I know, I know. Nobody cares about your fantasy team. Except you, dear reader, actually do care about my team, right? Or, at least you care to read about Grey’s teams, and you care to read about Rudy’s teams, and you care to read about other people’s drafts like it’s some literary genre.
It’s not the next War and Peace or even the next Fourth Wing, but I think there’s stuff to be learned from draft analysis. I think there’s too many fantasy analysts that say, “I just drafted the best team in the universe, I’m making bank on this, I’m perfect.” I’m not perfect and no team is perfect. You can literally rearrange the draft order of a fantasy baseball draft something like a quintillion times. But here’s a team that I’m happy with, and put thought into, and will try to win with. If that helps you, then read on.
(Editor’s Note: Speaking of drafts, all our free Razzball Commenter Leagues are full, however, you can still throw down $20 and take on MarmosDad this coming Saturday night 3/23 @ 9 ET. If this still needs a manager by Friday night, I’ll toss my Andrew Jackson in the ring and autodraft away, so there could be some dead money in here. CLICK HERE TO JOIN!)
2024 Razzslam Draft Summary
Draft Slot: 7
Round 1: Kyle Tucker, OF, HOU
- Rudy’s best ball version of War Room lists Kyle Tucker 2nd overall, so getting him at 7th in the draft feels like stealing. Tucker is super-reliable if not a bit boring due to lack of “outlier” upside. That said, having a super-reliable first round pick allows me to get riskier later. Could have gone Ohtani as well, but I wanted somebody who had the track record of massive AB volume like Tucker.
Round 2: Austin Riley, 3B, ATL
- With Jose Ramirez and Rafael Devers on the board, I decided to draft Austin Riley. I’m a bit skeptical about Jose Ramirez — the tools have been worsening every year and the Guardians look like chipped beef on offense. Riley comes with HR upside but basically no speed component. The power plays better in best ball because HR have such a high bonus. I also saw a path forward that interested me for my third round pick…
Round 3: Michael Harris II, OF, ATL
- After I stacked the entire Padres offense last year and got burned, I decided to diversify my team by having more pairs and fewer stacks this year. Harris comes with five-tool upside and will be correlated with Riley’s but in an inverted way — Harris will bat after Riley, so a successful year from Harris means more runs for Riley. Harris was also a bit unlucky in 2023, with both his batting average and slugging lagging expectations. A “normal” year means better production, which means a possible five-tool breakout for the third year ATLien.
Round 4: Adley Rutschman, C, BAL
- Catcher in the fourth round? Yeah, I hate it too. But it’s a two catcher league and Rutschman was going a bit below market value. He’s a good hitter as well — perhaps the best that was left on the board, and definitely the healthiest (with Manny Machado, Jazz Chisholm, and Mike Trout getting drafted soon after).
Round 5: Aaron Nola, P, PHI
- Blerg. Early starter that I didn’t really want to draft but Nolan Jones and Paul Goldschmidt didn’t make it to me. Nola’s got big IP upside and Win upside on the Phillies and that’s great for best ball. He’s also coming at a discount because everybody thinks his 2023 season was a flop, despite finishing as SP31 on the Player Rater. “That sucks” you might say. OK, have fun with your 110 IP from Tyler Glasnow. The name of the game in best ball is IP volume, and Nola’s got the track record for that.
Round 6 and 7: Christian Walker, 1B, ARI and Ketel Marte, 2B, ARI
- Another pair! I talked about these guys earlier in the year for comps with Corbin Carrol’s hitting profile. They’re correlated, they make contact, and they’ll get beaucoup at bats. I felt strongly that I could get these two, and I may have jumped the gun by a round.
Round 8: Jordan Walker, OF, STL
- Grey loves Jordan Walker, which is all I need. But as I talked about before — taking “boring” guys in the beginning of the draft like Kyle Tucker and Austin Riley lets me take some moonshots later in the draft. Jordan Walker might hit a ball to the moon this year, so that’s good enough for me.
Round 9: Yainer Diaz, C, HOU
- Pairs with Kyle Tucker. Again, two catcher league and best ball. That means we have to be a bit more aggressive at catcher because the lower tier options are meaningless. Diaz projects to hit well but brings a ton of risk in terms of playing time and repeatability of his good 2023 season.
Round 10: Anthony Santander, OF, BAL
- You see where I’m going with the pairs? I’m practically making a meme team at this point, but correlation is correlation and pairs/stacks that work out tend to improve teams by 1–2 rounds of draft value.
Round 11: Anthony Volpe, SS, NYY
- Shortstop was about to become a black hole so I grabbed a starter with a fair amount of upside. Bee-tee-dubya, eagle-eyed readers may have noticed by now that I took only 1 pitcher in the first ten rounds. Good for me. Watch what I do next.
Round 12-17: Mitch Keller (PIT), Jordan Montgomery (FA), Jose Berrios (TOR), Shane Bieber (CLE), Michael King (SD), Nick Pivetta (BOS)
- By the end of this run, I had seven pitchers though 16 rounds, which evened out my team quite a bit. You can see my theme here is “bold”: Keller doesn’t have a long track record of success, JoMo doesn’t have a team, Bieber looked cooked last year, and King has never been a starter for prolonged periods. Berrios and Pivetta are just under-appreciated. The name of the game is upside and I’ll roll the dice on good years from these guys. There also tend to be plenty of starters on the waiver wires for replacements later, so I might as well shoot for the moon in the event that they stay healthy.
Round 18-20: Ryan Mountcastle (1B, BAL), Jeremy Pena (SS, HOU), Brendan Donovan (2B/OF, STL)
- Pairs! Mounty goes with Adley, Pena creates the HOU stack with Tucker and Diaz, and Donovan goes with Walker. Walker was also a nice find because of that rare 2B/OF combo, which allows him to slot in for 2B/MI/OF/UTIL slots in best ball.
Round 21-25: Vaughn Grissom (SS, BOS), Charlie Morton (P, ATL), Giancarlo Stanton (OF, NYY), DJ LeMahieu (1B/3B NYY), Kyle Gibson (P, STL)
- Grissom should be getting 2B eligibility early in the season, which makes him another multi-position player with upside. Best ball leagues love Wins so Morton and Gibson are there for that reason — remember that best ball uses top performances, so bad outings are often buried. I accidentally made a Yankees stack between Volpe/Stanton/LeMahieu. I mean, a bit of health and luck and these guys are top 100 players. If Stanton finds himself again, I’ll take that risk at pick 200+.
Round 26-30: Dane Dunning (P, TEX), Jake Rogers (C, DET), Jack Flaherty (P, DET), Andrew Heaney (P, TEX), Frankie Montas (P, CIN)
- Get those Wins! Dunning and Heaney just need to make it to the fifth inning. Dunning has been a surprsingly effective win machine over the past few years, but pitchers with low K/9 rates tend not to be stable (just ask Marco Gonzales, Martin Perez, Kenta Maeda, and all the other P that finished top 10 in a season and are now in the trashbin of history). Jake Rogers is simply a warm body to backup at catcher, and he’s got the weird bonus of having good power for a catcher.
Remainder of draft: At this point we’re well beyond pick 300 so just go with whoever has a good shot at playing time. I snagged Isiah Kiner-Falefa for his playing time and ability to cover multiple positions. Enrique Hernandez will do the same for the Dodgers — he looks like he’ll get 300ish AB in a great offense and that’s all I need at that value. I snagged guys like Sawyer Gipson-Long, Jesus Sanchez, and Brady Singer for their playing time upside. SGL could turn into a high K/9 pitcher this year, albeit on a crappy team that snags very few Wins.
Razzslam is probably my favorite format of playing, and I don’t say that just because I work here. I love best ball, and I love that there’s FAAB and in-season acquisitions. A bunch of these guys won’t be on the team past May for various reasons, and the “better ball” format of Razzslam allows managers to find shiny new objects. I’ve learned to temper my expectations in FAAB after throwing oodles of cash at hot April starts only to find those firecrackers fizzle by the fourth of July. Just because projections say a player will bop, doesn’t mean they won’t also get dropped.
