Preseason 2020 Blog Series Part 1: Keepers Tracking and Rule Change ideas

Dave and Max took in the Miami/UF game this year with Dave’s wife and her friend. Dave is coming off another title this year but as we’ll get into below, he’s a bit behind the 8-ball.

Another year begins for Floored Fantasy Baseball League! Now that fantasy football season is over and the sports world takes a breath before March Madness, there’s no better time to talk about fantasy baseball…at least that’s what I think. We’re coming off a FFBL year where we crowned our 5^th different champion in 6 years, despite it being Dave’s 4^th league title. Every year it has been a new team entering the year with the best keepers, but it rarely seems to have much of an impact past April or May. Last year Cory, Matt, and Max all had a pretty good head start on the field, but they fared very differently throughout the season. Matt led the power rankings for the first month but then never really kept up the momentum, Max was up and down most of the year but made the playoffs and ended the year second in the power ranks, and Cory got injured early and never really found his footing. The moral of the story is, keepers are fun to talk about in the offseason and plan around, but they are only one part of one’s team. To win the league it requires continual talent acquisition. So let’s see how things are looking this year (note that this has been updated with YAHOO rankings to be more accurate with the rankings that are seen in the draft room)

Manager	Player	Yahoo Rank	Yahoo Round	Drafted 2019	Drafted Round	Keeper Round Available	Rounds of Value Pasted
Arthur	Gleyber Torres	25	3	105	11	9	6
Arthur	Rafael Devers	31	4	97	10	8	4
Arthur	Aaron Judge	22	3	85	9	7	4
Arthur	Patrick Corbin	45	5	110	11	9	4
BJ	Jack Flaherty	24	3	110	11	9	6
BJ	Jonathan Villar	50	5	168	17	11	6
BJ	Charlie Morton	57	6	132	14	11	5
BJ	Jose Ramirez	21	3	89	9	7	4
BJ	Ramon Laureano	80	8	169	17	11	3
Cory	Gerrit Cole	7	1	110	11	9	8
Cory	Chris Paddack	54	6	159	16	11	5
Cory	(Trea Turner)	(not)	(eligible)
Cory	Bo Bichette	66	7	#N/A	13	11	4
Cory	Victor Robles	71	8	165	17	11	3
Cory	Tyler Glasnow	81	9	#N/A	13	11	2
Dave	Keston Hiura	46	5	#N/A	13	11	6
Dave	Yoan Moncada	59	6	#N/A	13	11	5
Dave	Lucas Giolito	55	6	#N/A	13	11	5
Dave	Eloy Jimenez	58	6	111	12	10	4
Dave	Adalberto Mondesi	42	5	110	11	9	4
Dave	Marcus Semien	68	7	#N/A	13	11	4
Dave	Luis Robert	90	9	#N/A	13	11	2
Dean	Blake Snell	37	4	101	11	9	5
Keith	Jorge Soler	78	8	#N/A	13	11	3
Matt	Trevor Story	13	2	107	11	9	7
Matt	Javier Baez	30	3	110	11	9	6
Matt	Cody Bellinger	5	1	87	9	7	6
Matt	Luis Castillo	47	5	194	20	11	6
Max	Ronald Acuna Jr.	1	1	98	10	8	7
Max	Yordan Alvarez	35	4	#N/A	13	11	7
Max	Ketel Marte	52	6	123	13	11	5
Max	Vladimir Guerrero Jr.	53	6	103	11	9	3
Michael	Fernando Tatis Jr.	11	2	#N/A	13	11	9
Michael	Pete Alonso	29	3	#N/A	13	11	8
Michael	Shane Bieber	26	3	133	14	11	8
Michael	Juan Soto	12	2	108	11	9	7
Michael	Yu Darvish	62	7	200	20	11	4
Paul	Walker Buehler	19	2	102	11	9	7
Paul	Austin Meadows	36	4	164	17	11	7
Paul	Eugenio Suarez	56	6	110	11	9	3
Paul	Tim Anderson	75	8	#N/A	13	11	3
Manager	Player	Yahoo Rank	Yahoo Round	Drafted 2019	Drafted Round	Keeper Round Available	Rounds of Value Pasted

In general it’s a pretty big year for keepers. Last year, we had 30 players with at least 2 rounds of value that totalled 145 rounds of value, this year we’re up to 38 players with at least two rounds of value totalling 168 rounds of value. This tells me two things: a number of players had breakout years last year and that these ranks are perhaps more fluid than in years past. As in, it’s easier for a player to be ranked 40 spots higher than the previous year like Austin Meadows or Josh Bell while players that we thought were awesome last year like Wil Myers or Andrew Benintendi, the fantasy industry is quicker to punish them for a bad year.

So here is how teams are looking compared to each other (note that this is just a toal of guys with two rounds of value, Dave, Dean, and Keith all have a few guys with one round of value):

Manager	Rounds of Value from Top 4 Keepers (ESPN Valuation)	Rounds of Value from Top 4 Keepers (Yahoo Valuation)
Michael	27	32
Max	23	22
Matt	22	25
Arthur	18	18
Brian/Josh	17	21
Cory	16	17
Paul	16	20
Dean	7	5
Dave	4	20
Keith	0	3

Michael, Max, and Matt are in the strongest position to trade away their excess talent, while Keith, Dean, and Dave have the biggest need to acquire players. From the update to Yahoo Rankings, Dave suddenly looks like he has far more valuable keepers and Keith is on the board.

Rule Changes:

Last year we had our biggest rule changes in quite awhile by scrapping the Hits and Earned Run categories and replacing them with Slugging Percentage and Saves+Holds. So there’s a case to be made to stand pat for the season…but where’s the fun in that?

I have one rule change I’d like to propose and see if there is any takers: allow for draft pick trades in-season. This is one Max has been pushing for a long time…since we took this away awhile back…and I think it’s time for us to reconsider. Here’s why: the reason we took draft picks off the table as trade capital awhile back was because people were selling a large chunk of their draft for players each year. This led to wild swings of draft picks and people treating those picks like monopoly money. But with our keeper draft pick trade controls (i.e. not being allowed to hold more than six first five round picks at a time, seven in rounds six through ten, etc), we have the ability to restrain this concern. Anyway, I’m here to say, Max was right and we should do this. Anyone else? Any other ideas they’d like the league to weigh in on? We won’t take any formal votes right now, but maybe in Spring Training.

Until then, enjoy College Basketball and start eyeing those keeper trades!