Rates & Barrels - Learning From 2022 Roster Builds, Title or Bust & Timing Rebuilds

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

Eno and DVR looks at two of their teams with wildly different outcomes in 2022 in an attempt to mold future strategies and avoid repeating mistakes. Plus, Eno's best Halloween costumes, diminishing returns when too many teams execute the same strategy, choosing a direction in long-term leagues.  Rundown 1:36 Best Halloween Costumes 8:34 Learning from Eno's AL LABR Build 16:48 Preparing to Pivot 22:46 Adjusting to Other Strategies in the Room 27:19 DVR's Disastrous TGFBI Squad: Avoiding Repeat Mistakes 42:17 Is It Championship or Bust? 49:11 Timing Contending v. Rebuilding Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Bucket Rates and Barrels. It is Thursday, September 29th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris here with you, or Mike and Sully, if you are following a popular tweet that's been bouncing around the internet for the last 24 hours or so. Somebody put a tweet out there that was, I think every podcast duo are just these guys and it was a picture of sully and mike from monsters inc and i think it was determined by one of our listeners that i am uh mike the guy the green guy with one eye because

of my bright shiny forehead thanks to my light being in the wrong position which is so flattering but uh probably deserved totally deserved all right well i'm the big monster then right and he has the all-time scare record too doofy and he's got the cool fur right the blue and green teal purple i don't know it's a lot of fun colors maybe i should go for him for halloween go as him that'd be pretty good yeah so make one of my kids dress up this yeah one of your kids would probably want to be the the other one or or if if they refuse you know i i can i can step up i can contribute i like halloween it's a fun the size the proportions are wrong yes it works better with one of my kids do you have a best halloween costume that you ever had one you're particularly proud of yeah my best ever uh

was in tandem with my wife um i was kenny g when i had my long hair i've seen the pictures of this this is incredible and all i had to do other than, I didn't, like, for the hair-wise, instead of parting in the middle, I just had to part it like Kenny G, and I almost exactly like him. You said to get an old shirt from the 90s? Yeah, I had to get, like, a mock turtleneck or something,

and, like, and I got, and I made, like, a, I forget what the name of his instrument is. That's a saxophone, I believe. No. Kenny G's a saxophone, I believe. No. Kenny G plays a saxophone. But he also plays like a straight one. It's like a straight flute. It's like a.

Is that a tin whistle? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like an oboe or something. It's like a clarinet or something. It's like one of those mouth instruments. I don't think it was a sax. Yeah, well, that's the main one he plays, but he plays other stuff, apparently.

Clearly, I'm not a big Kenny G fan. I was singing the seminal song. Do-do-do, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. And I made the instrument for that song. And my wife dressed up as Jackie O. and I had I made the instrument for that song and my wife dressed up as Jackie O and we were the OG's

so you did like a pun you did a mashup pun tandem costume that doesn't there's no overlap for them otherwise no no but it was still fun. So we were in New York at the time.

We went to a Fisher Spooner concert, and they have great Halloween concerts. And in the train on the way in, my section of the train was going, Kenny G, Kenny G. And in the bathroom at the Fisher Spooner concert, this guy basically peed himself looking at me next to me in the bathroom at the fisher pursuers concert this guy basically peed himself looking at me next to me in the stall which is a little bit awkward a little extreme i have to admit a little bit awkward but uh even though i didn't win um it was a competition between the gates

you remember the gates it was a art installation in new york at the time the orange the guy who does like, he like covers things in paper or covers things. And, and you know, you know, that guy Cristo, I think his name is, um,

he had done a thing in New York where it was just these big orange gates. And someone went as a big orange gate. Um, it was very of the time, I guess. And then the, uh, I think the guy who won was the sweep the leg Johnny guy.

And he looked really, I mean, he really looked like the guy. He got it, yeah. Yeah, he just really looked like him. So they didn't pick me to go on stage, but when somebody peed himself in the bathroom, I felt like, you know. Honorable mention. I did okay today. Honorable mention. That's what that was. Yeah. himself uh in the bathroom i felt like you know honorable mention okay today the honorable mention

yeah uh i think my best i don't have anything that was that creative but there was one year halloween is a big deal in madison uh on campus it's one of the many many excuses at the university for people to drink way too much but they have a big block party on state street and that's turned into some concerts in recent years anyway so one year as an undergrad i really half-assed getting a costume and i went to i don't know party city or whatever the supply store was that had the stuff too late i went the morning of halloween and i walked into the back corner of the store where the clearance stuff was. I was really, really half-assing this. And they had a SpongeBob SquarePants costume, which was actually a pretty good pull.

This was like 2004, 2005. So SpongeBob's still very relevant back then. Probably will always be relevant in some way. It was a children's large, if I remember correctly. And it was like this foam sponge if i remember correctly and it was like this you know foam sponge with full sponge bob on it barely didn't fit it didn't fit it was about 15 bucks i thought that's a steal 15 i could wear this sponge bob for multiple years so i bought it and i brought it home and i realized my my arms weren't even going to fit through the arm holes. So I had to rip the arm holes bigger,

which I've never had to do in my life because I do not have massive arms. You've seen me in person. I have normal skinny arms. And it turned out okay, actually, because one, everybody was wasted. So no one really noticed how awkwardly it fit. And by the time I got out at 10 11 o'clock it was more just like hey spongebob everyone loved it the costume was destroyed because i thought i could use it as an actual sponge while wearing it i was trying to clean up from the party we were having so i was

just kind of like rolling around like we had a beer pong table and there's water and beer spilled all over it and i just thought thought, no problem, guys. I got this. And I kind of did like this rolling maneuver to soak it all up, which worked really well in the moment. Now, in the moment, I thought I was a genius. I found the costume the next day and realized, whoa, that's garbage now.

But I had a good time. I got probably $15 worth of cleaning supplies out of the costume and, you know, a lot of high fives and laughs along the way, which to me, if you're measuring success with a Halloween costume that ticks pretty much all the boxes. Yeah,

that's, that's pretty good. I guess my second place was Bob Ross. I throwed my hair out and, and just had like a little palette and was like, I kept talking about, he always talked about bushes. Happy little

bushes. Right, and there's a few colors on the palette that are very distinct Bob Ross colors. But he always, they were happy or they were sad or like he would like always anthropomorphize his bushes and his trees. Yeah.

Well, Hey, all right. So I think I lack features that make it easy for me to be a distinct famous person as a costume on my own. The best I can do, the famous person that people say I look like once in a while, is I'll get a Tony Romo if I'm wearing a backwards hat. You have to cut off my hairline. My hair is not totally different than his, but it's not his. If I throw on a backwards hat, it's, oh, that's Tony Romo on the sidelines. That's what he looks like. You can probably get there cheap to get a little Romo jersey.

Get a jersey and a white backwards hat. A white backwards hat and you're done. So maybe, now that he's a prominent broadcaster too, I could just throw on a suit instead and just get really excited about plays that aren't happening. I have to get my voice to be a little hoarse though, and then I can get that out there. So, all right, Halloween solved.

I know that's not the first eight minutes of the pod everyone was hoping for going into the weekend. Oh, well, it's only going to get that out there. So, all right. Halloween solved. I know that's not the first eight minutes of the pod everyone was hoping for going into the weekend. Oh, well, it's only going to get better from here. We're going to talk about... Well, what do you want to talk about? Our fantasy teams. Nobody cares about your fantasy teams, dude. Well, we're trying to learn things from our team.

So, if you'd like the floor first, you are having a great season in AL Labor. What can you tell us about it that will actually help us? You can brag as much as you want along the way. That is fine. It's beautiful because I'm three saves now from having 117 out of 120 possible points and it's been such a long time coming that and this is the record by like sort of six i think ian khan set the record last year with 110

uh so this is the record by uh by six or seven we'll see at the end of the year and i feel great about that because it took so long to get here. And now maybe I'll have something I can hold on to for a while. And when you do something like this, of course, it's 12s across the board. But the thing that had been hurting me in the past was that I always just sort of depended on my knowledge of the pitching pool to come up with pitchers. um and i always did really well in hitting with uh hewing close to my projections this year um i i i did put a little bit more money into pitching um and i also maybe figured out how to use my model the most correctly

and the thing that i like about what i did on the pitching side was instead of buying one $30 Garrett Cole or Shane Bieber, which, you know, that probably Shane, both of those guys returned a good value. I wanted to have three really good pitchers and I wanted to spend an average of 15 bucks for, uh, on my top three guys. Um, and, or maybe a little bit South of that, but, uh, in the end I got Jose Barrios, Dylan Cease and Shane McClanahan. Um, and the combined expenditure was below $45, I think. So, um, you know, that's a good trio. Jose Barrios did not have a good year, but Dylan Cease and Shane McClanahan had, had such outstanding years, uh,

that they really powered, uh, this. And I really think that that is something I can take away, which is the model is really good at looking at short sample pitchers and knowing how good they are. And so therefore, you know,

buying high on some short sample guys, therefore, you know, buying high on some short sample guys is a good move. Like a Spencer Strider next year. Like buying him as a number two next year would be similar. Wouldn't that be similar to like buying Shane McClanahan this year as a two? Similar, I think. I wonder. Not exactly in terms of what kind of pitchers they are. No, but in terms of the track record,

the excitement about ceiling, how much pitching plus loves them. Innings, workloads I think are pretty comparable. McClanahan won 23 and a third last year as a rookie, but Strider's results were better. Strider's going to carry more of a premium. Higher strikeout rate, better ratios, higher price tag.

So you think he'll go as a number one? He's not going to go as a number one. Yes, I think Spencer Strider is going to be treated as a number one starter. I was working on the 2023 rankings a little bit. They are not even close to being ready, of course. But actually, I have them right next to each other. I have Strider next to McClanahan, and I was trying to have a cage match

to figure out which one I would actually take at seven overall among pitchers. Okay, so then give me a mulligan. It's okay. It's not... No, no, no. I'm just saying, in order of finding the next season, McClanahan, give me Hunter Green.

That would be fair because I don't think he'll be treated as anything in a monoleague context. 15 bucks seems like a cap, like a ceiling. Okay. Hunter Green. Hunter Green, I think, is the Dylan Cease. Okay. That seems very doable.

I'm scrolling down in Stuff Plus. I'll find Shane. There's Shane himself. We had a little Tristan McKenzie talk in our last episode. I mean, Nick Lodolo. Lodolo could be in there for NL, yeah. Yeah. Guys that I might go the extra buck to to get to like 12 13 14 right and and really just

like believe a short sample uh season um here's one how about John Gray because he's not young and exciting but it's 116 in innings I think is where he was at 364 era 111 whip change over the course of the season where his slider changed shape. That's a decent one. It's not exactly the same thing. Or even Drew Rasmussen, a guy that you've liked for a long time.

It's not doing it for 180, but is pitching really well over nearly a full season's worth of innings. I don't know if I've got it all lined up exactly to be the same way i doubt i'll have 117 points in labor next year um oh aaron ashby another guy that stuff plus loves him didn't have great results the locations are below average but not bad uh could totally take a Dylan Cease-like jump next year. So that, I think, was good. Also, this team is a real champion

of how good Pitching Plus is for relievers because the relievers, I... So one of the tricks I pulled on this one was they took free agents out of the pool because of the lockout. So the top free agents were out of the pool. I spent like, I don't know, I think it was like $72 on Anthony Rizzo out of my free agency out of $100. And that really worked out, of course, but it also left me $28. And that really worked out, of course, but it also left me $28.

I basically remember I had a little bit more than $1 per week. It's not a lot for a full season. And so I came out of the auction because Pitching Plus is so solid. I came out of the auction with Jordan Romano as the third or fourth best, like most expensive reliever. Um, and I think I got him for like 18, 19 bucks, which I love 18, 19 bucks is where I love to buy closers. Um, I know it doesn't line up with the value on the value sheet, but that just means that I got like the third or fourth best closer. And it's really been working out with me, especially while using stuff plus, but I came out of the, out of the auction with Jordan Romano for $19,000, and Tyler Wells and Tanner Scott for $1 each.

Those are just model likes. And I got more than the dollar out of Tyler Wells, and I got more than the dollar out of Tanner Scott because I eventually dropped him because I was doing so well that i didn't want to say i didn't want the bad whip in era uh and i knew nobody could pick him up and get his saves so i got like you know 10-ish saves out of him and was like man this era is not going to be good i don't think so i just let him go um but i also then picked up uh schreiber and i picked up jorge lopez in my first free agency period for one dollar that's pretty good um because pitching plus said this is going to be

a good reliever you know he's going to be a good reliever so i picked up him and dylan tate for a buck each and eventually dropped tate but so i think uh you think what I like is getting one really good reliever that is not the most expensive reliever. So I still like that idea. And then supplementing it with relievers that the model really likes. I think that has been a good approach for me this year. I think one of the tough things about thinking this way,

this is a good way to think about how to build a roster is you still need to have the pivots. You still need to have the, what if this happens? Because that group of closers you trust that will go in that range is actually still a pretty small group. And it might happen where other people trying to execute the same strategy in the moment,

push the extra couple dollars onto those players that you have in the 16 to 19 range, and they go 20 to 23. And you run through that problem where you say, okay, the first guy, I'm not going to pay 20, 21. Second guy goes for the same. And then the third one's the last one. And if you don't decide in the moment, or if you don't like the third one as much as the first two, you don't get that piece that you want. Then you have to decide, okay, what's the other thing I can do if my first plan doesn't work? I think that's, to me, it's a really important part of the planning process. It really is. And even though among starting pitchers, I liked, so I got, I have the numbers down in front of me, Shane for 15, Cease for 18, Barrios for 22. So it was a

little bit more than 45, but I do still like spending at that level for starting pitchers because those are they're going to pitch. You know, it's not, there's not the risk that they get sent back down. You know what I mean? Those guys are going to pitch. With relievers, the mid-range is

awful. I really do think it's awful. You know what I mean? Like like buying an eight dollar closer in a loan oh yeah mark melanson was awesome for me this year right that's is was that kind of like an eight dollar and i'll only close it was my i have to go cheap on saves because i spent too much on other stuff in my biggest auction oh it'll be fine because they'll just let him get 30 saves even though he's not good anymore it's like like, no, no, that the Mark Melanson problem I experienced this year is the, it's kind of like what I described with Merrifield back during draft season, where I said in previous

years, I didn't believe, and I didn't believe, and I didn't believe, and I was wrong. I took L's in like three consecutive seasons on Whit Merrifield. So then this year I decided maybe I'm just wrong about Whit Merrifield. I like him now. Shocker. I warned everyone. I'm in on Merrifield now, so it's probably going to stop working. It stopped working. So four L's. I changed sides and still lost again in year four on Whit Merrifield. Hey, sometimes you just got to stick to your guns, dude. I know. But in the moment when I was scrambling for saves, I told myself that story. Well, they brought him in because they needed an established closer and they have a lot of uncertainty in that bullpen.

No, they brought him in at a low price because nobody else in the league thought he was good enough to help their bullpen. That's what happened. That's the truth. Accept it. Like, I just, oh, so. I will not stop being mad about that until the end of next season when I have a chance to right my wrongs. It's going to take me so long to get over that.

I mean, the major league teams get it wrong sometimes, but their free agency price is actually a pretty good sense of how valued they are by the league. If they confirm something that you yourself already thought, you should probably not push back against that. There's other things to push back against, plenty of things to go your own way on. That was a time to stick to your own beliefs because they've been supported by what the market did.

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Somebody pointed out that I did give a bold prediction for Nate Lowe for 30 homers and made sure I bought him in AL labor and have profited off of my $14 Nate Lowe. He's not going to make it to the 30 homers, but especially in AL only, a 305 average uh with 25 homers and 75 rbi by the end of the season hub 75 um i think that's uh that was a good buy and what i like about nate lowe is again it's not um it's not buying bobby what's another what what's a young guy that didn't even really register that people were buying early in the season? Was there anybody?

Torkelson? Yeah, it's not buying Torkelson where there's just no track record and you're just hoping. It's buying someone who has some track record and thinking they might take a step forward and thinking that the job is pretty much there for them. So I like having a good floor with a little bit of ceiling above that. That's what I bought. That's why I bought Nate L lowe for 14 hunter dozier for nine that's not very exciting

but you know he played all year 12 homers four steals you know steven kwan in reserve uh josh nailer for a dollar uh brandon marsh for seven none of these guys you know especially if you play like a 12 team you're, why are you listing these guys? But in AL only, they all played. They all got more than 400 ABs. And they all contributed double-digit homers and steals. So that was a big part of it. The last part I want to say off this team is Jose Altuve was my second baseman.

And that just fits into what we've been saying about how elite players have slightly different aging curves and that there is some value to be had. Jose Altuve for $25 means that I bought him basically like a third rounder in ale only. And he gave me 28 homers and 18 steals, the 297 average. that's your paul

goldschmidt you know from previous episodes yeah uh that was my that was my paul goldschmidt of the of the year so the paul goldschmidt ward goes to jose altuve yeah so in past years i've been more aggressive about having at least one star and sometimes even two in deep leagues. I'll spend 30 plus on multiple players, two position players and an ace. You do that more than me. You do that more than me. You go higher.

I've historically done that a lot and I backed off it a little bit this year and I did. But you've won using that approach. I've won playing that way and I think my range of outcomes was wider playing that way. I think I could also finish eighth a lot easier. If you ain't first, you're last. I think so.

I think that was the way I played it for a long time. But I still, my thinking is that there's probably diminishing returns on stars and scrubs. If more people play that way, you're fighting for the same players. So then the top end gets pushed up even higher and you're all want the same two dollar you've all identified the end game players you like so it just becomes trickier to play at both ends of the pool at a certain point when the room shifts enough that way and i've seen enough of the leagues i mean i think mixed out the 15 team auction is probably the first of the leagues I play in where it was clear that people largely were trying to execute the same game plan I wanted to execute.

And I got away from it this year to the most extreme degree there. And it worked. That looks like probably the team that is all around the most successful to a couple of trades to balance it out because I went so heavy with bats and pretty light with arms. But all of that is to say, I think you need to be willing to play to what is happening in the room when you're playing in an auction setting. I did a little bit of that here where I missed out on Jose Ramirez and I probably should have gotten the extra dollar. And so I did make a mistake on this team. I bought Kyle Tucker for $38, which is really pushing. That made him the second or third most expensive player in the pool. What happened was I saw after Kyle Tucker,

oh man, if I don't get Kyle Tucker, my number one player is going to be Eloy Jimenez or Luis Robert. I was just like, I just see more risk there. Kyle Tucker is just, it seems like a high floor guy that could go 30, 30 this year. He's going to be short of it. 29 homers, 25 steals, probably not going to be the, you know, top three player in AL only. But it shows you can still make a mistake, but make the right move in a way. You know what I mean? Because I was just reading the room and I was like, I want one of those top players. I've played the middle too much and ended up third in this league.

I don't want third. So I went to 38 on Kyle Tucker and felt really weird about it afterwards. But he's part of this team. He did a good job. I don't know if he returned me 38 bucks, but I'm happy with it. The shape of the player pool and other variables are important too and this isn't unique to auctions i think if you're in a snake draft and depending on your draft position especially if you're near one of the ends a lot can change with the board between turns and everything you do if you're

trying to have a balanced team in a rotisserie league, everything you end up doing needs to get you to your targets in the end. And the cost of early closers might be established hitters or upper end starting pitchers. There's always a cost to the decision that you make. So I'm looking at, you know, on the flip side, right? Your AL labor team is kind of a, hey, I did this. This worked really well. I'm going to try and do most of these things again. Situations allow me to do them again. My TGFBI team was an exercise in how much of this do I want to avoid in the future? How many things should I

be doing differently compared to this particular build? I'll see if I can get the draft on the screen. It's a little tiny if you're watching us on YouTube, but it's doable. Curious if you can look at that grid and if you could tell me which of those teams you think belongs to me. You seem like you did poorly, but I'm not going to give you the Tatis team. I think that would be a hard one to take a bunch of lessons away from. I think it's some... Well, there's a little bit of a giveaway, but...

Oh, is it injury starters? Oh, is it the Tatis team with Freddy Peralta? It is not. Oh. I don't think you would have taken Hendricks as your first starting pitcher. I would not.

Is it the Harper one with Ray as your first starting pitcher? Nope. So you didn't wait on... Oh, no. It's the Mookie Betts one with Romano as your first pitcher. It's not. That team actually, I think, was pretty good this year. I mean, that's Betts, Alvarez.

I just thought maybe it was because you waited too long on pitching. Nah, so I had team five on the screen. I started with Juan Soto. I started safe. I took the safe player at five. I was happy. Jumping up and down when Juan Soto made it to me there. Walker Buehler in the second.

There were some caution signs on the skills front with Buehler, but he broke, so that didn't help. Hayter in the third. That was the early, early closer. Yeah, just didn't do what I expected him to do. Olsen was fine in the fourth. Springer in the fifth. That was probably fine.

Jonathan India hurt in the sixth. Jack Flaherty in the seventh hurt. Ooh, as your second starting pitcher. Both your top two pitchers broke. I should have seen that. Trent Grisham in the eighth. That's just a bad choice. Gleiber in the ninth.

He's been okay, but I don't know. That didn't turn out quite the way I expected it to. Blake Trinan in the tenth. I mean, he got hurt. Well, he didn't get hurt until after they traded for Craig Kimbrell. Kimbrell's what ruined his value. So that pick ended up being a waste. Brian Hayes hasn't hit for power.

So that didn't work. Severino, fine. That was a good pick. Sonny Gray, 13th round. That's fine. Lux in the 14th. He had a good year, but that pick should have been used for something else. Conforto.

Conforto we didn't even play. Vasquez. Vasquez, Murphy, actually, that's the one part I like. Good job on the catchers. Yeah. Good job on cheap catching I've been staring at this team a few times and I think maybe you should have invested more in starting pitching

probably because I only had two starting pitchers let's say you take in Buehler and then you take in somebody ahead of Flaherty even if Buehler breaks then the second guy could have been your ace yeah I got really fixated on those hitter values in rounds 4 through 6

probably because I took Hayter in the third. And everybody else was taking relievers in 4 through 6. Yep, so I pushed for the best of the best reliever on my board at the highest possible price. It backfired. But sometimes you can look at like, oh, there's so much value on these hitters in 4 through 6.

Maybe I should take something else and let that value sit out there and get and let it sit some longer and there's still a bunch of value that means the next round i'll still get more value i'll still get somebody that's good so i like to think that if justin verlander was we're still there in the eighth i would have taken a third starting pitcher instead of trent grisham but i also had a shot at carlos rodan Rodon and Shane McClanahan with that pick and didn't do it. So that's the killer. The pick that could have at least made this team

a top five team in the league, McClanahan for Grisham would be a pretty big swap. Because you can't. I mean, injuries happen. I think we talked about Jack Flaherty earlier this season. Maybe that was poorly assessing the injury risk that he brought and being willing to take on a starter in a spot where frankly i needed

someone who didn't bring those concerns maybe maybe that maybe i mean you darvish would have been a great pick there darvish went a few picks later that could have worked so part of retracing my steps here is is the closer thing up at the very top early round three how much of that was kind of random bad luck and how much of that was self-imposed because you did this because you went starter reliever in two and three now you're locked in on hitting values four through six. And because of that, you ended up a little bit light with starting pitching depth. Maybe, maybe some, maybe there's a small tweak there.

Maybe there's a wholesale change there, but I've, I've been hesitant to want to go into next season, targeting the elite of the elite relievers in snake drafts because of how early they were going at the end of 2022. Here's what happens when you don't do that, when you don't target an elite reliever in snake drafts. I'm second in my main,

and I'm not saying this is a cautionary tale or anything, but because second and main events are very hard. And I ended up sixth in saves. So I found my way to 55 saves. Gosh, I wish I had gotten 10 more. That would have made me third. 10 more saves. And this is how my draft started.

Tucker, Machado, Real Muto. Uh-oh, Eno doesn't have a starting pitcher. Really good call, though. Already really nervous. Please, Zach Wheeler. Please, Zach Wheeler. Drop to me. Drop to me.

Drop to me. We'd just gotten news that Zach Wheeler had thrown a bullpen and was on track to maybe miss one start. Zach Wheeler in the fourth. All right. But Zach Wheeler, the fourth. All right. But Zach Wheeler, that's the late ace. Joe Musgrove in the fifth. Now, I like that. That's something I want to, I want to keep that nervousness with me next year. I want to, even if I take a first pitcher

in the top three rounds, I still want to be nervous about pitching. I want to manufacture nervousness about starting pitching next year so that even if I get the guy I wanted to to fall to me, I don't say, oh, well, I got Zach Wheeler. I can wait a couple rounds for my next pitcher. No, you know what? My right-ranking say Joe Musgrove's a top 12 pitcher. Let's get him in here too. So that was really, really really important this is one of my few nfbc leagues where i'm not short on k's i've streamed in all of them and try to get two started pitching all of them all year been trying to work on k's and a lot of those leagues i'm low on k's this one i'm not because i took two top pitchers i mean it makes total sense when you think of it that way oh yeah duh you invested in it and you did well in it um so that part was good however you notice i have not mentioned a reliever yet

so when i took musgrove i was like you know who's left on the board romano i think it was i think it was that was the musgrove pick as romano and gallegos are on the board i don't really want gallegos i do want romano but i want mus Musgrove more. So I took the leap of faith that if I take Musgrove, one of those two will be available. Worst case, I get Gallegos. Romano, Gallegos, go. And I think they were even second relievers for some of those guys. So that's why I thought maybe they'll make them back around the turn.

So now I'm totally depressed. I go Jonathan India, blah. Christian Yelich, all all right dancy swanson yeah he put together a pretty good season so i'm depressed that i didn't get one of my top guys and i've just let some other relievers go because i'm just like whatever i don't care about world as chapman that might have been okay but my number one reliever was david bednar no i was going well until he got hurt yeah and he was pretty good but uh because because i was then was like well david bednar is not enough and i gotta i gotta so then

i had to invest some more uh and pushed gregory soto now gregory soto did okay for me too um but i came out of the draft with my relievers were david bednar gregory soto and i thought i brought i got bought tyler wells and tyler rogers at the end as uh some shots at it but you got two clear closers crazy that i ended up still sixth and saves the threshold for saves seemed a little bit lower again this year so i don't think it's a big argument for me to be like, oh, I need a closer in the second or third. But I do need a closer before the eighth. Yeah.

Yes, right. Again, numbers between three and eight, consider them. Exist. Yeah, that's the part. So there's so many strategies where're like i'm doing this like well you could do just a little less than that and that might work really well you could do a little bit less than that i want three aces in the first three rounds like try two two two would be good pretty good hitter if you did that think about two is an option it's there

i'm guilty of this i've done this much more in the past where I'm like, this is my strategy and I will execute my strategy because it's important to have a game plan and it's more important to execute that game plan. It's like, no, have multiple game plans and be capable of executing each of those because the one you want probably isn't going to happen exactly the way you want. Other people in the room know what they're doing. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that is the root cause of coming up short in this main because my general strategy was wait on pitching, trust your model, still invest, still get Wheeler and Musgrove in the top five rounds, but wait on pitching, trust your model,

and I waited just a little bit long. I wonder how much better this team would have been if I let Musgrove go, he gets back to me, and I go Romano-Musgrove. Wheeler-Romano-Musgrove means I don't take India. It means Glyber Torres is probably my second baseman. Okay, he's healthy at least. If you take that route, let's just say Musgrove does go,

but you ended up with Romano instead, that's still a net positive because more likely than not, with your strength as a player, you're finding someone similar to Musgrove later on. Oh, and what I want to know now is where I took Musgrove, what is the next picture I would have taken if I let him go? Okay, so Romano goes around the turn, I remembered correctly. So if Musgrove had gone then my next pick

so after that so then I have to look for who's available after I go I take Romano instead of Musgrove and then Musgrove goes Berrios I might have ended up with Berrios see okay so that could have been

a different path to the same same ceiling if I had been lucky Okay, so that could have been a different path to the same ceiling. If I had been lucky and the Rodon guy got him, I might have gone Romano Rodon. But I think also, if you say, there's two closers left in the pool that I like a little bit, and I like one way better than the other,

and there's now like eight picks before I pick again. Take Romano. Yeah, take the play. If there's a big drop off with the closers, take the better closer. There's a drop off after Gallegos where you're just like, I don't even want the guy after Gallegos. And I want Romano way more than Gallegos. Then take Romano. I think that's the right way to play.

But I also think more people playing that way is what keeps pushing prices higher and higher on closers. Keeps inflating even more than what we've seen. But you've got to play in the pool you're given. Yeah, if you play

in this vacuum of value where I can't. It's an $18 player. It's round four. I can't take an $18 closer here because there's a $23 hitter. So I'm taking the $23 hitter. Well, guess what?

Now you're going to have a $6 reliever that you took. Now David Bednar is your number one reliever. And everyone thought I reached on Bednar. So you're going to reach at some point, right? I guess then the devil's advocate argument would be, well, do you want to reach in rounds three, four, or five? Or would you rather just reach in like round eight, nine, or ten? Round nine, yeah.

Because the cost of missing in eight, nine, or ten. That was exactly my thinking. But Romano in round five, is that a one-round reach? And Bednar in round nine might have been like a three-round reach. Compared to what, though? Part of our value constructs are... Are like universal, and then you're in one draft. And we're talking about NFBC and main event leagues

that are a smaller portion of that compared to a broader universe. Even the whole universe of NFBC. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And even within NFBC, main is like its own little subculture. Then there's late March versus beginning of draft season. There's all those wrinkles.

It's just, you know, I don't think we identify quickly enough how much the micro market, I guess we'll call it, is just different. The best players get it, but for less experienced players trying to play in these events, and I think I qualify as a less experienced player in this particular field, that's a tough lesson to learn. Treat yourself to Tim's new Fudge Brownie Lattes, made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears.

Available hot or iced, only at Tim's. One other thing that is interesting in these leagues is, A, in my main that ended up second, I made a lot of mistakes. Joey Votto in the 10th. We're talking about sort of the Bednar Soto thing. Marcus Stroman in the 12th is all right. I think he actually made it all the way through the rest of the season.

But then, you know, oh, okay. So these are not that many mistakes. Hmm, interesting. Well, Luis Patino, I went on a string of Luis Patino, Mike Yastrzemski, Max Sassi, Cesar Hernandez, Mike Moustakis, Luke Weaver, Reverson Martin. Don't stress that much about rounds like 20 to 30. Take guys that have a great amount of ceiling and will tell you something early in the season and drop them quickly. Because rounds 20 to 30, not very many of them make it with you to the end of the season. drop them quickly because rounds 20 to 30 not very

many of them make it to with you to the end of the season yeah that's a really good point i'm laughing a little bit because on the tgfbi team i was just talking about a few minutes ago my 20th round pick julio rodriguez oh but he didn't make it with you i mean he made it he was on my team oh no he did yeah he's on the team the team was such a disaster it's like but you made that one great pick you crushed it in the 20th round you survived catchers you did uh 12 of the things right that you need to do to have a good competitive team so that's uh terrific look at this look at the bottom of this roster working from the bottom adrian hauser must have been streaming that's the only explanation. AJ Puck,

Reversan Martin, Kestad Hira, Josh Lowe, Nick Senzel, Anthony Bender, Mike Moustakis, Kyle Lewis. Did any of those guys play this year? Yeah, but don't beat yourself up over those. Those are free kicks at the can to do well, to find

players that you identified. You did miss the kicks. I missed all over on the bottom of this team. Usually I hit in the bottom. But you got Julio Rodriguez in that group. I mean, yeah. Here's a beginning that I really like. I ended up second in TGFBI in my league. And I went Betts, Woodruff, Simeon, Goldschmidt, Musgrove, Romano.

That's a really good start. That's what I want to try. That's how I want to start again. I want to get one starting pitcher in the top three. I like the old first baseman who drops. I love that I doubled up on the pitching and got Musgrove and Woodruff. I love that

I got Romano. My mistakes there were more in the middle rounds, I guess, or maybe in management or whatever. How much do you beat yourself up over a second place finish? I don't know. Before we started recording, I was throwing this at you from a long-term league perspective too because in XFL, it's a 15-team keeper league, very tough league.

It's been around for a while. I've been in the league. I think this is my fifth season I've been a part of it. It's been a little bit of a rebuild. And this year, back in mid-May, I looked at my team and I looked at their teams in the league. And I thought it was good enough to make a run. So I made a bunch of trades, traded some young players, traded away some draft picks, tried to make a run for this year. And I'm going to finish no closer than 10 points out of first.

Like, it's just not. I was never close enough in the second half to actually make more trades but if i finish second which is possible one point between me and second place right now that seems like a pretty good year i mean this league is this is an industry league where there's no money attached but think about a typical league where second place gives you a few hundred bucks. Usually that's good. You'd feel really good about that. And I think in keeper leagues, we have the flags fly forever. If you, you mortgage your future in some way to play for now,

either at the win or it was a disappointment. And I'm not sure that's entirely true because again, there are 14 other people in this league that are all trying just as hard as I am to win in the long run. So it's not easy to win. And I think measuring success with a top two, top three finish is still appropriate in this case. Yeah. And yeah, yeah. I think this is important for fans as well. I'm not World Series robust. I'm not big on that, fan-wise.

I feel like if you're the Padres, man, you make the postseason this year, and they won't win the World Series, there's got to be some love in that season for you. It's been a tough road for a while to just even get back to the postseason maybe you can say like this is step one but um i think what makes it tough in our leagues is um we're i would say generally the the great way to go and win dynasty leagues is

mostly to fade prospects and to try and win now uh and people overvalue prospects and overvalue youth i think generally um however when you look at the stars of the game the very top stars of the game so many of them were top prospects you know and so if there's just any way that you can hold on to somebody that might be a top five prospect and sell everything else that's the kind of that's the golden rule i'm trying to the the sort of threading the needle as the gm say that's the threading the needle i'm trying to get to because you know you will find like i have in Rejects, that sometimes the middle ground just ends you up at sort of 7th to 3rd. We kind of bounce around from 7th to 3rd every year because we're always constantly selling prospects and trying to win.

And that cycle has not netted us any of the top 10 prospects. Like we had another year where we're gonna end up seventh or sixth and uh we have a decent team but it's getting older and um our top prospects are matt mervis uh matt mervis and that's well hold on let me find another one. Matt Mervis, a junior Caminero. I don't know. I don't even know who that is really. Spencer Steer just graduated. So yeah, our top prospects were Matt Mervis and Spencer Steer.

So it's just one of those things where over the course of the year, you sell and you sell and you sell, and you just don't have a top prospect. Now, do you, i just don't have the stomach sometimes like we do sell at the end of the year we'll sell you know we're out of it and we'll sell a guy but we'll sell you know a reliever and you know an old outfielder and just try and get you know a couple guys and really what i should do is uh next year consider selling ozzy albies you know and jtl ramundo and maybe even putting them in a package and being like

hey i'm gonna put together ozzy albies and jtl ramundo and i want your corbin carroll and you know another couple of really good prospects. And that seems to really work for some people. I've never had the stomach to do it. Like, for example, in my auto new leagues, I had one of the worst years and I should have probably sold Trey Turner. And who's my other, I don't know. I should have sold Treyy turner instead i sold around the edges uh and i did manage to put together a prospect package of i have ezekiel tovar uh robert hassell iii ellie de la cruz and pete crowe armstrong that's okay it's a 12 team league though that's it's it's it's kind of the equivalent of my of my double rejects you know prospect squad yeah um you know it's it's not like

a there's not i don't think there's a top five prospect in there i think there has to be just we've said this before you have to have a clear sense of direction in a long-term league and i just want i don't have the patience i always want to win next year i want to build a good team for this year this coming year you have to ask your questions in a different sort of way. You have to look at the quality of the teams that are trying to win right now. Are the teams that did long-term rebuilds playing for a title

this year? And can you, with older players, veteran players, the easier to acquire players in a league like that, can you compete with those teams? And how many teams are there? Is there one potential powerhouse playing for right now?

Or are there three? If there are three, I would argue that you have to play more for a future season. If it's only one, you have to consider the possibility that a couple of injuries, a couple of underperformers, a couple of things can go wrong for that team that played for the long future. Those numbers are bigger for the 20-. Even though that's like from a...

Those numbers are bigger for the 20-team league, right? Yeah, right. Yeah, sure. It's four or five teams probably in a 20-team league. And at least two at a minimum should be playing for a title that are long-term builders. Should be like two potential super teams in a 20-team league if you're assuming a usual sort of group of players. But I do think the number of teams contending right now that have that long-term rebuild that should probably help you decide if it's time to play for a future year or if you should keep at playing for the current ones it's

not easy because in xfl doug dennis just to use this league as an example again 15 team league and it's a league that uses salaries so you know minor league players that you had or traded for increase really slowly so he has this core bo bichette rafael devers acuna tatis eloy jimenez jeez albies and he's got prospects now to 15 team league 15 team league so he's it's a really well-built team. Obviously, there were a lot of injuries within that group this year. So this was not a year where I think he expected to contend and quickly realized, nope, I've got to get some more future value and I'm going to go for it again next year. The pitching, I think he might have had older pitching that he traded away because the pitching is not loaded up quite the same way.

have had older pitching that he traded away because the pitching is not loaded up quite the same way but the point is like you you can have a what looked like a juggernaut team on paper a year ago in the off season going into this season and it didn't end up playing out that way which is wild but if you see two or three teams that are like that you're probably better off if you see two or three teams that are like that, you're probably better off looking to a future window a year or two down the road. If your own core, you know, is older and not nearly as deep as something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, there's always a league dynamics. Like we've been saying earlier about other leagues, like, um,

you know, in devil's rejects, uh, like I, it's very low likelihood that the guy with Corbin Carroll would even give me Corbin Carroll. You run into that problem a lot of times too. Even if I did offer up JT Romulo and Ozzy Alves, they might be like, nah.

But their situation, just because they've got one of the best prospects in baseball, they might be a year or two away. So Making that trade right, the timing has to work and the willingness has to be there. They have to see enough value in what you're offering to be willing to trade a player like that. All those conditions have to be right. Maybe rightfully so because of the long-term value and all those factors. But if the league as a whole is too clingy to prospects, then maybe you should play it the way you are, where you're always trying to play for right now. Because if you're consistently finishing top six, top seven out of 20 teams and you've been even getting as high as third, all it's going to take is the year where a couple of extra injuries couple things break your way and you end up winning and you didn't you didn't wait three years of not contending to get that chance which i think is a lot more fun if you can just keep playing keep playing if you have to tear it down then accept it and do it the right way but the first if you gave me a choice what would you

rather do i'd rather be in the position you described where I can just keep trying to find long-term value but also play more for now because that's the best way I can play. Yeah, it's been a tough year for me in my Dynasty Leagues just generally and I

think I might need I'm going to take at least one of them and be like, okay, I'm going to take at least one of them and be like, okay, I'm going to try a full rebuild over here. Just one of them. It's a special set of skills, I think. I mean, Tom Trudeau is the name that comes to my head every single time when I think about someone who's...

He's always buying and selling. But he's... He does a good job of it. It's a volume thing, too. It's just being willing to... And I can't... I don't have the time in my life, man. I got so many to. I don't have the time in my life, man. I got so many leagues.

I don't have the time to put together that many. I have an interesting, in Fangraph staff, I was an okay team, and then it ended up falling apart on me with Trevor Story, Marte, O'Neal, Laureano, Chris Bryant. They all just got hurt. I put together a prospect pool of Aranda, Noel V. Marte, Jordan Lawler, Eli De La Cruz,

and Miguel Vargas. Seems pretty good. They're all a dollar or two. I feel like they're all pretty close. The big thing for me is just going to be deciding on like a 30 trevor story you know you know maybe i should just maybe i should just be really aggressive and cut him even though i have a cheap austin riley a mid-priced jose ramirez as my core uh and some pretty good players around it, like maybe just cut Trevor story, get that money back and be a little bit more cutthroat,

maybe cut Chris Bryant, even though he's only 20 bucks, you know, like just, just be like an avenue, just be a little bit more like in those years where you think you're close, you keep a 25, $30 veteran that,

you know, it's going to bounce back. Cause you know, in the, in the auction, he'll go for that. But in a league where you think maybe this isn't going to be my year and I'm taking a step back, then you clean up

and you're a little bit tighter on the prices. That's sort of where I'm at right now in the decision-making process. Yeah, there's also the trade aspect of how much are you going to get back in a deal for Bryant. A healthy Bryant in the middle of next season, what is he likely to get you in a trade versus if you take that money and spread it out over a couple of roster spots, do you find more long-term keepers that way? Or do you find better players to trade that way?

Are the $10 and $12 players you potentially get back from the auction going to give you more long-term value one way or another than Bryant does via trade? And maybe I can learn a little bit by putting my $1 Josh Naylor and the $22 Chris Bryant on the trade block this offseason. That's right. There's the block. I got to play auto new. I really do.

If somebody comes to me with something interesting for Naylor, then I'd be like, okay, that's a warning sign. And nobody's talking to me at all about Chris Bryant. Even the contenders that could use a $20 CIOF. Like, I don't know. Maybe that tells me something. And I cut Chris Bryant too. I think I'm going to have, if I had 10 leagues next year,

I think I'll have Bryant on two or three teams. Colorado, man, if you just had a healthy year. Yeah, that's why he's on my team here. But yeah, I think you'd be right to throw him back. You only have 10 leagues. I'm just putting a number out there, a nice round number to give you a... I'm going to try and count here real quick. I got one, two, three, four, five, six. Oh my God, five six oh my god how many leagues do i have an nfbc so i've got six plus an nfbc i have three six seven that's 13 14 okay 14 yeah i've been trying to cut this is trying to cut 14 is trying to cut. 14 is trying to cut. I have eight NFBC.

I have two that are on Roto. I have got one more that's on RT Sports, and then I've got three on CBS. I've got 14 right now. No, I've got a Yahoo one, too. I have 15. Ah, 15. Winner.

Winner. That's right. That's right. That is actually one of the things that's uh kind of sad about experts leagues is there's this pressure to join you you like the people you know there's a you're either advocating for your site or uh it's a group maybe it'll be publicized or you know it's uh you it's always like oh join my league if it has this quirk and you're like oh that sounds interesting i could learn from that you know and then uh and then you realize oh my god i have 15 teams like how leagues how am i going to spend time on all of them and i think that's actually maybe the the the six nfbc teams are the main reason my uh my

dynasty league suffered this year could. More attention going into those, especially with the bigger buy-in for something like the main event. There's money on these things. And then also just the work of NFPC is ongoing. You have to look at it to set lineups on Fridays. So you have to look at it on Wednesday and Thursday to set lineups on Fridays.

Then you have to kind of do some in-week fab work so that you're not doing it all on Sunday. Then you have to get back to it on Sunday. Then you have to set lineups Monday. It's a lot of work for these leagues. And so you just sort of set the dynasty and you're like, oh, I'll look at those on Tuesday or something. And then on Tuesday, you're like, well, I actually have some work to do. Tuesday or something. And then on Tuesday, you're like, well, I actually have some work to do. So I've started to wonder about this in the last couple of years because I've been lucky enough,

I got invited to Tout Wars, I think about 10 years ago now. So I've been in it for a little while. I've been in labor for nearly as long and had some success in both of those leagues. I kind of wonder, what keeps me coming back every year, given all those other factors, right? I mean, life gets busier. We play other formats. You play leagues for money. You start to decide, I don't want to spend as much time on fab anymore because I have other parts of my life that I feel like on Sunday afternoon, I'd like to go do this instead. Whatever that thing is. It could be pickleball. It could be spending time with family.

There's no right or wrong answer. So what motivates you? What keeps you coming back to a league like that? For me, so far, it's just been I know other people have won three, four, five, six times in some of those leagues. So I keep coming back because if I play long enough, maybe I can win three, four, five, six times. But okay, so what if I match them someday? What if I catch Larry Schechter or Tristan Cockcroft or Fred Zinke or Derek Carty? Anybody who's won those leagues more than I've won them, what happens if I do pass them?

Do I just say, I'm good now? I mean, it's a little bit like the, it's the Tom Brady problem. I'm talking about the players. Yeah, it's like, what now? I mean, professional sports in our lifetime, this is, to me, Tom Brady might be the best example of the, dude, like, why are you still doing this? Like, what do you have left to prove compared to anybody else? It's like, you know, why, you know, why with AL Labor well in hand uh am i still trying to get uh that 117th point out of 120 right because i want to set a record that will stand so there's some of it is

legacy building you know we want to build on your legacy some of it is uh manufactured naysayers we're like well some people will say it's just because i got anthony rizzo and fab and it was a weird year uh and so i got to prove them wrong and win in a normal year um you know some of it is community yeah it's that that's to me that's the other part of it labor we go usually i mean we haven't in a little bit because of circumstances but uh usually we hang out and uh and i really enjoy seeing some of the people that I see at labor feel uh that i wish there was a little bit more active community uh at the same time my i've got a bunch of second and third place finishes in those so uh much more likely for me to want to win it and quit it than to than to just uh admit defeat you know so i'm still searching for my first auto new win, which is awful to admit. Still love the the the the the platform and still feel like I can do it.

But I I haven't yet tried the full rebuild. So I think it'll be an auto new that I try one of those full rebuilds. I think the friendship is, in this case, the other part of all of this. That's like, well, I don't even think twice about it. I play in these leagues any chance I get because of that. I have also thought after a certain number of years, given that there's a very limited number of spaces in these leagues,

if you've had your turn for X number of years, should you consider giving up your spot and letting someone else play in that league? Just because, why should I be in the league for 25 years? Like that doesn't seem i'm not criticizing anyone who's been there from the beginning no i mean i think about it in terms of labor because it's me and ian connor you know two guys from the athletic you know and i've been in there for 10 plus sure yeah but yeah one per one per site we're already represented you know like

maybe i should just take a step back so well i know all the things that cross my mind this time of year. It's exciting, of course. If you're playing for a championship this weekend, good luck as you battle it out. It's not just this weekend. It's into next week. That's so weird. I'm so used to that first Monday coming out of the weekend.

It's like three days next week. Oh, and my keeping Julio Rodriguez worked out. I was beating myself up over that, thinking it was just sentimentality. And he's coming back Monday. Hey, see, it's all coming up, you know, right now. Kind of. Let's not talk about all the misses. Well, we'll get to those. That's what October is for.

That's right. We're going to do some reviews. We're going to do hits and misses by position is going to be what we do during the playoffs. I think that matches up well with, uh, you know, adding some extra news,

but during the playoffs. Yeah. So that is what we have coming up around the corner. Good luck the rest of the way. We will have an episode early next week. I don't know if we've settled on an off season schedule. It's going to be probably one a week for October. So it might be Tuesday instead of Monday.

We'll talk about that, but you'll get an episode from us next week. You've got a question for a future episode. Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com is the email address. On Twitter, Eno is at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Riper. If you don't have a subscription to The Athletic and you'd like to get one, they're a dollar a month for the first six months at

theathletic.com slash Rates and Barrels. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you next week. Thanks for listening