Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

At the end of every season I revisit my draft to see if there are learnings and/or takeaways from the season. You can find the initial recap of this draft here.

In this league I came in 1st; 1st in hitting and 7th in pitching. I had 54 hitting points and the second best team only had 45.

At the end of the draft season I wrote that this team would have the highest variance of all my teams and in fact it did, to the upside. The primary difference between this team and the $250 team was my hitters outperformed their ADPs. Below are the hitters who outperformed their ADPs:

• Yainer Diaz
• William Contreras
• Gunnar Henderson
• Elly De La Cruz
• Josh Naylor
• Rhys Hoskins
• Brandon Lowe
• Steven Kwan

Bad Luck

Yoshinobu Yamamoto was doing great before going down with an injury. He hasn’t looked so good in the playoffs; it’s a small sample size but if he continues to look poor he may be a value on draft day next year.

Josh Lowe was a draft day discount. He underperformed expectations and will likely be relegated to a strong side platoon but I think he will perform better next year.

Me Being Wrong

I’ve been a Daulton Varsho fan for the past three seasons. I keep projecting 25/15 with a .230 batting average. His defense is good he’s going to play every day but since he hits so many fly balls his performance will vary greatly month-to-month.

Jhoan Duran, just like David Bednar, began the season with an injury. I thought injuries for both players would be minor and they would bounce back to their 2023 form. I think a takeaway is to not draft injured closers.

I actually avoided Paul Goldschmidt in my prior two drafts but in this draft I thought I was getting enough value for the age-risk I was taking. I’m not totally disappointed with his performance as I only lose a few dollars on him. I think he will likely sign a one year deal with a team like the Rays and probably put up numbers similar to 2024.

At the end of every season I revisit my draft to see if there are learnings and/or takeaways from the season. You can find the initial recap of this draft here.

In this league I came in 5th; 7th in hitting and 5th in pitching.

This team had some bad luck and me being wrong on players. I was also happy with some of my picks. I was very happy with the performance from Christian Walker, Tanner Houck, Nick Lodolo, Framber Valdez, Francisco Lindor, Shota Imanaga and Cal Raleigh.

Bad Luck

Willson Contreras only playing 84 games. I projected he would bat high in the lineup and DH a lot. He was on pace to achieve that but injuries unfortunately got in the way. I think next year he splits half the time at DH and the other half catcher.

I thought I would get 15 homers from Andrés Giménez but I only got 9. I think next year I’ll only project 9-12 homers. Also, I think he will only bat 6th or 7th which reduces baseball card stats.

I thought Julio Rodríguez’s floor was 30/30 which was why he was 4th rated hitter. He finished 39th overall on FanGraph’s Player Rater, which isn’t that bad but you always a want a floor of a top 20 player if you’re drafting in the top 3.

Camilo Doval lost his control; it was never great but this year he took a step backwards and was demoted to the minor leagues in the second half of the season. As of right now he’s the Giants closer next year and he will likely be a deal in drafts next year.

In the first half of the year Cedric Mullins had a .214 batting average, a 78 wRC+ and .246 BABIP. It got so bad he was almost relegated to the bench. In the second half he had a 143 wRC+ with a .831 OPS. He’s the best center fielder on the Orioles but he may be relegated to a platoon player.

Me Being Wrong

I’ve been a Daulton Varsho fan for the past three seasons. I keep projecting 25/15 with a .230 batting average. His defense is good he’s going to play every day but since he hits so many fly balls his performance will vary greatly month-to-month.

Overall Takeaway

At the end of draft season I thought this team was my best team but it didn’t turn out that way. The bottom line was most of my hitters underperformed their ADP.

At the end of every season I revisit my draft to see if there are learnings and/or takeaways from the season. You can find the initial recap of this draft here.

In this league I came in 7th; 6th in hitting and 10th in pitching.

This team had some bad luck and me being wrong on players.

Bad Luck

Willson Contreras only playing 84 games. I projected he would bat high in the lineup and DH a lot. He was on pace to achieve that but injuries unfortunately got in the way. I think next year he splits half the time at DH and the other half catcher.

I thought Gleyber Torres would have a breakout season. It turned out it would be his worst season since 2021. In the second half he hit .292/.361/.419 so there may be some optimism for 2025 depending where he lands. My best guess is he takes a one year deal and tests free agency again.

Michael Harris under performed in a shortened season. His batting average will fluctuate wildly year-to-year but I still think in a full season he’s a 20/20 hitter.

Me Being Wrong

A lot of times when I try to get big power for cheap (like Spencer Torkelson) it rarely works out. I thought Torkelson would be way to get 30-plus homers with a below average batting average. I think he bounces back next year but his upside 25 homers instead of 30.

I thought Ke’Bryan Hayes would build off his of 2023 improvement but instead he reverted back to his pre-2022 self. He has the raw ability to be 20-25 home run hitter but he hits the ball on the ground too much.

David Bednar and Edwin Diaz were both horrible this year. Bednar was hurt to begin the year but I didn’t think it would effect him as much as it did. According to Stuff+ his stuff was better than 2023. His Location+ dropped 4%. My bet is Bednar rebounds next year.

I dropped Hunter Brown in May. If you remove the first month of the season he has a 2.51 ERA and a 1.122 WHIP with a strikeout per inning.

Overall Takeaway

When I go cheap pitching in drafts its very important I find at least one, preferably two, pitchers that outperform. Unfortunately, I missed on some pitchers, I dropped an ace and got unlucky with injuries.