When you start drafting fantasy baseball teams on New Years Day, as I did this year, it feels like you’re in a vacuum. There aren’t a bunch of rankings out, ADP doesn’t exist yet, and there are usually several players (more so than ever this year, as it turned out) who are sitting around in real-life free agent limbo. It can be invigorating feeling like it’s just you and your draft cheat sheet against the world, but it’s also a little scary sometimes, especially wondering if you’re grabbing players several rounds earlier than you need to. I always like to put together my own rankings in January, and keep that list to refer to as the pre-season progresses. Sure, my opinions will change, perhaps significantly in many cases, but I like to revisit my initial thoughts, seeing what my lists looked like before countless outside influences crept into my decision-making process. In a deep league, it’s particularly tricky to figure out which of these outside influences to buy into, since things like spring training battles for fifth starter gigs, meaningless in a standard league, take on actual importance in AL/NL-only or other deep formats. Trying to separate helpful information from irrelevant pre-season chatter can be difficult, and I find it impossible to be completely immune from the impact of reports on who’s in the best shape of his life, who swears he’s going to run more this season, or remembering how cute Nick Williams looks in his uniform.
Back to the present — with January in the rear-view mirror, it’s time for me to come up with version 2.0 of my 2018 fantasy baseball prep, even though we’re still a couple weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting. I have a couple real, money-league drafts under my belt and we all finally have a few outside sources to consult to see what other drafters and experts have been thinking (including Grey’s 2018 rankings, which are coming at you fast, fun, and furious). I’m going to concentrate on NL players for this list since I just finished an NL-only draft, but stay tuned for an AL version in the not-so-distant future. Based on my January drafts, early expert analysis, the limited amount of news we’ve actually been getting from major league baseball teams, a close look at early NFBC ADP, and plain old gut instinct, here are some players who I already think I’m more or less likely to draft than I would have been a month or two ago:
Moving Down:
Austin Barnes. If you had asked me on October 1st what my first 2018 article would be about, I probably would have told you it’d be an Austin Barnes sleeper post/love letter. But then the Dodgers went and started Barnes almost every dang game of the postseason, and come 2018, the fantasy community seems to have noticed him, and I also realized that his numbers weren’t quite as impressive as I had imagined them to be. Early NFBC ADP puts him at #199 overall (tied with Bradley Zimmer and ahead of guys like Ryon Healy, Jose Peraza, Delino DeShields, and Mitch Haniger) and in the NL-only draft I just finished, he was actually drafted as a middle infielder. I suppose if the Dodgers jettison Yasmani Grandal, Barnes may end up with the counting stats to support his draft position (and yes, we all know a catcher who steals some bags is a turn-on). But ZIPS has Barnes projected to hit .254 this year, which gives me pause, since a nice juicy batting average was one of the things that I thought could make Barnes valuable this year. I have him cheap in a couple NL-only keeper leagues and I’m not going to throw him back or anything, but in other leagues I just don’t see me drafting him at what seems to be shaping up as his current price (especially if Grandal ends up sticking around).
Trevor Story. I have Story in my deepest NL-only keeper league — I root for him and think he has the talent to put things together and have a big year. I just thought his market would be lower given how much he struggled last year. His NFBC ADP is 105, just after Javy Baez (love Baez in NL-only this year but that number also seems high for him, IMO), Yoenis Cespedes, and Brad Hand, and just ahead of J.P. Realmuto and Luke Weaver. In my NL-only draft, he was taken mid-5th round, which felt early to me. Shortstop gets ugly in a hurry in an NL-only league, but that’s still not going to make me jump on Story quite this soon. There’s no way he’ll help in average (ZIPS guesses .240 this year, which is even worse than my prediction would be), and I’m worried that the Rockies will continue to not run and that Story will come in under the 10 steals ZIPS projects him for. That makes him a 3-category player, and I’m just not sure something in the neighborhood of 70 runs, 25 homers, and 80 RBI is worth his current price, especially at a position that I might be able to grab some much-needed speed from later on in an NL-only draft.
Jhoulys Chacin. I had Chacin in a league last year where I pretty much just played him when he pitched at home (as any sane person would do), and he rewarded me by putting up some pretty glorious numbers for my pretend team. I assumed no one would want to go near him this year after his trade to the Brewers, but in my NL-only league, he was drafted in the same round as Michael Wacha (who you’ll see me mention below). Sure, Chacin is now on a team that’s a million times better than the Padres were last year, but I think I’d rather leave a hole in my lineup than worry about what his 2018 ratios are going to look like.
Archie Bradley. There were times I watched him pitch last year where I felt like I wanted him on every team I drafted in 2018, but the D-Backs acquisition of Brad Boxberger makes me a little uneasy. Bradley’s Steamer projection of a 3.48 ERA, almost double his actual 1.73 ERA last year, isn’t exactly instilling a lot of confidence either. I’ll still take him at the right price, but I’m worried that his NL-only market may have passed me by and I don’t want to reach for him.
Moving Up:
Jose Quintana. I don’t know when I got it in my head that he was horribly overrated, but looking now at where he’s being drafted and how lovely his numbers look over the last couple of years, I’m suddenly pretty into him. In my NL-only league he was drafted just after Robbie Ray and Aaron Nola, and I’ve realized that for me, Quintana is now at the end of a tier of guys that I’d feel comfortable drafting as my #1 in NL-only.
Ronald Acuna. I figured he’d be completely overdrafted in re-draft leagues this year as it seems untested but potentially exciting rookies often are, but I’ll probably grab him in a few leagues at his price as it’s looking so far. His ADP in NFBC has him coming in just behind Manny Margot and just ahead of Ian Happ. I’m interested in all three of these guys in 2018, but if given the choice would take a gamble on Acuna since A) he has upside for days, B) there’s no reason to think he’ll be held in the minors for more than a couple weeks to start the season barring disaster, C) I feel his ADP is the most likely to skyrocket if he has hot a great spring (or one great game in spring, for that matter), and D) as every 2017 Cody Bellinger owner can tell you, the Hot Prospect Bandwagon can be a really, really fun ride if you pick the right guy.
Michael Taylor/Odubel Herrera. I don’t know why I can’t bring myself to draft either of these guys, but I really feel like I need to stop worrying about finding someone less boring in NL-only and just pull the trigger at their current price — Taylor’s NFBC ADP is 203 and Herrera’s is 212, behind the likes of Jonathan Villar and the aforementioned Austin Barnes. No, you won’t be screaming with joy when one of them falls to you (well, I suppose that depends on what else you’re doing while you’re drafting), but getting guys this late who can help you in all four standard counting stat categories and not hurt your average can be crucial in deep leagues.
Michael Wacha. Wacha is yet another of those fellows who has seriously disappointed me in the past, and I figured I probably wouldn’t want to touch him this year. But he fell to the 19th round of my 15-team mixed league draft and the 13th round of my 10-team NL only draft, and let’s just say I’m starting to forget some of the bad times, and am remembering some of the good ones. Every time I look up his K/9, it’s better than I thought (8.58 last year; Steamer projects him for 8.38 this season). Given how hard I think it will be to find a starter you even want to take a flier in the middle to late rounds of an NL-only league, I’ll happily take him at his current ADP (233 in NFBC, well behind guys like Taijuan Walker and Lance Lynn).
