You're right, there's often a run on pitchers in my league, and my offense is pretty stacked out of the gates. I'll grab Soroka so I'm more balanced and can look for value rather than picking up pitchers in desperation in the early rounds.

I'll come back with some draft thoughts after my league drafts in a few weeks.

6x6 with OBP and holds, who are we keeping with a $260 budget.

Springer $34
Altuve $40
Caleb Smith $1

How many keepers?
I wouldn't be thrilled keeping any of those guys (at those prices), but if I had to choose one it's Springer.

8 total

I’m planning on the following

Trea - 10
DJL - 7
Freeman - 51

Strass - 25
Sev - 2
Berrios - 2
Random closer forgot who it was - 1 (nick Anderson)

I was leaning springer too, thanks

Are there any fantasy baseball leagues to get involved with?

Check with movieman in the $50 2+2 keepers league thread. Usually we have a spot or 2 open up each season. Good league, been going for 5-6 years now

well **** me sideways, keeper deadline was yesterday and now sev is done for the year

Keeper conundrum:

We get 8 keepers, with escalating cost based on draft round. Extremely prospect heavy league.
Right now I have these 6 guys locked in:
Snell 9th
Devers 9th
Bregman 13th
Gleyber 14th
Eloy 18th
Alvarez 25th

For my last 2 keepers I need to decide between these guys:
Adell 18th
Olson 5th
Darvish 5th
Judge 23rd

Who do you like?
(Fwiw I have the 2nd and 13th overall picks in the draft and Freeman, Harper, deGrom, Verly, JDM will all be available)

I'd keep Adell assuming you can continue to keep him for multiple years. After that Olsen and Darvish should both prove very useful this season so it depends on your choice of pitcher vs. bat. I'd probably lean Darvish since I think your only other keeper pitcher (Snell) has plenty of question marks. I personally have no interest in Judge since he seems to be always hurt plus you already have plenty of power. But I know you have I have a wide gulf on what we think is important. I am all about quality pitching and feel power bats are easy to find and Darvish was lights out in the second half last year.

Thanks for the feedback.
Honestly was leaning towards Darvish + Addell given my other keepers, even though I think Olson will probably be best player this year of that group.
Im with you on Judge. I own him in multiple keeper leagues and am definitely not thrilled about it - leaning towards dumping him in any league that I can't trade him

wait I would never keep darvish over judge. this is aaron judge right? yeah he's always hurt but his upside is what 60 homers? Darvish hasn't really been good for awhile other than the second half of last season and he too is also always hurt

I keep Adell and Judge and get pitchers early, and quite probably the first two picks. Judge and whatever waiver wire outfielder you pick up will way overperform the 23rd round cost, even if he only plays 100 games.

I think 100 games is waaay optimistic. He has a stress fracture of his rib, and if he needs surgery (which seems likely, since this happened in September and it didn't heal over the entire off-season) we're talking about possibly an entire lost season

My draft is this Sunday, and I'm still torn.

Right now I'm leaning

Yelich
Story
Scherzer
Kershaw
Ohtani

I hate dropping Castillo, but I think Ohtani's upside is too great to ignore. He could flop hard and pitch like **** or not even pitch at all. His elbow could fall off. But I think I have to take the chance.

It's LOLESPN, but they have Ohtani with the highest projected points of any available pitcher in my league at 639.4. Cole is second at 635.8 and then deGrom is 3rd at 592.3. Obviously, a lot of Ohtani's points will come through batting, but 639.4 in total points for the season puts him at 12th on the ESPN projections for all of baseball.

639.4 would have been 18th in all of baseball for the 2019 season.

I will definitely be targeting some of my guys early on in the draft. Unfortunately, I'm drafting 8th in a 10 man league. But I'd be happy to get Castillo, Santana, DJ, Gurriel Jr, etc. along the way. We will see what happens.

I guess I have a little longer to make my decisions lol.

I still don't like Ohtani but with moving the season back it adds to his value. He wasn't gonna pitch before mid May but now that means he may not lose any time.

I have been studying up and listening to gobs of podcasts since early Feb. I finally feel I am ready to draft and everything is pushed back to who knows when. But I really enjoy most fantasy baseball podcasts and like to see the differences in opinion on both players and strategy as well as the real "buzzy" players for this season. This link is what I use and it has most of the good ones.

https://player.fm/featured/fantasy-baseball

I have my first draft tomorrow and kinda wish I didn't since we don't know when the season starts. But I will be moving a lot of those nicked up pitchers up my list now that they have more time. I especially want to get Clevinger now that he likely misses little time if any. Since I only play Yahoo Pro Roto leagues I will wait to set anymore up until we have more clarity on the season starting and what kind of spring training we may or may not get.

Postponing baseball season is a kick in the nuts but hopefully we can get this virus crap behind us and start living again. Anyway fantasy baseball podcasts are a good way to self quarantine

Darvish is one of the buzziest pitchers this year. Pitchers List (Nick Pollack) especially loves him as do a lot of other fantasy "experts". He apparently made some real changes that attributed to his great second half. He walked 7 guys in his first start last year and only another 7 in his last 13 starts. That means (to me anyway) that something in fact did materially change. If he continues that second half breakout he is first or second round value and this season Judge will have little to no value.

Who holds the MLB record for K per 9 all-time?

DARVISH!

Did my first real draft yesterday to get a feel for live drafting since mocks on both Yahoo and FantasyPros are both unrealistic for the leagues that I play in. This was just a cheapo Yahoo Pro roto. 23 man roster with one batter starting at each position plus 2 Utility starting. On the pitching side it has 2 SP, 2 RP and 4 P starting. This leaves 5 bench spots.

My goal in the first 10 rounds of these drafts is to come away with:
speed
2 Ace type starters
2 quality closers
Kyle Hendricks in the 10th round

I love Hendricks as a ratio stabilizer. He isn't a great K guy but will accumulate them because he should give a large amount of quality ratio innings and get his share of wins. He is just a great addition to 2 high quality K ace types. You need as many quality ratio innings as you can get in these leagues.

So I reached the 4 goals I had out of the early part of the draft. I did plenty of ADP reaching and got the guys that I wanted. I was happy with it even though I got sniped on a few later that I wanted. The draft is just a starting point. Lots of league winning type players will emerge and by paying close attention during the season. I won most of my leagues last year with I grabbed off of the wire after the draft as my teams were littered with guys like K. Marte, Giolito, Soler, Mancini etc. who went undrafted.

So here is what I got. Time for the juvenile types to rip it apart and tell me how stupid I am Drafting from the 10 spot.

1. (10) Trea Turner (Was - SS)
Was hoping for him or DeGrom but DeGrom went #5. I like to get my speed out of the way early and if healthy he can be the best player in fantasy.

2. (15) Walker Buehler (LAD - SP)
Needed ace #1 and I like him better than Verlander or Scherzer this year. Verlander hurt and Scherzer has iffy back and they are both old. Just think Bueller is safer and still has room to grow.

3. (34) Mike Clevinger (Cle - SP)
Big reach! Has 5th round adp. But only because he is nursing a leg injury. Came back very strong after injury last year. Fully healthy I have him as a top 3 starter even ahead of Bueller. If and when this season eventually starts I fully expect him to be fully healthy and I didn't want risk waiting for the 5/6 turn.

4. (39) Ketel Marte (Ari - 2B,SS,OF)
Love this guy and love the multi position eligibility. His breakout really started in the second half of 2018. He could up the steals too and this guy is valuable in all 5 hitting categories.

5. (58) Yoán Moncada (CWS - 3B)
Homer pick as a White Sox fan But I have watched almost every at bat this guy has ever had and I think he continues to grow. I expect less avg but more power and more steals. He has been talking all spring long about stealing more. Some time soon this guy is gonna be a first rounder.

6. (63) José Abreu (CWS - 1B)
Very solid hitter across 4 cats sans steals and always under rated.

7. (82) Nick Castellanos (Cin - OF)
This guy should rock the casbah in a good Reds lineup and a very hitter friendly park. Getting out of Det is the best thing that ever happened to him.

8. (87) Kenley Jansen (LAD - RP)
Closers were dropping like flies and you know I LOVE my closers. Jansen declining but velo is up and he went to driveline in the off season. Plenty of save ops in LA.

9. (106) Héctor Neris (Phi - RP)
Closer 2. Very solid and should keep the job barring injury on a decent team.

10. (111) Kyle Hendricks (ChC - SP)
Already discussed. Love him in this spot and format.

11. (130) José Leclerc (Tex - SP,RP)
Really wanted him since he has that SP designation. I like to fill as many pitching spots as I can with RPs. He had and lost the job last year but should have it again this year with more seasoning. Even so he had 100 Ks.

12. (135) Kyle Schwarber (ChC - OF)
Needed power and OF and I really think this guy is growing as a hitter.

13. (154) Zac Gallen (Ari - SP)
Maybe the buzziest of all SPs this year. Did great last year in smaller sample. Could be great.

14. (159) Scott Kingery (Phi - 2B,3B,SS,OF)
Post post hype sleeper type. Good pedigree and started putting it together last season and can contribute across the board with lots of eligibility.

15. (178) J.D. Davis (NYM - 3B,OF)
Flat out good hitter on the rise

16. (183) Khris Davis (Oak - Util)
If healthy 40 bombs and I am short on total power bats going with more balanced types.

17. (202) Carlos Martínez (StL - RP)
Should be back in rotation and he can be very good if healthy. If he stays in the pen I still love him here.

18. (207) Jorge Alfaro (Mia - C)
Catcher. Hate catcher.

19. (226) Mark Canha (Oak - 1B,OF)
Decent bat with the 1B backup eligibility that I needed.

20. (231) Nick Solak (Tex - 2B,3B)
Good up and coming bat. Should play and likely pick up OF eligibility.

21. (250) Ryan Pressly (Hou - RP)
Love to fill out pitching with great K/ratio relivers who could also fall into a closer position if closer gets hurt.

22. (255) Emilio Pagán (SD - RP)
see Pressly

23. (274) Miles Mikolas (StL - SP)
Hurt but who knows by season start. Hendricks type low K good ratio type. Will likely drop before season starts for another Pressly/Pagan type.

Would have liked one more closer but they went too fast. Would like more power but will find that somewhere. Yahoo switched to FAAB this year so not really sure how that will effect me? I am always very fluid with the back half of my roster but they have zero dollar bids so it should be fine.

12 team auction keeper league, 30 man rosters. Extremely prospect heavy.
6x6 H2H with OBP/SLG
Without posting exact draft results yet, how do you guys feel about this roster?
I have some obvious weaknesses, such as a complete lack of RP and C. We use SV+HOLD so my plan was to draft prospects (4 NA slots) and then pick up a bunch of 7th/8th inning guys and a catcher off the wire.

C - whoops
1B - Pete Alonso
2B - Starlin Castro
3B - Rendon
SS - Story
MI - Kingery
CI - Voit
OF1 - JDM
OF2 - Gallo
OF3 - McCutchen
OF4 - Verdugo
UT - Arraez

SP - deGrom, Giolito, Montas, Lynn, Carrasco, Maeda, Puk, Urquidy,
RP - LOL just Betances

PROSPECTS
Kieboom
Pearson
Julio Rodriguez
Vaughn
Mize
Rutschman

I am no expert on 6x6 or H2H but it looks pretty solid. Picking up a catcher and RPs for S+H should be okay. Even punting RP in a 6x6 means they aren't quite as important, especially in H2H. I absolutely hate H2H because you can have obvious holes and still do okay. The entire concept of H2H just goes against what I like about fantasy baseball. Makes it too random and reduces the skill level. But both your lineup and SPs look to be top notch. Maybe a little light on speed too.

Cautiously in?

going to make a list of all the players that have already had covid and target them iin drafts

This is gonna be a total crapshoot. Anybody can over or underperform in 60 games. I think a lot of edge comes from just staying focused and grinding it out over the long 6 month season. With such a short season that won't be the case and the luck factor will be enormous. I will play a couple more leagues just for the action but strategy and perseverance will be replaced by good fortune and unsustainable hot streaks.

That team I drafted above has been cancelled. I am doing 2 drafts today but that will probably be it for this season. This season will be a high variance **** show where knowledge and strategy provides zero edge. I just want to have a little taste of it but not expecting much out of it.

Yup. About to do a draft with the #2 pick. Will probably just do my best to take BPA the whole way and see where things fall.