Rates & Barrels - Preferred 2021 draft positions, keeper league strategies, Tatis v. Soto, and ditching saves completely

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss their preferred draft positions (KDS) based on the unique shape of the 2021 player pool, before discussing keeper and dynasty league strategies, Fernando Tatis Jr. vs. Juan Soto, possibility eliminating the saves category, and more! Rundown 4:09 Preferred Draft Slots (KDS) 21:18 Keeper League Startup Strategy 33:06 Open Player Universe Considerations 39:59 How to Approach Keeper Leagues w/Diluted Player Pools 44:43 Tatis vs. Soto as a Keeper Dilemma 51:00 Is This the Peak in Tatis’ Keeper/Dynasty Value? 56:36 Positional Priorities in Draft Tools 60:43 When Are We Going to Ditch Saves? 63:54 Ranking For Job Security Over Skills w/Closers Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Please fill out our listener survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/athleticaudiosurvey Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/month to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Wednesday, February 24th. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris on this episode.

We look at some draft strategy topics. We're going to talk about KDS. Where do you want to be in the draft order? You get to choose your own draft slot in 2021. How do you make that decision and where do you want to be? We have a lot of keeper and dynasty questions and a few follow-ups coming off of our relief pitcher preview episode that went down on Monday. So a lot to get to today. Eno, how's it going for you on this Wednesday? It's good. I had two really weird thoughts

while walking the dogs today one is a dog walk forced calisthenics i've never stopped to think about that i think they like it i think it's okay but sometimes on the colder side you kind of wonder uh and you like you you tug them a couple times too much you're like are they enjoying? Second, and this is a little bit even weirder, if we are in the apocalypse, you should probably eat the dogs early because then you can eat their

dog food. That's awful, dude. Just awful. Yes, this is where my mind was this morning. At least one thought was sympathetic towards a dog. The second was probably when I got annoyed at them barking at somebody. You have a very different relationship with your dogs than I do with mine. That thought has never crossed my mind. I did think, my weird thought of the day, since we're just

unpacking everything, is I stepped outside for a morning dog walk. I did think... My weird thought of the day, since we're just unpacking everything, is I stepped outside for a morning dog walk. I had to walk down to the coffee shop today. I haven't done that probably since October. There's a coffee shop in my neighborhood. It's awesome that I can walk there. The ice close broke apart. Yeah, right. We only almost fell like

five times. You could actually see concrete to get there. My thought was that there's a glitch in the simulation that I am being Truman showed because I have a few neighbors who only walk by when I am going outside. And it's two different sets of neighbors. They're just waiting for you to come out. It's one or the other every time. There's the people that live in my building that just don't acknowledge us as people. You could say hello to them and they just would pretend like you didn't say anything.

Their dog is cool. Their dog's quiet. So no problem there. And then there's this older couple that has somehow two poodles. I don't know why they have two. The dogs are not trained at all. And they're bigger than my dog

and they bark at Hazel all the time and basically try to fight her every time they walk by. Even if we're not outside, their dogs will pull into our yard at our window and start barking at Hazel while she's laying on the couch or laying on the bed. So I think there's a simulation glitch because when they're not there,

it seems kind of weird because they're always there. So those are our weird thoughts. That's what happens when you walk a dog enough times, you start thinking about weird stuff. I've never thought about eating one. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we should eat

I'm glad you're clarifying that because that's probably going to end up on a Roto-Wear shirt. There's already a shirt of you stabbing our friend Justin Mason. I didn't even say anything about Justin. I don't harbor any say anything about Justin.

I don't harbor any ill will towards Justin. And yet here's this shirt of me stabbing him to death. While holding a sandwich. How cold are you? Yeah, there's like different versions. There's one with me and the sandwich, one with me and the beer. Well, I appreciate the ingenuity. Yep. I had to stop tweeting pictures of food because Kenny from RotoWare kept photoshopping Justin Mason's face into my food. And then when I would actually eat the food, I would just see

Justin floating in a bowl of soup and I couldn't do it anymore. Let's get to our first topic on that note. KDS, choosing where you are in the draft order. It's a big deal, especially if you haven't done it before. And it's important to get it right relative to how the board shapes up and what your preferences are as a player. With TGFBI drafts starting up on Monday, I figured today was a good day to bring this up because a lot of people are doing this for the very first time. And it's one of those things. A, remember to do it. And B, have an idea of what you actually want to accomplish. Because if you're lucky enough to draw one of your first choices, you should take advantage of that.

So I wanted to ask you, what do you consider as you are putting your KDS preferences together? I mean, this is the high-level analysis of what's happened in the past. you know, analysis of what's happened in the past. Errol Cohen did some of this and his findings were that the middle was slightly more beneficial than the edges. And I think that has to do with runs. You know, there can be a run on any position, closers, starters. Basically, we've talked here on the value of thinking about tiers. If you're near the end, you may see the tier end before you can pick within it. And if you're in the middle, you'll have more information every time you pick. If you pick on the end, you'll have one amount of information for two picks, right? So there's a difference in information. However, the other thing that you have to do

is practical. You have to think about the theoretical, and then you have to think about the practical and the practical has to do with how the, the shape of this year's board, the shape of the players, where players are going and what you will actually end up with for likely as a, as an example, you know, um, I am am doing a draft a draft and hold draft champions uh league and it turns out that i'm a basic biatch because if you do the adp by board uh you know you can do it actually on on on nfb, you can actually look at the board in ADP style. I went Jelic with the 12th pick, which is perfect match. Buehler in the next round, which is a perfect match. In the third round, Gallen fell to me, which was like sort of a six-picked fall. I picked Gallen, got a bunch of

good picks in the draft, in the thing. Starling Marte is who I should have picked by ADP, and I did. And then I wanted to have Keston Hura in the fifth. He didn't fall to me, so I reached three picks for Cattell Marte. And then that set off a cascade where I reached three picks for Yardon Alvarez in the next round. However, in all, I was about, you know, five picks off of being exactly what ADP would project. So I think it is valuable to look at this board and say, ooh, if I pick six and I'm likely to take DeGrom, like which bats will be available to me? Oh, it'll be Manny Machado at best case scenario and worst case

scenario, I'll be picking between like, uh, Bo Bichette and DJ LeMayhew as my second bat or Kyle Tucker. All of those seem kind of reaches in the second round for me. Um, you know, then I'll be forced into kind of a two starter double tap. Now my best bat is going to be Ozzie Albies or Eloy Jimenez. How do I feel about that? Is that how I want to start out? If I don't want to start out with a double tap ace, I better say my preferences are, you know, somewhere else. So that's sort of how I kind of thought through the process. Yeah, I think that's a great way of looking at it. And my process has changed a little bit over the years.

It's become a little more robust. When I first started playing NFBC leagues, which are the only leagues initially that I played in that had this, I think more home leagues are starting to adopt this because it's a really fair way or a more fair way to build a snake draft order. Just because you hit the random button doesn't mean everybody's happy. You can actually make people a little happier if you randomize choosing a spot and then custom making the draft order. So I would highly recommend making this modification if you're playing in a home style league where you're like, we're doing a snake and we just draw it and everyone just does what it says. You can do better and it's not that hard to do this. I think I look at it similar to how our friend Scott Jenstead over at Rotowire does

it. And Scott's a great long-term NFfbc player he looks at the first four rounds looking for where he thinks the drop-offs are with steals and starting pitching in particular which is you know unique to the current board and probably pretty unique to the boards of the last couple seasons but i think that's the type of mindset that you want because you know after the first four rounds it becomes a little more difficult to script out who's actually going to be there even within the first four rounds there's going to be more difficult to script out who's actually going to be there. Even within the first four rounds, there's going to be some movement, but I feel like you can take some more educated guesses, right? You can kind of go a process of elimination. I think if you're looking through, having that idea, like you said, of do I want two pitchers right away? Do I want

two in the first three rounds? Am I okay not being as aggressive with pitching? That dictates the order a little bit. Whether or not you like getting two picks at once, that's a factor as well. I like having two picks back to back. I think I'd rather have more control over my team by picking two players at a time than get the little increase in value that you can get by being somewhere in the middle, right? Like you can optimize value better based on the Ariel Cohen studies if you're not on an end. I feel like I'm better off just making a team two at a time because my strength is as an auction player. And I think two picks at a time is more like being in an auction than being stuck in the middle. I also feel like it's a slightly more aggressive stance than defensive, right? You know, on the edges, you can say, I'm going to create a run. in the middle. I also feel like it's a slightly more aggressive stance than defensive, right?

You know, on the edges, you can say, I'm going to create a run. I'm going to, I'm going to deplete a tier, right? Like if you don't have a shortstop and an MI and you, and you double tap, you know, uh, Hura, uh, Baez at the right moment, you know, I just sort of, I'm just guessing, but you know what I mean? Like If you do that at the right moment, you will tighten some sphincters. If you know what I'm saying. There is something to that. Generally, when I look at

the first two picks, whereas I'm actually almost two, but four makes sense. I think almost the two is the foundation that I want to think about. I like 10, 11, 12 best. I like 10, 11, 12 best. You're going to end up with Jose Ramirez, Trevor Story, Yelich.

Maybe you get Turner. You're going to get one of those bats. I like all those bats. And then the second round, you're going to get your pick from sort of Buehler, Castillo, Nola, Flaherty, Woodruff. I have Woodruff like fourth or fifth in my rankings. I might be high man, but just being able to do that, I like that. Just looking at ADP, I do also love Tatis Woodruff. If that's going to be a possibility in your league.

But I think Woodruff is rising in ADP, and I think that'll be less likely to be an option for you going forward. Yeah, I think he's going to be a late round two, maybe an early round three guy in 15-teamers pretty consistently. We're already seeing late round two, but he could creep up and be maybe a mid-second rounder in some of the higher stakes situations. I think he's going to get past Max Scherzer.

Back issues, better projections in Flaherty. I think he could hop those two. If he hops those two and it's Tatis and Flaherty, Tatis Scherzer, Soto, Scherzer.

I think I actually like 1-2-3 after I like 10-11-12. I'm trying to decide how far down in the first round I would go. I still want to be earlier rather than later first. So am I counting backwards from 5? Or am I counting

backwards from 7? I see Mike Trout in the middle of round 1 and I think, wow, it sure would be nice to have that fall into my lap. And if he doesn't fall there, Trey Turner's probably going to fall there. And if it's not Turner, maybe one of DeGrom or Cole's going to be there.

I think... Seven, eight is pretty interesting, because of that. Trout or Turner, and then you are in the middle, which supposedly is good, and then you get a higher choice. You could take Woodruff there, and nobody would blink right but you'd also choose maybe castillo or nola gets to you right so i think as it stands right now and i have not set kds for any of my leagues yet

other than draft and hold eight to one and then maybe 15 down to nine might be the way i go i i like being on the wheel, though. I don't mind being aggressive. I don't mind breaking off ADP. I don't mind setting the min pick for players. Some people aren't comfortable playing that way. Some people feel like they're overpaying. If you feel like you're overpaying and that puts you on tilt

and then you start making bad picks, stay away from the wheel. Make that your last choice if you're that kind of player. It just doesn't bother me to be in that position, but that's very much a personal preference. I know John Ligeza, our guy, MLB moving averages, loves being on the wheel, whether that's the beginning or the end of the round. He loves being there. 12-teamer, 15-teamer, doesn't matter. One other really interesting tidbit, this is from Fred Zinke on Twitter, great player in Tout Wars, laborer, plays NFPC too. tidbit. This is from Fred Zinke on Twitter. Great player in Tout Wars, labor, plays NFPC too.

ADP in the first two rounds is what he's looking at. Rounds three and four, a little, but not too much. His KDS most years, he says, is typically one to 15, but not this year. So normally he just leaves it. He just says, I want the earliest possible pick. This year he's treating differently, which I think kind of goes back to something we've said throughout this offseason. We're dealing with such a small season in 2020 that there's a lot of noise in last year's production. I think the recency bias is always a factor in how players are valued, but the recency bias is even more flawed than it usually is when we're talking about players with 60 games or less from the most recent season. So I think you can take advantage of that by being a little later in the round. And all of this is a long way of saying, like, think about the strategies. Think about how the board comes together. I would agree with Scott. Thinking about where starting pitching and speed is in particular this year is a really good way to go about it

and base your decisions on those factors. Because if I look at the back part of the round, thinking about speed for a moment, there aren't a lot of players in the three, four range that run a lot that are there. Tim Anderson's usually gone by the time you get to those last few picks in round three. So you're looking at the hitters,

the mostly corner infielders, Jose Abreu, Rafael Devers, Anthony Rendon, Nolan Arenado, Alex Bregman. I like all of those hitters. The first closers start showing up there. Yeah, you start to see the first closers getting pushed into the middle part of that round sometimes.

You're not getting speed in three and four other than maybe Starling Marte or if you want to push up Randy or Rosarena. And I think Randy is going to get pushed up in really competitive leagues and high stakes situations for that very reason. But I think if you're going to be late in round one, in terms of where you're picking, you probably need to get speed in one or two or be very comfortable either pushing up Rosarena or being very comfortable with Starling Marte. I like Marte. I think there's one more really nice year from him. Maybe it's 15 homers and 25 steals with a good average. You're not worried about playing time at all.

So where he's going, I really like him. But if I'm picking let's say 9th, 10th, or 11th in the order and going through in round 3, I don't get someone who runs and I haven't really got a lot of steals yet because I was a little aggressive with pitching early. There's a chance that Marte goes

at the end of three early part of four before it comes back to me. And if both he and a Rosal Reiner are gone, you got to have that plan B ready where you say, great, that 20 plus steals guy I thought I was getting in round four is gone. Where am I going to find those 20 steals

that I feel good about in the next few rounds? And it's possible. I think that happens with that happens a little bit with three i think so though you know as good as soda is going to be you get about 10 steals from him in the second round if you decide i need to have a pitcher here and that's totally defensible i'm feeling that way now these days is i want one a pitcher in the first two rounds uh then you're going to pass on kyle t Tucker and you're going to take Woodruff or Flaherty. Okay, now you've got 10 steals

and you're two rounds in. Third round. If Robert doesn't fall to you, then you've got to pick Albies to get those steals. Now you're pushing Albies a little bit. There's people who don't like Albies. What if you don't like Albies? Then there's no

obvious steals to take there. So you take whatever you're going to take. It comes back to you in four. Starling Marte is gone by the time you pick. Randy Rosarino is gone by the time you pick. Whit Merrifield is gone by the time you pick. So now you're going to push Grisham, maybe?

So think about steals. I think that's right. Think about steals. Think about where you want to get your steals. It's not like an auction where right think about steals think about where you want to get your steals it's not like an auction where you can just pay for steals if you want steals it's you gotta there's limited like i said there's about 18 players you want to pick from for steals and if you can identify where they are and you know that's going to be part of your kds process right if you feel good enough about the options you're going to get for your primary sources of steals in the round five to 10 range or five to 12 range, wherever those lines are for you, great. Then you're fine picking in the early part of the round, you know, going hitter pitcher

like that. Yeah. If you're going to push Buxton or you're going to push Robles, then that's fine. Then that's, that's good. That's your process. I like those players. So I'm perfectly fine relying on them as if not my main source of steals, maybe my second or third most prominent sources of steals. And I think the price on those players is really fair. So you have to sort of match how you feel about different parts of the player pool with what's likely to happen and work accordingly from there. But as I said, I think I'm more like 8-1 in terms of my preferences right now and then probably working from the back in a 12-teamer, 12 down to 9, or in a 15-teamer, 15 down to 9. The first-round pick's not the problem. There's a first-round pick that you love in every spot in the first round this year

because of the weirdness of last year. It's those next few picks where things can get pretty messy. If you want to push me dollars to donuts, baby. I don't know what that means. Let's say it. Dollars to donuts. I love both of those things. I will go.

I really think this is how I'm going to go. 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 13, 14, 15. And then back into the middle and early part? Yeah, and I think it has to do with the shape of second round pitching. I want to have a pitcher in the second round. I don't really want to pick in the Scherzer, Flaherty, Kershaw area. I love picking between Buehler, Nola, Castillo. So whatever I can do.

And then 1, 2, 3, I kind of like because I would just take Woodruff. And I also feel like it's a drop-off in talent where maybe with bats, 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe I'd go to 4. I think those are clearly the four best. Trout is there two but i just um yeah yeah okay maybe five but i like 10 11 12 because then i'm picking i'm picking bueller second yeah so for you it's more about that second round pitcher not getting pushed to the back of the order and being in the six or seven to 10 range among starting pitchers as you build out the

rotation which again that comes back to your preference of wanting to have one ace in the first two rounds if you are the kind of player that says everyone's wrong about pitching this year there will be aces that come from the round four to seven range that might change your thinking too it's defensible man you know like you, there's going to be more injuries than the usual year. There's going to be fewer innings than the usual year. I think that there are people claiming that some of these pitchers are going to be innings horses and some are not. I think we have less of a real idea of what is going to happen there.

I think that one of the knocks against Buehler is there's not going to be innings there. I don't know that. I mean, if I had a choice between starting Buehler and Gonsolin in a game, I'd start Buehler. So, you know, I think if he's healthy, he's out there. So, yeah, there might be some health issues, but it doesn't show up in terms of arms and stuff.

It's mostly been blisters. But then there's the TJ he had in the minor leagues, which I don't know how relevant that is. Anyway, a lot of shrug emoji there on terms of innings. And so I tend to gravitate towards talent with an idea of injury risk. Hopefully that's a helpful assessment of what you can do with your KDS, whether you're playing in TGFBI, playing in the NFBC, or implementing that into your home league for the first time this season. Again, highly recommended. Let's get to it. Let's get to our next question.

This is a keeper strategy question, and it's an anonymous question because this particular person thinks people in his or her league will be listening. So I'm about to embark on a first-year auction keeper startup draft. It's a 15-team standard 5x5 roto auction. 260 budget with nine keepers is the deepest league I've ever played in. I'm curious what you think would be the best strategy to build a long-time contender. It's not a dynasty league, but I feel like there's big enough value in establishing an affordable core. And like most auction leagues, a player's salary rises each year. The quirk of this league is that undrafted players, waiver pickups, have their keeper price tied to projections. For example, if Wander Franco goes undrafted but gets picked up in season, his keeper price is determined by projected auction value, not fab price.

Legally, he has four bench spots, drafting and carrying prospects. The hope of keeping them on the cheap comes at a big cost. But picking them up in season doesn't net as much potential keeper value. So how would you approach a startup in a league like this? I mean, to me, this is kind of like a dynasty question too. It's a very broad sort of concept. Not being able to stash prospects cheaply like that because of the small bench is a little bit of a factor. How do you work around that? I think you just want to buy heavily in the sort of 22 to 26 range because I don't think that you – the choice often, though, is like do you just punt the first year?

That could be an interesting strategy to consider where depending on how much money you've invested in the league and how likely you think the league is to stick around for those years where you would dominate because you, in the first year, didn't accrue a single point, finished last in the league, and had 12 prospects in your lineup. If there's no rules against it, that is a viable strategy. That could lead to much dominance. But if you paid $500 to be in that league, it's a little bit rough. Yeah, I mean, I don't think you want to totally punt year one, and that was one of the things that was pointed out in this email as well. I think you do want to go just really young with the core. So we're talking in the first couple foundational pieces, you're looking for players that are 25 and under. You are trying to focus your big dollar

buys on Acuna and Tatis and Sotos. Maybe you could squeeze in Trey Turner for speed purposes, but you still want to skew young. Kyle Tucker would be a good foundational piece in there. And with players like that early, if you spend up on those guys, you've got a team core that can be competitive right away. And maybe you don't win the first year, but if you're mid-level buys,

since this is an auction, or you're mid-round picks, if we were doing the same kind of thing for a snake draft, that's where it's important to go glaber torres for example instead of javi baez as you fill out a middle infield spot that's where it's important to go after someone like keston here or the younger guys that don't have the long track record instead of loading up with the 28 to 30 year old mashers who are nice players now, but whose skills will tail off pretty quickly and whose trade value will actually tank relatively quickly. I would treat this league just like a dynasty league in terms of what I expect to get

for players in the future. And once you take a hitter that doesn't run and push him past age 30, you get so much less than you should for that player in a trade that your foundation starts to fall apart. And it's really hard to get the pieces you need to remain competitive in the long run. So I'd really emphasize keeping it young with your highest priced players and still keeping it in the mid 20s, like age 27, 28 players sort of as a cutoff in the mid-rounds, but try to skew even younger than that as much as you can as you built that foundation, knowing that, hey, I'm not going to win this league necessarily in League 1, but I'm not giving up in Year 1. Maybe my team's close enough. I make a couple trades. That puts me over the top right away in the first season. Another thing I'll say is that I think you'll find that the elite prospects will be more expensive than you expect. And so if you have to spend that high to get a prospect,

you're not sure how much they'll play. And then you're keeping them at a price that, you know, that might be inflated. That's something I find in auto new a lot. You know, there'll be a shiny new toy and he'll be bid up as a prospect up to $10. be a shiny new toy and he'll be bid up as a prospect up to $10. Well, that puts a lot of pressure on him when he is playing to be a $10 player right off the bat. And if it is, then there's, you know, in Audinew in particular, the price will rise and he'll be quickly less useful to you than if you had bought him at $2. So I try to keep my prospects in Audinew at sort of $2 to $5 and not go above that unless they're in the big leagues this year. And so if that is the case and Wander Franco costs $15, $20 in auction,

imagine that. If he costs $20 in auction, you could get a 26-year-old. What is Kyle Tucker going to go for, like $25? $25, maybe $28, yeah. Why not get the guy who's going to play for you and maybe win you year one and then worry about year two later? And Kyle Tucker's not even that old. He'd be part of your core. So I would say that one thing that might actually be depressed, and this happens in trading cards and just generally that recency bias that we talk about, even with major league players,

I think it's even stronger with minor league and prospect type players that once they've had a little taste of the big leagues and it didn't go quite as planned, then they're labeled a bust way too quickly. So those players, I think, become an opportunity for you to actually buy some quote unquote prospects or young players at a cheap price.

And just looking at, I did a filter on Fangraphs for under 23. These are guys that might not have the same shine as they had before. Nico Horner might be an interesting guy to put on your bench. Vlad Guerrero, I think, depends on your league. There'll be somebody who's still totally in the tank and there'll be a league that says, nah, he's a first baseman. He's no good. Keston Hura, you know, could be, have depressed value. I'd like, I'd like that you brought up Torres. I think that could be an interesting situation there. Joe Adele. If Joe Adele goes for

$3 and Wanda Franco goes for $20, I'd take Joe Adele. Even though, you know, I have questions. I have the same questions about strikeout rate as everybody else, but you're still getting, you know, a top 10-ish type guy and you're doing it for way cheaper. So I don't know if Jordan Alvarez will be slightly depressed in price. But that's the kind of group I'd be looking for is somebody that came up. Isaac Paredes, you know, I don't know that he's amazing, but he'll be a dollar, you know, and he'll play this year. And so you'll get more information about him. Yeah, I would say like Paredes and Nico Horner are kind of more like your end game

sort of considerations. But yeah, I would definitely say that like Glaber, I think Nick Senzel was someone I talked about as one of the more underrated outfielders in the pool. I love Nick Senzel for a league like this because I don't think there's going to be a lot of helium on his auction price, but there's still a lot of potential long-term value. Victor Robles qualifies here too. I know I'm always looking for a reason to talk about Victor Robles, but if he hadn't spent any time in the big leagues, he is my guy at this point. If he hadn't spent a day in the big leagues yet, he would cost probably more than he'll cost

having spent some time in the big leagues, despite the fact that one of those seasons was a 17-homer, 28-steal season. I don't care how blue the stat cast page was. He did that. That happened. Those are skills he owns. He's a center fielder.

He will play a lot. He could still get a lot better. I will make this defense at least for one more year. And I might be wrong again this year, and I'm going to come right back. I'm going to make that argument again next year unless he weighs like 40 pounds more than he did when he came up.

He probably has more power than leota taveras you know like he's you know he's he seems like a credible bat if he can get up to 85 wrc plus 90 wrc plus the defense still floats him yeah and he was a 92 wrc plus guy in 2019 which was his first full big league season. It's not unthinkable to see him getting up to 105, 110 with that defense. He could lead off against some lefties, maybe hit a little higher in the order than expected against righties. Look, stranger things have happened, but that's

that player type that you're looking for. The previously hyped prospects that have dipped a little bit, that still have a good hold on playing time. I think that describes Robles as much as it describes Senzel. I can't figure out the Gleyber Torres ADP for the life of me. He seems undervalued in redraft. He seems a little undervalued in keeper and dynasty right now, too.

He's going to be a very good big league player for a long time, so he absolutely fits. Would you say Austin Meadows fits in this group, too, as a guy that everyone loved a year ago? A little bit closer up in age, but still in that good age range. I did a reverse war sort to find the worst. There's Joe Adele, number one. But I still say, good dollar pick. Robles is right there.

Jesus Sanchez, knocking on the door. Abraham Toro. We love him so much. We chose him twice. Brandon Rogers. It's a good one, too. It depends a little bit on the depth of your league. Austin Riley, I think, would be a fun one.

He's going to actually play, and he may not cost that much josh naylor didn't have an amazing uh debut those luis urias those that's the kind of the where the shine is just a little bit off that's those and and and absolutely uh you know not don't beat these guys up big because i said them you know what i mean like the point is that these guys are good because they should be cheap and if you got if you got sort of no, no. The point is that these guys are good because they should be cheap. Right. And if you've made your bench these guys, three to five of these guys as your bench, I think that might be more effective

than loading up your bench with prospects depending on the price. Because you'll see quickly. See what Wanda Franca goes for, and then you'll know what the top prospects will go for. So this kind of dovetails into an auction strategy question. And we talked about this a lot on the Beat the Shift podcast

I did with Ariel Cohen and Ruvain Guy last week. But when you're nominating a player in an auction, choose a player for a reason. Throw Wander early because you want to know what he costs. You want to know if you have him or not.

You want to know what that type of player is going to cost. If Wander goes for less than you think he should go for, more players like wander build the ultra young core load up and yeah maybe you will punt that first year maybe yeah like if wander comes to you for seven bucks then yeah just get a bunch of prospects and let everybody else win the first year and you win a bunch of other years yeah you're gonna have vaughn and torkelson and wit and you know all those players.

If Wander goes that cheap, then you know that's the path you can go down. If Wander gets a little too expensive, then you know, all right, I'm probably not going to get quite as many of those guys as I thought, but let's go with the guys that we just discussed as that strategy and said. I mean, decision trees are kind of at the forefront of what we do on draft day. I think this is absolutely a spot where you can have at least an A versus B plan that a handful of early players sort of steer you one way or the other. So it's a great question. Thank you for writing in. Let's get to our next question. I think this one came from Aaron. Starting a dynasty startup soon with an open universe player pool, 15 teams, 15 minor league slots, which expand by five slots for season two. Who are some top 200 level future draftees, international prospects, and players from overseas I should look to prioritize?

Thanks in advance as a fellow Wisconsinite stay warm DVR. All right. Who do you like as future draftees and international prospects? There are some leagues out there with open player pools that really get crazy. Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter are already on rosters in the XFL league that I'm in. I know for you and Devils Rejects, right, that's an open player pool too. I've got the first round open. So it's 20 teams.

We keep 28 players, and you can have anybody. And there's always like the three perpetual rebuilders, and there's like three to five temporary rebuilders. So there's teams that are almost all prospects. So these are the prospects. The number one pick to Matt Eddy at Baseball America was Austin Wells of the New York Yankees. And then we got some Aaron Shunk action, number two.

But then also Jung-Hoo Lee from Korea. Khalil Watson must be a college player. Must be. Clue, he doesn't know who that is. We've got Luis Rodriguez, who it looks like he's affiliated in the Dodgers. Alexander Canario, the San Francisco outfielder, went in the first round.

Then Josh Baez and Isaiah Thomas were unaffiliated. Alexander Canario, the San Francisco outfielder, went in the first round. Then Josh Baez and Isaiah Thomas were unaffiliated. You know, that's super deep. I, in fact, I almost take issue with the question. I don't think you have to go that deep. What did he say? It was like a 15 team with 15 keepers? 15 minor slots.

That's just, it's dynasty too. So you have your big league roster plus 15 more in the min minor slots. It's dynasty, too. So you have your big league roster plus 15 more in the minors, and it becomes 20 in season two. So that gets pretty deep. And if you're not looking at those players that are either going to sign as future J2 players or players in college or great high school players that are projected to be early first rounders, if you're not a year ahead on those players, you do miss out on some really good, talented players. One guy playing in Japan who I think is really interesting is Seiya Suzuki.

The reason I think he's interesting is because Tim McLeod, who I think is as in deep with Japanese and Korean league players as anybody I know, he's got them stashed away already in our XFL keeper league. You look into Suzuki's profile and you see a player that has power, has speed, hits for a really high average. If and when he comes over, if he's posted and comes to the States, he's the kind of player that becomes an impact player right away. I think Zagano will come over eventually to the pitcher and that was going to come over this year.

He has like one year deals, one-year option type deals. I think he'll, and now that he's a free agent, I think he can come over without the posting money. He might be able to just come over on his own regard and maybe without the posting money, it's a little bit easier of a situation for him.

I could see Saganu coming over next year and I think he could absolutely have Masahiro Tanaka-type impact. He's the same kind of guy where he'll double up, triple up, quadruple up the slider, just like Tanaka. He has good slider command, has a good splitter, has slightly more velocity than Tanaka, and there's always the chance that he has a better fit with a home park. If Tanaka had been a San Francisco Giant,

he would have put up three 3ERAs for the life of his career. I'm pretty sure of it. So, you know, I think Sugano is someone worth stashing as well. If you're looking for some insight for the 2021 MLB draft, one of the best early resources that I know about is actually the Fangraphs Prospect Board because there's a special tab for the upcoming draft not surprisingly jack lighter kumar rocker one and two on there khalil watson who you just mentioned you know is fourth on eric long and

hagan's rankings there you get future values of those players you actually get scouting reports on there there's a risk component on there as well. Eric does great work, so I highly recommend checking that out. Jack Leiter, dude. He looks real good on the Pitching Ninja clips. I didn't watch the game, but I saw some highlights that looked real good. They said the gun was a little hot. It looked like for a second he was sitting 98, and I was just like, what? I think maybe he was sitting 95 or 96.

Eric was doing some tweets during that game. But I think if he's sitting 95, 96. Eric was doing some tweets during that game. But I think if he's sitting 95, that hook looks really legit. So Jack Leiter was really interesting. To have him and Kumar Rocker at the top, I feel like Vanderbilt has to be...

And, says the nerd, they have a great pitching lab. They have a pitching lab that's probably better than all but maybe two or three major league pitching labs in terms of data, tech, and people power

there. It all checks out. That's why they keep churning out great major league pitchers at Vandy. Thanks a lot for that question, Aaron. That's a really fun way to play. Open universe player pools, I think, create a few more strategy paths.

Draft yourself. Bet on yourself. Hi, I'm a 44-year-old left-handed hitting first baseman on my softball team. Imagine trying to sell yourself in a deal. I might make the pigs. You wouldn't even get the last reserve pick back for yourself. That's the most humbling thing about that.

I do actually own myself. I think we opened up ours in my longtime home one, but we only have 10 slots in the minors, and it's a 12-team league. So I am cutting myself this year. long time home one but we only have 10 slots in the minors and it's a 12 team league uh so i am cutting myself this year dropping himself back into the pool i wonder if anybody else will use one of those 10 precious spots to uh to stash you away he tops out at 70 his average exit velocity With movement. How's the stuff number? Terrible hips. Real low. Terrible hips. Terrible pelvis.

I would love it if someone wrote the full scouting report on you and it just started with terrible pelvis. No scouting report has ever started with those words. All right, more questions to get to as we roll through this episode. This is another auction keeper question. This one comes from Tom. I have a ton of money to spend at the draft, and I don't think I can compete this year because the other teams already have so much value. Can you offer some specific suggestions other than the obvious by young players where I should be spending my money? 80% of high-ranking players will already be kept.

This is a frustrating problem to have. This begins to happen over time when inflation in a keeper league gets a little out of hand. You end up with a lot of money left. The teams that have great keepers have everything they need. There's not really a lot of places to spend the money. keepers have everything they need. There's not really a lot of places to spend the money. I think the best play, when I've run into this situation, the move I find that works the best, go ahead and buy one or two of those great players, even though there aren't many left. You got the money to afford it. Throw a good chunk of that money at whatever players available,

knowing that there should be, unless there are some really tight in-season caps, there should be a path to trade those players to somebody who is going to possibly win the league this season. Because at least doing that, you're getting a path to some younger players that aren't available in the auction that will help you later. You're buying other teams' young players. You're buying potential prospects, potential young players in the future. Yeah, I would absolutely say that. It depends. Like in Audinew, there's a little bit more pressure

if you spend a lot for that player. So like if you buy someone, you have to fit it into your 400 to cap or you have to give them a loan. You'll still get some value if it's a rental, but you get a lot less value than if you bought at a reasonable price. So I don't know how that that

machination works in your league so it's possible that you may want to just look for the most reasonable uh veterans at the you know like that that still bring you some trade value you have to buy some veterans you can't spend all your money otherwise you just bid up uh to the prospects too much and they'll just be too expensive for you in the future as well. So, you know, like there's definitely something there to buying a veteran, whether or not you just go all the way in and buy the best, buy Steven Strasburg for $50 because you'll trade him as a rental. Or if it's more like, make sure you only get Steven Strasburg for 22, because then he has more trade value. There's a fine line there.

I don't know exactly. That's something you have to figure out with your league. But I absolutely agree that you're just going to have to buy some veterans. Pretend you're going to win this year. I think that is actually something that's worth thinking about in a lot of leagues is sort of pretend you're going to win this year. Even if you don't think you're going to win, pretend you're going to win, build for that, and then trade off all the pieces.

It's a little bit like the A's Diamondbacks model, you know, where you just build a team that's going to be okay. If it's not okay, trade away everything that's not nailed down and build. In AutoNew, for example, the draft is overrated.

The draft is kind of crappy. And that's what I'm hearing here in this situation. He's saying, I have a lot of money, but I think the draft is going to be crappy. The draft is crappy in AutoNew, so you have to do a lot of your building in August and July, you know, in a normal season last year, that would be like the beginning of season. But like, you know, you have to do your building in season. So what I ended up doing

in auto news, I don't have a lot of money when the draft comes around because I've already sort of done all my rebuilding. I did a big trades. I did a bunch of big trades in August, uh, when other teams were trying to win. And I don't necessarily think that a bunch of bounce back. A lot of times there's this too. I told you that Jeff Zimmerman said that like bounce back veterans bounce back projections over 33, that they're not reliable. That's what's in the market. A lot of times that auto new in AutoNew in the draft, right? It's like, ooh, who wants to buy, you know, who wants to spend $60

on a 34-year-old JD Martinez? You know? Yeah, no one wants to do that. It's not going to be a foundational piece for your team, you know? That's going to be either, you know, money you get back later or a rental for somebody else.

So, you know, there's a, there's a line there to walk between, uh, getting a reasonable price or just buying some veterans that you think will, will, uh, you'll be able to sell later. Yeah. But I think the key here, like if everybody who's contending right now is worried about high quality innings and or speed, find the handful of players that offer that in the auction. Spend there because those are your best short-term trade ships. I think like Eno said, you don't have to let the league – hopefully you haven't let the league know that you're playing for 2022. It might look like you're trying for this year,

and that might help you in terms of leverage that you'll have when you do trade those players at some point. Yeah, crowd the market out for saves and steals, man. Saves and steals, they always have currency. Hopefully that helps you out, Tom. Next question here comes from Steve. I have a question in regards to a keeper league. I'm in. It's a head-to-head league,

and the scoring is 5x5 with OPS taking the place of batting average. Unfortunately, I'm only allowed to keep one of Juanan soto or fernando tatis jr based on their current adp i've been trying to decide which player would be more beneficial to keep over the long term but i'm stuck because i can make a case for both players who in your eyes has the most value as a first round keeper over the long term keep Keep up the great work, Steve. Yeah, this is a good problem to have. And I imagine in this setup, it doesn't sound like you can trade one because if you could do that, you would just do that and then still have to decide, well, who am I trading away? But if you had to choose between these two, be that as a keeper cutoff or you start up, whatever your situation is, you know, thinking about their long-term futures,

how do you decide? God darn. I would say that Tatis is the safest real-life overall player, young player that there is because he's a five-tooler. And so even with the strikeout rate being a tiny bit of whiff of risk and maybe the injury he's a five tooler so he can give you he can give you value everywhere and he's a he's a plus defender so he's at short soto doesn't have that going for him in terms of speed and he doesn't have

positional value for you in the corner outfield um and so he could end up being a first baseman pretty soon maybe maybe a DH. I don't know when that ends up. I think he's, he's, he's pretty good defensively, but, um, I don't think he's, he's not, you know, a center fielder. So he's, he's the next rung for him is first base. Um, however, I think Soto has the safest bat in the big leagues. the safest bat in the big leagues. I mean, just the way that he combines patience and power is just utterly ridiculous, really.

And so that's what makes it so hard, is you have the safest sort of overall player versus the safest bat. And I don't know, if I put it that way to you, does it make it clearer to you? I'm not sure it does to me, but that's sort of how i see it yeah i it's tough because if you feel like you're gonna win right now and steals are important to you and you throw tatis back where are you getting those bags

from it depends how many other keepers you have that being said if i'm thinking about the long game and who i want to have on my team for five years or ten years or however long you could end up keeping one of these guys, it's Soto. It's Soto for all the reasons you mentioned. Soto's a better hitter, and that's not a knock on Tatis at all. Soto's maybe the best hitter I've ever seen. He could be better than Pujols. He could be better than Pete Miguel Cabrera. He could be that kind of guy.

It's not even he can be. He already, you know what I mean? He's doing it. If you imagine, I mean, and Soto runs a little more than people give him credit for, too. So you're not getting a zero in steals. How long that lasts is probably a worthy question to ask. But there's a question related to Tatis that we're going to get to in just a minute

that raises that point. He runs now, but how long is he really going to run for? Is he going to be the kind of guy that in his late 20s is down to 5 to 10 bags? Yeah, probably. That's what most star players do. I would choose Soto in this situation. If I'm thinking about multi-year keeper value, even though I like Tatis more based on how 2021 shapes up and the player I think he is now, that's all about speed, you have a case for 2021 only to choose Soto. And if you're thinking about the long-term, he is the safer player. Even though Tatis just got the 14-year extension, Juan Soto probably is the safest player in the entire pool.

If you're trying to play long-term value and keep your dynasty startup, making this decision like Steve, Soto is the better way to go. And it's not like he's more like a Jordan Alvarez or somebody like a big slugger or whatever in terms of his skill set does actually bring something to the table that's rare and unique and valued,

which is a high batting average along with that power. It's not like we're saying, oh, batting average along with that power. It's not like we're saying, oh, this 260 hitter with great power and great patience is really safe. Then I think I might go back to Tatis because then it's like, well, that package of skills is readily available. So it might be super safe, but how much do I really want a 260 hitter with 30 homers every year when I think I can probably find that on the open market pretty easily?

We're talking about a 300 hitter who's going to be the top of the lineup. So he's just going to give you perennial runs in RBI and just fill out the stat sheet because it was OPP as well. So I think I go Soto. But those steals, man, and just being a shortstop where you know he'll be a shortstop, and then some year he'll be a shortstop and third baseman or second baseman. You'll have all these options, I feel like, that are interesting. But the last little kicker is, you know,

I wrote an article about Tatis' risk being encapsulated by his injuries. I'm not saying he's injury prone, but I am saying that, like, on the list of comps, there's Mike Trout, Alex Rodriguez, you know, Acuna, a lot of players that seem like rock solid locks for, you know, extended glory. And then there was also Bob Horner, Carlos Correa. extended glory. And then there was also Bob Horner, Carlos Correa. I forget the third one, but guys who get injured,

who got injured more and who shot shown, brought shown bright when they were in, but had trouble staying in. So there is that possibility for Tatis that I don't think Soto has shown yet. Yeah. And I'm looking at our friend. Ian Kahn has updated dynasty rankings on The Athletic,

our draft kit launch today. Draft kit, baby! So Ian went ahead and he did something that James Anderson actually put out back in the spring over at Rotowire. He had rebuilding rankings in addition to the regular dynasty rankings. Ian went ahead and made both lists

as part of our draft kit. Juan Soto's the top of both the win now and the rebuilding list. So maybe that gives you some extra confidence in that decision. It's interesting, though, because we got another question about Tatis from a player that is basically asking, is this the peak in Tatis' value? In some ways, it's kind of like there's not really a lot more he can do. If he's three on a Dynasty set of rankings

now, he's not going to get to one unless Soto and Acuna are both clearly a little notch below him, right? I disagree. I think he's projected right now basically to have maybe a 40-30 season. Which is crazy. I think if he went 280-40-30,

he hasn't really done that because, and it's not, one of it's not his fault. Like 2020, it's not his fault that he didn't get a full season, right? And if you pace out 2020, you're getting pretty close to 40-30, right? So I think if he just did it for a full season and you got a 280-40,, 40, even 25 season from him, new rankings would have him top.

And you would have had that season of value, right? Like who are you trading him for? There's that too. It's like, yes, he's at his peak value, but who are you trading him for? Do you really want to trade him for like five guys who may end up being second rounders? You know what I mean? Right. five guys who may end up being second rounders. You know what I mean? When you could keep the number one overall guy and have number one through three overall guy

for the next five years. I think I'd rather try and find those guys who will pop and keep the number one guy. It's almost impossible to get value for a player like this. That's what I'm saying, yeah. I can't see being super excited to get... Yeah, what would I be excited to get for Tatis?

It would have to be like... Oh, man. And he's not trying to win now, right? I could see a win now package for Tatis, but it would be ridiculous. It would be like Jelic, Cole, you know what I mean? Right, yeah. If you're going all in for right now

and you've got Tatis and you want to go over the top to make sure you win and still have a chance to win the next year or two. Maybe I'll stand back the pitcher a little bit. Yellich-Bauer, you know, it would be like Yellich-Bauer and, you know, I'd throw in another bat. Yeah, somebody. Somebody that has a little bit of youth to them, right? And then you're like, okay, I'm going to win this year because I'm getting this huge package.

But if you're rebuilding, I don't know what you want. I don't know what you'd get. I mean, even a package that was like Torkelson, Franco. There's an example. So in this particular league, this is from Jonathan. Mark Olson, Franco. What? There's an example. So in this particular league, this is from Jonathan. He's in a six-team league. It's a small league, but they have deep rosters to offset how small the league is.

And he's kind of in the, my team doesn't have as much star power as the others. So he's trying to turn Tatis into multiple stars in this case, which is a pretty unique situation. So he's trying to get Vlad Jr., Adley Rutschman, Marco Luciano, and the first pick in the draft, which would likely be Spencer Torkelson. I don't think that's enough. I don't think as great as Marco Luciano could be, there's still some ways where he could just be a good early rounder and not a superstar. Rutschman as a catcher brings extra risk. I mean, even if he's a top five catcher, look where the top five catchers end up production-wise compared to the rest of the pool. They're fringy top 100 hitters.

Aren't really valuable to me. And Torkelson, is Torkelson like a surefire future first round fantasy guy for you? Because he's not for me. I think a typical good middle-of-the-order run producer at first base, where I think he's eventually going toof-the-order run producer at first base, where I think he's eventually going to end up,

settles in more like round three, round four, if it all clicks. Think of Jose Abreu where he's going right now. Abreu is obviously a lot older than Pete Torkelson, but I don't know. You'd have to bet on the switch to third, I guess. That's got to happen. Luciano's got to be a star, and as great as Vlad Jr. could be, I'm not doing it there. He'd have to hit his upper reaches too, especially now that he's a first baseman.

You might do that trade, come up with a prospect bust and two middle-round first basemen, and that would be a terrible outcome. Yeah, and I think, looking forward, other prospects already on Jonathan's roster. He's got Wander, he's got Kelnick, he's got Cabrian Hayes, Dylan Carlson, C.J. Abrams.

Just wait for the cavalry. Wait for the cavalry. Tatis is your star, and one of those guys will be a star. Wait for the cavalry. Don't jump the gun. That's all I'm saying. So, yeah, I would sit tight here. I don't think there's anything wrong with thinking like this.

You should think it through. But if that's like the offer that you kind of come to, I think you say, no thanks, and let me see what Jared Kellins can do, baby. Let me see what Wanda Franco can do. Come on, one of those guys can be a star next to Tatis. I mean, I think you go into this believing Tatis is like a Betts Trout type player

where three, four, five years from now, he's still firmly in the first round. That's a big part of why you're standing pat here in addition to having those reinforcements. Now, if you want to move Cattell Marte to the highest bidder in your league right now, sure. In a shallow league like that, he's a guy that we've probably seen his best season from. Problem is, he just had his worst possible season in the shortened season. So it's probably a hold for now.

Trade him if he looks like he's 2019. Cattell Marte again. Keep Glaber in that situation. He's got Glaber on that roster. Burns, Paddock. He's even got a couple of young pitchers that could jump up a level over the course of the season. A little bit of patience here, I think. I think that's the ticket.

You're in a hold situation here, Jonathan. I think you've got a really good core that you put around Tatis. We've got a Fangraphs calculator question from Matt. He's messing around with the Fangraphs auction calculator in some pre-draft prep. How do you order your positional priority when preparing for a draft on the auction calculator? The preset, catcher, shortstop, second base, third base, outfield, first base, doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Second base, third base, outfield, first base doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Also, should the positional priority be different in a roto versus point system?

In this case, Matt's using CBS's base point system. So what do you do with your positional presets when you run the auction calculator at Fangraphs, Eno? I, for the most part, ignore it because catcher's at the top, and catcher is just either something I ignore if it's a one-catcher situation or something I have a strategy for if it's a two-catcher situation. And I don't necessarily always just take the number it's out for catcher as gospel. I also don't think that that positional priority has a huge effect. Correct me if I'm wrong. He's the one kind of looking at this.

I don't think it has a huge effect. But if I were to put anybody at the top of it, personally, I'd put second base at the top, and I might put first, second. I think I'm going first base after catcher. I think I'm going second catcher first, shortstop third outfield is probably my current priority. There's just so many outfielders. I don't think it makes a huge difference how you do it because if something just looks off and you're looking at those rankings and you're like, you know what?

I'm not taking this player this early. This is what I do with catchers currently. I deflate them on my own. I just pass. I skip them and come back to it later. That's why mock drafts are very useful. I mean, I'm doing these mock drafts and I'm like, you know, I have to, even with my pitcher ranks, I have to now make the decision. You know, it's not, I can debate it in the theoretical realm with my spreadsheet in front of me,

but then when you're in a draft and you have some more skin in the game, like I took Gallon over Maeda. I think that's probably right. Maybe the next update, it's only one switch. It's not that big a deal. That's why I think you, when you're looking at rankings or projected auction auction value i know there's people out there who say the value is the value well what projection did you use did you do this project what what priority you know what i mean like there's so much like that you could alter that to say that it just spits out one number

and that is you know god's given number for that player like i don't know it doesn't make much sense to me also then given there there's error bars on every projection and you know i i like it better as a general guide yeah i i do too and i i don't think i would change the position priority ranks for the points league versus a roto league i think i would leave it the same no matter the format that i was running it for. I mean, the position shapes are generally what they are. I realize that points leagues can be wildly different. I think if I remember correctly, the CPS default point scoring system doesn't diverge that far away from rotisserie values. So I don't think you have to make any sort of tweaks in that case, but a great question and a great tool. And we've talked about it a lot. The Fangraphs auction

calculator is great because you can put a lot of custom settings in there, choose the projection system you want and kind of play with it until you kind of come up with something that fits the league that you're playing in. All right. You know, there was a big thread that emerged on Twitter after our reliever episode that went up on Monday. Yesterday was one of those days I wasn't on Twitter very long. And when I opened it up at eight o'clock at night, it just looked like I got pulled into the dust cloud bar fight. And I was like, Whoa, hey, what's going on in here? Actually, it wasn't that bad. It was just a really long string of tweets. I think there were a lot of responses, a lot of surprise that there are only a number of closers you could count on one hand that you truly trust this season. One question that came in was just, when are you guys in the fantasy industry going to say, enough's enough with saves.

Let's go ahead and do something. Saves plus hold, make up a new stat, get rid of it, do something. And I think we are a little closer to that now than we were a year ago. I think as teams continue to push down the path of maybe going with more committees, we might have to make some kind of change to better account for how relievers are used and how relievers are valued in our game. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, on one hand, I'm definitely someone who's into like, just tell me the rules and I'll try to win. But on the other hand, it's just getting excruciating. Wins and saves in particular are just being disseminated

Mike Shanahan style to all of the different arms, uh, on the roster and such a, just an aggravating style that it's, uh, it's hard to pin them down. It was already hard enough to project those. I think wins and saves are probably the two hardest things to project anyway, uh, because a, they come on pitchers and pitchers are hard to project. And then B, uh, they're so role specific and team specific. It's like there's all this sort of team context involved in all of those that they do. It does make them infuriating. And there isn't a lot of science to the rejection of wins and saves is just the one thing I've seen. Like, you know, we can say the role is important uh going forward for for say so like

the eighth inning person usually takes over for the ninth inning person when there's that sort of when there's an in season change uh but role hasn't necessarily doesn't have like a projection quality to it necessarily you can't just look at uh either you know the effect of previous closer experience is uh less than other things like strikeout rate and velocity, just according to the numbers of research that's been out there. But role is super important. It's like wins. It's like you'll have one guy on a team, same team, with similar numbers to another guy, and one guy has 14 wins and one guy has nine. you know, with similar numbers to another guy. And one guy has 14 wins and one guy has nine.

And that's meaningful in fantasy, you know, to, it's not that meaningful for actually understanding the true talent of those two players. Right. Right. You know, is Devin Williams worse than Brad hand? Uh, because Brad hand got, you know, 24 saves last year. No, no, I don't think think so it's just one of those areas where fantasy diverges so far away from real life value it gets a little frustrating and look there's a big difference between five by five and how the game's been played for years for decades but i've always accepted that as just part of what fantasy baseball is and i know with linear weights leagues some of the stuff that auto new does there are a lot of new ways to play that give you something much closer to a true simulation, or you could play score sheet leagues, right? You can play other types of Sims

that are looking more closely at actual results than how you get there. Of course, it's going to have to follow the same lines of thinking that big league teams follow, but this sort of frustrations come. We got an email from Daniel. He writes, I wanted to throw something counterintuitive out there and get your thoughts. So here it is. For ranking closers, rate stats do not matter aside from their impact on a closer being able to keep his job. The statistical argument is simple. Relief pitchers throw so few innings that huge ERA differences don't actually impact your team ERA appreciably over the course of a season.

differences don't actually impact your team ERA appreciably over the course of a season. An example, closer A puts up a 250 ERA, one whip, and a 14K nine. Closer B puts up a four ERA, 130 whip, and a 10K per nine. These guys see miles apart, and these projections would likely put their ADPs 100 picks apart or more, but applied to 60 innings pitched, the difference between these two players is only 10 earned runs, 18 hits and walks, and 27 Ks. I would think that projected job security should be given a much higher weight in ranking closers than any of their rate stats. I know that elite rate stats and high job security often go hand in hand, but a nice example of this analysis could be applied to Josh Hader versus a role as Chapman, where Hader might have a slight edge on Chapman in rate stats.

Hader might also be used in his more typical fireman role and only collect 20 saves versus 30 or 40 for Chapman. So shouldn't Chapman be the obvious pick here? Likewise, should we give higher weight to crappy closers without much competition for the job, right? That section that we really didn't like, a lot of those toss-up guys, he included Hunter Harvey, Colomay,

Rafael Montero, Leclerc, Rodriguez, Joaquin Soria, compared to the elite but volatile situations from Edwin Diaz, who I think the Mets came out and said doesn't have a closer tag yet, James Karinczak, and Craig Kimbrell. So to a degree, I agree with this because I think we probably do overestimate. Specific examples at the top, possibly. Right. The math example that's laid out by Daniel, I think, is pretty compelling. And I think we probably do overestimate. Specific examples at the top, possibly. Right. The math example that's laid out by Daniel, I think, is pretty compelling, and I think we should account for that.

30Ks, look at your standings last year. 30Ks is not nothing. 30Ks probably got you a point or two in the standings. Yeah. It's less than the impact of those five wins that you referenced earlier. Five wins might legitimately be five standings points in leagues. It could be one point per win because they get clustered up so much. Ks, yeah, maybe one, two points in some cases, possibly a little more in others.

I generally agree, though, with the idea that this is the one position, the only position, where rollover skills is the way I lean right now. And I hate playing that way. I hate that because the mantra we talked about the old Chandler mantra draft skills, not roles that usually applies in the bullpen, especially it's all about the role and predicting that is so incredibly difficult. I think you will find when you look back at winning teams, plenty of winning teams end up having the one or two late closers that hit. The ugly closers nobody else wanted, right? I don't even know if it's necessarily by design every time. Sometimes it's, well, I had to get someone for saves,

and I happened to pick the right one. I actually think it can be kind of fluky it doesn't mean we shouldn't try but i do think you find that with the variance in 50 or 60 innings anyway some of those mediocre poor skilled relievers come out and crank out 25 30 save seasons with good ratios even though their skills would never point you to a projection like that yeah i mean, Hand made it through last season. I didn't think he would. But read me back that list of examples because I don't even think they're closers. Right, the crappy closers without much competition.

Hunter Harvey, Alex Colomay, Rafael Montero. I think he's definitely different than the other two. Montero I could dig with, yeah. Jose Leclerc doesn't necessarily have the job yet. Richard Rodriguez probably has the job. And Joaquin Soria, toss up with Crichton right now. It's that type of pitcher though, right? Or you could throw Archie Bradley in that part of the conversation.

You can throw maybe Daniel Bard if Scott Oberg's not ready to start the season. If we're talking about the specifics, I'm with it on Rodriguez and Montero. Maybe Bradley to some extent. I could see it. But not all of those names. And I wouldn't make a blanket assumption. And I still stick with my idea of one stud.

And although I will say, when the pedal hits the metal, dollars to donuts, I'm in this draft and hold situation right now. I'm in this DC. I did not get Hayter. I did not get Chapman. Some of it was, you know, draft position, the KDS conversation. Some of it was just like, they were never conversation. Some of it was just like they were never – I would either have to totally push to get them or they were never –

but I did choose Jordan Alvarez over Rysel Iglesias, and that was my last chance to get sort of a top six closer. So I don't want to talk too much about the board. Now I realize we have listeners in this league. It's going to be a little while. Hopefully your next turn comes up at least before this pod is available. But I do generally like the idea of one stud and some oatmeals. And I would say like Montero and Rodriguez and them are oatmeals.

some oatmeals um and i would say like montero and rodriguez and them are oatmeals um but i may end up with a couple oatmeals because these are getting pushed up i think these saves are getting pushed up and i just see so much volatility like like people know that uh for example um 40 percent of closers lose their job every year like Like, how is that a good investment? Like, I'm not, like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not digging on the top on spending a lot on them. I want to get the cheapest stud. And if I can't get stud, I'll do two oatmeal's and two or three darts. Because I do agree with you.

Those darts, those darts give you outsized value. If you hit a late closer, and I'll say that we have research that says that new closers have more velocity and more strikeout rate than the closers they replace. So what do you do? You get two oatmeal's that have good roll. You get your Rafael Montero, you get your Richard Rodriguez, you get the guys who have roll. If you want to include Soria, I guess, to say that he has massive amounts of closing experience it's like pretty far in his rearview mirror but sure he's closed before if

you want to you know you want to dig on saria then do it but um then you're going to take what i'm going to take are hard throwing guys behind bad behind saria like like i'll take a ginkle uh really really late um i'll take uh we talked about this we had the whole episode what i'm saying is i i'll lean towards hard throwing strikeout guys uh behind bad closers as my as my as my darts but yeah in the oatmeal section sometimes it'll just be a guy who has the role looks okay projects okay is okay you know and for what it's worth uh i think that my i was sort of maybe i was a little bit over exuberant about pomerantz i think pomerantz is gonna have the deal but i think he's a little bit closer to uh to a dart throw than a um than an oatmeal

i put him pomerantz is definitely not oatmeal. No, no. He's either going to be a really great closer, or he's not going to be the closer. He's not oatmeal. But Pomeranz falls into the skills are good enough to use him if he's not closing. Not every failed closer has that. So that's why I think Pomeranz and Taylor Rodgers are okay. LeClerc is not going to be useful, I don't think. If he's not closing, he's probably struggling.

He's got six walks per nine, and he's not warm on your team. And he's had shoulder issues, so he's probably not going to be a high-volume late-inning reliever. So it's not like he's going to be that max-usage, high-leveraged guy who's always in there in a key spot, mowing guys down. Yeah, I guess that's fair. Anyway, I would just say I like Pomerantz, but he's a little bit closer to that

dart section where I wouldn't pencil him in. I would want to get him somewhere in the draft where I'm getting these guys that I think will pop. To Daniel's point, I think there is again, ideally Iglesias-Pressly for me, but if I only

get one of them, if I only get Presley because he's cheaper, I'm going to try and pick my spot somewhere around that Rafael Montero range and then take one more shot late, knowing that Montero could lose the job because anyone can lose the job. My third dart might be an early cut and that last reliever, maybe I take a chance on late, also could just be a ratios play or an early cut as well. It could be a spot you're chasing all season long. Having one established closer at least gives you something in that category. There will be teams that punt. There'll be some teams that fail.

And as long as you're not one of those two teams, you'll get something. You'll get four, five, or six standings points with one really good closer if you get someone in that top ten who can hold onto the job all season long. So it's really important to me to at least get one. One last thing is, there may be a disconnect between managers and general managers. There is actually literally a

disconnect in Arizona between the general manager and the manager. I think there's been a documented difference of opinion about who should close between the manager and the general manager. I think that's been a documented difference of opinion about who should close between the manager and the general manager. Like, I think that the manager wants Crichton and the general manager wants for with relievers they don't care about role they don't care about era they don't care about they don't even i don't think care about strikeout rate they care about your trackman numbers basically that's what agents say if you have a reliever and a team is talking to you they care about trackman numbers how do i know this is the case jeremy jeffress had a good era last year was. He got saves. Seems like a guy

who's had saves in the past. Seems like a guy who should be good. People are yelling about the fact that he got a minor league deal. Why did he get a minor league deal? He had the worst philosophy of his career. You know what I mean? Think about what happened with Brad Hand. Established closer. Available for anybody just to pick up on waivers. Just pay his $10 million salary.

Nah, we want to save a couple million and we're not sure. Blah know so like uh the the market tells us pomerantz didn't have i don't how many saves do you have on his ledger he had like four saves on his ledger and the what happens they give him a three-year 30 million dollar deal will smith too. Really had a partial season, I think, with the Giants. I think he was also a COVID-impacted player in 2020, so he started to pitch a little better late in the year. That's an unsettled situation in Atlanta that I would watch

really closely. Smith could be a top-ten closer if he's the guy. Yeah, I'm leaning Smith. I like Smith, but I would also say if I miss out on Smith and I'm looking for one of my darts in the late, late rounds, Chris Martin's a perfectly fine dart given how they have not committed

to anybody yet and we're almost into March. And the money point I could just make, Melanson got $3 million. I don't think the general manager was like, I just signed my new closer for $3 million in one year when I have a $30 million

guy in my roster, like I think the general manager thought this is depth. And that's why the pieces coming from, uh, um, uh, AJ Casavelli and Jeff green, uh, have said that it is Pomerantz and Pagan are battling it out. And, um, the Lansing's a seventh, eighth inning guy. So, you know, whatever. It's tea leaf reading. It's one of my least favorite parts, but also one of my most favorite. It's one of these things that I hate and I love, and I'm always chasing. I'm chasing. I'm the stuff guy.

I'm chasing stuff. I know it's skills over roles, and role matters most, but I'm chasing those hard-throwing relievers that could close. I love them. Had a lot of great questions on today's show, so thank you for filling up our email inbox as you often do, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com.

If you'd like to chime in on Twitter, he's at Eno Saris, I'm at Derek Van Ryper. I should point out, if you're listening to the very end of this show, thank you for sticking around for 80 plus minutes again. We are doing a listener survey

for all of our podcasts here at the athletic. I'll put the link to that in the show description. So if you could take a minute to click through and give us some feedback, that will help us continue to make some great shows. If you have not subscribed to the athletic yet, you want to get in on the draft kit and all the other great content we have three 99 a month. We'll get you there to begin at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels.

Got some barrel sleepers up. I got some power sleepers up. One of those guys on the power sleeper list is one of my favorites in drafts this year. I got new pitch sleepers up with, and there's a pirate on there that I haven't talked about much here that I'm sort of hoarding as a guy that I want to get in drafts and not tell everybody around. So check out that piece. And Ian Kahn's Dynasty Ranks and

just stuff upon stuff upon stuff. It's great. You've got Michael Waterloo's points rankings. We've got Al writing for us. We've got Ron Chandler writing in the draft kit. All sorts of good stuff in there. So be sure to check that out. Ron Chandler. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.