Redraft leagues are the standard of the fantasy sports industry. Each year you get a fresh start at remembering you shouldn’t draft A.J. Pollock. Ever. You can draft whoever you want at your draft position or spend as much as your budget on whoever you want. But for me there is nothing more fun than a good long-term keeper league. Smart owners get to flex on their leaguemates by keeping players they selected deep in their drafts or picked up on a hunch. Keeper leagues are a great intermediate option between full-on redraft leagues and the craziness of a dynasty league. 

Below you’ll find my keeper rankings for 2019. I’ve included each player’s age, position eligibility for the start of the 2019 season and any concerns I have about each player. Here’s what you’ll also see: I’m not high on starting pitchers. Too likely to suffer an injury and miss a large chunk of time. I’m not high on guys with less than two seasons of experience. I’ve seen sophomore slumps and prospect busts far too often. There are exceptions like Ronald Acuna who seem like a sure thing — but when it comes to Vlad Guerrero Jr. I prefer the wait and see approach. Plus, we really don’t know when he’ll even debut. Players over the age of 31 worry me — especially players whose value is speed dependent. I don’t want to keep a player whose decline is starting to begin. Injury prone players: duh. I’m not going to keep someone who can’t take the field.

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Wed 8/6
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

In case you haven’t noticed, we are now less than two weeks away from Opening Day folks. Most of you are avid baseball fanatics so I know you don’t need a reminder, but it just feels awesome to be able to say it. After another long winter the best day of the year is almost upon us. Back again to look at some discounts you might find in your upcoming drafts, here are some starting pitchers I feel like will significantly outproduce their current draft prices.

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Drafting outfielders for the 2019 fantasy baseball season is a hot topic. There’s tons of outfielders, but the top couple tiers dry up quickly. On this show, B_Don and Donkey Teeth discuss several outfielders you might consider targeting once all the top OFs are off the board.

The first of those potential targets is Byron Buxton. The juicy fantasy sausage upside that oozes from every single one of Byron Buxton’s pores is both sweet and savory. Studies have also shown this ooze can cure cancer and other terminal diseases. Buxton is off to phenomenal start this spring, boasting added muscle and claims of, “The best shape of his life”. Which is always true.

The guys also discuss expectations for rising star Michael Conforto and relative unknown rookie, Christin Stewart. Then some late round outfield targets are thrown around to finish up the show. Opening day is coming, make sure you get your fill of sausage, sausage juices, and the Ditka, Sausage, and Fantasy Sports shirt before time runs out!

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At one point in Sunday’s draft, Andy Behrens said to me, “I can’t believe you went to $3 on Peter O’Brien.  That’s not on brand for you.”  You know what; he’s right.  Shame on me for briefly going off brand. Even if it was for a millisecond between bids $2 and $3 on the 35-year-old rookie, Peter O’Brien, who has more holes in his swing than Swiss cheese at a shooting range.  Maybe the, um, spirit of drafting on St. Patty’s Day overcame me.  Maybe I was hoping O’Brien could make me some hurricanes while I waded in my kiddie pool this summer.  It’s Andy Behrens’s brand to draft terrible players.  That’s not my brand.  I realized that soon enough, Dear Reader.  Andy went to $4 and I let him have O’Brien.  I suppose if things break right, O’Brien will retire at some point this summer and look kindly on Behrens for drafting him, then offer his services as a babysitter.  I don’t need a babysitter; my wife is like a decade older than me!  Okay, I’m about to drop on you one of the sexiest NL-Only teams. You might want to place an extra-wide condom over your head, before I impregnate your eyes.  Anyway, here’s my Tout Wars 12-team, NL-Only draft recap:

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FML can mean many things, usually of the negative variety. Here at Razzball, though, we turn those frowns upside down and spew nothing but positivity, unless you submit rankings at you know where by you know whom. FML at Razzball is short for Fantasy Master Lothario, which is another name for the man, the myth, the legend, Grey Albright, our fearless leader. Too many acronyms and commas are making my head spin. Anyways, we are now branching out in the FML game: Frankie Montas Love.

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The Cincinnati Reds have not enjoyed a lot of good off-seasons. Not many good in-seasons, either. Perhaps you remember the winter they thought domestic violence was bad enough to Aroldis Chapman for peanuts. Maybe a pretzel. The way I remember it, the press they received for this decision was largely negative, criticizing the Reds for not getting more back from the Yankees, who received little if any negative press for their support of a domestic abuser. They Reds had obtained, among other pieces, a man whose last name looked strikingly similar to gigolo. Perhaps this was their error. Perhaps part III, if this transaction happened today, I hope the media would more readily praise that front office’s zero-tolerance stance on choking in the kitchen and gun-play in the garage.

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I love New York City and I love St. Patrick’s Day, but the last time I combined the two was a sordid tale. I was about 12 sheets to the wind on the 7AM train into the city. By mid morning (which was cloudy) I had passed out. I woke up in a small nook near a stoop in the afternoon (now it was sunny). The change in weather – combined with waking up still drunk – led me to believe that I had slept through to the next day. I had lost my crew and found about $1.25 in change around my person. Apparently people mistook me for a derelict teen down on his luck. I made the most of the afternoon, took the train home, and arrived back at the house to find my crew sitting in the living room. They had spent the entire day looking for their lost friend in NYC and oh BTW I was their ride home from the train station. They were not happy. Here are the top ten specs in the Mets system. Slainte!

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Spring Training is here, and Mr. Moving Averages is cranking out content like some kind of content making machine.  Countless hours of research, critical thinking, data mining, analysis & writing all come to a head as we approach Opening Day. Draft season is upon us, even if there may be snow on the ground in Brooklyn as I write this. Our immersive work, without an initial definitive direction began by opening a door. That lead to another door. And another, and another until we wound up down the rabbit hole, nowhere near where we started.  My advice at this point?  Follow the white rabbit. Reminds me of an old adage, a call to unification; ”Where we go one, we go all”.

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If you happen to play in an enlightened fantasy baseball league you may already be incorporating holds. These relievers all get a big bump if so. If you’re still using saves alone like a neanderthal these guys are still worth having on your radar for their given boosts. The parade of arm soreness has begun in earnest. Consider these names in a pinch if/when you lose a starter.

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What does Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson have in common? If you’re thinking “guilty”, well I don’t know about that. I know what I think, but I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. Don’t want to ruffle any feathers. The answer I was looking for was that they both got off and there was a glove involved. Get it? Don’t like it? Well you can beat it. That’s right, just beat it. Even Mike Tyson said he wouldn’t let his eight year old son hang out with Jackson. Reggie maybe, but definitely not Michael. R Kelly outta get himself a right fielder’s glove!

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Greetings, friends and fellow humans that enjoy fantasy baseball!

Those of us who spend approximately 52 of 52 weeks of the calendar year thinking about this glorious time we like to call fantasy baseball drafting season have, at this point in March, read countless “sleeper” articles by now recommending players we should be able to pick up late in a draft.  But these articles quickly become laughable for those of us who go the extra fantasy mile and play in AL-only, NL-only, and other crazy deep leagues.  Yep, life sure would be sweet if I could grab Jonathan Schoop or Eduardo Rodriguez at the end of my AL-only draft to fill out my infield and my rotation, but that’s just not how it works.  It would also be nice if I could scoop up Jesse Winker or Nick Senzel for a few bucks at the end of my NL-only auction, but in at least one of my leagues, guys like Senzel have been parked on another fantasy owner’s minor league team for three or four years.  And this brings me to our little corner of the Razzball-verse:  the place where we talk about players who we might actually be able to draft or buy on the cheap in world of deep-league fantasy baseball.

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NL WestNL Central | NL East || AL West | AL Central | AL East

I don’t pay much attention to Spring Training Statistics.  You never know who the statistics are coming against.  Baseball-Reference did, however, have an amazing tool last year that attempted to quantify the quality of opposing pitchers or batters faced during spring training games on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being MLB talent and 1-3 being high A to low A level.  This tool is great, but it averages all the Plate Appearances or batters faced.  You would still need a deeper dive to see if your stud prospect smacked a donger off of Chris Sale or off of your kid’s future pony league baseball coach.  So what should we watch for in March when we’re starved for the crack of the bat?  Ignore “best shape of their life” stories and Spring Training statistical leaderboards.  Pay attention to injuries and lineup construction and position battles!

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