The name Gavin Lux has been spoken of in reverent terms in prospect circles for years. He's gained almost mythical status at the top of the prospect pyramid for one of the top teams in the league. Lux was batted back and forth across the country earlier this month in a WE WANT GAVIN FOR MOOKIE mantra from Boston fans, to a NO WAY mantra back from Dodger fans. The Dodgers' top prospect is a valuable commodity, and he's taking on practically everyone this spring to find playing time in 2020. Why is he so valuable and what are his paths to playing time? Let's take a look.
See all of today’s starting lineups
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ARI | ATL | BOS | CHC | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | MIA | MIL | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TEX | WSH | ATH | BAL | CHW | CIN | LAD | MIN | OAK | TB | TOR |
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The ax fell yesterday on
Luis Severino's elbow. That ax was wielded by Dr. James Andrews, who was wearing a Jason mask at the time of the news conference. A reporter stands, "Doc, do you think Severino can avoid Tommy John surgery?" Dr. James Andrews, breathy like Kathleen Turner with an unmistakeable Charleston accent, "I do declare," Dr. James Andrews pats his mask with a handkerchief, "Severino's time under the knife will be short, but his stay on the Injured List long." He then scratched his arm with the ax and accidentally ripped his doctor's lab coat. "If there's no further questions, I will be going," Dr. James Andrews stood, sticking out his arms in a Jason pose, and slowly left the stage. So, Severino and Dr. James Andrews have been acquainted and if you drafted Severino early, you're ess oh el as they say in Acronyms R' Us chatrooms. I've removed Severino from the
top 40 starters and
top 500 for 2020 fantasy baseball. Anyway, here's what else I saw this offseason in fantasy baseball:
What's up party people. Throughout the season I'll be bringing you my, you guessed it, Top 75 outfielders rankings for the 2020 season; or as I sometimes refer to them, the Top 75 glorified ball-shaggers (yes I was an infielder, why you ask?). Like my other compadres, I will be updating these throughout the season and pointing out the risers (the ins), fallers (the outs), and others that have me thinking at the moment warranting attention (the what-have-yous). We all have opinions, and I have plenty to share with all of you (aren't you lucky?). You can share yours with me in the comments below (shameless plug). Baseball is back.
Outfield, the final frontier (for failed infielders with plus bats that managers are trying to hide in the field). Sure you have your superstars with arm-canons and so on, but one thing is often overlooked. Some of these players, while they have above-average offensive potential, are liabilities in the field and essentially are trying to swing their way into the everyday lineup. Their future, as a function of playing time, is tied to their production at the plate. Domingo Santana is a prime example. Last year in Seattle he contributed a solid -1.9 dWAR, a career-low. Obviously, he's not a golfer. This brings me to my next point, the DH, allows some "outfielders" on AL teams to get many more ABs than NL part-timers including big bats like Soler, Alvarez, and Reyes.
This year we also have a lot of young guns getting their shot at full-time gigs across a full season and more set to make an appearance as the season goes on. Rookies like Luis Robert and Jo Adell are set to make their debut in The Show. Second-year guys like Cavan Biggio and Oscar Mercado aim for Opening Day jobs and a full season of ABs. This offseason I was hyped to see Kyle Tucker and his 30/30 skills unleashed this season but then Bang-gate happened; Hinch was fired; and the death-of-all-young-position-players, the Toothpick, Dusty Baker was hired. Hopes and dreams squashed. Sure he might eventually come around, but I'm not holding my breath (yet).
Some initials thoughts as we begin Spring Training:
The people spoke last week, and the cries for less filling and more great taste have Grey and I ready to give you the tightest podcast since we did that weird latex episode. Halp was hosting then and I had nothing to do with it. Dynasty Halp? More like Fetish Halp, amirite? Okay I made that up, but honestly we run through 50, fity, FIFTY outfielders over the course of this episode. Lots of information this week, and the best part is... we're not done! We got 50 more for you next week! It's the latest episode of the Razzball Podcast.
Last week, we talked about players that are on the old side and are generally boring fantasy picks, but who might still be able to provide some decent deep-league value. This week, we'll focus on guys that may be able to help with two components crucial to most any successful fantasy team, namely power and speed. In deeper leagues, we're hit with a kind of double whammy. First, the potential for things to go wrong is more prevalent since we're drafting deeper into the player pool and therefore rostering much riskier players -- whether the risk is injury, demotion, or just poor performance. Second, once this level of risk leads to the need to replace players and fix holes on a roster, that's much harder to do with what it usually a dearth of options available via the free agent pool. If you've ever played in a 12-team "only" league with a deep bench, you know what I mean: I've actually had situations where I needed to replace a hole at, say, second base when my second baseman was sent to triple A, and ended up having to just keep the minor leaguer in my lineup because there was literally not a free agent major league player who qualified at second base available in my league's player pool.
At any rate, as I'm filling out a deep-league team, I'd often rather have two players who can both help me in both homers and steals rather than one hitter who I hope to count on for power and one who is more of a straight speed threat -- even if I have to give up a little bit of ADP value or pay a buck more for a guy than I'd like to in an auction. It's just a way to mitigate risk slightly, in hopes of preventing the loss of one player from hitting me too hard in a single category. Thus, on to some names. All of the following players A) had at least 10 homers + at least 10 steals last year, B) are guys that I think, in my completely unscientific projections, could reach a number of both home runs and steals that's at least in the teens this year, and C) have current NFBC ADPs outside the top 225.
The prairie wind stirs up the sweet bouquet of spring. On the horizon, we see Mason Saunders, a rodeo extraordinaire, who looks remarkably similar to Madison Bumgarner. Mason stands on top of a wild steer throwing knives into a target right above the Astros' mascot's head, Orbit. Charlie Blackmon, dressed like the star of the blaxploitation film Chazz Noir Does Your Mom, approaches Saunders. "I'm Chazz Noir and my tricked-out Cadillac lowrider ran out of gas at the entrance of your ranch. Was wondering if you had any extra gas." Saunders throws one last curve with his knife, and it sticks into Orbit's arm and the mascot goes down like a sack of potatoes. Finally, Saunders replies, "Around here, boy, there's no handouts. You need to work for gas. In the silo on the left of my ranch, we make Horsey Sauce that we sell to Arby's, and, in the right silo of the ranch, is ranch dressing."
Fantasy baseball players typically settle into three different camps on how they 'run' their snake drafts:
Traditionalists - Use a piece of paper typically with tiered rankings
Spreadsheeters - Use a spreadsheet that can range from a simple one tab cut 'n paste job to one with tons of formulas, tabs, and conditional formatting. Player projections and/or rankings may be cut/pasted from a site, aggregated from various sources or the product of meticulous research.
Toolers - Use a piece of software (usually subscription-based) to manage the draft. Projections can range from one bundled with the software to importing one's own.
I have always been a Spreadsheeter. A couple years back I had a couple of epiphanies related to draft strategy (detailed in my 2020 LABR Mixed Draft Recap - search for DARWINISM) and completely overhauled my 'draft room'. After some early success, I started sharing it with the Razzball writers for their industry leagues. Last year, I added it to our season-long subscription package. The response has been better than I expected given how different it is from the standard draft room.
While I have not trialed all draft software or had the opportunity to test drive others' spreadsheets, I have seen enough that I have a good idea on some of the more common approaches/standards. I think there are several flaws in these standards and will show how and why my Draft Room is better. If you are a Traditionalist, my guess is this post will not sway you but at least it will give you ammunition when mocking the guy with the laptop next you on draft day.
I am not a ranker.
I never put players in an official order before writing at Razzball. Last year, MB asked me to provide flex rankings for football. This year, Donkey Teeth asked me to provide top 100 pitcher rankings for baseball. Now all I do with my life is rank players!
My typical draft prep revolved around locating a targeted set of pitchers throughout the draft, and conversely identifying pitchers I had no interest in. The strategy was to draft as many targets as possible and fill in the cracks where my pitching staff was showing weakness to construct a balanced pitching staff. Though I am providing a top 100 list, it remains of the utmost importance to embrace pitching staff construction over drafting based on raw rankings.
Last week we covered why you should join a Razzball Commenter League, so this week let’s start covering what to do once you’re in there. To be honest, this has all been covered somewhere on the site over the years, most often by Rudy. If you haven’t been playing in RCLs though, I could see how some of this has been glossed over, so I’ll try to consolidate some info for the newbies. Grizzled RCL vets can feel free to skip this and just go sign up for leagues at the end of the post. The switch from ESPN to Fantrax a few seasons ago shook things up a little bit since we added some rule changes when we did so, most notably a 500 move limit. We also changed from Games Started for pitchers to Innings Pitched. I’ll be frank, I didn’t notice a big change in strategy because of these changes, but feel free to change my mind RCL Vets. We’ll cover this as well as the basics for anyone still timid about jumping in the RCL waters.
QUICK NOTE: RCL drafts will start going off this coming Sunday. To avoid leagues drafting with less than 12 managers we’ve decided to just kill any league that doesn’t fill by 5pm EST. We’re going to try our best to get everything filled, but if you are in a league where someone bails late or it looks like it won’t fill, let us know. Jump in the comments or let us know on Twitter: @Razzball and/or @MattTruss and we’ll try to work some magic. We didn’t want to ruin someone’s night by waiting until an hour before a 10pm draft to kill it so we’re trying to make the call early in the evening. Hopefully, this won’t happen often, but help us help you.
As many of you know, I’m in the NL-Only Tout Wars and LABR, so every year I take part in an industry NL-Only league with the CBS peeps to try to find my footing before I go off this Friday to Florida to take on the heavyweights, and Mike Gianella, who appears to have a healthy BMI. Some might mock, some might mock draft, but this is my draft prep, and am happy to take part in this league. Until about 25 minutes into the draft, and players go for way too much, and I start getting hungry and I just want the whole thing to be over and ermahgerd! But, for those first twenty-five minutes of the five-hour draft, I’m laser focused. For this league, I once again use Rudy’s
NL-Only rankings, and his
War Room (it’s free with a subscription). I won’t try to get you to buy it anymore. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make the horse put a cape down so I can walk over the water without getting wet. (If you want a shallower league, play against me and hundreds others for prizes –>
Razzball Commenter Leagues.) Anyway, here’s my 12-team NL-Only team and some thoughts:
Contracts, the lifeblood of Major League Baseball. If you're good enough, after you put in your time making nothing and riding on buses, the team owns you until you run through the rookie contract. Of course teams want to protect themselves from paying the next Jon Singleton, and this is how contracts end up with options. Some favor the team and others the player. It usually boils down to who has more leverage at the bargaining table.
Vested options are typically put on the back end of contracts, especially for older players. Some of these milestones might mean that a guy pushes through a minor injury. Others may put the club in a position where they prefer a player miss their vested option. The team can control the likelihood of completing the option.
For instance, Wade Davis has a vesting option to finish 30 games this season. Given his performance last year, the Rockies are more likely to find an alternative option should he falter or give him more days in between closing opportunities even if he returns to form.
What does this mean for you in fantasy? It means Scott Oberg, Jairo Diaz, and Carlos Estevez become interesting options at the back end of the draft. Oberg had the best numbers last year, but underlying numbers show he might have been lucky and has lost velocity on the fastball the last 3 seasons. Jairo and Estevez both throw upper 90s with sliders.
Welcome to the 2020 Razzball Team Previews! (Our “2020” comes with more Jay and less Barbara Walters!) (That joke is probably older than you!) Sorry for all the parentheses and exclamation points, I just get so excited when I think about Barbara Walters, and don’t even get me started on Hugh Downs… Regardless, here, you’ll find everything you need to know about each team to get yourself ready for the upcoming fantasy baseball season, Razz-style. So while you’re stretching your lats and relearning calculus to get that upper hand on your fantasy peers, why not also check out what the World Champion Nationals have in store for you and your fantasy team?
2019 Recap
Final Record: 93-69 (2nd)
Runs Scored: 873 (2nd)
Runs Against: 724 (5th)
SB: 116 (1st)
ERA: 4.27 (8th)
Saves: 40 (9th)
Strikeouts: 1,511 (4th)
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