Off Season Blogging Part 2: Let the Keeper Trading Begin

The Floored Fantasy Baseball League is in its second year of off-season keeper trading. Last year there was a great divide between the keeper-rich and the keeper-poor leading to a market flush with supply and demand. This led to a flurry of all sorts of trades from high end deals such as one including the 2016 MVP, Kris Bryant, to low end deals that were more about the draft picks involved.

This year, there is more of an even playing field, an indication of the parity that existed last year in the league. There were no elite teams, rather there were a number of pretty good teams that were able to accumulate keepers. Despite this even playing field, there is still room for everyone to improve.

Here is a snap shot of what the keeper landscape looks like based on Yahoo’s player rankings

Legend:

Round Available: This is based on their keeper round (i.e. last year’s players undrafted or drafted after round 13 being available in the 11^th round this year)

Rounds of Value: This is the round they are projected to be drafted in minus their Round Available

I only show here the players with at least 3 rounds of value, because anything less is basically you paying their draft day value.

		Round Available	Rounds of Value				Round Available	Rounds of Value
Arthur	Manny Machado	9	8		Dean	Daniel Murphy	11	8
Arthur	Seung Hwan Oh	11	6.5		Dean	Francisco Lindor	9	7
Arthur	Kris Bryant	7	6		Dean	Roberto Osuna	11	6.5
Arthur	Gary Sanchez	11	5		Dean	Khris Davis	11	5
Arthur	Kyle Schwarber	9	4		Keith	Kyle Hendricks	11	5
Arthur	Billy Hamilton	11	3		Keith	Jean Segura	11	4
Brian and Josh	Corey Seager	9	8		Keith	Carlos Martinez	11	3
Brian and Josh	Mookie Betts	7	6		Max	Trevor Story	11	8
Brian and Josh	Edwin Diaz	11	6		Max	Wil Myers	11	6
Cory	Trea Turner	11	10		Max	George Springer	7	5
Cory	Noah Syndergaard	9	8		Michael	Anthony Rizzo	7	6
Cory	Jonathan Villar	11	6		Michael	Andrew Miller	11	5.5
Cory	Mark Trumbo	11	3		Michael	Corey Kluber	7	5
Dave	Yu Darvish	11	8		Michael	Brian Dozier	7	4
Dave	Carlos Correa	9	7		Michael	David Dahl	11	4
Dave	Ian Desmond	11	7		Michael	Chris Archer	9	3
Dave	Nolan Arenado	7	6		Niki	Xander Bogaerts	9	7
Paul	Justin Verlander	11	7		Niki	AJ Pollock	9	6
Paul	Nelson Cruz	7	4

Note this year I have priced in Relief Pitchers differently than their default rankings to account for how these players get drafted in our league (I divided their projected round by 2). It won’t be exact, but it does give you the idea.

Cory is this year’s front runner going into the draft. His top three keepers are going to come with about 24 rounds of value between Trea Turner’s 10, Noah Syndergaard’s 8, and Jonathan Villar’s 6. Now, these are all very high projections for these players therefore for them to live up to their draft day value they will need to back up their career numbers from last year.

The two managers with the most to gain from keeper trading this spring are Paul and Niki. These two only have two keepers with 3 rounds of value. Given that there are five managers with at least one keeper to spare, it’s a buyer’s market.

This is where the beauty of keepers trading benefits all involved: it allows for the over-performing teams to improve by selling their excess commodities, but it allows the under-performing teams to buy these commodities in an open market at what should be a reduced price because there is more supply than demand (I hope I used those terms correctly, most of the people in this league are in the business/finance/management sector).

There are a number of interesting and debatable players with keeper value this year. It opens up the opportunity for what I called ‘opinion trading.’ This is where you don’t have a need to acquire a keeper to fill out your three keeper slots, but you can trade for a keeper because you are especially high on him, or his current owner may be especially low on him. Some names that jump out to me are:

Gary Sanchez: power hitting catcher whose value is tough to pin. Arthur (his owner) has keepers to spare and Sanchez may become dispensable…but he’s a Yankee, so good luck trading for him

Kyle Schwarber: coming off missing all but 2 games of the regular season, Schwarber isn’t priced at much of an injury discount after his World Series performance.

Corey Seager: he is very expensive but is ripe for a sophomore slump

Trea Turner: …ditto

Jonathan Villar: the adage says never pay for a career year

Yu Darvish: his price reflects he is back to Cy Young form…but is less than 2 years removed from Tommy John surgery

Carlos Martinez: a trendy name this Spring, he was a high end prospect some believe to be on the precipice of a breakout…he won’t be too expensive to acquire in a trade either

Trevor Story: again, Max (his owner) is all in, but this is a 3-year keeper contender that may be expensive on draft day this year, but has tremendous keeper value to the right bidder

George Springer: this is his final year as a keeper and is somewhat priced at a bargain, it’s a buying opportunity

David Dahl: Michael (his owner) has more keepers than he can hold onto and Dahl is priced for a platoon. If you believe in the prospect this is a higher-end performer last year playing in Coors Field

Chris Archer: coming off of a career-high home runs allowed rate, this high end talent has gone from one of the best keepers last year, to a marginal keeper this year. Archer sets up a buy low opportunity with 2 more years of keeper value available

AJ Pollack: priced this year coming off of a year-long injury, Pollack has two years of keeper value left and will not be too expensive

Happy Trading everyone!