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In Roto, those underlying stats are extremely helpful when I’m in the middle of a season, and I know which categories I need to bolster in order to get the best overall stats across all 10 categories. But what about during draft season? There are no standings then, so we don’t have the ability to look at the SB category and see that we’re only 4 SB away from picking up another point in the standings. In season, when we see a category where it’s possible, even likely to gain points, it’s an easy decision to go get someone from the waiver wire who can get us there without hurting us in other categories. But in the preseason, we are deciding between any number of hypothetical rosters. How do we decide between two players of similar projected $ value?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Wed 9/17
ARI | ATH | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | OAK

The last time I put out a rankings list was nearly 2 months ago as we were coming out of the All-Star Break. At that time, I was still hesitant to fully buy in when it came to players who have had unexpectedly good or bad seasons. Well, we’re running out of games to play, so maybe it’s time I come around on some players. As a result, you’ll see some fairly significant movement up and down this week’s ranks. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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?

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?