Today, I’ll take a look at another tendency of drafters: a willingness to overpay for a big year, or, even worse, for a player in a bounceback year. To that end, I’ll discuss 4 players who have either outplayed their last season draft prices by significant margins or, at the very least, demonstrated a skill (or two) that drafters are often willing to pay up for.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Author: ADHamley
Since 2002, husband to the most amazing woman I could imagine. Father to one in college and one high school -- smart, challenging kids who are, um, just like I am. Since 1999, high school English and philosophy teacher in the International Baccalaureate Programme (IB's spelling, not mine). Former tennis and quizbowl coach (with 13 state titles in QB -- woo hoo!). Baseball has been my data obsession since I was a kid, spending time organizing and memorizing baseball cards.
Read some of ADHamley's 60 posts
In reality, it’s probably a little too early to start looking seriously toward next season, but that’s what fantasy degenerates do. On the serious side, thinking through where players are likely to be picked this coming year compared with where they were picked this last year is an extremely valuable exercise in terms of finding potential value to profit from next year. If we can predict an approximate ADP for certain players, we can already determine if those players are going to be interesting to us based on cost. Fantasy leagues are won through the simple act of getting more value for a pick than the ADP would suggest.
Please, blog, may I have some more?When players spend the first couple of months of the season falling well short of our expectations, fantasy players are often guilty of just refusing to consider those guys at all for the rest of the season. While it’s understandable to want to refuse to roster any player who really hurt you early, that kind of emotional dismissal might cause us to miss out on good rebounds in the second half that we can get some value from. The three players I’ll discuss today all started slowly for various reasons, and I saw lots of social media buzz about dropping these guys and never looking back. But we might want to take a second look to see if there is still value to be had.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Middle infield hasn’t been the easiest place to find gems this season. While the SS player pool feels similar to its usual high quality with the top 10-12 at the position, its depth isn’t there in the same way we’ve seen in recent years. Conversely, while 2B doesn’t offer much ceiling this season, it seems to me a deeper position where I can find surprising help off the waiver wire to fill some stat needs. But it only goes so deep, and all of the usual suspects are widely rostered.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Anyone who has watched Mookie Betts this year can see something is very wrong. Blame this year’s struggles on his preseason virus-related weight loss if you will, but that weight loss and weakness don’t explain away last year’s big dip in performance. Something is different, and it’s bad.
Please, blog, may I have some more?I’ve based the list of players below on comments from my readers (you know, the ones that say something to the effect of “How could you not include this guy?!?”). I actually really like those types of comments because they make me take a second look at players I may not have given appropriate credit to.
Please, blog, may I have some more?By this point in the season, the waiver wire has been foraged repeatedly, so to find help, we’ll need to look deep. Below are three deeper league options that may be able to help, even where you have needs in shallower leagues.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Revisiting my middle infield rankings as we finish up the season’s first half. Top 30 middle infielders plus some big fallers.
Please, blog, may I have some more?My final deep dive into the middle infield depth charts of an entire division. The NL West isn’t too shabby — and it’s deep.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Spending some time reviewing players despite our possibly rigid first impressions. Good process means don’t trust small sample sizes.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Assessing 4 of my middle infield waiver wire suggestions from earlier in the season. What did I get right and wrong? Was there value there?
Please, blog, may I have some more?Another close look at the middle infield depth charts of an entire division. This time, we tackle the star-loaded NL East.
Please, blog, may I have some more?