There’s gonna be a lot to like with Luke Voit, but it’s fair to get out of the way upfront the issues. The Yankees haven’t fully committed to him.  Aaron Boone said Voit “has a leg up” on the 1st base job for 2019.  That sounds positive, but if Boone was watching a dog pee on a fire hydrant while saying this, then it might be a negative.  My guess is Boone wasn’t watching Animal Planet, and it’s good news.  Well, relatively good.  It says a lot about the Yankees that they’re not just handing Voit the job.  On the other hand (were we weighing options on hands?), the Yankees did give Greg Bird so many chances to win the 1st base job.  Since we’re using our hands anyway, I’m going to count on my fingers, and say Bird was given three seasons to win the job, and the third finger in is the middle finger, which is appropriate for flipping the Bird.  So, the Yankees don’t need a ‘big’ name at 1st base.  Now that Bird’s flew the coop, and is likely headed to being a throw-in a trade, the Yankees don’t have any immediate other obvious option, besides Voit.  So, Cashman has proven he will give the 1st base job to someone as unhearlded previously as Voit, and the Yankees should also know from this past season, they can win a lot of games with Voit as the 1st baseman.  Pitching is more of a real baseball team need, than 1st base.  So, what can we expect from Luke Voit for 2019 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Sat 8/2
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 first year player draft is an annual event for dynasty leagues, especially the really deep ones where everybody and their brother is already owned. They consist of players from the previous season’s draft and any international signings. These rankings will sometimes include MLB-ready prospects from abroad, and they’ll be relevant in standard redraft leagues. I’m spending a little extra time with the top ten, and next week the rest of the top 50 will roll out. That should get you through at least the first few rounds of a first year player draft. I’ve played in some really deep dynasty leagues and the approach changes dramatically depending on your competitive window, your draft position, and how many picks you have (some people collect FYPD picks like an 80’s kid collects Pogs). These rankings don’t take any of that into account and instead occur in a vacuum. I tend to value hitters over pitchers, hit tools over every other tool, and up-the-middle defenders over other positions. Also, these rankings consider 2018 performances in addition to the players’ scouting grades (some fared better than others in their first go at pro ball).

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Major League Baseball Looks to Smack a Home Run as Legal Online Sports Betting Grows in Popularity

Professional baseball players will officially lace up their cleats for opening day 2019, earlier than ever before in history. This news will certainly attract some level of interest, especially in places where winter hasn’t yet given up its grip.  There is also going to be another first that will have the baseball world talking even louder. For the first time in modern history, it will be legal in designated venues to bet on Major League Baseball games.

When the United States Supreme Court struck down the law that forbade states from permitting sports betting, the door was opened, if only slightly ajar. Delaware and New Jersey were the first states to swing that door wide open. So, now that sports betting is no longer against federal law, what should you expect from MLB’s stance concerning online sports betting?

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Back from baseball hiatus, the sausage lovers are joined by another fellow wiener lover, Walter McMichael (@RealFakeWalter) of Friends with Fantasy Benefits and the Real Fake Baseball Podcast. Off the top, the guys discuss three exciting prospects and potential 2019 league winners:  Eloy Jimenez, Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Victor Robles.

Walter then dissects several of his own picks from the recent FWFB30 dynasty draft including Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton, Jeff McNeil and Brandon Lowe. Other topics include: Christian Yelich and Corey Kluber early ADPs, Cedric Mullins, Jonathan Villar and the ever-polarizing Adalberto Mondesi. Grab a sausage and pull up a chair, the stove is heating up!

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The Winter Meetings called it quits this week, and that was perhaps the worst Winter Meetings on record.  Was it because it was in Vegas?  Maybe there were a bunch more trades, but they all “stayed” in Vegas.  The Mariners kept busy gathering veterans who will never play for them, as they grabbed Edwin Encarnacion from the Indians for Carlos Santana.  You remember Santana, he was the last vet that the M’s traded for that won’t play for them.  If the Mariners are trading for vets who won’t actually play for them, they should grab Harold Baines so he can’t go into the Hall of Fame, because last time I checked active players aren’t allowed into the Hall.  Or why bother sticking with baseball players.  C’mon, Mariners, trade for Michael Jordan or Big Show or Turtle from Entourage.  It’s not like you have any expectation of them donning an M’s uniform.  So, the assumption is that Edwin will go to the Rays to bury their recently acquired Yandy Diaz.  You’d think a guy with guns like Yandy Diaz would be doing the burying.  If you don’t know what I mean, see the picture below.  If I don’t bring out the Crisco and apply the shortening, this post will be longer than The Fountainhead, so let’s just say you know Encarnacion, whether he’s on the Rays or Mariners.  For my Encarnacion projections I am assuming he’ll be on the Rays, and putting him at 78/33/91/.241/2 in 523 ABs, and I already gave you my Carlos Santana projections after his last trade, but am upping him slightly to 74/24/84/.232/2 in 563 ABs.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw this offseason for 2019 fantasy baseball:

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Up front I have to get it out of the way, I hate the Rays for hitting sleepers in shallower mixed leagues. They have five platoons set up already and we’re not even at Spring Training yet.  Once we hit March, there’s going to be at least seven possible platoons.  Platoons are good for liberty, bad for fantasy baseball, i.e., libertad/libertbad. The trade of Mallex Smith helps the case for Austin Meadows and, specifically, his playing time, i.e., you can’t spell libertad without trade.  (I tried too.)  In the Rays’ outfield, there’s still Kevin Kiermaier, Tommy Pham, Brandon Lowe, who I want to get playing time, and Guillermo Heredia, who I don’t want to get playing time but will likely because of that reason.  Kevin Cash divvies up so much playing time we should call him, Kevin One Of Those Change Belts Teenagers Who Work At Arcades Wear.  That’s pretty pithy.  Anyway, what can we expect from Austin Meadows for 2019 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?

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I’ve learned several important lessons in my adult life. Cheez-its are the ideal snack. Lauder’s whisky is just as good as the expensive stuff. Children want you to spend time with them. And yet, soaking Cheez-its in whisky to sneak it into the movie that you’re attending with your children is somehow not a sound plan. Oh, and Byron Buxton is probably not the next Mike Trout. Lessons learned. This year’s Minnesota preview was really hard to whittle down to ten. There’s a nice balance between high upside guys, specs that are close, and some decent pitching. It’s just a good, deep system. Good and deep like the flavor of Lauder’s Blended Scotch Whiskey. This intro has been brought to you by Lauder’s Blended Scotch Whisky. I present the Minnesota Twins top ten fantasy prospects for your disapproval.

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Everyone is clamoring for a Daniel Palka post.  Don’t even try to lie.  I know how hotly contested this is gonna be.  Fine!  Daniel Palka is a bore, but let’s look at this way.  Imagine everyone lining up every sleeper post ever written.  What’s the number one sleeper post of all time?  The November 1995 sleeper post about Brady Anderson and how a 16-homer hitter was about to hit 50 homers?  A 2010 Jose Bautista sleeper post about how a 13-homer hitter was about to hit 54 homers?  A 2000 Darin Erstad sleeper about how he was about to hit .355?  Richard Hidalgo that same year about to hit 44 homers?  Before each of those posts, they were snoozes too.  Hence, sleepers!  So, before you place your iPhone on the ground with this post open so your dog can rub its ass on Palka, let’s hold judgment.  Anyway, what can we expect from Daniel Palka for 2019 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?

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Talk about a guy who could be completely off radars next year, and be huge.  I’m hummna-hummna’ing before I even start.  Let’s talk team sitch first.  You’re gonna need a seatbelt for this one, because I’m going neck deep fast like a snake coming up a toilet drain.  Ramon Laureano takes a walk, and not just at 8 AM with a senior at a mall going to get lunch.  He might sneak into a .370 OBP, and, if I’ve learned anything from Fat Jonah and Billy Beane on a treadmill in Moneyball, a solid OBP guy means he’s going to hit leadoff for the A’s.  The A’s who last year scored the fourth most runs in the league and were sorely missing a leadoff man.  They tried Marcus Semien for 292 ABs, saying, “Let’s give Semien a shot!  Hey…that’s not mud in my eye.”  They gave Martini a shot at leadoff for 120 ABs and, like a bad episode of Sex in the City, Martini is what led to Semien, so we know how well that worked out.  Unless they trade for someone else this offseason, and I see no reason why they would, who else is leading off in Oakland?  Piscotty?  Olson?  Chapman?  They shouldn’t be, and, Billy Beane pulling the strings on that giant puppet-shaped Bob Melvin willing, they won’t.  Nomar backwards will.  If they can do a surgery on a grape, Laureano can be the A’s leadoff hitter for 400+ ABs.  So, what can we expect from Ramon Laureano for 2019 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?

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We’re in a bit of a lull today with the offseason leagues winding down and the winter meetings set to start tomorrow, but there have been a few interesting transactions involving prospects. Next week’s rundown should be a tad meatier once the teams depart Vegas and have (hopefully) made some trades/moves. One of the teams that is kind of fascinating to watch right now is the Miami Marlins. I would expect them to move J.T. Realmuto this offseason (maybe this week), and I’d also expect the return to be centered around prospects. The team is obviously in rebuild mode, and since they’re not likely to be ready to compete in 2020, it makes no sense for them to hold the backstop. So let’s start with Miami, who signed a bunch of players to minor league contracts last Monday.

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Off the bat (up the middle, pasta diving Jeter!), I don’t know if Michael Conforto will be a sleeper.  I’m drafting him like he’s not a sleeper, and I see some other ‘perts drafting him like he’s not a sleeper, but, then I see some common folk drafts (I’m so highfalutin!), and I think how on earth did Conforto last that long?  That’s a sleeper.  For unstints, I ranked Eddie Rosario last year in the top 75 overall and called him a sleeper.  In some leagues, that would not have been a sleeper.  Michael Conforto is going to be samesis in 2019.  On a more philosophical note and worth discussing briefly, what a sleeper is changes depending on what company you’re keeping.  What a sleeper is is (stutterer!) amorphous.  In some leagues, Adalberto Mondesi might be a sleeper.  In other leagues, he’ll be drafted in the top 15 (I’ve seen it, don’t @ me). Last year, I named Eddie Rosario and Ben Gamel as outfielder sleepers.  Gamel sucked donkey balls, granted, but can you see how different those are in terms of sleeper?  Yes?  Good, then I can begin to belabor some other point.  Last year, Conforto went 78/28/82/.243/3 in 543 ABs.  Sounds like a poor man’s Piscotty.  I will call him Piss-on-a-cot-ty and move right along!  OR WILL I?!  Damn, you reversal question, you nearly gave me a heart attack.  Oh, you best believe there’s more where this came from, Conforto’s on the come, which is a phrase that I would never say in front of my mother.  She has virgin ears, don’t tell me different.  So, what can we expect from Michael Conforto for 2019 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?

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The Cardinals acquired Paul Goldschmidt for Luke Weaver, Carson Kelly and Andrew Young.  Or as they’re known in St. Louis, “Giggle, giggle, WUT.”  I’ll go over the “Giggle, giggle WUT” part of the trade after the lede jump.  As for Goldschmidt, Au Shizz was “aw shizz” until the beginning of June last year, as he hit .144 in May.  However, Au Shizz’s BABIP in May was .186, and his strikeouts boomed to 31.5%, because he was in an extended slump.  He still ended the season more valuable (33/7/.290) than, say, Freddie Freeman who played 162 games (23/10/.309).  Au Shizz still feels pretty risk-free, like you getting to the airport four hours before your flight.  At least less risky than your November charity pledge to go “condom free” or dressing as Jar Jar Binks for a Star Wars convention.  For 2019, I’m giving Au Shizz the projections of 102/30/105/.284/8 in 574 ABs.  He also scrambles up the Cards’ infield a bit.  Carpenter picks up his tools and screws Gyorko out of a 3rd base job, and Jedd’s on the wrong side of the Wong 2nd base platoon.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw this offseason for 2019 fantasy baseball:

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