Fantasy Baseball Advice

In the NFL, every GM has a cheat sheet to help determine the value of a draft pick.  It was started by Jimmy Johnson during his Cowboy heyday and I imagine that every NFL GM has some egghead on staff who has a slightly different value for each draft pick.  This comes in handy when draft picks are exchanged or traded.

Since some fantasy baseball leagues allow you to exchange/trade draft picks (and I’ve gotten various related questions throughout the years), I built the below cheat sheet using the average projected auction values for players who ranked within the draft range – e.g., $36 under MLB 10 team for picks 1-5 was derived by averaging the top 5 dollar values on the 2012 10-team Point Shares (http://razzball.com/2012-point-shares-10-team-mlb-espn-roster/).

Notes:

• These values are the same regardless of Roto vs. H2H
• ESPN = C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/9P, Yahoo!=C/1B/2B/SS/3B/3 OF/2 UTIL/8 SP, AL/NL-only is ESPN format with a 2nd catcher
• For keeper leagues, there are a number of variables that would need accounting for including: 1) number of keepers, 2) are they dollars or draft picks, etc.  If you put a gun to my head and asked for my general guidance, I’d say (after crapping my pants) to add up all the keepers in the league and then start at that draft pick range.  So if you’re in a 12-team league with 5 keepers/team, the first round is worth an average of $16.

Coming off our middle of the bell curve performance as rookies in last year’s NL LABR league (frigin’ Vazquez – he has even a mediocre April/May, we don’t drop him and we finish in 3rd place), we were invited back to participate in the first-ever 15-team mixed league LABR (click link to see the other league participants).  The draft was held this past Saturday (February 25th) and the results will be printed in an upcoming USA Today Sports Weekly.  In case you are allergic to paper or hate suspense, click here for the draft results.

Unlike many expert fantasy baseball leagues, this was a snake draft vs. an auction draft.  Standard 5×5 with 2 C/1B/2B/SS/3B/CI/MI/5 OF/UTIL/9 P/6 bench.  No IP cap.  The biggest differences vs. your standard friend league is 1) weekly roster changes and 2) a limited free agent budget of $100 with a minimum bid of $1.  These rules changed our typical draft strategy in the following ways:

1. Downgrade middle relievers as you can’t rotate them in on SP off days.  MRs are only a last resort if you have several bad SP matchups.
2. Similar to H2H, you want to have an extra SP or two on the bench to take advantage of matchups and 2 start weeks.
3. Because there is a cap on in-season pickups, we wanted to draft bench players with upside and have a roster with some flexibility to handle injuries across multiple positions.

Here is the team we drafted.

* Rosario will start at C and Montero at UTIL until Montero gets C-eligibility.

Draft notes:

• There were definitely a few surprises at the draft.  One owner drafted catchers with their 3rd and 4th round picks.  Starlin Castro was a top 30 pick (I had him as #69 – ESPN ADP of #57).  But one of these surprises helped us out a lot more than others…
• Evan Longoria fell to us at pick #20.  There have been over 500 drafts in the last two weeks on MockDraftCentral and #20 is the farthest he fell.  Even more surprising, Jonah “The Extra 2%” Keri of Grantland.com didn’t care to take him with either the 15th or 16th pick.  We debated taking him at #11 instead of Adrian Gonzalez but decided not to out of concern for 1B depth as Pujols/Miggy/Votto were already off the board, we knew A-Gonz and Fielder (taken #17 #16) wouldn’t make it back, and didn’t feel comfortable banking on Teixeira.  But to get Adrian Gonzalez and Longoria who were both in my top 13 position players was sweet.
• We had planned to take an OF with the 2nd pick and ended up waiting until our 4th pick to take Nelson Cruz.  His injuries concern us but he was definitely the best OF left on the board and came at solid value at pick #40.  To give you an idea, Desmond Jennings, Carl Crawford, and Drew Stubbs were the next three OFs taken.
• After 10 years and countless drafts, this was the first time Grey or myself drafted Ichiro.  He’s always gone about 5 rounds earlier than I think he should go.  But he was the best OF on the board by the time we had to select our 2nd OF and we needed speed.  If he bounces back to .300, steals 30 SB, and gets a respectable # of RBIs out of the 3 hole, he’s going to be a solid value.
• We planned to punt both our catcher positions but Jesus Montero available at pick #91 #131 in a 2-catcher/15 team league?  Santana, Mauer, Napoli, Wieters, and Posey were all taken in the first 66 picks.  I think he came at a discount because our league has strict position eligibility rules for the draft and he was at DH.  But it’s only 5 games in-season for C eligibility so hopefully it’s just 2 weeks or so before we can shift him to Catcher.  All this meant was that we couldn’t fill UTIL during the draft but – aside from whomever drafts Ortiz – the UTIL position is near replacement-level in a 15-team league.
• I’m happy with our pitching staff.  I’m a little warier than Grey on Brad Peacock but getting Iwakuma from the Mariners as a 7th SP makes me feel better.  Getting three closers in a 15-team league puts us in great position for top 3 in saves (or survive an injury/demotion).
• I’m pretty happy with our hitter depth/flexibility.  Carp has 1B/OF eligibility which helps if we have OF injuries/underperformance.  Ian Stewart seemed like a good gamble for bench and he could take CI in case we need to move Carp to OF.  We will dump the 3rd catcher once Montero gets C-eligibility so we can consider whether we want to roster an MI backup or another pitcher.
• Based on my projections, we ended up with a team that is average or better in all 10 categories.  We’ve ‘won’ drafts before and lost the league but this definitely gives us some confidence going into the season (FWIW, I predicted we’d finish 6th last year in LABR and we finished tied for 7th.  But I projected the team that finished in first at 11th and the team I projected would finish in 1st finished in 9th.)

We ran two polls in the past week to understand in which types of leagues that Razzball readers will be playing in 2012. We got an overwhelming response (2,500 total responses between the two polls).

The volume of the response wasn’t the only surprise.  Other surprises include:

• Only about 15% of Razzpondents plan on playing in a MLB league with 15, 16, 18, or 20 teams.  We expected more.  It must be that the people in those league formats disproportionately comment.
• More Razzballers use Yahoo (and its default roster format) vs. ESPN and CBSSports.com is a very close 3rd.  We like and use all three services (and have used a few of the smaller ones too) but assumed a higher percentage were using the classic roster standard used by ESPN (C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/9 P).  I’ll have a post this pre-season on how ESPN vs. Yahoo roster formats impact player rankings/values and will produce Point Shares for both the ESPN and Yahoo format.  (I’ll also note the impact of 1 catcher vs. 2 catchers).
• The biggest surprise was how many Razzpondents play non-5×5 formats.  Only 47% play 5×5 and several stats (OPS, OBP, Holds, Quality Starts) are used in at least one league for over 20% of you.  We’re thinking about how we can tailor our content to better reflect this breadth in categories.  (FWIW, I prefer 5×5.  I know the sabermetric flaws in just about every hitting stat but I don’t find using additional or alternate stats are any more fun.  And I haven’t found a 6th pitching stat that I like…)
• We knew Head-to-Head was popular (and we play in a Yahoo!-sponsored expert H2H) but we were surprised that H2H edges Roto as the most popular format amongst Razzballers for their fantasy baseball leagues.

See below for all the survey results:

Valentine’s Day is coming a day early this year.  For a limited time only, get your loved one a fantasy baseball league!  That’s right, hearts aflutter, snitches.  It’s that time of the year.  Since back in June when you abandoned your fantasy baseball team because it was totally sucking and you returned to your cubbyhole of Doritos and Freezer Pops, you’ve longed for this day.  As Bob Marley sang, this is your redemption song, mon.  Or womon, for our three girl readers.  It’s time again to join some fantasy baseball leagues.  Before you close all of your extraneous porn windows and rush to sign up, let’s explain how these fantasy baseball leagues are going to work.  We’re going to have a bunch of leagues and crown a winner from each, then we’re going to crown ONE winner from all of the winners.   We will be crowning the winner by taking each team’s points and multiplying it against a ‘league competitiveness factor.’  If you want to see how it worked last year, go here.  So we’re going to fill up as many fantasy leagues as we can for the next couple of weeks.  Each fantasy baseball league will be a mixed league, 12 team, snake draft, roto, 5×5, 5 OFs, one Middle Infielder, one Corner Infielder, one Utility, 9 pitchers, 20 game eligibility, 180 Games Started.  The lineup is also known as:  C/1B/2B/SS/3B/CI/MI/5 OF/UTIL/9 P/3 BENCH/1 DL.  The fantasy leagues will be played in ESPN and they will be free to join.  They are not at Yahoo because they don’t give non-leaguemates the ability to see the leagues.

We’re going to start with fifteen leagues of 12 and see how we do from there.  Each league has an organizer.  The duties of the organizer will be to accept 11 other people into the league, set it up at ESPN at the most conducive draft time and then sit back and relax.  Just choose one organizer from the available RCLs below and contact them.  If we don’t get enough to fill 15 leagues, we’ll fold them together like egg whites and sugar.  If we need more than 15 fantasy baseball leagues, then we will expand them like egg whites and a beater.  If we need more organizers, then we’ll handle that business in the comments of this post.  (The number of spots open will be updated by me as I hear from the organizers.)

Now for the BIG prize!  I know, you can hardly wait.  This year’s winner will receive a jacket.  Not just any jacket, but a one-of-its-kind jacket.  A jacket that you need to know someone to own.  A jacket that gets you in doors that were previously closed.  A jacket that non-members are not allowed to own.  A jacket for MEMBER’S ONLY!  Not only a Member’s Only jacket… I know, the excitement is killing you right now, but try to keep breathing.  A Member’s Only jacket that tells the world exactly what club you belong to — a 2012 Razzball Commenter League Champion Member’s Only jacket!  (If you click on that picture again and again, it gets bigger then smaller then bigger then smaller then bigger like a Member’s Only jacket strobe light.  It’s effintastic!)  Wear it to weddings, funerals or into the shower and tell people you are the 2012 Razzball Commenter League Champion.  Okay, now sign up:

1. Organizer — Steve –> LEAGUE’S FULL
2. Organizer — Paul –> LEAGUE’S FULL
3. Organizer — Sean –> LEAGUE’S FULL
4. Organizer — James –>LEAGUE’S FULL
5. Organizer — Eddy –> LEAGUE’S FULL
6. Organizer — VinWins –>  LEAGUE’S FULL
7. Organizer — Trini –> LEAGUE’S FULL
8. Organizer — JoeC –> LEAGUE’S FULL
9. Organizer — Jessica –> LEAGUE’S FULL
10. Organizer — PWNNightmare –> LEAGUE’S FULL
11. Organizer — Tony –> LEAGUE’S FULL
12. Organizer — Caleb –> LEAGUE’S FULL
13. Organizer — Smokey –> LEAGUE FULL
14. Organizer — ZK –> LEAGUE’S FULL
15. Organizer — ichirosan –> LEAGUE’S FULL
16. Organizer — Chunk –> LEAGUE’S FULL
17. Organizer — Mike –> LEAGUE’S FULL
18. Organizer — NoonTime –> LEAGUE’S FULL
19. Organizer — Wake Up –>  LEAGUE’S FULL
20. Organizer — Hayden –> LEAGUE’S FULL
21. Organizer — Crazy Canuck –> LEAGUE’S FULL
22. Organizer — The Buzz –> LEAGUE’S FULL
23. Organizer — MDC –> LEAGUE’S FULL
24. Organizer — MH –> LEAGUE’S FULL
25. Organizer — Brandon –> LEAGUE’S FULL
26. Organizer — Chicago Mark –> LEAGUE’S FULL
27. Organizer — Bombo Rivera –> LEAGUE’S FULL
28. Organizer — GTG –> LEAGUE’S FULL
29. Organizer — Richard –> LEAGUE’S FULL
30. Organizer — MattTruss223 –> LEAGUE’S FULL
31. Organizer — Jon –> LEAGUE’S FULL
32. Organizer — Nate –> LEAGUE’S FULL
33. Organizer — sgsox –> LEAGUE’S FULL
34. Organizer — Chuck Norris –> LEAGUE’S FULL
35. Organizer — kwadjo — LEAGUE’S FULL
36. Organizer — perdew — LEAGUE’S FULL
37. Organizer — Whiskey Diet –> LEAGUE’S FULL
38. Organizer — A2K –> LEAGUE’S FULL
39. Organizer — P.E.D. ME! –>  LEAGUE’S FULL
40. Organizer — MKirsh –> LEAGUE’S FULL
41. Organizer — Dalmore –> LEAGUE’S FULL
42. Organizer — Grey –> LEAGUE’S FULL
43. Organizer — Khang Do –> LEAGUE’S FULL
44. Organizer — Justin –> LEAGUE’S FULL
45. Organizer — Flesh Castinets –> LEAGUE’S FULL
46. Organizer — tbill –> LEAGUE’S FULL
47. Organizer — poorjays –> LEAGUE’S FULL
48. Organizer — Jon –>LEAGUE’S FULL

Since back in June when you abandoned your fantasy baseball team because it was totally sucking and you returned to your cubbyhole of Doritos and Freezer Pops, you’ve longed for this day.  As Bob Marley sang, this is your redemption song, mon.  Or womon.  It’s time again to join some fantasy baseball leagues.  Before you close all of your extraneous porn windows and rush to sign up, let’s explain how these fantasy baseball leagues are going to work.  We’re going to have a bunch of leagues and crown a winner from each, then we’re going to crown ONE winner from all of the winners.   We will be be crowning the winner by taking each team’s points and multiplying it against a ‘league competitiveness factor.’  If you want to see how it worked last year, go here. So we’re going to fill up as many fantasy leagues as we can for the next couple of weeks.  Each fantasy baseball league will be a mixed league, 12 team, Roto, 5×5, 5 OFs, one Middle Infielder, one Corner Infielder, one Utility, 9 pitchers, 20 game eligibility, 180 Games Started.  The lineup is also known as:  C/1B/2B/SS/3B/CI/MI/5 OF/UTIL/9 P/3 BENCH/1 DL.  The fantasy leagues will be played in ESPN and they will be free to join.  They are not at Yahoo because they don’t give non-leaguemates the ability to see the leagues.

We’re going to start with nine leagues of 12 and see how we do from there.  Each league has an organizer.  The duties of the organizer will be to accept 11 other people into the league, set it up at ESPN at the most conducive draft time and during the season post pretty pictures of the league standings.  Just choose one organizer from the available RCLs below and contact them.  If we don’t get enough to fill 9 leagues, we’ll fold them together like egg whites and sugar.  If we need more than 9 fantasy baseball leagues, then we will expand them like egg whites and a beater.  If we need more organizers, then we’ll handle that business in the comments of this post.  (The number of spots open will be updated by me as I hear from the organizers.)

Now for the BIG prizes!  I know, you can hardly wait.  This year’s winner will receive an honest to goodness, Louisville Slugger engraved with my signature (or they can get their own signature on there since they would be the winner).  They can showcase the baseball bat in their living room, which will probably lead to divorce.  Or they can carry the baseball bat around like they’re Joe Clark.  Or just play baseball!  If that doesn’t get you all goose pimply, I don’t know what will.  Wait, I have to run to the bathroom just thinking about it.  Okay, back!  In addition to the Louisville Slugger, we’re proud to present the 2nd ever Razzball trophy, which will be donated by frequent commenter, Tony.  You can see Tony’s work at Claytrophies.com.  And here’s the actual winner’s trophy.  Okay, sign up:

1. Razzball Originals — Steve –> sglyon [at] gmail.com– League’s Full
2. Organizer — Tony –> youngy_03 [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
3. Organizer — Caleb –> caleb.peavy [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
4. Organizer — Brian –> hennb517 [at] robertmorris.edu — League’s Full
5. Organizer — Sean –> ogma107 [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
6. Organizer — James –> jbag201 [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
7. Organizer — Eddy –> eddy5791 [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
8. Organizer — ZK –> zach.kuhn [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
9. Organizer — JoeC –> jakoye [at] hotmail.com — League’s Full
10. Organizer — Jessica –> jmscarane [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
11. Organizer — swpayton –> ernauta [at] hotmail.com — League’s Full
12. Organizer — Smokey –> pulsethree [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
13. Organizer — VinWins –>  vinreich [at] zoho.com — League’s Full
14. Organizer — Waldo –>  mayhewfan [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
15. Organizer — Wilsionian –> awilson_21 [at] hotmail.com — League’s Full
16. Organizer — Paul –> paulneb [at] comcast.net — League’s Full
17. Organizer — OneSexyGrandpa –> slickun [at] hotmail.com — League’s Full
18. Organizer — PWNNightmare –> jamesalvinbarron [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
19. Organizer — Trini –> trinileslie [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
20. Organizer — ichirosan –> chronosaurus [at] hotmail.com — League’s Full
21. Organizer — Jon –> bane.jonathan [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
22. Organizer — JamieB –> jamie.battaglia [at] rockets.utoledo.edu — League’s Full
23. Organizer — LMack –> machamer_l [at] yahoo.com  — League’s Full
24. Organizer — napoleongs –> napoleongs [at] aol.com — League’s Full
25. Organizer — Mark –> melmaryan [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
26. Organizer — Perdew –> ryansperdew [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
27. Organizer — ChiSox –> thomaspwhite22 [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
28. Organizer — High Upside –> Freeworld9 [at] msn.com — League’s Full
29. Organizer — Poor Jays –> poorjays [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
30. Organizer — Rich –> yankee_dback [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
31. Organizer — Owen –> Owen.green [at] rocketmail.com — League’s Full
32. Organizer — Jeff –> jfunk44 [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
33. Organizer — Tom –> tmcd76 [at] gmail.com — League’s Full
34. Organizer — Elijah –> basilddavis [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full
35. Organizer — Brandon –> bnoonan [at] sbcglobal.net — League’s Full
36. Organizer — Eric –> rico404040 [at] yahoo.com — League’s Full