I agree. But my point is that back end of the draft and undrafted hitters production has increased blurring the line between "elite" hitters and just another guy off of the wire. If that is the case waiting on hitting is more beneficial than waiting on pitching.

To each his own. I will try to not get into with some of the more insulting know-it-alls who populate this board. I'm just a guy enthusiastic about the upcoming season who likes to talk about fantasy baseball. I fully understand that my approach is not the normal and outside of the box. It has worked extremely well for me. Anyone elses results may vary.

Hitting is sexy and chicks dig the long ball! Pitching is a necessary evil. But I am in it to win so I dance to my own beat.

What you are saying is true. But there is also pitching available at the end of drafts and on the waiver wire as well. Severino, Morton, Montgomery, etc were undrafted or drafted alongside Judge and Zimmerman.

The question now is now how do we as fantasy players adjust to the current state of baseball? On one hand the hitters coming from nowhere are now much more likely to come from the minor leagues. Most teams are rostering 4 bench players. The better hitters teams prefer to get at bats in AAA and then replace injuries with a guy who is used to playing every day. Most winners in super competitive leagues last year had Judge or Bellinger or both.

Starting pitchers innings were significantly down last year. Whether that be the 10 day DL or the innings restrictions on young arms. But those innings are not going to just one reliever. I think last year the hope was the Andrew Millers and Chris Devinskis of the world would be getting 100 innings. But that did not play out.

So now opportunity has become much more concentrated at the top with both hitters and pitchers. So now the question is not where is there more value at the end of the draft, because that is equal, it is where is there more scarcity at the top of the draft?

mr b,
You can't base your draft argument on getting Judge/Shaw/Merrifield/Pham etc last year and then completely ignore the late round and undrafted pitchers last year like Severino, Gio, Santana, Castillo, Ray, Wood, Nelson, Anderson, Knebel, Hand, Rivero, Godley, Bradley, Peacock, Morton, etc etc.

Actually I got a few of those guys too! I am just discussing MY strategy and not in any way saying that it should be YOUR strategy. My goal is to dominate the pitching categories so I go pitching heavy early and often. This approach works for me and it may not be your cup of tea and I understand that.

To dominate the pitching categories you have to draft them or get real lucky. Same if you want to dominate hitting, you go real bat heavy. I just think it is easier to get real quality pitching in the draft (1st 10 rounds) rather than on the wire. The fact that pitchers emerge doesn't mean they are easy to find. Batters hit every day and it is easy to get a quicker read on them. A pitcher takes longer to fully access his potential since they may start every 5 days and a fluky start or two can skew things greatly.

I think hitting is harder to dominate because the typical mindset is more offense. Just look at the responses to my strategy. Everyone thinks its stupid If I can kill it in pitching and be semi-competitive in hitting I will cash and likely win. Hitting is more difficult to dominate because everyone is trying to do it.

I really don't want to argue! Just sharing how I play the game. It is my belief that there is enough good offense late to sacrifice a lot of those first 10 rounds to quality pitching. It has served me well over the years.

mrbaseball, is distilling this argument down basically that you think theres more luck in finding hitters so you try to draft "sure bet" pitchers earlier? thats sort of what im gleaning from this.

I think hitters are easy to find and pitchers are harder to find and closers next to impossible to find outside of the draft. In any case you have to be vigilant on the wire and jump on value when it appears. Some closers will change. Hitters and pitchers will break out. Guys get hurt and guys bust. Don't get too attached

Most of my teams turn over greatly. Especially the offenses. The guys I draft that will still be there at the end are ace type pitchers and closers so why not concentrate on those guys?

Cliffs: decent hitters are a dime a dozen and bad pitching kills your ratios

re: bolded. 39% of closers close the entire season.

https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/ho...ers-performed/

Now if you are in a league with daily moves and no waiver wire and you have to get up early in the morning so every time a closer gets hurt or rocked everyone in your league picks up the three possible new closers for that team while you are sleeping then disregard.

Okay, impossible to find until they change You gotta be vigilant again. Keep an eye on the shaky situations and see who might take over the role if #1 fails. Guys get traded, guys get hurt. Closers will change but you have to be quick and have a good waiver spot. Any time it happens there is a real competition for the new guy. You just can't go to the waiver wire and snag a closer unless a change is happening. You have to draft them or trade for them.

but closers at least have a more clear delineation of backups and roles, vs. hitters. theres no way to know when someone like judge will get called up, if hell play everyday, and then play well. but closers have a clearer (if you pay attention) line to success.

just check closermonkey, its not that difficult, really.

Yeah closer monkey is a great resource. I am also not saying grabbing a Judge quality guy is easy. But the quality of a lot of undrafted hitters isn't all that far from guys in the middle rounds. I think after the first couple of rounds ADPs can be totally disregarded.

thoughts on DeGrom for McCutch/McCullers?

Not sating your strat cannot work. Obviously in the right kind of leagues it can, as you've proven.
But the "good" hitters at the back end of drafts and on the wire are still replacement level hitters, by definition.
Just because they hit 20+ HRs does not mean they are necessarily valuable, since the baseline for HRs is so much higher than it was years ago.
Replacement level is replacement level, regardless of the actual stats.

I think its fair to stay that any strategy can win a league with proper execution, strong knowledge of the player pool, and a little luck on the wire.

Could use some thoughts on keepers. 12 teams, keep 4. Standard lineups, $260 budget.

6x6 (OBP/R/RBI/HR/2B/SB) . . . (W/K/ERA/WHIP/HLD/SV)

Definitely keeping Altuve for 25.

Need 3 of:

Jake Lamb 9
Yoan Moncada 10
James Paxton 10
Alex Wood 5
Edwin Diaz 9
Corey Knebel 5

Leaning towards Moncada and Knebel but can't make up my mind on the third - obviously would be Paxton if I was confident he'd stay fairly healthy.

Closers impossible to find outside the draft? You’re ****ing clueless man please stop posting

What are the other options?

I would go with Wood and Knebel.

I feel like you could get Moncada back for less or the same money. Paxton would be my third choice. He is healthy currently and everyone gets hurt at this point. I only take Wood over him because of price, they probably put up similar innings and numbers.

It’s fine.

Even better if you still have no confidence in the Mets training staff.

I got DeGrom, was just making sure it seems fair. Forgot about a draft, and was autodrafted Trout/JDM/Cruz/Marte/McCutch/Acuna and picked up Brinson, with my "ace" being Cole, so was looking to upgrade, and the trade was snap accepted, wanted to make sure it seemed fine lol

never ever ever keeping a closer in a keep-4, ESPECIALLY in a league that also counts holds.
So by default keeping Lamb and Moncada + a SP.
Prefer Paxton over Wood, but both come with quite a bit of risk.

You dont have any other good hitters, even if they are not at a discount price?
With auction inflation in keeper leagues, I'd much rather keep a stud bat at market rate, rather than a mid level bat at a slight discount

Justin Upton for 29 is about it, and I doubt that saves me much money. My big spend last year was Miguel Cabrera. Oops.

I understand the idea of not keeping a closer in a league like this, but even accounting for holds the auction calculators have me saving $12+ on Knebel, which is also about where I'd expect him to go (16-18).

@mrbaseball, stop ****ing PMing me. I'm not a troll and not trying to be a dbag, but when you come in here spouting off nonsense like

"Well? It makes sense because there is just so much offense at the tail end of the draft and undrafted. Pitching is almost always a crap shoot but the difference between top end pitchers and dregs is far larger than the gap between top tier hitters and undrafteds. Last season my offensive core was around waiver wire guys like Shaw, Merrifield, Pham, A. Garcia etc. and then there were the real stars like Judge and Zimmerman who got no love on draft day."

and..

"Closers are next to find outside of the draft"

you're going to get called out on it. You completely wrong on both of these points and there's no debate on it. Again, in response to the first point, what about the following pitching that went undrafted last season? Severino, Gio, Santana, Castillo, Ray, Wood, Nelson, Anderson, Knebel, Hand, Rivero, Godley, Bradley, Peacock, Morton. And then the second point? What about all of these relievers that went undrafted? Knebel Rivero Devinski Hand Swarzack Reed Madson Holland.....

Severino was a top 5 pitcher last year, ray was elite, wood was elite, knebel was elite, rivero was elite... Just like judge and bellinger. If you have a strategy to go all out on pitching early in drafts, that's fine. I'm sure it works for you in $20 yahoo pros where half the people stop paying attention after the first month. People don't have a problem with you drafting pitching, what people have a problem with is you spouting off that your strategy is superior and then you back it up with complete bull**** and confirmation bias

Shilling my league again, draft is Saturday at 3pm EST. Have a few people who haven't paid and aren't responding so I'll be kicking them tomorrow and looking for new people to take their slots

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...-year-1705921/

Can you trade before the draft? If Knebel is worth as much as you think he is, then it should be no problem trading him for a market rate bat that another team is throwing back. And if nobody wants to make a trade for him... well that tells you all you need to know about whether you should be keeping him or not.

In auctions I will always go with value even if it is a closer or a catcher or anything. It is not like there are rounds you are saving. If you would be spending $12 on a closer that you can keep for $5, you have an extra $7 to spend on hitting.

Now if the closer in a holds league is actually treated in your league like they should be and Knebel or Diaz is going for $5 then don't keep him. Imo it doesn't help to keep Lamb for $9 if he would go off the board for $10.

You should try harder then!

The things I say are true. True in the leagues I play in which is what I am discussing which are Yahoo pro roto leagues. They may very well not be true in the leagues you play in. That is no reason to constantly hurl no content immature insults.

I'm just talking about my strategy and in a different league setting I may very well have to adapt that strategy to the league in question. You are always all over this thread but I cannot remember anything of value that you have ever posted? You brag plenty and troll me a lot but I haven't seen much actual fantasy baseball content out of you.

You seem to conflate everything I say with nonsensical counter arguments like stating:

"Severino, Gio, Santana, Castillo, Ray, Wood, Nelson, Anderson, Knebel, Hand, Rivero, Godley, Bradley, Peacock, Morton"

I never said those guys weren't great pickups last season. In fact I snagged many of them and hope to find similar values this year on the wire. My point which is lost on many is that I believe round 5 to 10 hitters are easily replaced later in the draft and on the wire. While (IN THE LEAGUE FORMAT THAT I PLAY IN!!!!!!!!!!!!) all the closers will be gone by that point and all of the SPs are getting into the very speculative range.

I get it, you don't like closers. Maybe they don't mean much in the league you play in. But where I play good closers are a nice addition to K's, era, and whip not to mention the much needed saves. Saves is the easiest category to win because all you have to do is address it in the draft. That cannot be said of any other roto category (maybe steals). The fact that good closers generally come equipped with stellar ratios and K rates they offer a lot of value in THE LEAGUE FORMAT THAT I PLAY IN.

I really don't want to argue! I would love to hear how others break down and strategize their drafts even if it isn't THE LEAGUE FORMAT THAT I PLAY IN.

That is simply not true.