Sleeper & Bust are relative terms

When it comes to fantasy articles and tv shows at the major media outlets, you hear the terms "Sleeper" and "Bust" more often than not. These are strictly buzz words that have little to no meaning...........we toss them around, but they lack substance, because a players relative fantasy value has to do with their Price. When I say Price, I mean the position/round in which you draft them (or don't draft them) or the amount you have to pay at auction for the player. Also, remember that leagues vary and roster sizes or rules or scoring systems can significantly change the value of a player.

I have read and heard in various places that Chris Davis 1B Texas Rangers is some people/outlets top sleeper. As of this morning, www.mockdraftcentral.com has a ADP (Average Draft Position) of 65. This means that in a standard 5 X 5 12 team rotisserie league, he is being drafted in the 6th round. In other words, he needs to hit the high end of his projections to even validate his draft position, hardly making him a value or a "Sleeper" as suggested by some.

Another website had Troy Percival RP Tampa Bay Rays as one of it's top "Busts" of 2009. I checked the average ADP for Percival this morning and it was 232, which means he would be picked in the 20th round, so towards the end of the draft. Even better is that he is the 33rd relief pitcher being taken. In other words, he could have his terrible predicted season, and really not hurt you at all given his price. He could also be an average reliever with a below average ERA and WHIP and a bunch of saves and help your team. Again, hardly a "Bust" given his price.

When going through a draft, you need to be constantly evaluating the Price of the player and give no thought to whether they are a "Sleeper" or a "Bust", at a certain price, everyone is valuable and at a certain price, mostly everyone isn't valuable.

League Draft #1

Here is my first league draft of the year, it was held on March 4th, it is a Head to Head league, 10 teams that is 6 X 6 (the standard categories, including OBP for hitters and Holds for pitchers).

Here is my draft and the breakdown to follow


1.
(9)
Jimmy Rollins
2.
(12)
Prince Fielder
3.
(29)
Matt Holliday
4.
(32)
Jonathan Papelbon
5.
(49)
Dan Haren
6.
(52)
Aramis Ramírez
7.
(69)
Corey Hart
8.
(72)
Joey Votto
9.
(89)
Jonathan Broxton
10.
(92)
Chris Young
11.
(109)
Milton Bradley
12.
(112)
Javier Vázquez
13.
(129)
James Shields
14.
(132)
Carlos Delgado
15.
(149)
Rickie Weeks
16.
(152)
Jayson Werth
17.
(169)
Max Scherzer
18.
(172)
Ian Stewart
19.
(189)
Brett Myers
20.
(192)
Mark Reynolds
21.
(209)
J.J. Putz
22.
(212)
Frank Francisco
23.
(229)
Pablo Sandoval
24.
(232)
Hong-Chih Kuo
25.
(249)
Gary Sheffield


This league starts 12 hitters and 6 pitchers, so there is more of an emphasis on hitting. My league contains a group of people that I have played with for a few years and I know their tendencies, I know the teams that draft tons of pitching, the teams that like prospects and the teams that are generally using a value strategy, which is what I was using. My general strategy is to grab the best player on the board in rounds 1-5 (including position scarcity) and then take some upside gambles afterwards, or pick remaining values that are too good to be true.........at this size of a league, I do less as far as roster structuring and more as far as gathering value.

Some highlights.......

I was very pleased to grab Rollins at 9 overall, one team lunged for R Howard a little earlier than he normally goes, which allowed me to grab Rollins. Round 3 was fairly disappointing as Chipper Jones was grabbed right in front of me and in a league like this with a fairly decent sized bench (7 players and 2 DL spots) Chipper is very valuable as there is plenty of ability to plug in a reasonable player behind him. Rounds 4 & 5 I started grabbing pitchers and to be honest, I might be reaching on Papelbon a bit in the 4th round, when maybe I should be going with a big bat or a SP..............I really liked Haren in the 5th as he was the last of my top tier pitchers, so it was nice to pick him up at a value.

Round 7 is where I begin guys with incredible upside....as I grab Hart, Votto, Broxton and C Young OF................Hart is a perenial 20/20 guy, but he is going to be 30/30 one year, maybe it is this year...........Votto is primed for a big year after his break out year last year, he could be a top 5 1b by the seasons end.........Broxton is moving into the closer role full time for the first year and he is taking with him is 10+ K/9 ratio.............I think he has the potential to be a top 5 closer by year end..............rounding out this group is C Young, who is similar to Hart with 30/30 potential and an absolute steal in round 10.

Round 12 I started back with pitching as this league has a weekly IP minimum of 36, and I needed some solid starting pitching to back up Dan Haren..........I went with back to back undervalued starters in Vazquez and Shields............neither guy is going to win a Cy Young, but they are both consistent as hell and exactly the type of guys I need on a staff when I am not willing to draft out of high slots to get starting pitching. Round 14, I didn't need another power hitting 1b, but he was truly the only one left on the board with 30 HR, so I grabbed Carlos Delgado, because it never hurts to have more power.

My next 4 picks all are big question marks, but have a lot of upside, Weeks (the whole room laughed at me for this one), Werth, Scherzer and Stewart................Stewart wouldn't go here normally, but his 2b eligibility in Yahoo leagues makes him a reach worth taking...................the highest upside here is Scherzer and he carries the most risk, his peripherals would say that he is a top of the rotation type pitcher, but his injury risk is humongous, imagine if Rich Harden was even more injury prone, so the idea that I squeeze a full season out of him hasn't crossed my mind, but I was thinking more along the lines of roughly 120 innings of incredible stuff.

The final few rounds contain a few notable picks, Hong Chih Kuo is one, due to the alignment of this league for pitching SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P.............it is important to have a guy that can provide you great stats and slot in as a SP even though he is actually a reliever and Kuo's SP/RP eligibility does just that.................a few owners who have been in this league awhile had some not so nice things to say to me when I snatched him up right in front of them. Grabbing Brett Myers is a no brainer here, even though I despise the guy, I still need his 200K potential on my roster......a few more notables, Pablo Sandoval as my C, he is actually the regular 3b for the Giants, but he has C eligibility, so that means I get roughly 15% more production from him as he is an everyday player. The last guy that I'll mention is Mark Reynolds, because he was in my plans from the start (when I hoped I would get Chipper so that Reynolds could be his caddy), a couple of things on him, he hit 28 HR last year, he walks enough to be valuable even when hitting .239 as he did last year, and he sneakily stole 11 bases.............Reynolds is only 24 years old and grabbing basically Adam Dunn lite in the 20th with 3b eligibility is enough to make him a huge steal...........but even moreso is the fact that due to Arizona's overabundance of corners, Tracy, C Jackson and then 4th outfielder Eric Byrnes,.........they are toying with the idea of using Reynolds at 2b in certain lineups and adding 2b eligibility would make him a value similar to Dan Uggla....in otherwords a steal in this round.

Well, that's the first draft, I'll be back with a few mixed leagues and my AL and NL Only leagues

Drafts, Drafts, Drafts

Hi all,

I hope to begin posting info from various drafts that I have been doing shortly. I will give you the basic rules of the league and my general strategy, along with my picks. I have 5 drafts (4 serpentine and 1 auction) in the bag, with a couple more to go, so it should be fun to critique.

My 100 characters of fame

I had a fun time this week, showing my friends a post I made on the Baseball Prospectus website. I posted in the St Louis Cardinals team health report a point that I believe Will Carroll had missed in his injury risk grading. Will who is absolutely awesome and provides the best injury news on the web graded Cardinals prospective closer Jason Motte as a GREEN, which means that his risk is very low. I noticed this, inspite of the fact that Motte was a converted catcher and moving from one position to another is generally a significant risk. Carroll posted back that he had indeed missed this detail and that he thinks Motte will now show as YELLOW (which is some injury risk).

I felt very good and gloated all week................but seriously, Baseball Prospectus is the best and the business and anyone who is a baseball fan and doesn't subscribe to the site is missing out.

Chris Liss speaks to me.....

I was reading through some Q&A on Yahoo's Friends and Family draft and came across this nugget from Chris Liss - Managing Editor of Rotowire

"And that was my strategy – to go safe for six rounds, then pay the vig for players who could be in the top 25 in next year’s drafts"

He was expounding on the question that asked why he selected Justin Upton in the 7th round of the 14 team mixed roto draft. In a subsequent Fantasy Focus podcast he went a little further with the idea. (Paraphrasing) In this particular draft, after I took Upton in round 7, I shifted gears and searched for guys that were close to that draft area that had large upside, Jayson Werth was another guy I grabbed shortly after because he has 30/30 potential. He later noted that a league of that size isn't necessarily the ideal league to do this in, as a smaller league would be better, one that had a reasonable talent in the free agent pool.

In other words, in a tougher league or a smaller league with more free agent talent, embrace variance and take guys with large upside potential. It could be the difference between finishing 4th and 5th consistently and finishing 1st or 7th.............I don't need to tell you which one pays better.

Fantasy Baseball Draft - Quick Observations

Hi all,

It's been over a week since my last post, in that time I have drafted 3 fantasy leagues and have another draft on Thursday, here are some quick observations.

1) Power Hitting is scarce. People usually talk about position scarcity but 40 hr threats are real scarce and if any team can get 2 of them, they have a big leg up

2) SP has a deep middle. Don't overpay for too many aces, grab those hitters and then fill your staff with Zack Greinke's and Jon Sanchez's, young guys with big upsides, this is how the rich get richer in fantasy drafts

3) Deeper League require more refined strategies........until this year, the deepest league I played in was 12 team mixed roto............this year, I have already drafted 14 team mixed roto and an AL Only that had 9 teams (I have an NL Only that has 11 teams coming up).........positions scarcity plays and category scarcity also plays in these types of leagues, making them both more fun and more challenging.

4) VALUE, VALUE, VALUE.................you should search for value no matter what the format.......don't always get bogged down by the positional requirements, it is usually more valuable to grab the best bat instead of a back up at a scarce position .

Good luck with your drafts and I will be back in a few days to break down my teams/leagues

Fantasy Draft Day

Today is the first of what I hope to be several fantasy baseball drafts.

A couple of notes for draft day........

1) Get a good nights sleep (I didn't, I was up most of the night with acid reflux, but tough shit, I don't need a lot of sleep to function, but most do).

2) By now, you should've done enough mock drafts to feel comfortable with the player pool and you should have your predraft rankings set in whatever software you are using. If you do not, time to cram for this exam.

3) Email other owners and find out what they are thinking today. I don't think this is critical, but it might give you a tip to a run that could occur that you could possibly prepare for, and it gives you insight into what an owner might think is valuable when you need to trade later.

I spoke to a few owners over the last week or so, and they have given me a few thoughts on their general strategy, nothing that will change any of my ideas, but it will give me a basis for their thinking later on.

4) DO NOT read anything, but current injury reports on players that you are following up on, or for players that have something consequential occur. Most reports are mainly noise and shouldn't supercede the work you have already done.

5) This is most important, LET THE MARKET DO WHAT IT WILL................Fantasy drafts are markets, allow them to act (often irrationally) and pick up the value where you can.

It is important to not worry about what others will think of your picks, I have been doing plenty of mocks to prepare for this draft and people have openly made fun of me selecting Rickie Weeks in the 16th round of a 10 team mixed. Based on our format, and his BP projections, he is of good value at this round. Just allow your analysis to guide you and don't panic at any point.

Happy Draft Day!