RCL Update: Learn Your ADPs

The fantasy baseball season has officially kicked off and we have real, live draft data to sift through.  Numbers nerds, assemble! We have spreadsheets, charts and ADP, oh my! It was a busy first week here at Razzball Commenter Leagues HQ, but I’ve gone through each league that has drafted and added their drafts to a master spreadsheet in order to calculate RCL ADP.  We’ve had sixteen leagues draft already, so there’s plenty of numbers to look at. The first week wasn’t always smooth with a few RCLs not filling to the required twelve managers, but drafting anyway. We even had one draft start with ten managers and finish with eleven!  The managers, they’re multiplying! As with any changes in life, bumps and hiccups are to be expected. If you are in one of the leagues with too few managers, you are welcome to play the league out, that’s your call, however the stats unfortunately will not count towards to the RCL Master Standings.  In the future, if you notice your league is close to drafting but someone has dropped out, leaving you short a manager hit us up on Twitter: @Razzball or @MattTruss and let us know. You can also leave a comment in Grey’s most recent post and/or invite a friend to join. I know, sacrilege to tell your fantasy baseball friends you read Razzball, but sharing is caring.  Speaking of sharing, jump below and I’ll share with you a fancy RCL ADP spreadsheet for your perusing pleasure…

THE ORIGINAL RAZZ LEAGUES

Before we jump into the RCL data I want to first invite you all to participate in some old school Razzball fun, the Razz leagues.  OG Razzballers will recall a time when these leagues ran. I believe they were on Yahoo! back then, but this year they’ve gotten a makeover and with the help of VinWins and The Big Yabu there are three leagues running on FanTrax.  What is a Razz league? Well, do remember back to your home poker game where you played a game called “5 Card Razz” or something equivalent? In this game you tried to get the worst poker hand possible; no pairs, no flushes, not even any aces.  This is the same concept. You want to draft a squad that will perform the worst but still hold onto their starting jobs in order to pile up ABs and IPs. Mike Scioscia would kill this game! Here is the breakdown:

Draft 18 players that will pile up the AB and IP, but perform poorly.

9 Hitters: C,1B,2B,3B,SS,OF,OF,OF,UTIL
5 Starting Pitchers
4 Bench/2 DL

SCORING: Hitters: AB +2 / K +2 / H -3 / R -4 / HR -6 / RBI -4
               Pitchers: IP -1 / K -1 / HR +4 / L +8 / ER +1.5 / H +1 / BB +1

Pickups limited to 25 for season.

Weekly lineups, which can be set before the first game Monday.

Leagues are 100% free and should be pretty low maintenance.  We may even coax VinWins out of retirement to do the occasional check-in.  To join, simply click one of the links below:

Saturday, March 17, 2 PM ET: Razz I

Tuesday, March 20, 8 PM ET: Razz II

Tuesday, March 20, 10 PM ET: Razz III

May the best worst manager win!

DRAFT TRENDS

We’ve got sixteen leagues worth of draft data to peek at. Being first to draft means first to be criticized, so we’ll dive into the numbers and see what’s going on in the early draft season.

THE FIRST PICK OF THE 2018 FANTASY BASEBALL DRAFT IS…

Mike Trout ^16…well, that’s not very exciting is it?  Let’s take a look at number two instead. Jose Altuve leads the charge there going second overall in twelve of the sixteen leagues.  In the four leftover leagues we had one Mookie Betts, one Paul Goldschmidt and two Corey Klubers.  Kluber is a direct result of autodrafters not setting their pre-rankings. I will warn you once more, if you might miss the first round or two of your draft, set your top players or be doomed by the FanTrax “score” rankings.  You will draft six pitchers in your first six picks and nobody wants that.

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ NFBC ADP

We’ve got RCL ADP!  Here’s a list from our sixteen league sample of some guys I’m lusting for this year and some general notes.  If there’s an ADP you’re curious about for my next update, fire away and I’ll add them to the chart next time out.  This time around I decided to look at some of the kids everyone is excited to draft as well as some soon to be AARP members.

Trea Turner falling to nine is a travesty.  I am ridiculously jealous of whoever landed Trea there.

Bellinger has been sneaking into some second rounds.  I think I’m all set with Cody there, but the third round I could listen.  I’ve found that if I don’t land a 1B in the first 3 rounds I’m waiting a long time before nabbing one and they all have warts.

Benny Beastmode isn’t making it out of the fourth round, so if you want him, that’s where you need to get him.  I find myself wanting to draft approximately 30 OFs this year, so picking my spots is a bit of a challenge. Sadly, I’ve found myself passing on Andrew.

Ohtani seems to be going around pick 60-70 in most drafts I’ve been in.  I haven’t had a chance to land him yet this year, but really would like to take at least one shot on the kid.

Devers, Acuna and Albies might be the reason I’ve missed on Ohtani too, these three have been my wheelhouse in drafts so far.  It’s risky, but boy will it be fun to watch!

Trey Mancini is one of the 1B I’ll look towards if I miss a top one, but pinning down where to draft him is clearly no easy feat.

No one seems to know where to go get Tim Anderson either.  I would split the difference and look around pick 180 if you need a speedy middle infidel.

Now, out with new, in with the old:

What am I saying, Joey Votto doesn’t age.

Third base is a tough position to punt this year it seems, but I’m still not taking many Josh Donaldson shares.

Verlander’s ADP will be a little juiced thanks to FanTrax’s “score”.

Since I have been the keeper of RCL data the past few seasons I have the historical ADP data.  It’s always nice to check back on last year and see where some of these guys were being drafted, compare it to this year and see if the rise/drop is warranted.

For instance, Zack Greinke was being drafted at 134 last year.  Remember, his velocity was down in spring and he was saying he didn’t have it anymore.  Sound familiar? He’s saying the same thing this year! No he’s being drafted 90 spots ahead though.

The biggest dip by far is Miggy, who was a borderline first rounder last year (ADP: 13) and now sits at an ADP of 100.  Unfortunately, I think that fall is warranted.

I have ended up with more shares of Ryan Zimmerman than I care to admit.  He was undrafted last season and is now going around pick 170. He’s fallen to me at pick 190ish and I’ve taken the bait.  Fingers crossed he’s got another magic season in him.

AT&T Park (and age) haven’t done McCutchen and Longoria’s ADPs any favors they have dropped 34 and 99 spots respectively.  On the other side of the ball, Johnny Cueto’s ADP has fallen 105 spots. I would definitely listen around pick 180 for a potential Cueto bounceback.

RCL ADP SHEET

If you made it this far, you earn a reward.  I told you I was a numbers nerd. Now you can take a look at any player you want as more and more data is collected.  I’ll be keeping that sheet up to date as I collect draft data, so bookmark it and check back often. Speaking of RCL drafts, join some leagues!

Want to be my Twitter pal?  That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow me here: @MattTruss