One thing I really enjoyed about my high school was the ability to drive off campus to go get lunch. Wait, we technically weren’t allowed to drive but everyone did. For a glorious 40 minutes, we were all around the town, not doing anything wrong, like ever.
Best Buy was at times a shop. For y’all kids that don’t remember, pre-internet if you wanted to find out new music, you had to like actually GO to a store and look at the new releases in the CD section. It was a true commitment to purchase the album you wanted.
One fond memory I have was when Pearl Jam released their classic Vs. album, and also Vitalogy now that I think about it. It was a caravan, racing during lunch for each of us to buy our copy of the new music while supplies lasted. They always lasted! I think today’s generation misses out on that shared bonding experience. Well, except for you Swifties, of course. I don’t know why you’d be worried about the liars and dirty dirty cheats of this world anyway, rock to this sick beat!
Another memory from the 90s is TV, like the sitcoms that everyone watched. My daughter loves Home Improvement thanks to Disney Plus. “I don’t think so Tim” was an often stated comeback, and if you had the name Tim in school you probably hated that. Everyone knew someone who was nicknamed Urkel. Have you younger people here wondered why Bill Cosby was so shocking? It’s because literally everyone watched the Cosby show.
Monoculture I think is a part of the past. Except for one thing: Fantasy baseball. Groupthink tends to reign in preseason and in season ranks. The Educator tries to avoid this. I’ve learned some lessons this year which in my final baseball article I’ll try to pass on to you and keep for myself to read when I start up again (unless Grey reads my stuff and realizes how inept it is and says, well, thanks anyway, buh bye)
- A shallow position pool means you need to dig in to find out who is going to break out. It won’t be shallow forever, there are always 3o starters at every spot. Third base is a great example of this. The challenge going forward is finding the breakouts before they happen. There will always be a top 20 for every fantasy position, every season.
- Don’t be surprised if someone over 30 declines. Don’t like, expect it or anything, but it would have to be a really, truly elite guy for me to draft a guy over 30 as the cornerstone of my squad.
- Never draft a White Sox player expecting a breakout. They don’t know what they’re doing in the South side. My biggest breakout pick was on that talent development cesspool.
- Remember that lineup context matters, but not for elite talent. Elite numbers come with elite players. But in the later rounds, it’s a great tiebreaker.
- Statcast is a tool, but not the be-all end-all. In the beginning of the season, I used this tool to degrade the values of some guys, when they clearly were just on a cold streak. I’m gonna let things stabilize as far as ranks go next year much longer. Highlighting hot and cold players weekly seems more valuable to me.
- Be very wary of second half older rookies from bad teams. Very hard to know what’s a true breakout or just a hot streak. But I’ll take a stand on them either way next year.
- The Razzball tools are invaluable and you should get them. Used them every day on my personal teams. If you’re serious, you need the projection tools. Plus it’s fun to poke around the player pages.
This will be my last baseball post for the year. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of educating to be done on the NBA side. I hope you enjoyed the ride, and keep on keeping on.
Out.
