4.8 Christian Yelich

Shocked he's dropped this far, 290/85/20/90/20 is a pretty solid ceiling for a 4th round pick. Probably would have gone Myers if I didn't already have Goldy at 1B. If he takes a step forward this year and with Stanton and dee back the counting stats will rise. All my hitting categories are in great shape thus far with all young guys ready to take the next step.

1B - Goldy
SS- Seager
OF - springer
OF - Yelich

My opinion is that he's a guy that from 14-15 and then from 15-16 has seen his:

FIP/xFIP increase each year
k/9, k%, k-bb% decrease each year
fb velocity decrease in each (last years was lowest since 11)
hard hit % increase in each while fly ball % increased as well (and the iffb% has dipped)
HR/9 increase in each while his hr/fb ratio went from the absurd 7.4% in 14 back to a more normalized 10-11% last two years


His velocity is dropping, people are hitting the ball harder, and they're hitting it in the air harder. His hr/fb% has normalized and he's striking out less people which is causing his lob% to normalize as well (from 78.6% in his best year before dropping back to 71 and 74 in the last two).

Is he going to have an ERA of 8 and be run out of the league? Of course not. But you're spending a 2nd or 3rd round pick on a guy that has a lot of warning signs for not returning that type of value.


Now, I also readily admit I'm not kyleb. I could be interpreting the data incorrectly, drawing poor conclusions, or attributing causation between the decreased velocity and these effects when I shouldn't be. I'm always open to hearing opinions that refute mine, and if someone feels strongly on the matter in the other direction (or feels Im drawing poor conclusions in general despite not being high on Kluber) I would love more discussion on it to happen. The point of this mock to me is to test things for the real drafts and hash out certain players we feel are too high or low in ADP.

Just got home, need to catch up a bit after a busy day. Should have pick up within the hour.

Speaking of high I've always hated taking a C in the top 4 rounds but even more so this year with guys like Sanchez, contreras, and realmuto going later. Also hate only getting 70-80% of ABs at the pick as well, poseys ceiling has a cap greater than any player in the top 50, and didn't the giants say they were going to rest him more this year? Could be making that up but posey is a player im never owning based on ADP

4.9 Yoenis Cespedes, OF

I cant pass up 30 HR and 180ish rbi/runs combined here.

You make a compelling case, but I think you're cherry picking a bit (and don't get me wrong, the numbers you've cited line up for an interesting cherry pick).

Let's look at the bigger picture:




K/9: A decline from elite (10.27) to elite (9.93) to not quite as elite (9.50) doesn't look like much to me. I mean flip any of these years with any other year and it just looks like 3 great K/9's. Even if he continues the trend with a 9.2 this year I don't think that will mean much. Pump out a 7.8 out of the blue, you got issues.

IP: The reason I highlighted innings is just to point out the obvious, the Klubot is a ****ing horse! His type of durability has never been more of an asset than it is right now in this drafting season.

Babip: Down every year of his career. A little lucky in 2016? Probably, but inducing soft contact is a skill and it sure looks like it's one Kluber possesses. He has a much better D behind him than he did in 14'. This could help explain part of the babip decline, along with his letting up a little on the gas and going for more of that soft contact.

FIP: This had trended up as well, but they all look pretty good to me. Speaking of luck the disparity between his 2015 ERA/FIP points to the biggest luck event here being his bad luck in 2015, imo.

Projections: Steamer likes Kluber, ZIPS loves him. I don't put a ton of weight in the exact numbers here, but I do trust these models enough to assume they've baked in the big trends, and they don't seem worried.

4.10 Kyle Seager

Wanted Cespedes really badly. Going with Seager to secure 25+ HR and 160+ R/RBI. Also works to fill a positional need at 3B.

I considered taking Abreu here from a pure stats perspective he probably offers a bit more than Seager, but didn't want to take two 1B with my first four picks. Considered taking a pitcher here but passed on that option.

I don't think I have ever owned him in a league . But that is because somebody always spazzes and takes him earlier than his adp.

There is always the scarcity vs value argument in every fantasy league. It truly becomes more difficult when it comes to catchers. The worst catcher and best catcher (Posey in this case) do not have as far of a production gap between them and what their adp gap is.

But on the other hand there are only like 5 catchers who are not automatic drags on your team. The last few years I have been rostering back-up catchers to punt the position without having the drag on batting average. The loss in counting stats is negligible.

Losing, that's a really nice post. I'd like to sit on it for a little bit and see what I think before really responding to it, but I wanted to thank you for it while I did so.

I would like to clarify that while I see how it can be viewed as just cherry picking, I have absolutely no benefit to being correct here or not. So the things I'm saying are just the way I feel after looking at everything. If it's a flawed analysis, the flaw is with my interpretation of things rather than some attempt to cherry pick things to look right or convince people of things etc. I'm sure you're aware of that, but just wanted to clarify anyways.

Not a big fan of the Posey pick tbh. I'd get it in a two catcher league, but I don't think I had him going in my next 25 picks, given last year's decline and promises of lesser playing time.

On Odor:

There aren't a lot of fantasy pundits I take too seriously, but when I'm not actually reading the drivel he writes, I respect Grey Albright's (Razzball) rankings enough to at least take notice when he ranks someone extraordinarily highly compared to other lists which mostly copy one another (and very notably base themselves on ADP, thus my lack of concern with "reaching"). He ranked Odor 14th, which got me taking a closer look.

As Albright pointed out, Odor is a 22-year old coming off a 33/177/14 season despite an atrocious 3.0%-21.4% K%-BB% after a minor league career that saw those numbers get as good as 9.7%-8.1% in 2015 (admittedly small sample, but those numbers normalize quickly). That's hall of fame track and the BB%-K% data means there's room for improvement. His HR:FB climbed from 11.8%-17.0%, but his hard hit % climbed from 29%-35% (his soft hit dropped the same amount) as he filled out and his fly ball % rose a bit too. His floor doesn't seem much lower than what he was last year, but his ceiling is another step up. I don't know that I'm taking him 14th, but if I didn't think I could get him later, top 25 probably wouldn't be a stretch.

Really good post.

Curious whether Steamer accounts for postseason innings. Not that I'm getting Kluber anyways, but I'd worry about wear on his arm after all those post-season innings (he looked awfully used up in G7).

slow night

4.11 Wil Myers (1B, OF)

sold

anyway, i think the padres lineup is very underrated in terms of the kind of production it can get myers from the middle of the lineup. of the numbers he put up last year the only one i'm skeptical of a repeat is the 28 steals. myers is an important pick for me here for 2 reasons: 1. myers represents one of the only 2 1bs likely to get steals (goldschmidt being the other [and before you say rizzo, don't. rizzo only stole bases hitting 2nd in the order, bases are too full for him to run from 4th]) and 2. the talent drop-off at 1b after myers is gigantic without just gambling on late round flyers. must be done

1.2 Clayton Kershaw (SP)
2.11 Jonathan Villar (3B, SS)
3.2 Robinson Cano (2B)
4.11 Wil Myers (1B)

im here, lemme get caught up to speed

4.12 - Yu Darvish (SP)

5.1 - Kyle Schwarber (C) [Yeah, he is catcher eligible on Yahoo]

Write ups coming

5.2 Andrew McCutchen (OF)

it's hard to figure out where exactly mccutchen went wrong, but this is a 30 year old who spent the last 5 years as a consensus 1st round pick putting up 1st round numbers before last season. if last year was a sign of what's to come, then fml, if it was an anomaly he's going to bounce back from then this is an enormous steal

1.2 Clayton Kershaw (SP)
2.11 Jonathan Villar (3B, SS)
3.2 Robinson Cano (2B)
4.11 Wil Myers (1B)
5.2 Andrew McCutchen (OF)

5.3 Jake Arrieta SP

After much debate, I have decided that Arrieta is the best SP available. Lester lost his catcher and that was the tiebreaker for me. I realize there are many similar valued SPs out there at the moment but the 5 teams that pick after me have a grand total of 0 pitchers, so I'm assuming pitchers are about to go on a run.

I considered Gary Sanchez/Lucroy here but decided to go with an arm.

1.3 Jose Altuve 2B-HOU
2.10 Starling Marte OF-PIT
3.3 Edwin Encarnacion 1B-CLE
4.10 Kyle Seager 3B-SEA
5.3 Jake Arrieta SP-CHC

pick run, pick run!

Kluber and Sale - I agree there are risks to both of them, but they are also pretty consistent over the course of an entire season. Kluber always seems to do really bad in April.

The Red Sox are projected to lead the majors in Runs scored / game (5.42) with the Indians in 4th (4.83), so I expect both of these aces to rack up wins, which is crucial in Roto format where each start eats away at your inning limit and thus you want to maximize your # wins / outing.

Yu Darvish - This guy's upside is ridiculous. If he stays healthy, he could be a top 3 pitcher easily this year. His walk rate has dropped each season in the majors, and K-rate has generally climbed. Most projections have him putting up lower K-rate and higher BB-rate than last year, and an entire 1K/9 at that. I don't buy that at all.

Schwarber - He's young, built like a truck, and potentially batting lead off for the Cubs . Also, he's a Catcher on Yahoo, which is ridiculous but w/e. I'm not super worried about him being in a major platoon, because he has generally crushed in the minors. Fangraphs says it takes 910 AB to stabilize your AVG - Schwarber has only 278 thus far - so I don't buy his projected AVG of 0.253. What does stabilize in under 278 PAs? BB% - of which he posted 13%. 13% walk rate is GREAT - it would have put him in the top 10 of MLB last year had he qualified. What does that mean? It means I don't think he is that in danger of losing his lineup spot in a platoon situation - the guy can get on base. And that's all you need to do if you have those hitters behind you.

Just as an exercise I loaded up fangraphs auction calculator and put in the Yahoo league settings. For a $260 budget, Schwarber (non catcher) has a value of $15.4 ($13.2 of that from the "OF" position). Looking at Buster Posey, he has a value of $30.8, and $30.8 of that is coming from the "C" position.

So right away you can see that Fangraphs like's Schwarber more than Posey if he has catcher eligibility. A value of $15.4 + ($30.8 - $13.2) = $33 which is as high as Nolan Arenado. Ok, so that might be a bit ridiculous. But even if you only take half of that $18 catcher boost, you are looking at a value of $24 which is a George Springer or Giancarlo Stanton type level.

Oh and by the way, that projection is for only 534 PA, which if I'm right and he avoids a platoon situation, will be closer to the 570-600 range, especially since he likely won't be playing catcher at all this season.

If this was an OBP league, Schwarber would be the lock of the millennium of the draft at this stage for me if unpicked. I'm still happy to grab him here in an AVG league, but I do realize his value is significantly reduced in such a format.

BTW - even if it isn't a 2 catcher league, Yahoo has pretty shallow rosters for # of hitters compared to ESPN. This raises the relative value of a Catcher even further, since towards the end of the draft the pool of non-catchers to fill your UTIL positions is significantly higher than if you were in a league with MI, CI, 5OF, and a UTIL.

5.4 Justin Verlander

My original plan was to wait longer on SP, but the bat I like most here I feel can possibly drop back to me or I can replace with someone similar. As opposed to the current tier of pitching changing by then.

1 Mookie Betts
2 Joey Votto
3 Trevor Story
4 Yoenis Cespedes
5 Justin Verlander

I also will add that I'm not particularly happy about taking another pitcher, but the board looked pretty ugly. I saw a lot of pitchers I liked but not really any hitters that I couldn't wait another 20+ picks for and likely still get

5.5 Carrasco

If he stays healthy and gets 200 innings he's going to be top 5 in the league in K's. still a lot of good hitting talent I wanted but like others have mentioned this tier of pitching is about to go quick.

Goldy
Seager
Yelich
Springer
Carrasco

Last year, everyone loved Gregory Polanco as their sleeper, then he started exactly as they wanted him to, 50/12/50/9/.287. Then he got hurt. Now he's healthy, he's 25, he's got Marte and Cutch (Who i like Polanco better than), he's got a good spot in the lineup and I don't quite get why he's being drafted lower than a year ago. The pitching run looked like fun, but I couldn't pass him up, especially with my SBs in need of shoring up.

1B Freddy Freeman
2B Roughned Odor
3B Nolan Arenado
SS Francisco Lindor
OF Gregory Polanco

5.7 Chris Archer

Archer falls because of his first half last year. But I love every bit of where he is going. High strikeout guy. His flyball rate dropped in the second half year back to the levels it had been the year before. Everything points to the first half of 2016 being the aberration. He is going to be in the top ten of pitchers next year that go off the board.

This was a really hard pick for me. Archer is the pitcher I targeted as my ace when this draft started and planned to grab him in this round. However, there are still a few pitchers left in that early tier and he may have made it back to me. There are several bats that I want that are either a bit of a stretch or hard to grab because there are players who will be available at their position later that I like as well. I wrote down three different names before just going with the guy I thought would be best for my rotation.

3B Kris Bryant
OF Charlie Blackmon
OF Nelson Cruz
C Buster Posey
SP Chris Archer