RCL Update: Trade Early, Trade Often

We’ve called off the animals and what’s left standing are 74 Razzball Commenter Leagues.  That’s down from 85 in 2016.  We didn’t have VinWins creating 15 leagues all of his own this year though.  All in all, not too shabby.  If you missed the boat on joining, what took you so long?  If you’re really hankering for a league though, post below and if we get enough interest maybe we can get one last league brewing for all the procrastinators out there.  It will have to be a popular draft time (likely night, think ~9 PM EST) and it should give everyone plenty of time to join (Thursday/Friday/Saturday).  Let me know in the comments and we’ll get you hooked up.

Of our 74 RCLs, 46 of them have drafted.  Simple math tells us that we’ve got a lot of drafts going off this week.  Which means a lot more ADP data to look at.  The RCL ADP sheet has been getting lots of love.  There’s anonymous animals all over that spreadsheet from 7-10 PM every night.  I’m glad you’re all finding that useful.  We’ll be going over some more of that data today as well as some early trades that have taken place in the RCLs.  Let’s get to it!

I’m curious what everyone’s take on preseason trading is.  I’m typically not a big fan of making trades before the season even starts.  Despite that, here I am trading with Ralph literally 15 minutes after we finished our draft the other day.  I’m a big proponent of balance coming out of a draft.  Sometimes though, the draft doesn’t go your way.  That was the case in my draft with Ralph.  I had a perfect plan to land one of two perfect elements to keep my team nice and balanced.  Only to have Ralph snatch them both up on back to back picks.  Those targets with either Jose Peraza (my boo) or Jose Ramirez (who has become my defacto Peraza snipe pivot.  Ralph drafted both back to back and my already HR heavy team now had no great speed targets.  So naturally, I simply drafted more power bats and joked at the end of the draft that I was ready to trade when everyone realized they were 100 HRs behind me.  Ralph instantly threw out a trade offer and the rest was history.  While I’m still not a huge fan of it, I can certainly see how things might fall and why a preseason trade might be necessary.  The other scenario is you smell blood in the water and know you can take advantage of a less gifted owner than yourself.  That’s totally cool too.  With that, let’s take a look at a handful of preseason trades that have taken place in the RCLs thus far:

I think the guys in Daniel Murphy’s Porn Stash just like moving players around for the sake of moving players around.  I can’t tell who won at the end of all that mass trading, but it’s certainly surprising to see Mike Trout traded twice before the season even starts.

What is it with Son’s leagues?  He’s like trading catnip.  It’s a little odd to see Altuve traded for Goldy right off the bat.  Why didn’t Swamp Donkey’s just draft Goldy on draft day?  Maybe it was a case of an autodraft scenario, those things happen.  

DRAFT TRENDS

We now have 46 leagues worth of data to dig through, so no more small sample sizes.  This week I thought it would be fun to take a look at all of Grey’s sleepers from his sleeper posts this preseason.  Maybe you weren’t around in December and haven’t caught up with all his sleepers.  This will not only serve as a handy guide to Grey’s loves, but also let you know where you need to strike to snipe those luscious sleepers.  I’m also tossing in a chart with change in ADP data.  This will show risers and fallers in ADP from two weeks ago compared to this past week.  You’ll notice some sheets in the ADP spread sheet that note ADP by time frame.  Now you can grab the most recent week’s worth of ADP data so you can stay current on the latest trends.  Hope you enjoy.

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ NFBC ADP

We’ve got RCL ADP!  Here’s a list from our 46 league sample of some players whose ADPs I was curious about and some general notes.

I have the sleepers listed in the order that Grey wrote his posts.  Franco, Buxton and Lamb are clearly the most popular of the lot.  

How polarizing is Max Kepler?  His Hi/Lo split is almost 200 spots!  His ice cold spring has me pushing him down a little on my draft board.  On the flip side, Joc Pederson has been climbing up my draft board at a steady clip.  It seems like almost everyone has pushed him up though as I’ve routinely seen him going off in the 12th round of RCLs ~pick 130.

Greg Bird has seen his stock rise this past week as you can see in the next section.

As always, here is the link to the RCL ADP sheet for your own perusal: RCL ADP SHEET

RECENT TRENDS

Here we have a little chart showing some of the changes in ADP from two weeks ago to this past week.  The bigger the DIFF number the higher the player is currently being drafted and vice versa.

Greg Bird is second to only potential Nats closer, Koda Glover in ADP rise this past week.  I wish Dusty would go ahead and tip his hand here, it’s so silly to keep the decision in house.  Who knows, maybe Shawn Kelley drafters are getting a huge bargain late in the year.

Just think, two weeks ago, Greg Holland was going undrafted in most leagues.  My how times change.

Per usual the bottom of the list is the walking wounded and demoted closers

Now, go join one final league and contribute to that wonderful ADP data:

TO JOIN A LEAGUE

Click the LINK in the ‘League Link’ column (see below grid) and enter the PASSWORD at ESPN. Emails are there for some leagues, but you shouldn’t need to email anyone.  You can join as many leagues as you like.

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