuable in H2H.

If I had top 2 picks I'd probably just diversify my investments and take the best pitcher and hitter (Kershaw, Trout). Don't overthink it. Altuve value takes a relative hit in a league with BB plus the standard 5 hitting categories, wouldn't recommend him. Kershaw value should take a relative boost to 5x5 because he will pitch more IP/game than most pitchers.

Yea, I'm trying not to overthink it and keep in mind the later rounds. I should've put this in my OP, but the trade is my 2,3,4,5 for his 1,3,5.

With that said, that's why I was considering going Kershaw/Bryant (Villar is he's available) then best player from there on out.

Knowing the trade, does that change anyones opinion? If not, how do we play it later? Thank you.

what do we think of segura this year? other than hitting less groundballs I see a bunch of outliers (HR/FB, BABIP) fueling his power numbers last year. I understand the Mariners manager is pretty aggressive re: base running so there may be some floor there. as long as steals are there i see him as a top 75 guy at the very least?

Not taking Trout is the definition of over thinking it.
Its the first round. Positions dont matter. Trout has the highest floor, the highest ceiling, and is clearly the correct choice.
The trade you made and the picks you have/don't have later on in the draft do not change that. Keep taking the best player until you run out of starting positions on your roster

This is what I would do, and as I said before, I devalue starters a bit in a H2H format. I slightly lean towards Altuve over Kershaw, but it's superclose. If I took Kershaw I'd definitely avoid Villar; I think you'll fall too far behind in the power categories if you're entering round 5 with Trout, Kershaw, and Villar. If you really want Bryant; I'd try to move down from the 2 spot to 4 or 5 and try to gain an extra pick somewhere.

Picks 1&2: Trout and Altuve

Round 3: I'd probably target Freeman here, otherwise, I'd look at Springer, Encarnacion or Cruz as back-up options. Definitely would want power.

Round 5: My ideal choice here would be Kyle Seager. If any of Cueto, Arrieta, Darvish, or Lester fell to here, that would be my next choice. If I took an OF in RD3 then I'd look at Chris Davis, otherwise I'd be looking at OFs, guys like Yelich, Polanco, McCutcheon, or Cespedes.

Round 6&7: Tough to gauge this far out, but would definitely be going pitcher-pitcher here if I don't have any yet.

I have a hard time forgetting 2014 and 2015:




He tanked second half of 13' as well so were talking around 1400 PA's of .250/.290/.330, 65 wRC+, 0 WAR. Also he's moving from possibly the best non-Coors hitters park to maybe the worst non-AT&T hitters park.

If he gets on base enough to keep the leadoff job all year he should be very useful, but 20/64 ain't happening. His floor there is like 4/35

Don't understand why you wouldn't take Trout and Mookie.

yea those are pretty horrifying, but i'm not sure what the cause of the uptick is. miller park shouldn't be too far off Arizona's stadium in terms of offensive friendliness. that's why i was wondering if there was a material change in approach or something last year that i was missing

I discount his 14-15 seasons due to his son dying. I think you can draw a pretty good line from his 2013 to 2017 under normal development.

Hey guys! Lengthy question here but I will keep it as succinct as possible:

League: Head to Head Points League.


SCORING
Batting
Singles (1B) 1 Doubles (2B) 2
Triples (3B) 3 Home Runs (HR) 4
Walks (BB) 1 Runs Scored (R) 1
Runs Batted In (RBI) 1 Stolen Bases (SB) 1
Strikeouts (K) -1 Game Winning RBI (GWRBI) 2
Hitting for the Cycle 10 Grand Slam Home Runs (GSHR) 3

Pitching
Innings Pitched (IP) 1.5 Earned Runs (ER) -1
Wins (W) 5 Losses (L) -5
Saves (SV) 5 Blown Saves (BS) -2
Strikeouts (K) 1 Hits Allowed (H) -0.5
Walks Issued (BB) -0.5 Shutouts (SO) 5
Home Runs Allowed (HR) -0.5 Pick Offs (PKO) 1
Complete Games (CG) 5 No Hitters (NH) 15
Perfect Games (PG) 20

I am picking up a team in this league that has pretty good keepers. I am planning on keeping:
Goldschmidt
Harper
Bumgarner
Braun
Darvish

I also have Carlos Gonzalez as a potential keeper.

Other owners (I only know one other guy in this league and he is new this year as well) think I am crazy for keeping Braun/Darvish and say there is better value available in the draft. Am I missing something? 12 teams, so if I keep my 5 I'm looking at the 61-72 overall pick. The guy who has sort of championed the statement that I'm foolish for keeping them wants to trade me Goldy or Harper for Encarnacion/Kluber (which I won't do).

A little more background on this that has me questioning myself as well: My friend was taking over a team in this league that is terrible. His only real keepers were Sale/Freeman. I helped him package Sale for Wil Myers/Cano/Aroldis Chapman (as it looks to me that RP values are heavily increased in this scoring system)? He was universally mocked for this deal but other people I respect thought the deal seemed fine. Am I way off? Thanks guys, I appreciate the responses in advance!

I don't do points leagues, but I put your points system in the FanGraphs calculator and it said Gonzalez was better than Braun. Not by a massive margin or anything but enough where I'd take a second look there. The projections like Cargo's chances to pile up R/RBI in Coors in a great lineup more than Braun.

Either way keeping two first rounders, two top 10 SP and one of Cargo/Braun is more than fine.

Can't recommend enough not to take Altuve #2 in a 6x6 league with BB as the 6th category. he gets dinged twice - once with the addition of BB, and another with the de-emphasis on his best category (SB), as it becomes 1/6 of categories rather than 1/5. I'd take Mookie if you aren't taking Kershaw as #2, and you could make an argument for Goldschmidt as the #2 hitter in a 6x6 with BB.

I'm 100% taking Goldy at 2 with BB as a category fwiw

Cant emphasize this enough. I feel like ive been sayimg it over and over.

In H2H leagues with more categories than standard 5x5, (especially if they count BB/OBP/OPS) guys like Altuve, Marte, Villar, Dee, etc take a big hit in value.

Idk I feel like altuve is still top 5, not like his OBP is still near elite since he'll bat like 320

In fairness, Altuve's walk rate was higher than Betts' last season (8.4% to 6.7%). But, also I have Altuve as my number 2 player. I think his power is for real and his runs and rbis will go up this year.

I have Betts #3. I'd say he outperforms Altuve in HR and RBI.

I would take Altuve and Betts over Goldschmidt for the same case against Altuve. His 1 category of strength is walks unless he replicates 32 steals again. I would expect his average, runs, and rbis to be significantly lower than the other two.

He's not.
This is one of my 6x6 leagues that uses OBP abd SLG.
Note, for example, that Votto's projected OBP is worth twice as much as Altuve's projected steals.
Also note that Marte is nowhere to be found in that top 30. (Actually hes way down at #53, projected to return ~ $18.)



Similarly, in the $50 2p2 league (6x6 with OBP and TB) Altuve is projected as the #12 hitter at about $36. Still fantastic, but well outside the top tier.
Meanwhile Trout projects to be worth $66 and Harper, Betts, Miggy, Machado, Rizzo round out the top 6, each in the $43 - $46 range.