Spring Training Blog 1: Keeper Trading
Paul and Michael Got together for a round of golf this week
It’s official! Pitchers and catchers are baking in the south
Florida heat. Hitters are making their way to Arizona. Baseball fans across the
country are planning their pilgrimages to spring training. It’s baseball
season!
Yahoo has opened up the fantasy league, Floored Fantasy
Baseball League’s 12 year of existence has begun.
Let’s dive in.
First things first, the draft. I have heard no objections to
Sunday, March 11th or 18th, so I picked the 18th
so we can draft as late as possible in spring training. Mark your calendars.
We’ll aim for a 3:00 PM ET draft
Next thing, keepers. Keepers will be due to me by 3:00 PM ET
that Thursday, March 15th. I’ll drop the formality of the 'player
name, round, year number being kept' format. It made sense in the early days of the
keeper league, but its kinda useless now since we are a more involved league
and publicize all that information ahead of time. Just send me the names of the
guys you want to keep and I’ll take care of the rest.
Speaking of publicizing this information, Yahoo has released
their first set of rankings. I have applied these to our keeper eligible
players and come up with what I analyze to be the best keepers available for
each team. I’ve enhanced the activity this year a bit, I’ve added some adjustments
to more accurately show where the players would be selected if they were thrown
back into the player pool. These filters include accounting for removing the
expected keepers ahead of them, thus bumping up their default ranking (for
example if Brian Dozier, ranked 29, is thrown back into the draft pool, and 10 players
ahead of him in the ranks are kept, Dozier becomes the default 19th
best player available and thus has a full round better in value from his 6th
round keeper round eligibility). In a similar fashion, I improved or punished
players based on Floored’s rules. I bumped up a round or so for the players
that get a bunch of hits and walks and the best relief pitchers (remember
Aroldis Chapman being selected in the 2nd round last year), and I
bumped down a round or two the players that strike out a lot and the middle round
Starting Pitchers (remember Jose Quintana being selected in the 15th
round last year). If you see the 0.5 intervals that was just because at some
points I didn’t want to punish or boost a full round, it’s just for reference.
These are the players with at least 4 rounds of value:
|
Team
|
Player
|
Round Available
|
Yahoo Rank Tens Column
|
Yahoo Keeper Round Adjustment
|
Yahoo Floored Stats Adjustment
|
Yahoo Floored Adjusted Draft-Round Estimate
|
Floored Adjusted Rounds of Keeper Value
|
|
Arthur
|
Aaron Judge
|
11
|
1
|
1
|
-1
|
2
|
9
|
|
Arthur
|
Justin Verlander
|
9
|
3
|
2
|
0
|
2
|
7
|
|
Arthur
|
Gary Sanchez
|
9
|
2
|
1.5
|
-2
|
3.5
|
5.5
|
|
Arthur
|
Jonathan Schoop
|
11
|
7
|
6
|
0
|
6
|
5
|
|
BJ
|
Jose Ramirez
|
11
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
10
|
|
BJ
|
Marcell Ozuna
|
11
|
4
|
3
|
0
|
3
|
8
|
|
BJ
|
Andrew Benintendi
|
9
|
4
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
7
|
|
BJ
|
Aaron Nola
|
11
|
6
|
4
|
0
|
4
|
7
|
|
BJ
|
Corey Seager
|
7
|
2
|
1.5
|
|
1.5
|
5.5
|
|
Cory
|
Trea Turner
|
9
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
9
|
|
Cory
|
Rhys Hoskins
|
11
|
4
|
3
|
-1
|
4
|
7
|
|
Cory
|
Noah Syndergaard
|
7
|
2
|
1.5
|
0
|
1.5
|
5.5
|
|
Cory
|
Jose Quintana
|
11
|
7
|
6
|
0
|
6
|
5
|
|
Cory
|
Lorenzo Cain
|
11
|
8
|
7
|
1
|
6
|
5
|
|
Cory
|
Roberto Osuna
|
9
|
8
|
7
|
2
|
5
|
4
|
|
Dave
|
Luis Severino
|
11
|
5
|
3.5
|
-1
|
4.5
|
6.5
|
|
Dave
|
Carlos Correa
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
6
|
|
Dave
|
Yu Darvish
|
9
|
4
|
3
|
-1
|
4
|
5
|
|
Dave
|
Domingo Santana
|
11
|
7
|
6
|
0
|
6
|
5
|
|
Dean
|
Elvis Andrus
|
11
|
4
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
9
|
|
Dean
|
Francisco Lindor
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
7
|
|
Dean
|
Byron Buxton
|
11
|
5
|
3.5
|
-1
|
4.5
|
6.5
|
|
Keith
|
Zach Greinke
|
11
|
5
|
3.5
|
0
|
3.5
|
7.5
|
|
Keith
|
Dallas Keuchel
|
11
|
7
|
6
|
-1
|
7
|
4
|
|
Matt
|
Cody Bellinger
|
11
|
3
|
2
|
-1
|
3
|
8
|
|
Matt
|
AJ Pollack
|
8
|
5
|
3.5
|
1
|
2.5
|
5.5
|
|
Max
|
Daniel Murphy
|
9
|
4
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
7
|
|
Max
|
Robbie Ray
|
11
|
5
|
3.5
|
-1
|
4.5
|
6.5
|
|
Max
|
Wil Myers
|
9
|
4
|
3
|
-1
|
4
|
5
|
|
Michael
|
Tommy Pham
|
11
|
7
|
6
|
1
|
5
|
6
|
|
Michael
|
Manny Machado
|
7
|
2
|
1.5
|
0
|
1.5
|
5.5
|
|
Michael
|
James Paxton
|
11
|
7
|
6
|
-1
|
7
|
4
|
|
Michael
|
Brian Dozier
|
6
|
3
|
2
|
0
|
2
|
4
|
|
Michael
|
Rafael Devers
|
11
|
8
|
7
|
0
|
7
|
4
|
|
Paul
|
Corey Knebel
|
11
|
8
|
7
|
2
|
5
|
6
|
|
Paul
|
Justin Upton
|
8
|
3
|
2
|
-1
|
3
|
5
|
Biggest Takeaways: BJ is the clear front runner in keeper
talent and is likely to get off to a hot start this year…but as we know, these
keeper values mean little by June or July so all this provides them is a head
start. Keith, Matt, and Paul are all in need of keepers. Keith and Matt have a
couple of guys that grade out with 2 or 3 rounds of value, but there is room
for improvement as teams like Arthur, BJ, Cory, Dave, and Michael all have
higher level keepers to spare. The cupboard is fairly empty for Paul, his best
keeper is a second year closer getting buoyed by Michael’s new Keeper value
adjustment…not ideal.
The keeper trades are open for business. As a reminder, they
will go through bidding wars just like any other trade. We will start the
bidding wars for any trades in March. Also remember there are some rules about
the value of picks able to be returned from trades and the number of keepers
you’re able to control from your end of last-season’s team. I won’t muddle this
up anymore, but ask me if you have a question and I’ll point you to the rules. Happy
Trading!
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