Why not kick things off now as winter meetings continue.









Ian Desmond to COL
Bautista to ????
Eaton to WAS
Ramos to TB

Discuss

finally, i've been waiting

also: Trumbo to COL one time, would love to see him hit 60+ HR there

So I'm sifting through some of the Steamer projections on Fangraphs and looking at a few of my leagues in terms of what its gonna take to get roto points. Is the offensive barrage gonna stick?

It seems everyone's strategy from like 2010+ was you gotta load up on power. Not saying punt it this year (you couldn't really even if you tried) but basically half or more of the fantasy relevant players were 20+ HR guys last year. I was chasing speed in every league I was competitive in.

And the top 15 or so pitchers frankly scares the hell out of me. Looking at some VERY early NFBC data through their first 6-8 drafts. Numbers are their ADP (15 team leagues if it matters). Did not include Chapman, Jensen and Britton who were in the back half of the top 60.

5 Kershaw
11 Scherzer
15 Bumgarner
21 Sale
24 Syndergaard
26 Kluber
31 Arrieta
37 Lester
39 Darvish
45 Verlander
46 Cueto
48 Price
55 Strasburg
57 Carrasco
58 Archer

There's some still some great arms when you get past Lester, but the only one I'd feel great about would be Cueto.

first

Gotta think Tanaka should be up here, no? Sub 1.1 WHIP all 3 years, and have to think his upside is near Cueto. His K rate was slightly down this past year, but think that could easily rebound

early scouting on setup guys who you think can take over being closers:

boxberger, rosenthal, thornberg, mcgee, soria (assuming herrara is the closer?), kinztler?, dull?

Tanaka - He was in the next 5 (Hendricks, CMart, deGrom, Hamels, Tanaka). He is being drafted roughly as a top 20 SP.

Closers - maybe Trevor May if he can get it together, Barraclough in Miami, Treinen in Washington if he doesn't start as the closer (Kelley or a trade). Same with Bedrosian if the Angels keep rolling Street out there.

(Thornburg got moved to Boston if you didn't see it .. kinda worthless unless you got holds.)

Syndergaard as #4 SP off the board scares the crap out of me. Not only did he have a bunch of arm issues already last season, and consistently throws 100+ mph, but the Mets as an organization have an absolutely horrible track record of keeping pitchers healthy.

Verly in the top 10 kind of confuses me as well. He was very good last year, but hurt and pretty average in 2015, and terrible across the board in 2014. Why do people believe last year is the new "real" Verlander?
He actually gave up more HRs than ever and had the lowest GB rate of his career.
Are we really believing in a ~40% jump in K rate from 2014+2015 to 2016? Because that led to a huge jump in strand rate, which was the only thing that kept his ERA in check.

Also Archer ahead of Greinke seems weird. Greinke was a top 10 SP in 2014/2015 before falling apart for half of last year. Id think he has a better chance to bounce back than Archer and I prefer him over several guys on the
NFBC list.

What is the health status of Strasburg?
Also Salazar for that matter?

Edit - agree Tanaka should be up there (like him more than Greinke as well)

Think a lot of it is Verlander was injured early 2014 before season, and it messed with his season, which bounced back somewhat in the 2nd half.
In 2015, same thing happened again.

These are the only 2 injuries he's ever had, and has had 0 arm issues which makes it seem safer compared to others. His Velocity went down a bit, and he's been able to keep up most his #'s (although clearly, rates are a bit different). Obviously biased as a tigers fan, but don't think I'd take him above some of the names near him either

Verlander - don't hate him, just more the price I gotta pay. I can't take him in the 3rd/4th round. I could see 3.65/1.10 with 200+ IP and strikeouts. I'd rather just wait until the 5th/6th and get Archer, CMart, etc.

Grienke - agree I like him where he's going, around the 23rd-25th SP. If I can make him my SP2 with a high-K SP1 that has some good potential.

Top bats per ADP so far (again from about 7 or 8 NFBC drafts):

1 Trout
2 Betts
4 Bryant
5 Altuve
6 Arenado
6 Goldschmidt
8 Machado
11 Donaldson
11 Harper
13 Rizzo
14 T Turner (!!)
14 Cabrera
16 Blackmon
16 Correa
20 C Seager
21 Villar

Wow at Turner and Villar!
Seems insane

I would love to do a big mock again this year once a lot of FA settles down if the thread is up for it. The last one we did was pretty great

Man, after last season I'm not really comfortable taking a ton of those guys that early (Snyder/arrieta/Lester/verlander/price/cueto)

Seems like the play would be grab one of kershaw/scherzer/sale/bum and just wait until the later rounds for pitching.

Also, someone mentioned above but i feel like there's gonna be a premium on SBs this year, seems like every roto league I was chasing them along with every team trying to win. Thoughts on this?

Guys like altuve, villar, turner are pretty valuable commodities imo

12 tm H2H keeper. Keep 8, based on draft round.

Unfortunately I traded away a lot of my cheap to keep young bats away last year (C.Seager, Story, etc) for early rounders that I cannot keep this year (such as Marte, Encarcion, Sale), so this is my weakest crop of hitter keepers I've had in this league in the 6 years its been going

My locks barring spring injury:
Harper 1st
Springer 8th
Mazara 20th
Bregman 25th
Verlander 13th
Kluber 14th

So I have 2 more slots to choose from these guys
Cano 2nd
Kyle Seager 5th
Porcello 23rd
Alex Reyes 24th
Duffy 25th

Who do you like?

are there any keeper length restrictions? like, could you keep porcello at 23 forever?

porcello seems like an easy pick, just because of his value that late.

Ya that was fun, I'm in as well.

I'm going procello and cano.

Porcello is great value, and I've got a feeling there won't be too many elite bats available to draft so I'd keep cano

I agree with Porcello and Cano. Unless there are routinely top 30 guys available with a 2nd round pick. I'm in a somewhat similar keeper league and that is rarely the case

Reyes definitely has some trade value if your league permits it

Where's Rich Hill going early in NFBC? Curious as to how high he's gonna go

Not sure, ADP not available until enough drafts have completed. They just post the first 5 or 6 rounds of each draft on their forums so someone tabulated an ADP for those drafts.

(Rich Hill was not going in those first 5-6 rounds, obviously .. so no idea exactly where he is going)

I'd expect hill to start in the 10th or so and slowly work his way up to 8th as it gets closer to the season. Think he's in for a pretty solid year and will get some hype

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I should have mentioned in my post, but the players move up rounds every year, similar to the 2p2 league.
Porcello would be 25, 23, 19, 13, 5 so basically 3 really cheap years.



Another thing I shouldve mentioned is that there are always quite a few top 40 players available in the draft. the rules are set up so that basically only 1 first rounder can be kept per team and players move up more rounds per year the longer they are kept. This being the 7th year of the league, there are a bunch of high end players who are vaulting up 6-8 rounds, and thus cannot be be kept.
Also I will have pick 2.1 which is ~6th pick in the draft after accounting for players kept in the 1st round. That might have some bearing on keeping or cutting Cano.
Some guys who will be available in the draft:
Miggy
Bautista
Encarnacion
Abreu
Votto
Posey
Marte
JUp
Cutch
Cruz
Cargo

Sale
Bumgarner
Price
Strasburg
Carrasco
Greinke

If you are going to have around the 6th overall pick and that's the slate of guys that will be available, yeah I'd keep Reyes instead.

I'm assuming you won't get Miggy, E5 or Marte .. but if you are basically guaranteeing yourself one of Votto, Cano and Sale at #6, that's pretty solid.

I've never played fantasy baseball before

if there are any good primers for strategy for drafting I'd appreciate it thanks.