Offseason blog Numero Uno

Michael and Dean got together for drinks this week. They're finally living in the same city at the same time again, it's pretty awesome

We’re a whopping one week into the fantasy offseason…but I just can’t resist. Just like league recap emails in years past, I’m two whiskeys deep watching football and I have some fantasy baseball to talk about.

ESPN released their first set of 2018 fantasy baseball rankings so we have our first look at what the keeper landscape is going to look like next March. The biggest surprises in the ranks with regards to keepers:

1.       Byron Buxton in the 5^th round?!?! This guy was garbage and in AAA this year...but one good month and suddenly he’s a top 60 pick? Cmon man

2.       Anthony Rendon in the 5^th? Rendon can single-handedly carry fantasy weeks, this guy is a stud. The entire Nationals team coasted down the stretch when the division became non-competitive, buy buy buy

3.       Brian Dozier in the 3^rd? Oy, I’ve been as big of a Dozer fan as they come, this feels pretty high

4.       Andrew Benintendi in the 4^th? Wow ESPN is buying here, not too sure how Beny can fulfill this level of value but BJ is certainly going to enjoy it

5.       Marcel Ozuna in the 3^rd? Damn that’s high, BJ is going to have some keeper capital to spend this offseason

6.       Louis Severino in the 3^rd is incredible. Arthur dropped him in the playoffs when he needed a spot…suddenly he’s Dave’s best keeper.

7.       All of the Closers were ranked pretty low here, in our league these guys go way higher…understandably because of our rules set

8.       On the negative side: I thought Andrew McCutchen would be higher ranked, he had a terrible 2^nd half (I projected him to go in the 4^th, ESPN has him in the 7^th); Wilson Contreras is lower than I thought he’d be, Catcher is awful, he was great for extended stretches this year (projected 6^thr round, ranked 9^th round); Michael Conforto and his injury are a huge question mark, clearly hurting his rank here (projected 8^th round, ranked 11^th round).

I took a look at all the team’s reasonable keeper players and make a table in excel. I looked at what round they were keepable in and what round ESPN had them ranked in. Here are what the very early keeper landscape is going to look like

Team	Player	Round Available	ESPN September	ESPN September DELTA		Team	Player	Round Available	ESPN September	ESPN September DELTA
Arthur	Aaron Judge	11	2	9		Dean	Elvis Andrus	11	4	7
Arthur	Jonathan Schoop	11	4	7		Dean	Byron Buxton	11	5	6
Arthur	Gary Sanchez	9	4	5		Dean	Francisco Lindor	7	2	5
Arthur	Justin Verlander	9	5	4		Keith	Zach Greinke	11	3	8
Arthur	Travis Shaw	11	7	4		Keith	Alex Wood	11	8	3
BJ	Jose Ramirez	11	2	9		Matt	Cody Bellinger	11	2	9
BJ	Marcell Ozuna	11	3	8		Matt	Mike Moustakas	11	7	4
BJ	Corey Seager	7	2	5		Max	Miguel Sano	11	4	7
BJ	Justin Smoak	11	6	5		Max	Daniel Murphy	9	4	5
BJ	Andrew Benintendi	9	4	5		Max	Robbie Ray	11	6	5
Cory	Trea Turner	9	1	8		Max	Wil Myers	9	6	3
Cory	Rhys Hoskins	11	4	7		Michael	Manny Machado	7	1	6
Cory	Noah Syndergaard	7	3	4		Michael	James Paxton	11	7	4
Dave	Luis Severino	11	3	8		Michael	Tommy Pham	11	8	3
Dave	Carlos Correa	7	1	6		Michael	Brian Dozier	6	3	3
Dave	Yu Darvish	9	4	5		Paul	Justin Upton	8	3	5
Dave	Domingo Santana	11	6	5		Paul	Corey Knebel	11	9	2

My takeaways:

Arthur and BJ are setting up pretty well, the clear favorites here heading into the draft next March. I’d have Dave in third but it’s pretty close between him and the middle class. The most ironic of the keeper setups is Paul, remember he made a mid-season trade for keepers and chose Ryan Zimmerman over names like James Paxton and Marcel Ozuna. Well, Ryan Zimmerman is not projecting well and Ozuna just hurt too much to trade for after dropping him earlier in the year. That’s not even the best part. Paul picked up Justin Upton from Keith to keep him ‘competitive’ through the end of the year. Not only did Upton carry Paul to win the BSC he is Paul’s best keeper in 2018. Paul will be among those with room to trade FOR keepers with Keith and Matt who are keeper short heading into the draft

A reminder for all about keeper trading. Between now and a few days before the 2018 draft, any player on your 2017 end of season roster can be traded for any player on someone else’s end of season roster or a 2018 draft pick, not just the guys in the above chart. There are some restrictions about which draft picks you can acquire but I don’t see that being a problem this offseason. We’ll deal with that if it comes up. All of these trades will go through bidding wars. All bidding wars will occur in March, 2018. You can keep up to three players into next year and you can have control of up to four players via trade and or keeping them (so you can trade away 2 and keep 2, or trade away 1 and keep 3, etc).

Keeper trading is always a fun. It’s going to be a buyers market this year. Lot’s of teams need keepers and a handful of teams can trade some away. Don’t sit on the sideline, get in on it.

Football is getting started again. I’m out