Fantasy Baseball Today - Intro to NFBC High Stakes Leagues w/ Vlad Sedler! Jeff Hoffman to the Blue Jays! (1/14 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Vlad Sedler @RotoGut joins the show (2:30)! ... News (6:18): Jeff Hoffman signed a three-year deal with the Blue Jays. ... We have other reliever news regarding Jorge Lopez and Robert Suarez (12:53). ... A Roki Sasaki decision is coming soon (19:08). ... How should one change their analysis when talking about High Stakes leagues vs. home leagues (23:10)? ... There are some unique rules in the NFBC (27:00). ... Let's take a closer look at their draft-and-hold formats (35:16). ... Which Best Ball leagues does the NFBC offer (46:40)? ... We wrap up looking at some popular NFBC formats, including the auction championship, Rotowire online championship and the Main Event (57:07). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hello, welcome into fantasy baseball today on Tuesday, January 14th. I am Frank Stample, joined by Chris Towers.

Today on the show will hit the latest news. Jeff Hoffman signed with the Blanche. Lou Jays, where it sounds like he will be their closer, but our main focus will be an intro to NFBC high stakes leagues. We'll talk about all different types of formats and strategy, all that fun stuff. To help us do that, of course, we did have to bring in a guest, someone I would consider an expert in all things high stakes from FtN Fantasy. We've had him on before. Welcome back to the show. Vlad Sedler, what's going on, man? Frank Chris, thank you so much for having me. Happy New Year's gentlemen. I hope all as well.

Yeah, what's the cutoff for when you, how long into January you could say happy New Year's to someone. You know, for me, growing up in, you know, I mean, American guy, but Russian background, there's like a Russian New Year's, which is the 13th of January, like old school Russian New Year's. And so that's my cutoff. So after the 13th is at least. So we're just sneaking in. I think like if you haven't seen someone since the old year, I guess, I think you can say it. I don't know. I don't think there's like a hard, fast rule.

I'm not a stickler for these things, you know? Just at any point, if you haven't seen someone and then you see them again and like... Yeah, if you've seen them in June, happy New Year. Like we're meeting up with a bunch of people at Tout Wars in March and just say, happy new year, bud. Yeah. Good to see you. By the way, you could follow Vlad on X, Twitter at Rodogut and of course on blue sky at rhodogut.orgut.combe.orgat.orgat.

There's no quick way to say those things. He is the head of MLB at FTN Fantasy. He does his very own VDP projections, also known as the Fab Whisperer. So I don't know, we might have to have you on again, Vlad, to talk a little bit of Fab strategy before the season because people are always getting questions. And as you know, it's a science.

It's kind of tough to just give like hard and fast rules about fab. It very much so is kind of like a feeling out process. I was looking back at like the first waiver wire piece that I ran, for last year and it was after the first fab run in the NFBC leagues. And I think I got my top four targets that week because I just like doubled everyone's bids. And I was like, oh, well, I mean, I guess it's good that I got my guys, but a little thin the rest of the way now. So yeah, that's, I definitely struggle too high, too low. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy because it's if you really break it down to a 26 or 20,

27 week period, it ends up being, what, about $37 per week on a $1,000 budget, 370 for a 10 or for 100, and got to make that money stretch out, especially if you're in the hunt there towards the end and the last month of the season, you want to have a little bit money to go. But at the same time, you've got to balance that with being a little aggressive to get your guys. I'm sure Luis Heel was one of those guys who grabbed the beginning of last year. I believe he was part of that. I wish someone had told me not to do 300 on Victor Scott. That would have been guilty.

Yeah, that would have been a good one to have back. I'm pretty sure I'd put $300 on Victor Scott, but thankfully someone else bid more than me. So that worked out. And just to prove, before we get into everything, that I'm not a hater, I will offer you a congrats on the Dodgers winning the World Series, Vlad.

I am wearing a Shohei Otani 50-50 roto-wear shirt. Congratulations to you and the Dodgers for frankly dismantling my Yankees. So congrats. Thank you. It's a long time coming for me, being an L.A. native grown up here you know basically growing up here at 88 that dodgers world series that

you know gibson home run the a series i mean that was greatest memory of my life um honestly at least far as my youth is concerned and of course with 2020 um yeah sure it's a championship but we we hear it enough here in l a it's not a real championship so i'm finally you didn't get to like go out and sell you know like you couldn't really go out and celebrate like i don't do they even do a parade they no i believe they did not so yeah yeah so yeah No, that makes sense. Yeah. There you go.

You got it now. And of course, I know you're out in L.A. and just shout out to everybody who is in Los Angeles and with everything going on with the wildfires. Just hope everyone can find a way to stay safe and kind of sane throughout this process, because obviously it's a pretty crazy time. Let's jump in and get the news out of the way. Starting with Jeff Hoffman, who signed a three-year, $33 million deal with the Blue Jays. And their GM, Ross Atkins said Hoffman will get the opportunity to close games in Toronto.

So perhaps the bigger story is that Hoffman had two other deals fall through because of failed physicals, one with the Orioles and the other with the Braves apparently. So more on that in a few minutes, Chris, I just want to focus on, you know, the Hoffman being a closer of all this because he has been one of the best relievers in baseball over the past two years with the Phillies. And since this signing was announced, there were two NFBC drafts done this weekend. And Hoffman went 91st in one, 108th in the other. So an ADP of 99.5, what do you think about that as a potential price tag as the closer of the Blue Jays, Jeff Hoffman?

Yeah, I mean, given the contract he signed, you should expect that he's going to not just be the closer, but have some runway, right? Like, it's not going to be, you know, he has a bad week and it falls apart for him. I don't think anyway. So that is, I think you should feel very good about him. And based on what we've seen the past couple of seasons with the, you know, his velocity. he's jumped a couple miles per hour. His control has gotten better. He had the lowest walk rate of his career last season.

Everything pretty much looks like it's set up for him to be an elite closer on a team that, you know, maybe they don't win 95 games, but 85 games. Like this should be a good enough team that Jeff Hoffman, you know, we don't have to worry about the Mason Miller argument that we had last week, right? So I do think that Hoffman, you know, you said 90 and I kind of winced a little bit, but, you know, you look at that range and like Ryan Walker was 110. I'd rather have Jeff Hoffman. I feel more comfortable that he's definitely the guy and that he's definitely very good. So he's right between like Yohan Duran and Ryan Walker at that price.

That makes sense. You know, I think similar upside to Duran maybe has more save upside. So I think that makes sense, yeah. Yeah, I think he very clearly is set in the closer role. He's obviously a very talented reliever. You know, there is a bit of a downside with this injury risk now that has popped up with the failed physicals. But, Vlad, what do you think about the price tag here? Would you take Hoffman over other names in this area, Ryan Walker of the Giants,

Lucas Ersig of the Royals or Trevor McGill, who looks like he'll be the closer for the Brewers? Yeah, it's so interesting, the landscape of, of drafts, right? Like when people are, some of us that are starting earlier in October, November, December and just watching the landscape shift. And Trevor McGill was a forgotten guy in the mid-200s just a few weeks ago before the trade of Devin Williams that opened things up for McGill. And then all of a sudden he launches into that range right behind John Duran and Munoz, Andres Munoz of the Mariners. And so now there's this group of, that Hoffman just joined with, Urseg, as you mentioned, Ryan Walker, who is another, you know, one of those elite relievers stole the job last year.

I wouldn't say stole. I think Camila had all lost it. But, you know, in that range of guys and Hoffman is just, he's excellent. I mean, just looking at his swinging strike rate the last couple of seasons. It's like, it's just elite 95th plus percentile. It's like in the 17 percent range. His stuff is amazing. I read a couple of stories about him.

His transformation over the years because this is a guy that was drafted by the Blue Jays. unfortunately spent a few years with the Rockies, made a bunch of starts there, had his career ratios blown up, rebounded a little bit in Cincinnati, and then really became elite in Philly. I think it's just the injury concern. I think as far as job safety,

I think he has that there in Toronto. There, of course, are the escalators with the innings pitched within his contract, so 60, 70, 80, I believe is what it was if he pitches over that. But that's not enough to scare me to think, like, that they're going to use him elsewhere. If anything, it might be like the eighth and ninth, like the Luke Weaver type role that we saw last year. Ryan Walker pitched a lot of, you know, one and two-thirds.

So I like them. As soon as that deal was made, I adjusted the VDP rankings over FTN, moved them into that range with Erseg, Ryan Walker, and McGill. When it came to actually clicking the button in a draft that I had, it was tough. And part of that is mental because just a few days ago,

we were getting them at $250,300. So part of that is getting over that mental hurdle recognizing with the new prices. Just talking about the failed physicals here, Chris, I mean, one of the interesting parts of this is we don't know if the Orioles were trying to sign him as a starter or a reliever, which would kind of raise questions about Felix Bautista. If there's kind of anything going on with his recovery, coming back from Tommy John surgery. My guess with the Braves is that they were trying to sign him as a starter. I believe that's been reported, yeah. Yeah, because, I mean, they just did this with Ronaldo Lopez and it worked out fantastically for them. but it does add a little bit of doubt to him

and maybe a tiny bit towards the Orioles as well. What do you think, Chris? Yeah, I mean, I think Felix Batista has been really overvalued so far in drafts. I get that last time we saw him, he was like the best reliever on the planet. Maybe the best pitcher in baseball on a per inning basis. But he's been like, what, a top 70 pick so far in drafts without, we didn't see him pitch at all last year.

Like we didn't even get a couple of AAA rehab appearances to see what the velocity looks like. We're assuming that he's going to come back and be the same guy, but it's not always a guarantee. So I have Felix Bautista actually right in the same range as Jeff Hoffman. That that's just me being more. I don't even know if it's pessimistic, just cautious with Bautista. And that mostly just means I'm not going to draft Felix Bautista. We'll see how the rest of the offseason goes because there hasn't been. been a ton of chatter that the Orioles are looking to upgrade the bullpen otherwise as far as I know.

So they might have been looking at him as a starter. You know, that's that's the question that I don't think we have the answer to. But it would make sense that both Baltimore and Atlanta would be looking for an additional starter who, you know, they could sign for like 10 million per year and see if they can get a little excess value out of that. That would make sense. So I don't want to overreact too much to Felix Bautista. but like I said, I was already lower than the consensus on him. In other reliever news, the Nationals signed Jorge Lopez to a one-year $3 million deal, and Lopez has had a very up-and-down career.

He does have closer experience, 23 saves back in 2022. Remember last year, that kind of crazy scene with the New York Mets, he was cut by them. He signed on with the Cubs where he actually was dominant in the 24 appearances that he made with them. Vlad, if the season started tomorrow, I would say that Jorge Lopez is first up for saves for the nationals, but with as much money as they have and they were talking about spending this offseason, I still feel like they're going to bring in another closer. What do you think about the nationals right now?

I'm pretty certain that's the case. Before the signing, it was looking like a committee with Derek Law and Robert Garcia. I'm sorry, not him, but Jose, again, I'm confused with him. Jose A. Ferrer, who I think is a pretty brilliant reliever, who's going to be somebody we're going be bidding on four saves at some point this season. But to be honest, it's Carlos Estevez, most likely. That's the guy that seems to be linked. Did a great job with Philly last year, really kind of picked up the pace from his days with the Rockies, another Rocky story there. But I do think that's a good fit for them, you know, the righty there, who gets some strikeouts,

who's really like a closer's. And what I mean by that is he's just like a pure ninth inning guy. I think Jorge Lopez might start off in a committee. It might be like him and Ferrer. I think Derek Law is best to use as like a seventh, eighth inning setup guy. So we'll see. I think there's still a lot to be determined. Jorge Lopez can do the job, but he's not somebody that I'm necessarily looking to target. Those are the type of bullpens where I feel like I'm less interested in wanting to invest in anything because it's a guessing game.

And if you're spending high draft capital for it, you're kind of wasting a pay. Yeah, and continuing on with closers, we did get a report from Dennis Lynn of the Athletic, who covers the Padres, that apparently they have at least entertained the idea of trading away Robert Suarez. And Suarez was awesome overall last season, fourth in baseball and saves. He had 36 saves. But the Padres do have other talented relievers on their roster. They have Jason Adam.

They have Jeremiah Estrada. It sounds like they do want to shed some salary this offseason as well. So I do wonder, Chris, this isn't the first time we've heard something like this, but maybe the Padres do wind up trading Robert Suarez before the season. Yeah, and, you know, he's 33. He's been up and down over the past couple of years. And it makes sense that he would be inconsistent because he's so dependent on, I mean, nobody in baseball really used their foreseamer as often as Robert Suarez did.

He threw it 72% of the time. It's an awesome pitch. You average 99 miles an hour with it. He's got, you know, great vertical approach angle and all the physical characteristics we're looking for. but it means that I think there's a bit of a slimmer margin for error there, and he doesn't get the elite strikeout numbers. So, you know, trying to sell on that season, I think makes a lot of sense. And like you mentioned, you know, Jason Adam is someone who has put up dominant reliever numbers

over the past couple of seasons. So I would hope he gets an opportunity if that does happen. All right. I'm just going to kind of breeze through the rest of this news. The Mariners have made their big move on offense. They signed Donovan Solano to a one-year $3.5 million deal. Of course, I'm being facetious here. It seems borderline irresponsible that the Mariners have made no moves on offense this offseason

with a starting rotation as good as they have. So maybe I'll be wrong and they'll bring someone in like a Pete Alonzo or Anthony Santander, but we haven't really heard anything about that. So as of now, it doesn't seem likely. The Rangers third baseman Josh Young said he's a full go after right wrist surgery and doesn't anticipate any restrictions during spring training. He's now had multiple surgeries on that right wrist and has had a problem staying on the field. He had shoulder surgery a couple of years ago as well. In his lone almost full season, I guess you could say, Josh Young did play very well for the Rangers.

It's just we haven't really seen him stay healthy and hopefully we will learn more about that in spring training. Red Sox manager Alex Cora said the plan is for Prospect Christian Campbell and Vaughn Grissom, focus on second base of spring with David Hamilton in the outfield. So that sounds like a position battle for second base. And pretty bad news there for David Hamilton because the Red Sox outfield is already loaded. But like we should be okay with this, right? Like David Hamilton is the kind of guy who's like four years past when we actually

really should have cared about him for fantasy. And obviously that's not when he was four years ago. but like the type of player he is where he's a pretty mediocre to bad hitter, but he steals a lot of bases. And so four years ago, that was like, oh, yeah, he's a top 200 pick in fantasy if he has a job. And now it's like, I'm kind of okay with Von Grissom getting that opportunity, even though I would rather have Christian Campbell get the opportunity. Because at least like you can foresee a world in which von Grissom gets the job and hits 285. and is like a super helpful source of batting average and that would be more useful than whatever David Hamilton can provide.

They're very crowded in the outfield still. There was a report that they are thinking or open to using Masataka Yoshita in the outfield. They should have to do that. Well, that feels like the Yankees saying, oh, yeah, we really like Caleb Durbin. You know, like that it's obviously different scenarios because Caleb Durbin was a prospect, but that's like somebody please come trade for this outfielder who we really like Masataka Yoshita rather than, you know, them actually liking him. But they've got some pieces to get out of the way so my guy Roman Anthony can get the

opportunity. Yeah, I mean, between Roman Anthony and Christian Campbell, just hoping that these guys have a spot Marcelo Meyer at some point this upcoming season as well. So all big prospects and names that should be your radar on your radar at some point. in 2025 for the Red Sox. Last but not least, Roki Sasaki is apparently down to three teams, the Dodgers,

the Padres, and the Blue Jays. Vlad, I mean, enough is enough already, right? Like, you guys don't need Roki Sasaki. Just knock it off. Come on, man. We don't,

but the writing's been on the wall for quite some time. I hate to say it. I've even literally, I've just posted it on X, and just this is what's going to happen. I think my odds from two weeks ago was 74%.

Dodgers, 16% Padres, and then whatever that balances the field. And now it's pretty much, you know, kind of breaking down to that. And some people might say that it's more like a, you know, 50, 40, 10, with the Blue Jays coming in third there. But it does look like the Dodgers and Padres are his options. But I've just been sticking to my guns and my insight sources saying that, you know, L.A. is where he's been wanting to pitch all this time. All right.

Before we hit our first break, just a reminder that by the time you are listening to this, on Tuesday, January 14th, our 2025 rankings are live on the website. So, sleepiestports.com slash fantasy slash baseball slash rankings. You should be able to see each of our top 300s for Roto and Head to Head Points, as well as positional rankings. Plus our first round of Sleepers, Breakouts, and Busts 1.0 are starting to roll out. This week, Chris did Sleepers. I did breakouts and Scott did bust.

So you can read about all of those on the website. And just a programming note for this week, we will be live on. on YouTube, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night. Most weeks, it'll be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, in January, but for this week, it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. You'll have a podcast in your feed, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Let's take a break, and when we return, intro to high-stakes fantasy, we'll get into it right after this.

Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today. In intro to NFBC High-Stakes Fantasy Leagues, we are here with RodoGut himself, Vlad Settler from FtN Fantasy, who is well-versed in all things. high stakes. He has won 74 mid to high stakes leagues in his playing career. And there are definitely a few different high stakes fantasy websites, but the NFBC National Fantasy Baseball Championship seems to dominate the baseball space. So that is what we're going to be focusing on today. And you listen to this podcast, you listen to many other podcasts, you hear references to the

NFBC all the time. So it made sense to kind of, all right, let's kind of catch people up on what's happening here, the different types of formats and all different kinds of ways that you could play over at the NFBC. And before we get into the nitty gritty, Vlad, I just kind of wanted to start with a more general question. And feel free to take this in any direction you want. But how does your strategy and analysis, if at all, how does it change between high stakes leagues and normal fantasy leagues? Because this is something that admittedly I battle with myself. I mean, we're trying to cater to as many different audiences as humanly possible. The truth is, the large majority of people consuming this podcast, play in 10 or 12 team, CBS, ESPN, Yahoo

leagues, and they don't play on the NFBC. But we hear all around the industry, there's many podcasts that do talk about the NFBC. So, like, how do you kind of strike that balance between your analysis and if at all your kind of strategy changes between the two different types of leagues? Yeah, I mean, it's difficult. It's something that I am always looking to upgrade and improve. at least the way that I am, you know, communicating and speaking and making sure that I am reaching a broad audience. It is very easy to get into the NFBC bubble. And, you know, I mean, fantasy baseball is glorious. I'm, you know, on the same page as you guys. We want to, you know, spread the love of it to the younger generation. We want them playing literally whatever they want to play. That's why I don't

like the whole like, oh, it's 15 team roto or death or it's points or nothing. It's like, no, play whatever you want. That's the beauty of it. There are so many different formats. So, you know, I I kind of make it known that my focus when I'm speaking is, you know, through the lens of NFBC. But I think there are things that can be learned that can be helpful literally to any format. The biggest difference between a home league and NFBC is the overall component. So with the contest like the main event or the online championship or the draft champions, which is the 50 round draft and hold. And even the gladiator, these are national contests with an overall price component. So a portion of the prizes are taken out of the league pool and going to an overall pool.

And so that changes the focus a little bit with certain contests where you might want to swing for a little bit more upside or you want to make sure you have balance in your roto categories. And you're not making, you know, building in a very sort of like crazy way or punting positions. And in home leagues, of course, you know, a lot of them you can trade. And in FBC, you can't. So you have to be a little bit more, again, balanced in the draft. But the one thing that is for sure is those in home leagues or those are just this play, CBS and other places, it behooves them to follow that ADP and see what the guys that are

spending hundreds and thousands of dollars are doing. These are people that are putting in research. Sure, there are people that are just putting in money. and they aren't doing the research. And you can usually kind of sense who that is. But for the most part, these are well-researched, people that study, care, passionate, and they're putting their money where their mouths are and kind of dictating that ADP, that average draft position at market.

And it's good to know where that is so that we can then find the holes within our own draft league, right, especially when it's with people that we know. We kind of know their tendencies. Oh, you know, you know, Jimmy loves, you know, drafting his Mets. He's got to have his Mets. So I'm going to make a pay up at the auction or, you know, or I can get a discount on, you know, some, you know, A's players or things like that. There are just so many ways to kind of, you know, get the best out of it, I guess you could say.

Yeah, that's my home league is all New Yorkers. I was a late addition to the league. And I just know, just throw whatever Yankees or Mets player is getting hype at the moment. And like, just like Francisco Alvarez will just be my first nomination in the auction this year. Just like, let's get him out there. get someone to spend $8 on him so I can just not worry about it. Before we get into some specific formats, I did want to mention some interesting NFBC quirks that are kind of unique to the NFBC

and if there's anything that we need to add on that before we talk about formats. But in leagues that have a waiver wire, they use a $1,000 fab budget, which I don't think is crazy. I mean, most leagues either play with 100 or 1,000. NFBC leagues set lineups on Mondays for pitchers and then Monday and Friday for hitters. So that's a little bit of a change. I think for some people, it does take into a, account looking at like splits and pitcher matchups and you know who who your hitters are facing on

from Monday through Thursday versus Friday through Sunday things like that there are no IL spots in NFBC league so if that's a huge one yeah that is a massive one because if players you know if a player on your team that you drafted even like a top 100 pick is going to miss I don't know two months or something like that you might just have to bite the bullet and drop a player like that whereas typically in any home league with an IL league like with IL spots you wouldn't think of dropping a player like that, but that's kind of one of the things that comes to mind. And then draft picks. Draft picks are determined by KDS, which is the Kentucky Derby style draft preferences. You basically put the draft slots in the order that you want them. So if you play in a

15-team league and you just really want the 15th overall pick, then you put 15 as your first option, and then you could kind of just put everything in order. You can go 15 to 1 or you can kind of jumble things up. It doesn't mean that you will get that pick, but it's just your reference in order of what draft pick you do want in your league. So I think that's a pretty interesting quirk as well. But Vlad, lots going on there. Is there anything here, specific rules to NFBC that you'd like to touch on before we get into formats? Yeah, I think KDS, the Kentucky Derby style you mentioned, is great. I mean, that's a strategy in of itself and changes from year to year. There are people that feel more comfortable drafting

in the middle so that when those close or runs happen, you're not left out in the cold or having to go jump into the next tier and push a player up. Same thing with, you know, for this year, for example, if you, in the five-by-five roto format, if you like Otani, Witt, and Judge relatively the same, it makes sense to possibly put three as your pick, as your top slot so that, you know, then you get the earlier second round pip.

Of course, the other beauty of that is sort of pre-planning and strategizing. There's a lot of fun with that as well. You sort of, what I do every year is I do it with an, spreadsheet is I map out how I would like my draft to go. And I make basically different columns, different scenarios for if I start with, you know, an outfield or a pitcher and I make sure I keep it kind of flexible and open. So I don't force myself into certain picks. So KDS is wonderful.

And then on the IL front, the fact that there is none means that we need, let me put it like this. This is the biggest obstacle to overcome moving into the NFBC is getting used to the fact that you can't just stash guys. You almost have to be a little bit more pessimistic with the injury. I'll never forget it was, was it 2016? And I was doing really good through the middle of the summer. It was probably a 30-point league lead in a 15-team main event on this guy named Steve Jupinka.

I had the former Indians at the time Indians, diamond backs, you know, that pitcher. who we're talking about. So I had him and I would not drop him. He was injured to start the year, but I just couldn't do him because it was just, I invested the draft capital. And then I didn't drop him to bid on this guy named Mike Trout, who obviously we knew was a big deal,

but we didn't think immediate impact or not at that time. I remember Steve Jupinka bid whatever it was, the $50, got Mike Trout by August, caught up to me on that 30-point lead, and he ended up winning the entire main event. that season. And I think like this is one way in which the the way we talk about fantasy really depends on what league you're talking about and where the analyst is playing because a lot of people just say, I'm just not going to draft anyone with injury risk. And like we can argue about like how you define injury risk and how good we are at. But like that's a strategy. And I think in an

NFBC league where you don't have those aisle spots, it's a little. legitimate thing you have to take take in mind. And that's why you look at someone like Carlos Correa, I think is a really good example of this where when he was on the field last year, Carlos Correa was incredible. He was like a legitimate must start player. He only played like 87 games or something, but it was like an 880 OPS, you know, 100 RBI pace, something like that. And in an NFBC format where you don't have an IL spot, you don't really like, you're talking about 15 team leagues. So the replacement level on the waiver wire is. might be Donovan Solano.

Like that might be your third basement if you draft Carlos Correa and he gets hurt. So he's not listening. That might be a way in which you just have to, that's why Carlos Correa is 253rd or whatever in NFBC ADP. I wrote about him as a sleeper this week just because like, if that's what his value is going to be in your 12 team CBS leagues, you should draft Carlos Correa every single time because,

okay, he only plays 85 games. but if you get 18 homers and 55 RBI out of him in those games, the replacement level that you're going to get, the fact that you can stash him on the IL, he's going to be so much more valuable than that pick. But obviously in a 15-team no IL league, that's very different. And it makes getting through the season a lot more difficult.

So that I think is one of the biggest differences that you have to keep in mind when we're talking about player valuations in one format versus another. those guys, the replacement level in those leagues is much lower on the waiver wire. And you really do have to avoid. It is so tough when you're staring at five guys on the IAL, which will just happen, even if you don't pick risky players. Just one last quick point on this.

I mean, it's not a purposeful plug here. But in the FTA draft guide, I think our colleague, our friend, Justin Mason, wrote a wonderful piece. He came on as a guest writer. And I asked him to write this piece. because there was a team that he drafted his first year in the main event. It was 2019, I believe, and we all laughed at it, all of our industry friends because it was just like one aisle stash after another. So he had an entire bench full of, you know, the red suitcases to start the year.

And he had a horrific season. And he learned from that. And over the last few years, he's been winning, you know, very solid high stakes, auction leagues, you know, main events and things like that. And he's really transformed his game. So he wrote about just how that. that transition takes place and how, you know, important it is to sort of have that risk-averse factor when you draft. And I think that's valuable no matter the format you're in NFBC or not.

Yeah, no, it's a really, really good point. Just specifically on the ADP, if you look at NFBC ADP, it's just a lot of the high-end players who might come with some injury risk, thinking of guys like Corey Seeger, even Devers with like both shoulders or kind of, you know, has had injury with both of those. Like, these guys are going a little bit lower than you would expect just because people, people kind of played a little bit safer, knowing that the replacement value in leagues like that is a little bit tougher to come across, you know, just good players and injury replacements.

Just to kind of piggyback on Carlos Correa real quick, in CBS head to head points leagues last year, he averaged 3.3 fantasy points for game. That was better than Corey Seeger. That was better than Willie Adom. It's like, he's really good when he plays. It's just, you know, you need an IEL spot if you're going to draft someone like Carlos Correa.

So I just wanted to put a bow on that. And this is just like, standard just knows. your league, right? Like, if you play in a league with unlimited IL spots, you can be much more aggressive with those kind of guys. If you play in a league with no AL spots or even just two or three, like, we talk about it, man, every like April 27th, we're just like, everyone's hurt. And that's just what happens. Like, right now, everyone's healthy and we feel great. Once the game starts, guys are going to get hurt and you always have to keep that in mind. So yeah. Let's start up with talking about drafted hold formats. You already mentioned some of these, Vlad, but I think the ones that

we hear most about are draft champions leagues, gladiators, and NFBC 50s. So just quickly starting with draft champions, these are 15 team roto leagues. They are 50 round drafts. There is no waiver wire, no trading involved with these leagues. You just set your lineup. You draft your team and you set your lineup throughout the season. You've got your 23 starter spots. You've got the 14 hitters, the nine pitchers, and then you have 27 bench spots, which might sound crazy and you think, wow, yeah, I've got a huge bench and all this depth. It's a battle of attrition. I mean, throughout the course of the season,

you're just going to lose so many players that by the end, you might not even have enough healthy bodies just to throw in your starting lineup. So just talking about roster construction within a format like this Vlad, 50 roster spots. How do you typically divvy up? How many of those spots go to hitters versus pitchers?

How many are outfielders? How many are starters versus relievers? because that seems to be maybe the most pivotal question when playing in that format. Yeah, I mean, it's a tightrope act throughout the whole thing. The one thing I'll mention is because a lot of these draft champions are taking place before spring training, before there's a lot of clarity in roles,

and especially in the back end of bullpens, the guys that, you know, the elite closers go at a premium. So somebody playing in a CBS league tries NFBC, and they're like, the heck is, you know, Devin Williams, Edwin Diaz going in the third round. I mean, this is the premium. That's what it costs to get them because you're kind of getting that safety. Of course, we know what happened to Edwin Diaz. And we've seen things happen in the past to top rank closers, Blake Trine and others in the past years.

It just happens. It's part of the game. But, you know, that's the first part of it. But it's really a tight rope act as far as balanced throughout. You want to make sure that you're covering all the bases, all the roto categories, getting a little sprinkle here. sprinkle there. I usually like to get 22 or 23 pitchers of my 50. The other thing I'll mention is I'm comfortable with getting my first bench pitcher before even getting my second catcher or my utility spot. And it's a matter of how comfortable you are with the player pool, especially as it

goes that deep, that you know, you don't want to be in a position where, you know, you're having to draft Kyle Freeland or Austin Gomber in the 50th round and having to stream them in the middle of the and cores because you have nobody else. So you want to make sure that you get the pitching, you get enough relievers. I think the relievers split I'll usually do is maybe like, you know, 6535. So I want to make sure of those 23 relievers, I'll have, I'm sorry, of the 23 pitchers, I'll have, you know, a third, approximately a third of them as, as, you know, relievers basically.

Outfielders, you know, multi-eligible position players, I think are really helpful. You were just talking about Chris David Hamilton earlier. I mean, now he's, what, going to add another position, but he's eligible at three. He's like last year's Luis Renhifo. So that's good getting those guys. The one thing I'll point out is it's not good to double count, like just because a guy is, you know, Mac McLean is second base in shortstop. Try not to count it once, put that towards one position because you'll need it later.

So it's good to get at least four guys, a coverage at each of the infield positions and probably are at least 10 outfielders. One question that I wanted to ask about these specific draft and hold formats is, are you less likely to put all your eggs in one basket for a category with like an Ellie Dela Cruz because, you know, in a 12 team league, like Ellie Dela Cruz plus one other high stolen base guy might be overkill. But in this format, you know, if something happens to Ellie, do you, do you need to bake in that insurance?

Yeah, I think the insurance is a good part of it. I think there are almost two sets of analysis. So if you're tracking your categories, with projections or what you want throughout the draft. You almost want to have like two sets of them. You want to have it for your bench guys as well because me having Ellie de la Cruz isn't going to stop me from drafting a David Hamilton or a Victor Scott later

because I want to be able to kind of have a little bit of both. So it's almost like you're kind of taking laps around the pool, right? I guess you're, you know, oh, I got some power now. Okay, getting some more speed. Oh, I'm kind of low on, you know, it's just that rotation. and you're making sure you're getting a little bit of everything. But as you're doing it, keeping mind of the three ratio categories, the ERA, whip, and batting average, which is just so scarce,

the number of relievers that are, I'm sorry, starting pitchers that are getting, having a 110 or less ERA or hitters that are hitting over 280. They come at, you know, they're so incredibly scarce that you almost need to prioritize those and make sure you do that before you just add up, and end up with a whole bunch of Adam Duns and a 200 average. back at the overall prize winner from last year, Steve Weimer, who is probably the best draft champions player that we've seen. I mean, he is truly incredible at the format. Looking at his team, he had 28 hitters and 22 pitchers. That included four catchers, 11 outfielders,

seven relievers, and 15 starters. So I typically see six to eight relievers. The rest of those, you know, 22 or 23 pitchers are going to be starting pitchers. Then you have at least 10 or 11 outfielders. I like to get at least three infielders at each position or at least three names that can cover each infield position. And then usually three or four catchers. Like if your first two catchers are awesome, you might not need a fourth catcher. But, you know, if your second catcher is a little bit shaky, then all right, maybe you do want that third and fourth catcher on your team. Worth mentioning, there are three different price points for the draft champions format. There's $150 per team, $400 and then $1,000 entry. And that is a format that has an overall.

prize component as well. So you compete against people in your league, first and foremost, but then there's also you're competing against, you know, probably like a thousand other people in an overall prize contest, where, you know, first place will get, did I write this down, $40,000 grant prize. So there you go. I did want to mention just the other draft and hold formats real quick.

NFBC 50s, virtually the same thing as the draft champions format, but they are 12-team leagues and they are $50 entries. So obviously, you know, it's a smaller league size. It's not as expensive to get in. This might be actually a good starting point for someone who just wants to try an NFBC league out for the first time. Again, it's draft and hold. You draft your team. There's no waiver wire.

You just set the lineup all year. It's a 50-round draft. And if you do when your league, you get $400 to first place for a $50 entry. Gladiator leagues, a little bit tougher, man. A little bit different. They're the last of kind of the draft and hold format. In this league, you draft your starting roster. That is it, which is kind of crazy to think about.

There's no bench. There's no waiver wire. It's just a battle of attrition. May the healthiest team win. Vlad, how do you win one of those leagues? You get lucky. That's really all it is. You know, I was winning the overall gladiator contest in the middle of the summer for a few weeks.

But it was just the most amazing health luck of all time. And then it started to hit. This was my Glossnow Yamamoto team. I'm not a Dodgers homie, but I had both those guys. And of course, one goes down the other. And then before you know it, as soon as you start losing those plate appearances and innings pitched, oh, what do you know? You start dropping down those overall standings. I was able to pull off the league, but it's really tough.

It's a completely different mindset from even the draft champions, where draft champions, the 50-round draft and holds, you can take on a little bit of injury risk. Like, you know, maybe Mike Trout or Christian Yellich, maybe they follow around past their ADP. can take them. In a gladiator, you really need to second guess these things because you want to bake in the guys that you think are going to get the 600, 650 plus plate appearances, 30 starts, and 60 innings pitch as a reliever. It's such a difference maker. And I will piggyback on your point, uh, pity piggy back on your point, Frank, about the NPC 50s and those gladiators. They're actually, uh, a great starting point, uh, entry to, um, to the NFBC world. The gladiator runs earlier. Uh, So I did see someone in the comments mentioned about the gladiator shutting down.

That's because it's filled. So the 1,000 or whatever spots is, it's now full as of January, I think 13th. And all the leagues are full and they're going to open them back up against next year. But it's more of like a November, December drafting. Yeah. And these are 15 team roto leagues. They're $50 entries. And the top three get paid out in each league.

There is also an overall component. Last year, there were 120 gladiator leagues for a total of 1,800. teams $10,000 over to the first place overall winner in that format. All three of us here have a gladiator team. So I hope one of us wins it. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at mine now and like, Jesus Lazzardo, I think was my last pick. And I'm like, all right. Well, yeah, if he throws, you know, more than 100 innings that might work out. But yeah, and now I'm thinking like, because this is my first one. And I'm like, I probably got a little too value happy on that one, you know. Yeah, I think Jackson Holiday is my starting second basement on my glad hater team, which is a little bit scary.

I also only have two relievers, one of them being Felix Batista. One of mine is Kenley Janssen, so we got to get him signed somewhere. All right, let's take our final break when we return. We'll talk about best ball leagues. There are some other really popular formats in this over at the NFBC, and we will do that right after this. Welcome back into fantasy baseball today. We are doing an intro to NFBC high stakes. leagues, we are joined by Vlad Sedler of Ftn Fantasy, Fantasy, and let's move on to

bestball formats. Whether it's fantasy football or fantasy baseball, you've probably heard of best ball leagues. This is a points-based format where you draft your team, and you do not set your lineup. Your lineup is automatically set for you each week based on the highest scoring players on your team. So obviously, you do draft the bench as well, and then whoever provides these spike weeks or high scoring weeks, those are the players that will automatically be put into your lineup. And I think just general best ball strategy, you know, you might favor players with a little bit more upside or guys that you know to be streakier than others, right? L.A. Dela Cruz comes to mind

as someone that, you know, monthly production, okay, might be a little frustrating in a head-to-head league, but where you get those spike weeks and you just get these like, this massive run where L.A. Dela-Crues goes wild or just really streaky, you know, sluggers, guys that hit home runs and bunches, right? Those are guys that you might want to target or just, players on the Rockies, right? Because you know that they're going to have big games in Cores Field. Vlad, is there anything else like that regarding best ball strategy, just like a general point that you'd like to make on just like the players you should target?

Yeah, I mean, I really like to target the guys that hit the ball well. They just have good bat to ball skills, high contact rates, you know, 70% plus. I really like, you know, the table setters, the Stephen Kwan's of the world. I don't mind that they don't have power because, you know, steal a bit of bases, get on base. you do get the points for for the walk. So the higher walk rate guys I like, I do toward a sort of shy away for, you know, maybe somebody like Sedani Rafael,

if you do project him to be a bottom half of the Red Sox lineup guy all season long. And the fact that he's, you know, he isn't a high walk rate guy and probably got a little bit lucky getting 80 plus RBI's, you know, their last season.

Maybe somebody you kind of pull back on. And then with the pitchers, you're looking for more of the, you know, the big strikeout guys, I think to me usually makes sense. You're looking at, you know, K to walk rate and things like that. So maybe like a Zach Eflin is great in Roto, I feel, much better than in a points format. The other thing I'll mention is any correlation that you can make within your team makes a lot of sense. So you're building a team and say you started off with

a brave. And, you know, you start off with a top brave and now you're looking at a Michael Harris or Austin Riley versus a mani Machado, maybe you go with the brave to kind of correlate so when you do have those weeks and hopefully in the, you know, towards the end of the season in your points league playoffs or in the best ball, you know, towards the end of the year,

you can get a little boost when it really matters. Yeah. And again, these are points-based league. So anyone who's played in a head-dead points league or maybe you play fantasy football and you're trying to get into fantasy baseball, this might be a format that's good for you because, again, there's no lineup setting, there's no waiver wire.

It's just you draft your team. and your team accumulates fantasy points. And of course, the scoring format is a little bit different over at the NFBC than it is compared to CBS Sports, but you can look into that scoring system before you were to draft just to kind of learn some of the differences and players you should target and things like that.

So there are what seems to me four main bestball types of leagues that you could play at NFBC. There's a double up where you want to finish in the top five of a 12-team league where you can double your money, so it's a $100 entry fee, and if you finish in the top five, you win $200.

So it's a good way to kind of build your bankroll if you want to kind of play in other leagues for years to come. There's the Best Ball Championship, which is a 12-team league with a $150 entry. And this one is more so, you know, you get paid higher depending on where you finish in the league. So if you finish first place in the league,

you'll get a $600 payout. And there is an overall prize, $12,000 to the overall prize winner as well. I'm going to save Giazzi. team leagues because those are just a different kind of, a different kind of beast. The best ball cut line championship, Vlad, is one that I know that you play in. I know that you've had success in it. These are 10 team best ball leagues, a hundred fifty dollar entry. They have fast drafts. They have slow drafts. Probably should have mentioned that earlier. There are, within the NFBC leagues, there are, you could either do fast drafts or slow drafts. It just kind of depends if you

want to get it done fast or you want to make it, if you want to make it last a little bit. But the, the cut is a little bit different where there are two fad periods throughout the season. So you do get the opportunity to make pickups. Again, it only happens twice throughout the year. And you want to get to the championship round later in the summer. And then there are these kind of matchup periods. And you want to be above the cut. So you need a certain number of points to kind of stay alive. And the pool just keeps shrinking until eventually there's like the number one team left at the end. But I'm not sure if I described that well enough, but maybe perhaps you could do it, do it better, What do you think about the cut line championship?

Man, it is a wild contest because at a certain point, things are just out of your control. After that second fab period, the first one is in April. So I think it's usually around week two or three of the season. And you just gear up, right? You're cutting and dropping all the injured players. These fab lists are like longer than a CBS receipt. So I'll have like 12 fab bids, you know, 12, free agent bid, bid, groups and within them I'll have like 20 guys. And so it's a lot of work for that for that twice a

year period. It's really worth it for the for the people that grind it out. It's really like you said, a game of attrition. You want to have as many healthy guys. The multi-position eligible guys are more valuable because it's a best ball format. It will automatically, you know, populate and optimize the scoring for that day, you know, if a guy's second or third or short, you know, it'll kind of piece it all together for you. So I think those guys are really valuable. and yeah, just at the end, you just, you know, you hope you stay healthy. It wasn't this last year, but in 2023, I was in a work trip overseas. So baseball was happening, you know, the exact opposite time.

For some reason, my, and I was in the top three for the cutline overall. And for some reason, my body was waking up in the middle of the night, like right when the games were ending. It was amazing. I don't know how I did it. Then sending an alarm, it's just that internal roto clock, even though it's points. And, yeah, and at the end of the day, Spencer, Strider did not get a second start of the week, and I did not get the points to get there.

So I came in third overall, obviously not complaining. I'm happy about it. But when you're just that close and you're sweating it, and the crazy part, you just can't control anything. You let the rhododogods do what they may. And, you know, the cut line championship, just thinking about the way that this plays. So again, weeks 1 to 27 are regular season play. And the top two teams from each league advanced to a to the championship round. And then Round one runs from July 17 to August 3rd. Round 2 is from August 4th to August 24th. And round 3 is from August 25th to September 14th.

And each round slowly kind of dwindles down. There's a certain score that everyone has to be above. And if you're not above that, then you get cut from the competition. And you know what? It kind of feels like the squid games of like fantasy baseball. I was going to say fall guys. You play that game? I don't.

No, I don't think I play that. That's fine. Is it a video game, Chris, or is it? Yeah, it's a video game. Got it. It's a similar thing, though. They just get rid of about 40% of the player pool every round until there's only one person left.

Yeah, that was a movie too, right? It sounds like a movie. Fall Guys? There was the fall night, but I think that's a different. That's from the 80s. It's before your time, Frank. Yeah, I mean, look, I could barely game. Every movie is before Frank's time.

If Adam Sandler wasn't in it, I didn't see you, Vlad. So that's all you need to know. Let's quickly talk about guillotine leagues And I kind of heard these grow in popularity Over the past couple of years And I think that there are different iterations of them But over at the NFBC It's a 15-team best ball league

It's a 34-round draft And these are slow drafts They're two-hour and four-hour clocks There are 11 scoring periods Each scoring period is basically two weeks at a time And at the end of the two weeks The lowest scoring team among the league gets cut

He's just cut from the league and all of his players go into free agency. So it's like this mad dash of, okay, we have all these awesome players on the waiver wire now. And so Fab runs every Tuesday after a team is cut from the league. Chris, I'll ask you first,

do you think it makes more sense to spend a larger chunk of your money early in a guillotine league to get other teams really good players so you have them for longer of the season? Does that make sense? I mean, this is always the question with Fab,

in general, right? Because the earlier you get a player, theoretically, the more impact they can make for your team. If you add the same player on April 5th as you could on July 7th, the guy you add in April is going to be more impactful for your team, even if they put up the identical numbers. So I think that's always going to be true. But I think it's especially true in this format where the incentive is to never be the worst team every given week. And the, the, the, the, the, the players who are going to become available every week are going to be so much more impactful. Now, the other part of that is the bad teams are putting their players on waivers. So you would think as the season goes on, better players will become available.

But there's there's the opportunity cost of not getting those players on your team and the opportunity cost of increasing your risk of being cut if you are not one of those top 11, 10, 12 you know nine team play uh teams each given week so i've never played in a guillotine league in either baseball or football um there's also like a similar thing it's kind of the opposite like the it's a vampire league right i almost said a dracula league and that's that's another league that'd be a dumb thing for me to say uh but that's kind of the opposite i don't know if anybody any providers do like a a vampire league like contest but that would be fun.

But yeah, I would think you want to be more aggressive early in the season in this type of format. Yeah, all right. So we got about like 10 minutes left, and I do want to hit on some of the other more popular formats at the NFBC. So three of the big ones,

the Auction Championship, the Roto Wire Online Championship, and the main event. We'll quickly go through each one. For the auction championship, these are 15-team roto auctions. You draft your team with a $260, you know,

standard-sized budget, and then there's a seven-round snake draft for the reserves right after. And there are different entry fees for this type of format. If you want to play, $150, then $500, $1,600, $1,500. The top three get paid out in each league. But of course, there is an overall prize as well. These leagues do have FAB. It's a $1,000 FAB budget where it runs every Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern Time. And one other thing we haven't mentioned, zero-dollar bids are not allowed in the NFBCC.

So you do have to spend at least $1 on each of your fab bids. So keep that in mind once you get to zero at the end of the season, or if you get to August and you have no money left, you can't make any more pickups. So just kind of keep that of mind if you do play over at the NFBC. Auctions, I mean, look, we'll have a whole other episode on auctions throughout the off season. But specifically for this format, Vlad,

how does your strategy change at all if you're just playing in a standalone league versus one with an overall? because obviously a lot of the NFBC leagues do have an overall, and this auction championship has an overall prize. How much does that factor into your decision-making? Because I think most people will just say, oh, you want more upside. You want to try and win the overall.

But I've actually heard a lot of high-stakes. I've heard high-stakes players say the opposite, where you almost want to be safer and just kind of like build that base and then maybe take your chances like later on or your cheaper dollar players than an auction, something like that. Yes, that is how I play. and how I recommend it too. Also because the overall pool is smaller.

So there are not thousands of people in this contest. They're less than that. I mean, I forgot what it was last year, but it's definitely not more than 1,000 or 1,500 players. So, and the league money is really good for these contests. So you want to, you definitely don't need to be swinging for the fences.

You definitely want to make sure that you are getting players that, unless there's some injury or whatnot, but solid contributors throughout the season. So, and then of course, just the ability to be able to control, especially if you plan well, if you're good with spreadsheets, you're good with, you know, focusing and pivoting. I mean, and especially if you do it live, there is nothing like it in the world.

It's literally my favorite three, four hours of the year is in Las Vegas live doing these auctions. And I hadn't done them for many years. I went back to it two years ago, and the thrill of it is just incredible. Like I just can't even tell you just the focus of it and everything. But as far as, you know, to your original question, you definitely do not have to go crazy. And that goes for a lot of the higher dollar contests.

When you look at the winning teams within leagues and in the overall, within the overall at the end of the year, you look at a lot of them and they're not all that sexy. As a matter of fact, the winner of this year, this past year's NFBC auction championship is my colleague, Mike Mager and Mike Maker and I were in the same league together drafting live in Vegas. I created there at that year the most beautiful team ever. I went all in on my favorite late round targets, Garrick Crochet, Ronaldo Lopez and Jose Caballero, got them for like a dollar, Ronaldo like in the reserves. I had the most beautiful team, 115 points.

What didn't matter? Mike, you go look at his team. It's like, you know, it doesn't look all that good on paper, but it was just so solid and so beautiful. incredible and ironically it was his first year writing content too so he joined the team at ftn he had never written before he's been a you know an attorney for you know 30 plus years but he was all out there he still put his whole strategy out there and yet just just dominated the entire field one thing that i think is really interesting about that is something that we talk about a lot when

you know especially this time of year when nfbc adp is really the only data that's out there there's a couple of other places that you can get ADP from, but NFBC is really the focus. And it kind of drives so many of the conversations that we have. And something that we talk about a lot on this pod is how last year, Ellie De La Cruz was that like, these early NFBC drafts were like, oh, okay, Ellie's just a first round pick.

Like that's just like people were super aggressive with him. People get super aggressive with like Wyatt Langford. And so it's always interesting because I guess, you know, there's the saying it only takes one guy, right? Like, you know, there's a more colorful version of it out there. But like, you know, Wyatt Langford ends up being like a top 60, 70 pick by the end of spring training in a format that in theory, at least a lot of the smart people talk about, you want to be more conservative with your bidding. So I find that so fascinating where like there is like there's some of that hype beast nature. and then there's some, and I think, you know, maybe rightly,

who play it a little more conservatively and avoid, you know, Wyatt Langford could be anything. You know, he could even be, you know, a player who's like, you know, he could even be Sayas Suzuki. That would have been awesome last year if Wyatt Langford had just been as good as Sayas Suzuki. Instead, he was going, what, 50 picks ahead of Say, Suzuki. Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic because it, when players soar up the board, guess what?

There are amazing values falling down. And the best players I know, including the guy that won the NFC main event last year, Clark Olson, I have been in drafts with him where I'm like, man, I can't believe this guy fell to you. Oh, and again, like these boring but solid players. And those are the league winners, right? I mean, there's so many roster spots and it takes more than one guy. Like, Wylinkford on your own, if you're overpaying, spending a third round pick on him, not to say that's an overpay, but like there takes more than that, right? It's those deep around guys and kind of balancing it all. So people do get carried away with the rookie hype, that's for sure.

And guess what the rookies mostly did last year outside of Churio, Langford's second half? They failed. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting because I think one of the things that people always, you know, it's just kind of natural, the longer players been around, the less we associate them with upside. But one of the most valuable picks last year was Stephen Kwan, who I think had been completely written off as just boring 290 hitter who doesn't do anything and he ends up having especially

in the first half this really huge season that helped a lot of people out at a you know dirt cheap price so there's there's value in taking those boring guys just because there are ranges for everyone and we tend to forget that that like stephen kwan is safe they're still upside with those types of players too yeah and i always love when just unforeseen things happen in baseball and players break out because of it. Like we spoke about this with Nick Pollock last week where every spring there will be a couple of pitchers that show up and just their velocity is up or they're throwing a new pitch or something like that.

And there will be like things like that. Last year, Cleveland, the fact that, you know, they made this little change to their ballpark and all of a sudden it started to be this great power park for left-handed hitters. And as a result, Stephen Kwan, you know, pops double-digit home runs for the first time of his career. It's just like these unforeseen things that you just don't know it's going to happen. until once the season starts, and we get out there.

As if our jobs are already hard enough, you know? Yeah. Let's talk about a few other formats here. The Rotow Wire Online Championship, these are 12-team Roto Leagues, 30-round snake drafts. They are not auctions. You can choose to do either fast or slow drafts.

So the fast draft will be one minute per pick. It's pretty standard draft. And then the slow drafts are two hours or four hours per pick. And these are normal leagues. You set your lineups, waiver wire via fab. And there are different entry features. depending on, you know, on this format, $350, $750, $750, and $1,500. Top two in each league get paid with an overall grand prize,

$150,000 to first place, which is a lot, but there are also a lot of people participating in this format. So keep that in mind. Vlad, once we, you get into the Rotowire Online Championship, these are 12-team leagues, so you can almost afford to take more risk because the replacement value is better with the waiver wire, And it's, you almost need a little bit more risk or a little bit more upside or something to go right throughout the course of the season. Because in a field this large, you need to kind of differentiate yourself and get to the top, if that makes sense.

Exactly. It's, it is a, within the league, it's, I mean, they're competitive, but there's also a lot of, I guess, quote unquote, dead money. There are a lot of just people that just enter and they don't understand the format. They're like, oh, is there fab in this league? And, and that's a beautiful thing, right? If you're in a league, it just kind of gives you a better chance to, to, to, to, to, to, win the four to win the league but it is more of a if you play dFS it's like a attorney it's a gp as opposed to main event or the auction it's more of a cash game format where you kind of you know you're looking for a little bit more stability and safety but yeah the oc's they're wild uh you can definitely kind of shoot for for for for the massive upside you know go for for some of the rookies you know the the extreme pitchers and and also depending on when you draft if knowing that there's

the first fad period is right before the season starts and you'll have a chance to kind of reconstruct your roster or your bench a little bit before the year starts, you can take a little bit of chance by maybe spending a few of your reserve picks that's, you know, rounds 24 to 30 on maybe somebody that isn't within the ADP or someone that isn't really a target, but you think is going to make the roster, their major league roster and actually be bid on for a couple of hundred dollars in, you know, when that first fad big company. around, period comes around. I think that's important too because then you're just saving yourself a lot of money. Players that are drafting these leagues in January, they're looking at a completely

different fab pool and different options than somebody that's drafting it right before the season starts where, you know, those leagues, they'll be spending less money on available free agents. And lastly, let's just wrap up with the main event. If you follow fantasy baseball personalities on Twitter or listen to this podcast, any other podcast, you probably have heard of the NFBC main event at some point. These are 15-team Roto Leagues, 30-round snake drafts with an $1,800 entry fee. The top three in each league gets paid out, $7,500 to first, with an overall prize of $200,000. Last year, there were 57 main event leagues for a total of 855 teams, and these are normal leagues, you set your lineup, waiver wire via fab, there is no slow draft option. These are

one minute per pick. Pretty standard. draft. You either draft online or in person at a live event. And Vlad, you mentioned being at the live events. I know now they only do it in Vegas, but a couple of years ago, they used to do it in New York, and that's where I did my main event, you know, a couple of times that I participated in it. And just drafting live is a completely different beast. It's so much fun. I mean, if you have the means, if you have a way to get it done, I absolutely recommend doing that. But I guess talk to us here about some of the differences with the main event. And some of the differences, I guess,

between drafting online and drafting in person too, because I feel like it's just different. It is. And especially because the one in person, this is attended within a single weekend of the most diehard fantasy people. And so there's a lot of talent. There's a lot of fantasy All-Stars that you're up against. And then there are 10 leagues that usually draft all at the same time,

11 a.m. in the morning in Vegas, usually we have, you know, Greg Ombrocious, he puts on the Hall of Fame ceremony. So every year there's a new inductee to the Hall of Fame. This year, it's Clark Olson, who's been with NFBC playing with them since the inaugural year in 2004. This year, Clark will be honored there in, in Las Vegas. And all the winners from over the, I'm sorry, all the overall champs and the Hall of Famers from over the years all get introduced one at a time. And it's just such a, it's such a warm community. It's really, it's really like kind of friendly. Even the draft rooms, like it's, it's not crazy. There's no competitiveness. Like, I mean, I'll take that back. As long as you don't post your draft board. Oh, let's say, yeah, let's not go there.

Post away. I think what it is, it's the, the posting other people's name. Yeah. Like if somebody is like, you know, they, they don't want it. But like, yeah, I don't mind. You can post, post mine away. There are some other formats that the NFBC offers. We're not going to go in depth on these. They have standalone leagues. They have 12 and 15 team row leagues that have FAB, and there's no overall component. They're literally just called standalone leagues, if you want to search them up on the NFBC.

There are qualifier leagues where if you win your league, you get an entry into a main event or an online championship for the following year. And then there are these Super and Diamond drafts, which should I even mention, I mean, these are live in Vegas. The Super is a $2,500 entry. The Diamond is $10,000.

So I don't think anyone, and listening to this podcast is entering those, I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I'm certainly not. I think you're going to say, I'm throwing my hat in, throw my name in the hat this year, $10,000 entry. He is Vlad Sedler at RotoGut on X. Again, you can follow him on Blue Sky at rhodogut.bsky.com. He's from Ftn Fantasy.

Vlad, thank you so much for coming on. Anything else that you'd like to promote before we get you out of here? No, just our site FtN Fantasy, as you mentioned. I'm working around the clock through, you know, the fires and vacuations and everything, but I'm updating rankings consistently. I just created my full model of FtN VDP projections, which are now out. And then we're going to have a custom points rankings tool that are based on our projection. So you can literally go in there, default to CBS points leagues, and get the ranking set up just for you.

So guys, thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure, especially, you know, this early in the year. We still have so much time before even, spring training and man, it's just, it's so beautiful, man. Nothing better than fantasy baseball. Yeah, we're about a month out from pitchers and catchers right now. It's still like 20 degrees here in the Northeast. So we need the weather to heat up a little bit, but obviously baseball will be back in no time. And we're happy to have you on because can you imagine Chris and I trying to fumble our way through this podcast? That would have...

Oh, yeah, it would not have worked. We definitely needed an expert in the industry to talk us through this. So we do appreciate that. We're going to wrap there for Vlad Sedler and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify, and we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.