Corrections for The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2017

fbg2017-cover-largeFirst off, if you want to read the Mock Draft Commentaries, go here.

If you would like the FBG projections and prices update, it is here. The password is the last name of the first player profiled on page 90 of the 2017 Fantasy Baseball Guide. It is case sensitive.

This is the place where I’ll post corrections and updates to the 2017 Guide. There is a link in the top nav bar, so you can always find it.

Page 6:  Talking about team names, as we do sometimes, Yoan Moncada and Lucas Giolito were traded from Boston and Washington respectively last winter. While the team changes for both, to the White Sox, made it into their capsules, the wrong team names linger on this page of rookies.

Page 6: Very embarrassing. The photo credit is wrong. The picture of Yoan Moncada is by friend and new contributor Buck Davidson. I’m sooo sorry Buck, and will get a fixed PDF for you to use as a clip.

A Reader Writes:

The Fantasy Baseball Guide is a great pub and is most useful.  I have one question and one suggestion:

Q. It appears to me that Matt Moore’s “Big Price” of $14 is not consistent with his projected stats of 4.44 ERA and 1.35 Whip.   I believe his Win and K totals of 11 W and 127 K are very average.  I understand he has upside potential, but it appears too me that the $14 projection is not supported by your projections. Please explain.

S. It seems to me it would take little effort on your part to include the player’s team either in the “Player’s by Position” section or the Full Profiles.  I play in a hybrid NL + 2AL teams (Houston and Texas) and many of us have limited knowledge of other AL players.  I understand there will be changes between the start of the season and your publication date, but that’s not near the problem of having no idea of the player’s team (and whether or not he is on one of our teams).  Please consider including the team for each player.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dear Reader. The projection in the Guide was the mechanical projection that derived from Moore’s history, and as you note looked rather pessimistic for a player I’m fairly keen on and three other writers made PICKS of this year. I work on the projections all winter and at some point I upgraded Moore to a 3.72 ERA and 1.23 WHIP. It just so happens this projection, also in 150 innings pitched, is worth about $12 and I’ve dropped his bid price to $13. Note that in CBS and LABR, Moore went for $13 and $11, so I was definitely in the ballpark on Moore’s bid price if not his projection in the Guide.

The Guide projections and price update is due tomorrow, probably in the evening, here on the corrections page. It will have hugely reworked projections and bid prices for those who bought the Guide. You may still find it on the shelves at Barnes and Noble and other magazine retailers, and you can also buy the online version at thefantasysportsguide.com. Use the promo code Rotoman17 and get $1 off.

As to the issue of team names, they are available in the stat lines for all the players with major league experience last year. And I do add team names to the end of the prospect capsules because readers very much want them, but it really is a problem to be more definitive. The magazine heads off to the printer just days after the Winter Meetings conclude, and at that point there are still hundreds of free agents out there. Plus, trades will be made. So, the choices are to either list the team name that the player ended last year with, which in hundreds of cases will be wrong, or their team name at press time, which means hundreds will be listed as a Free Agent.

It’s always seemed to me that the team name in the stats is just as reliable as either of the above methods, and doesn’t pretend to an authority that we don’t have in mid December. I’m open to suggestions, surely, so please feel free to send them along.

A reader named Jeffrey reports: I figure that if Tyler Anderson and Jon Gray are worth $2 apiece, then Tyler Chatwood should be worth a bid of $1. If I see anything else of note, I will send another email.

At first I thought Jeffrey meant I hadn’t given Chatwood a price, but in fact Chatwood isn’t in the Guide at all. Sorry about that. I’ve posted a long look at Chatwood at pattonandco.com, which you can read here.

Another missing pitcher is Ryan Merritt. You can read his profile here.

The great Steve Moyer has been a contributor to this magazine since 2001, edition No. 2, and some of the ways the Guide is set up and works grew out of my collaboration with him. One way I pay him back, almost every year, is to screw up one of his Picks and Pans. Sometimes I label a Pan a Pick or vice versa, or sometimes I don’t put one in at all. I’m happy to say that this year I got it perfect, but Steve emailed this morning to say that he sent me a Lucas Giolito PAN that ran in 2016. This time, his fault.I should have caught the error, the PAN says directly it’s about 2016, but on the other hand, Giolito did see a cup of big league joe last year and did not turn heads (except for those who expected him to be good). So, the comment, that this may not yet be his year, is still pertinent. The good news might be that his price might be knocked down a tick. He’s an endgame lottery ticket.

A few hitters and pitchers in the A-Z section of the Guide are designated at C, F or R. I’ve been phasing out those designations because they mean very different things for all the different formats people play. But I did give some players this year the letters, after cutting the definitions out of the Why We Do page and the Legends of the Hitter and Pitcher A-Zs. Here’s what they mean:

C = Claim. A player who likely doesn’t have draft able value, but does have a quality that makes him worth claiming if you have an open spot.

F = Future. A future star.

R = Reserve. A player who isn’t draft able because of being blocked for playing time, but has a potential path to playing time making him worthy of being a reserve.

Thanks to Tim and Donna Carlson for sending along the question about these.