Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

Yesterday (September 29) was the last day of the regular season, which means it was the end of the fantasy baseball season. Every year I write a recap of each of my leagues. This process is masterbatory because the only one who gets any benefit and/or knowledge from this is me.

I have great news. I won this league! To see my recap after the draft and the players I drafted please go here. I will assume you have this knowledge when I provide my analysis.

After the draft I projected the following Hitting Statistics:
Forecast: .268 Avg/ 327 HRs/ 1,163 RBI/ 1,150 Runs/ 156 SBs
Actual: .271 Avg/ 365 HRs/ 1,179 RBI/ 1,249 Runs/ 137 SBs

Pitching Stats:
Forecast: 3.61 ERA/1.22 WHIP/ 1,360 Ks/ 86 W/ 109 Saves
Actual: 4.07 ERA/ 1.26 WHIP/ 1,390 Ks/ 77 W/ 103 Saves

Overall Takeaways From 2019 & 2020

Reliable stolen bases and saves are going to be extremely scare and important in 2020. I was listening to the 2019 recap of The Fantasy Focus and Tristan H. Cockcroft said saves in 2019 were 25% more important than previous years. I haven’t done my own analysis yet, but that number feels right. Saves were down this year and half of the teams finished the year with less than a .500 record.

(A quick aside: Teams were bad for many reasons, but there are two primary reasons for this. 1) Teams are rewarded for losing. Draft pick compensation pools are larger for worser teams. So if a team has the worst record they’re allowed to spend more in next year’s draft. 2) Teams have learned they don’t have to invest on the Major League roster to make money. Joe Sheehan has written about this for years. The cliff notes is he consistently rags on the owners of the Pirates, Royals and Jeffrey Loria, the previous owner of the Marlins for consistently putting profits ahead of win. That they are pocketing their TV money and making a profit, even when their teams are good and they have an opportunity to make a playoff push.)

Back to saves. Next year it’s going to be important to draft a reliable closer. You’re going to want someone who will be the closer as long as he’s healthy such as: Kirby Yates, Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, Roberto Osuna and etc. If you don’t draft a reliable closer you may have to punt the category and I’m not a big fan of punting.

From 2013-2018 the league averaged 2,583 stolen bases. This year we only had 2,281–the last time it was that low was 1973 (I didn’t count the strike years of 1981 and 1994). The guys who provide 30 stolen bases with 10 home runs will be worth much more than in years past.

The interesting dilemma fantasy owners will have is whether you want to consolidate the majority of your stolen bases in one player. For example, it’s going to be fascinating what people do with Adalberto Mondesí. If he plays in 150 games you’ll have about 50% of your stolen bases locked up, but if he gets hurt he may sink your ability to compete in the stolen base category.

I can see stolen bases decreasing even further. A lot of the top base stealers: Starling Marte, Elvis Andrus, Tommy Pham will all be 31 and 32 years old in 2020. And who knows if Christian Yelich will continue to steal bases after hurting his knee a week before the season ended. My hunch is Ronald Acuna will be the number one pick in Roto leagues with Trea Turner being a top 12 pick.

Home runs. Entering the season I thought we would see about the same numbers of home runs we saw in 2016. It wouldn’t be as much as 2017, but there would still be a lot of home runs. Well, shit. The powers that be decided to change the baseball and we saw the most home runs ever. As of right now, I have no idea if the baseball will change in 2020, but I’m going to assume the League hits 6,400 home runs next year, which is an average of 2017, the most home runs ever at the time, and 2019. The takeaway is home runs will far less valuable than any other time before. A 30 home run player in 2012 has the same value as a 40 home run player in 2020. Players like Mallex Smith, Joey Gallo and Rougned Odor all become less valuable next year. (I don’t believe Gallo is a .250 hitter).

Takeaways From My Season

I won my league so I’m obviously pleased with the outcome. I didn’t think my three closer strategy would work, but I picked Mike Minor early in the season and he was a defacto ace for most of the season. I also picked up Frankie Montas, but the rest of my bulk innings came from starters with ERAs in the low 4’s (Rick Procello, Chris Bassit, Anthony DeSclafani, Zach Eflin and Griffin Canning). I did as well as I did because my closers enabled me to finish first in saves, which allow the other pitching categories to under perform.

I didn’t have that many injuries to my offense. I lagged in home runs because I suffered injuries to Aaron Judge and Gregory Polanco. I only had seven guys give more than 500 at-bats–all of which over performed their ADPs (Bregman, Andrus, Grandal, Merrifield, Devers, Rosario and Starling Marte). What’s funny is some of them did things I didn’t expect from them. For example Andrus stole 31 bases while Merrifield only stole 20. At the beginning of the season I thought the stolen base totals would be reversed. That’s why luck will always be the invisible hand in fantasy baseball.

Overall, draft extra depth at offense. When I first started playing at NFBC I would load up my bench with high-risk, high-upside pitching. This strategy quickly didn’t work because if I suffered an injury to my offense the pool of replacements was low.

In draft, if you two players are equal, take the player with multiple eligibility. During the course of a long season the position flexibility allows to broaden your search on the waiver wire for hitters.

You win leagues by finding undervalued players in draft and the waiver wire. I drafted Devers in the 10th round; Christian Vazquez off waivers; Mike Minor off waivers; Frankie Montas off waivers; Andrus in the 14th round; Miguel Sano off waviers.

Also, it’s just as important to not swing and miss in the early rounds. For example, Merrifield in the 3rd; Marte in the 4th; Eddie Rosario in the 6th; Liam Hendricks (as my handcuff to Blake Treinen); Yasmani Grandal in the 9th.

Most importantly, it’s a fine line between being patient and knowing when to change your evaluation on a player. For example: Devers’ first month of the season was brutal. He didn’t have any home runs and was batting 7th in the lineup. I looked at his hard contact rates and I strongly believed he was getting unlucky.

Another example is Wellington Castillo. He started off slowly, but his underlying numbers were not very good and he was no long being used as the primary catcher. After one month I dropped him and picked up Vazquez, who ended up finishing second on ESPNs Player Rater for catchers (luck on my part).

Drafts will not be perfect. If you look at my draft you’ll see a lot of players who under performed, but most of those picks in the middle rounds. That indicates that even if you swing and miss, it’s okay to do so in the middle rounds. I used to believe drafting was 70% of the reason for success, but now I firmly believe its 45% draft, 40% roster management and 15% luck.

We’re a little more than a third of the season so I wanted to do a recap of my $150 12-team NFBC mixed league. As I write this I have not looked at the standings so I will be entirely surprised to see where I stand.

Because of the small sample size I make it a habit to not look at the standings until June 1. I don’t players’ small sample sizes to bias how my team is doing. For some people, if after four weeks my team is in last place they A) could lose motivation to do well, B) drop/add players they shouldn’t and/or C) readjust their starting lineups to chase categories they trailing.

After the draft I wasn’t optimistic about my draft. I went heavy on hitting and closers and didn’t have any starting pitching. My conclusion, at the time, was my hitting will have to carry my team and I will need my closers to provide solid ratios in order to place in the middle of the pack.

Based on the image above I am (surprisingly) in second place. I currently have the best offense in the league. The biggest opportunity is home runs and RBI as I am currently in fourth place in both. Having Aaron Judge go on the IL has definitely hurt my home run potential. However, the fact I’m in fourth with losing Judge, my second pick, means I feel pretty good about my team. I’m in first in batting average and stolen bases; second in runs scored.

The biggest hole in my offense is first base. I was able to capture Christian Walker’s hot first month of the season but he’s been riding the bench the past two weeks because he’s looked awful at the place. Based on the free agent wire I am going to be streaming first base for the foreseeable future.

I have a 14 stolen base lead and barring injury I don’t see any team catching me. Since I have a big lead at the end of the season I can bench my speed players and play more home run oriented hitters. For example, I own Kevin Kiermaier. He hasn’t played in more than 106 games since 2015. The odds of him playing more than 100 games is unlikely. I currently have better options at OF but he’s always in my starting lineup because he has 10 stolen bases. He will always be in my starting lineup because I want to bank those stolen bases now.

For my closers I drafted Blake Trinen, Brad Hand and Kirby Yates. As an A’s fan I’ve watched Trinen a lot and he’s not the same pitcher as last year. His control isn’t nearly as good. I liked Hand because I thought the Indians would win 85-90 games. They may win 85 games but I feel like this is going to be a lost season for them; their offense and bullpen are bad; the starting pitching were dealt injuries and pitchers that are healthy have not been as good as the past. Yates may be this season’s Edwin Diaz in that Yates will save 50-plus games.

My starting pitching has been pretty good. I found Mike Minor, Frankie Montas, Chris Bassitt and Rick Porcello off the waiver wire. I picked up Porcello in late April/early May and he’s given me a 2.91 ERA and 0.95 WHIP in 46 innings.

Like I mentioned in my draft recap my plan was to continually stream pitchers and be relentless with my evaluation of pitchers. For example, my “ace” coming out of the draft was Yu Darvish. I watched his first two starts and the raw stuff wasn’t there; he walked a lot of guys, but I was more concerned about the raw stuff. A pitcher can get away with walks if he’s striking out a lot of batters and induces weak contact but after watching him pitch I knew I would never feel comfortable starting him so I made the decision to release him. The same was true for Jeff Samardzija.

Overall, I am happy with my team. Other than first base I am happy with my hitting; if my players can stay healthy and Judge comes back I think its possible I finish in the top two of every hitting category. In regards to pitching, I have to continue to be relentless. For example, Bassitt has looked really good at times but in his last 2-3 starts his control has been an issue. If the control problems occur in his next start I may have to let him go, which will be difficult because he looked so good at the beginning of the year.

“At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.” Viktor Frankl

“When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl

The 2019 season is less than a week old and injuries have already started to mount for fantasy owners. Justin Upton, Corey Knebel, Steven Souza, Francisco Lindor (who was supposed to miss only a week at the time of most drafts), Joey Wendle, Miguel Andujar and Giancarlo Stanton were drafted and expected to make fantasy contributions. However, they’re all going to miss significant amount of time.

Last night Trea Turner broke a finger and joined this group. As of Wednesday morning no one knows how long he will out. After my most important draft I said I was going to win my league. That team has Turner on it. No one can replace Turner. When I drafted him I banked 50 stolen bases. With stolen bases in severe decline no one is going to give me that production. I, like many other fantasy owners, have two options. I can quit and give up on the season or I can try to work with what I have and not give up.

I acknowledge Mr. Frankl’s quotes are grandiose when viewed through the prism of fantasy baseball, but if you want to win your fantasy league it is imperative you embrace this mentality.

The baseball season is six months long (duh). This means there are many options on how to manage my team and still effectively compete despite losing Turner. At the end of my draft I projected my offense to have 164 stolen bases and 334 home runs…my targets were 152 stolen bases and 328 home runs. Suppose Turner is out for the entire season, my team is only projected have 119 stolen bases. That means I need to find 33 bases between now and the end of the year.

What is not specified in my projections is when I need to accumulate those statistics. For example, I need to average about 55 home runs a month. Suppose I averaged 63 a month for three months. That means I would only need to average 46 home runs the last three months. Knowing this allows me to better identify what types of players I should look at to replace Turner. Turner was in my Middle Infield (MI) slot so I need to look at second basemen and shortstops.

These are the best hitters available on the waiver wire: Starlin Castro, Josh Harrison, Brendan Crawford, Willy Adames, Adam Frazier, DJ LeMahieu, Dansby Swanson, Adam Frazier, Scott Kingery and Hernan Perez.

Kingery and Perez are upside plays because they currently do not play full time but if they did their value would be tremendous (Kingery especially if you need to replace Turner). Kingery, if he was able to play a full season, could provide 90% of Whit Merrifield’s numbers. If you look at the other players there isn’t a lot of value to be had because every player has significant warts.

The safest player is Castro because he’s going to bat 3rd/4th and the Marlins lineup at the top is competent enough to give him enough RBI opportunities. (Fun Fact: Castro is still only 29 years old!) Harrison could revert back to his 2017 season where he went 16 and 12 but I don’t see that happening. In terms of raw talent Swanson has the most, but he’s going to bat 8th for awhile which will suppress his rate statistics. Adames, like Swanson, will be limited batting 8th. Also, Adames is raw; he has good power but it could come with a .230 batting average.

The most intriguing player is LeMahieu. According to the Yankees internal data, “[he] was undervalued offensively.” With Andujar hurt it looks like LeMahieu will play every day at least until Didi Gregorius comes back in two months. Last year LeMahieu hit 15 home runs, 11 of which came on the road. With a full season of at-bats maybe the Yankees see 20-plus home run hitter with good-to-great defense?

Judging by what’s available on the waiver LeMahieu has the highest floor and ceiling. Suppose LeMahieu hits 10-15 home runs the next two months. If he does that then I would have more home runs needed to reach my home run threshold which would allow me to add a stolen base-only threat later in the season.

My course of action will be as follows:
1. Pick up LeMahieu and start him.
2. Pick up Kingery and wait and see if he gets to play every day. I can’t drop him until Turner comes back.
3. Continue to look for quality players on waivers. Preferably stolen base options.

Despite everything I just wrote it’s going to be extremely difficult for me if Turner misses more than 4-5 weeks, but if I continue to watch the waiver wire and find hidden gems I will certainly have a puncher’s chance of winning the league.