The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2022 Is Here!

by
Almost here!

We’re live!

This year’s model has more than 1200 player profiles written by old friends HC Green, Rob Blackstien, Jeff Zimmerman, Tim McLeod, and JD Bolick, and introducing a newcomer, veteran sportswriter Larry Fine, against whom I’ve been playing rotisserie baseball for almost 30 years.

Rookie profiles were written by the guys above, with additions from Perry Van Hook, Rob Leibowitz, Jeff Winick, and Scott Swanay. Rob put the section together.

You’ll also find more of JD’s unheralded rookies, a bit about the Perfect Pitching Staff by yours truly, and Strategies of Champions by Glenn Colton, Fred Zinkie, Ron Shandler, Alex Patton, and Don Drooker. Good stuff there.

Plus, the mag to have major league and minor league games played.

Finally, an All-Star mock draft, featuring in pick order Zach Steinhorn (Creativesports 2.0), Tim McLeod (Prospect361.com), Justin Mason (friendswithfantasybenefits.com), Doug Anderson (FantraxHQ.com), Todd Zola (Mastersball), Derek VanRiper (The Athletic), Ariel Cohen (FanGraphs), Clay Link (Rotowire.com), Howard Bender (Fantasy Alarm), Doug Dennis (BaseballHQ), moi, Ian Kahn (The Athletic), JD Bolick (The Guide), Steve Gardner (USA Today), and Eric Cross (FantraxHQ.com), all commenting on each of their picks. Tim McLeod put it all together, many thanks to him for that.

The Guide also has my fantasy prices and cheat sheet, along with Picks and Pans from Dave Adler, Rob Blackstien, JD Bolick, Ariel Cohen, Buck Davidson, Patrick Davitt, Doug Dennis, Don Drooker, Mike Gianella, Phil Hertz, Tim McLeod, Alex Patton, Mike Podhorzer, Vlad Sedler, Ron Shandler, Zach Steinhorn, Seth Trachtman, and Jeff Winick. So many opinions!

Find the Guide at Barnes and Noble, Wal Mart, and an assortment of drug stores, groceries, and magazine stands across the USA and Canada (though maybe not in Wal Mart in Canada). But there is a convenience store in Atitoken Ontario that is usually one of the first on the continent to put the Guide on sale. You’ll have to decide if it’s worth the drive.

There is also a pdf version for sale at thefantasyguide.com.

Look for updates about availability and corrections to mistakes (oops) on the Baseball Guide 2022 Corrections and Updates Page.

Tout Wars NL: Why I Lost

by

The season is over. I finished seventh, and I spent the whole season wondering why my team wasn’t competitive. The answer isn’t obvious.

I wrote about my draft in March here.

I ended up going stars (Mookie, Freddie, Nolan, Buehler, catcher Will Smith) and scrubs (A pitching staff of Buehler (not a scrub), Ian Anderson, Max Fried, Logan Webb) plus Brendan Rodgers for cheap.

I had great pickups. I lucked into Tyler Naquin early (I’d bid way more on Justin Williams and was outbid) and picked up Eric Lauer for cheap, who was very productive when he could pitch.

I accidentally bid up Dansby Swanson because of the online software, but he was close enough for government work. As they used to say generously.

So here’s the problem. I ended up with a very good offense, thank you stars (though not that much Mookie) and Naquin. I hit on all my pitchers, except that the ones I didn’t hit on were horrible, so I had a constant battle between innings and quality. And in the midst of battle, I traded the fading Jurickson Profar for the more massively fading Taijuan Walker, and deserved getting burned, and then traded Buehler for Ozzie Albies because I had a bunch of steals points to gain. But Ozzie didn’t run much in August and September.

So, no steals points, and even after adding Giovanny Gallegos, not too many saves points. That’s a hard road to victory. But I didn’t even get close. Something went gone wrong.

But not really. Kevin Pillar for $2, though his .274 OBP didn’t help at all was an okay fill-in piece. Profar stole nine bases before I traded him in mid-June and only one afterward. Dominic Smith went wrong. I thought I got a steal at $17, but his $8 earnings were not a crushing blow.

One theory I had was that going stars and scrubs meant that I added bad players to fill out the roster, but that wasn’t really true. Eventually, at least. One problem from the draft was that I ended up with an outfield of Pillar, Anthony Alford, Sam Hilliard, Mookie Betts. Not good, but replacing Alford with Naquin early on fixed enough of that.

I ended up with the most at bats in the league and 38 (of 48) hitting points. Offense was not the disaster.

Finishing 11th in steals, however, was. 10 steals would have meant six more points. But six more points would only get me better mediocrity.

When I traded Profar for Taijuan Walker, after much prodding from Walton, my thinking was that Profar had never run this much, I was fifth in steals, and Mookie (injured) wasn’t running yet. Brian and I both knew that Walker was over his head, but I thought he might be okay. He wasn’t.

And you would think his disastrous 78 innings pitched after I acquired him (those are the ones I had him active, I benched him for 12.7 innings of 4.26/0.947 dammit) would have been destroying, but I went from six ERA/WHIP points before the trade to 10 by seasons end.

This is after trading Walker Buehler, who pitched 86.3 innings after I traded him with a 2.61 ERA and 1.042 WHIP. So, I added a bum, got rid of an ace, and still improved my pitching.

How? Logan Webb became a star, I got decent innings from waiver acquisition Rich Hill, Ian Anderson and Touki Toussaint were okay, and Blake Treinen, Brad Boxberger, Chris Stratton, and Giovanny Gallegos were good.

I’ve tried to unwind the moves, to see if I could have made better decisions, and clearly I could have, but it doesn’t work that way. The Draft Day standings tell the story of the teams we bought, and mine wasn’t a contender.

I think this tells the real story. I bought a lot of middle pitchers on the Dodges (Price, Dustin May, Victor Gonzalez, Treinen on reserve) so I didn’t have a ton of innings. Chasing wins and strikeouts I sacrificed ERA and WHIP, and ended up with the same middlin’ team I drafted, just with a different shape. Moving deck chairs around. Maybe if I don’t go chasing pitchers the Naquin pickup and other good decisions would have helped me in significant ways. I don’t know.

What I do know is that Fred Zinkie approached me early in the season and offered me Kenley Jansen for Dominic Smith. In retrospect not making that deal was my greatest blunder, but at the time I still thought Smith was going to rebound and the reason I bet on Price/May/Gonzalez/Treinen was because I thought Jansen might fail.

Zinkie might have lost 10 or even 14 points if we’d made that trade. I might have gained 10. He still would have won, I still would have ended up in the middle.

The answer is better drafts.

Th

Ask Rotoman: We Need the Guide’s Prices!

by

Dear Rotoman:

I saw you were editor and chief of my favorite magazine…”The Fantasy Baseball Guide”. We use this as our bible to set values for our league. Because of Covid I realize things may be delayed etc. Could you let me know if the magazine is coming out on time this year? Thank you!

A Reader

Dear Reader:

The publisher decided the retail environment was not conducive to publishing the Guide this year, so they have us on hold until next year (we hope).

I’ve been writing profiles and published a full price list and projections yesterday, available to Subscribers to the Rotoman Special at pattonandco.com (pattonandco.com/rotoman). It costs $10. We don’t yet have an automatic link to the prices page for a silly tech reason, but if you subscribe let me know and I’ll send you the link.

I also started a newsletter that contains samples of the profiles. It’s free and you can subscribe at rotoman.substack.com. 

Thanks for asking. I’m sorry we don’t have a Guide this year.

Sincerely,

Sign Up for Rotoman’s Guide Newsletter.

by

News and notes from Rotoman, plus samples each week of the player profiles Rotoman is writing for the 2021 season, sign up for the free newsletter here: CLICK TO SIGN UP.

Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2021 is Coming!

by

The bad news is that the publisher decided the retail prospects were still poor enough that publishing The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2021 was not a good idea. We’re holding out hope for the football magazine, and all we can do is see.

The good news (and I hope you agree) is that I’m writing Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2021, kind of the same but obviously different, too.

What’s the same? There will be a lot of profiles, prices, and projections. How many? We’ll see. Everyone who is projected to be a regular, for sure, and lots of other players who might contribute in deep leagues will be profiled. I’m writing all the profiles myself, so there may not be quite as many bits about back-of-the-bullpen arms as usual. But if the season doesn’t start until June, maybe I’ll get to everyone.

There will also be draft at a glance lists by position, and some pieces about strategy and ways to play fantasy that I’m working on.

What’s different? No mock draft. I don’t think it makes sense when the start of the season is indefinite. Once we know for sure maybe we try one.

No Strategies of Champions. I inveigle my colleagues to contribute to the Guide each year by asking them to explain why they’re so good at this game. And so lucky. They do it for a copy of the printed Guide, which I greatly appreciate. That won’t be possible this year, so I let them off the hook.

There may not be a print version. My goal is to have a print-on-demand version of the book available at the start of February. But my experience with this tech is limited, I don’t think I can promise that at this point. But I’m going to try.

There will be an ebook version available in February if the season is going to start in April. It will be pushed back if the start of the season is.

In the meantime, please sign up for The Newsletter. I’ll be putting out an issue each week, containing the player profiles I’ve been working on, some notes on the news, recommended reading, answer reader asks, and some other fun stuff I hope. It will be free, so you have nothing to lose! Click here to sign up for The Newsletter.

I’m also publishing all the player profiles at pattonandco.com. Alex and Colin have made a special membership level for Rotoman’s Guide. For $10 my profiles for each player will appear at the top of each player page. Subscribers to the big package will have access, too, for no extra charge. Please check out the site, it’s great even if you don’t subscribe but you do have to sign up, the subscription page goes live on December 15th, and the first profiles go up about then, too, once we work out the kinks.

Tout Wars NL: Look Back in Anger. Or maybe regret.

by

We held Tout Weekend as planned back in March, though not in person and with no party at Foley’s and before many of us knew what Zoom was. We drafted online, on Fantrax, hoping baseball would be back in a month or two or, many of us expected, around the Fourth of July.

That guess was better than most of my draft day picks. Baseball resumed on July 23rd, and with one day of the postseason under our belts, the expanded playoffs will continue for the next month. But Tout Wars is done, as was my team, it turns out, the moment the draft ended.

In that draft I bought a stars-and-scrubs style team. A couple of the scrubs, Dominic Smith and Tony Gonsolin, worked out. If the core of my team had been average those two would have pushed the team toward contention. But the rest of the team wasn’t average. Let’s take a look why:

Ronald Acuna Jr. $44 ($47 value): Earned $29, all prices for OBP 5×5. Obviously didn’t earn out, but compared to Yelich ($19) he was a better buy at the same price, in spite of the time he missed. You pay great players a lot because even when they aren’t great they contribute a lot of stats. Acuna and Yelich showed that in 2020, small consolation to me and Justin Mason, Yelich’s owner who finished 2 points ahead of me in the standings.

Walker Buehler $30 ($29 value): Earned $8. When your ace is a tres you’re going to have problems. It doesn’t appear that there was anything wrong with Buehler when he was on the mound, but he missed some starts with a blister in September, and was unlucky in wins when he got five innings in pitching for a team that led baseball in runs scored.

Ozzie Albies $27 ($33 value): Earned $10. He came on at the end, showing why it wasn’t madness to expect a lot. Missing a month of a two-month season puts you in the hole, to be sure.

Nolan Arenado $35 ($40 value): Earned $13. His auction price was depressed because of the threat he might be traded to a less commodious ballpark. My bet was he wouldn’t, and he wasn’t. Alas, he was not having a great season when he hurt his shoulder in early September, and he struggled after that until he was shut down. Players slump at times, and in the short season there was scant time to get a second chance to fix things.

Will Smith $14 ($14 value):  Earned $12. He got on at a good clip, missed 10 days with a neck injury, and will have better seasons than this one, which was fine.

Wilson Ramos $13 ($17 value): Earned $6. A bad season for Ramos.

Reisel Iglesias $13 ($13 value):  Earned $17. Finally, someone who performed as expected, maybe a little better.

Yasiel Puig $5 ($3 value):  Did Not Play. Tantalizingly close to signing with the Braves in July, he got the Covid and did not get another chance. He was one of two shots at picking up a significant producer for cheap for a think outfield.

Mike Moustakas $22 ($22 value):  Earned $9. All my stars tanked. Moustakas, like Albies, was hurt for much of the season. In my notes after the draft I said that I really wanted Corey Seager, a switch that would have helped my team quite a bit.

Dylan Carlson $8 ($8 value): Earned $2. There were two risks here. One, that he wouldn’t get a chance, the other that if given the chance he wouldn’t produce. I felt certain enough that he’d get the chance that I’d take the risk he wouldn’t produce. He didn’t. Given my needs I went for it and took a shot that didn’t pan out. If the rest of the team was working this wouldn’t have mattered.

Mike Foltynewicz $12 ($12 value):  Earned -$9. I was going to get either Folty or Lamet for $13, I thought. I didn’t get Lamet, was pleased to have Folty, until the season started. Another close call.

Ender Inciarte $6 ($6 value): Earned $4. Part of the reason he got as many at bats as he did was because Acuna was hurt. Still, it was Markakis’s decision to come back and play that cost Inciarte playing time. Well, that and his own limited offensive production.

Freddy Galvis $7 ($7 value): Earned $8. As expected, the poor OBP offset most of his offensive contributions, but not all.

Chris Archer $5 ($7 value): DNP. Had season-ending neck surgery in June.

AJ Pollock $7 ($14 value): Earned $23. I was pleased as punch to get him at $7, and he came through. Too bad it was wasted.

Wade Davis $2 ($4 value):  Earned -$9. He only lost so little because he only pitched 4.1 innings. A calculated risk that he’d be a saves source. Didn’t count on the return of Daniel Bard, or Davis’s shoulder going out.

Sean Newcomb $2 ($4 value): Earned -$12. Rounding out a pitching staff, you throw your darts and hope for the best. Sometimes you get the worst.

Of my reserve picks, Dominic Smith earned $19 and Tony Gonsolin earned $23. A winning year is when your core team does okay and you’re able to augment with good pick-ups.

Notable waivers pickups were Ben Gamel ($4), Andres Gimenez ($12), Donovan Solano on August 3 ($15 for the season), and David Peterson ($9), all good, but at the end of August I sprung for Jose Israel Garcia, Julio Mateo, Taylor Clarke and Trevor Rogers, all with potential but in the end hurtful, not helpful.

In the end, I finished with 50 points. My draft day roster finish was similar, next to last, but with only 40 points, so I improved. For now, that’s the positive message I take away from this weird season.

Ask Rotoman: Canha Worms

by

Dear Rotoman:

I play in a roto 5×5 league which uses OBP instead of BA. Why is Mark Canha rated so low?

Andy

Dear Andy,

First thing, my prices and rankings are for batting average leagues. I’m a big fan of using OBP, it makes total sense to credit hitters with walks, especially when we penalize pitchers for them, but OBP hasn’t caught on yet. So my price, $11, reflects Canha’s weak batting average, not his very good on base percentage.

That said, a few facts argue against that $11 price.

  1. Canha earned $17 last year, and $11 the year before.
  2. He went for $15 and $14 in the CBS and LABR expert leagues this year, both BA leagues, and $16 in Tout Wars, which uses OBP.
  3. My own projection is rosier than any of those carried at FanGraphs, and when you price it it suggests Canha is a $16 player on par in BA leagues, a dollar or two more in OBP leagues.

Absent a transcript of what I was thinking when I priced him at $9 in March, and bumped him to $11 earlier this month in the update, here are the caveats:

  1. He shined last year as a full time player after the break, a career year really, but that’s a small sample after more spotty playing time because he’s generally been weak against lefties. He hit eight homers last year against lefties, good, with a .221 BA. Bad. If he loses at bats he loses value.
  2. He’s 31 years old and falls into that class of player who is older, less athletic, platoonable and more prone to lose his job to younger and more athletic players at any time. And if his gains the last two years are real, he’s a classic late bloomer, a type of hitter who generally falls apart quickly as he ages.

Will Canha lose his job this year? Probably not. Could he match last year’s numbers? Certainly, but is that guaranteed? Far from it, and there is some little risk of collapse.

So, I gave him an $11 price because he’s not the sort of player you want to bid up to his career best price, he’s the sort you want to sneak in after all the sexier choices are gone and the boring choice goes a little cheaply.

Still, $11 is probably a little too pessimistic. That’s the price you want to pay for him, but odds are good in BA leagues he’ll go for $13-15, as he did in the expert leagues that use BA, and $16 as he did in Tout. That’s okay. I’ve bumped his price to $13, because it might make sense for you to pay that at some point. In OBP maybe you want to go $14.

And, of course, if you’re a big fan and you want to take him to $16, that may well work out. So, feel free, but you won’t find me bidding against you if you do.

Thanks for the question!

Ask Rotoman: We Heart JD Bolick!

by

Dear Rotoman:

This may seem silly, but have you considered putting what was prepared for Fantasy Football Guide online for a nominal charge or free? One of the big annual NHL guides did that in a year where there was strike uncertainty. I need to know what J. D. Bolick thinks of rookies! I have been checking the cigar store for FFG compulsively — a real downer that you aren’t publishing.

Alan

Thanks for your note Alan. If we had started work on the Guide and had something to show we would certainly share it, but because we were in lockdown at the time we usually start work on the mag (the day after the NFL Draft), and the publisher was unsure whether he would pay for it, we didn’t start working.

And so, not unexpectedly, no work was done, and hence we have nothing to share.

I sent your note to JD and he was grateful for the support. And we all look forward to the chance that next year we’ll be back on our regular schedule. We’re sorry to miss this one.

Best,


Ask Rotoman News, June 25 Edition

by

The biggest news is that The Fantasy Football Guide 2020 is shelved. The publisher was getting too few advance orders from skittish retailers, and so we’re taking a pass for this season. We hope there’s a football season this fall and you can enjoy it without the Guide.

The goal is to be back for baseball come January, if possible.

In the meantime, we have baseball potentially starting up. Updated projections and prices for buyers of The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2020, reflecting the 60 game season and the unbalanced schedule, will be available on July 9th on the Updates and Corrections page here.

Feel free to ask Rotoman any questions about this strange and endangered season.

Despite pessimism about the chance the full 60 games get played, I’m looking forward to reconsidering baseball again.

Last time I bought this team in the Tout Wars NL auction back in March.

Retro Drafting is a Thing.

by

I’ve now done three retro drafts, for 1982, 1990 and 1999. I wrote about the 1982 draft here, and have written about the 1990 and 1999 drafts at pattonandco.com, in the Stage Four thread.

I’ve finished in the Top 4 each time, but have yet to win one. I’ll be drafting next Wednesday night, taking apart the 1986 season. Fred Zinkie selected it because he won last week’s 1999 contest, jumping a mighty 11 points with his last round pick of Ryan Klesko.

I took apart the draft a few different ways. First I looked at how many draft dollars each team bought in hitting and pitching, using my earnings values (which give positive value to the Top 108 pitchers and Top 168 hitters based on their 10 category stats).

Then I compared their earnings to their expected earnings for each draft slot (basically my earnings list sorted from highest to lowest), to see their NET value.

And I compared these things to their actual finish. Here are the data:

Looking at this, it doesn’t really pass the smell test. Dean earned more than Fred? How did Jeff finish so high while earning so little?

Someone over at pattonandco.com pointed out that Fred added Pedro Astacio, who I had valued at -$20 on the season. That appears to have cost him two points in ERA and WHIP combined, because of the way those categories were grouped, but gained him many more Wins and Strikeouts.

Someone else suggested that this indicated a problem with my pricing, but I don’t think that’s true in a general sense. But in a very specific sense the issue of who gets a positive value seems to have a lot of impact on pitcher prices. I wrote:

Doug led in ERA and was second in WHIP. I was second in ERA and third in WHIP. Dean was third in ERA and first in WHIP. Fred was first in strikeouts and fifth in ERA and WHIP. And the three of us are way ahead of the other nine teams, with Fred finishing just ahead of seven of them. That’s efficiency. 

I think this shows not a problem with my pricing, but a problem with pricing in general. The dollar values work, but they then have to be applied to the right stats when you’re constructing your team. In other words, it’s not the meat it’s the motion.

But one issue to be aware of is that pitcher value very much depends on which 108 pitchers you value. The math will tell you one group, but as we can see, for a team in a particular position, a player like David Cone or Pedro Astacio will have real value and supplant one of the 70 inning relievers with a low ERA and Ratio that usually reside in the $1-$5 range.

So, if you go and reprice the actual pool, so that the worst pitcher is worth $1 and the 108 add up to $1092, the value of Pedro Martinez drops from $55 to $25. (I just did that.)

In the prospective leagues we usually price for, this phenomenon drives up the value of the best pitchers, but when we know what the stats are going to add up to it seems to do the opposite. Here’s how the Retro earnings looks with the pitching pool repriced. 

This doesn’t really make sense to me logically but eyeballing the Dollar totals in this chart makes more sense to me than the earlier one.

Note: I also adjusted the hitters in a similar way after noticing that the total wasn’t adding up to $3120. These results look more like what I would have expected, demonstrating that in a retro draft to get good prices you need to know which players will be selected.