Keeper trading 2021: who gained and lost value from the year off?

 

We had a new addition to our league family this off season. Dave and his wife, Jenn, welcomed their first baby, Tyler, into the Floored family. Send Dave a mazel tov (did I say that right?)

Before we get into the keeper trading landscape, let’s set the table with some reminders for what this season will look like compared to last season:

·         Scoring will be head-to-head, back to normal

·         There will be playoffs, last two weeks of the MLB regular season

·         Weekly acquisition maximums: 8 per week, back to regulating/minimizing pitcher streaming

·         There will be a keeper trade deadline around mid-season, and a full trade deadline around August 1^st

·         Draft Slot picking will start soon (probably late February), we’ll use the idea from year’s past and apply it to this year. Tanking was discouraged last season so we’ll reward everyone who had a good season but came up short of the payoff…i.e. winning the trophy. With there being no playoffs to try to win the trophy, second place was this, so we’ll run in order of finish 2^nd to 10^th, then 1^st:

Draft Slot Pick Order	Manager
1	BJ
2	Dave
3	Dean
4	Arthur
5	Paul
6	Carl
7	Max
8	Cory
9	Keith
10	Michael

 

Floored took the crazy 2020 season off from our keeper league valuations, freezing everything where things were at the end of 2019. 2021 keeper valuations will be based on 2019 draft pick valuations and 2019 end of season rosters. For reference, you can look this stuff up here: https://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/2019/b1/2419

I’ve pulled the end of season rosters, draft day picks, and 2021 yahoo ranks and identified who the best keepers are going to be. Here is how it looks:

Manager	Player (from end of season roster)	Yahoo Rank - 2021	Yahoo Round -2021	Drafted 2019*	Drafted Round -2019	Keeper Round Available - 2021	Rounds of Value - 2021
Arthur	Rafael Devers	29	3	97	10	8	5
Arthur	Luke Voit	52	6	125	13	11	5
Arthur	Aaron Judge	46	5	85	9	7	2
Arthur	Gleyber Torres	67	7	105	11	9	2
BJ	Jack Flaherty	27	3	110	11	9	6
BJ	Brandon Woodruff	42	5	#N/A	13	11	6
BJ	Jose Ramirez	12	2	89	9	7	5
BJ	Lance Lynn	71	8	#N/A	13	11	3
Cory	Gerrit Cole	10	1	110	11	9	8
Cory	Bo Bichette	22	3	#N/A	13	11	8
Cory	Tyler Glasnow	50	5	#N/A	13	11	6
Cory	Hyun Jin Ryu	89	9	175	18	11	2
Dave	Lucas Giolito	25	3	#N/A	13	11	8
Dave	Luis Robert	33	4	#N/A	13	11	7
Dave	Adalberto Mondesi	24	3	110	11	9	6
Dave	Eloy Jimenez	37	4	111	12	10	6
Dave	Keston Hiura	58	6	#N/A	13	11	5
Dave	Yoan Moncada	63	7	#N/A	13	11	4
Dean	Blake Snell	51	6	101	11	9	3
Dean	Sonny Gray	73	8	#N/A	13	11	3
Keith	Zac Gallen	62	7	#N/A	13	11	4
Carl	Trevor Story	9	1	107	11	9	8
Carl	Luis Castillo	44	5	194	20	11	6
Carl	Cody Bellinger	15	2	87	9	7	5
Carl	Javier Baez	54	6	110	11	9	3
Carl	Cavan Biggio	78	8	#N/A	13	11	3
Max	Ronald Acuna Jr.	1	1	98	10	8	7
Max	Yordan Alvarez	53	6	#N/A	13	11	5
Max	Ketel Marte	60	6	123	13	11	5
Max	Vladimir Guerrero Jr.	49	5	103	11	9	4
Michael	Fernando Tatis Jr.	2	1	#N/A	13	11	10
Michael	Shane Bieber	11	2	133	14	11	9
Michael	Yu Darvish	18	2	200	20	11	9
Michael	Juan Soto	4	1	108	11	9	8
Michael	Pete Alonso	39	4	#N/A	13	11	7
Michael	Trevor Bauer	16	2	110	11	9	7
Michael	Kyle Tucker	35	4	#N/A	13	11	7
Michael	Liam Hendriks	65	7	#N/A	13	11	4
Michael	Aaron Nola	28	3	70	7	5	2
Paul	Walker Buehler	21	3	102	11	9	6
Paul	Tim Anderson	48	5	#N/A	13	11	6
Paul	DJ LeMahieu	47	5	#N/A	13	11	6
Paul	Austin Meadows	81	9	164	17	11	2
Paul	Eugenio Suarez	61	7	110	11	9	2
Paul	Josh Hader	69	7	110	11	9	2

*some adjustments made in case more than one keepers drafted later than their keeper value such as in rounds 12 and 13.

What does this tell us? Well, Michael should have a fun start to 2021. As we’ve seen in year’s past, the keeper honeymoon for the top teams tends to last about 2 months until many draft day valuations have normalized and in-season management outweighs what happened on draft day.

Noting that our keeper rules only allow managers to control 4 players from their end of season rosters, here is how many rounds each manager is projected to have from their top 4 players:

Manager	Rounds of Value from Top 4 Keepers - 2021	Rounds of Value from Top 4 Keepers – how things looked in February 2020
Michael	36	27
Max	21	23
Carl	22	22
Arthur	14	18
Brian/Josh	20	17
Cory	24	16
Paul	20	16
Dean	6	7
Dave	27	4
Keith	4	0

As you can see, Michael has big edge on the field in terms of total rounds of value projected. The other big observation is how good 2020 was to Dave’s players. He went from 4 rounds of value projected at this time last year to 27 rounds of value projected now. This will likely prevent Dave from **needing** to make any trades to keep pace with the top teams. Dean and Keith are likely going to want to make a trade or two happen to fill their keepers to keep pace with the rest of the league. Carl joins the league with a few big names like Trevor Story and Cody Bellinger to fill his keeper base.

So what does the trading landscape look like?

With it already established that Dean and Keith need more keepers, who else could be in the market for an upgrade?

Arthur has two good keepers, but his options for number 3 are both Yankees so he likely to stand pat.

Max, Carl, BJ, Cory, Paul and Dave are all basically in the same boat as each other with a middling level of keeper values. Their main ground to gain will be if they can identify a breakout candidate from keepers available. Most of these teams have a 4^th keeper to spare if a deal can be made. As we’ve calculated in past years, keeper trades are generally ‘win-win’ trades. One team is trading from a place of excess (remember you can’t keep a 4^th keeper) and another team is increasing their pre-draft team valuation by getting a player for cheaper than their draft day value. So with the only cost being another draft pick, these trades have the potential to mutally increase the value of both teams.

The big seller will be Michael. Having 7 players available with more than 7 rounds of value, Michael has the potential to set market values with which one(s) he wants to sell.

We’ll keep keeper trading open all the way up to a week before keepers are due, which is 3 days before the draft, which will be on or around the final Sunday before the season starts which appears to be April 1^st. More reminders and locked in dates closer to then.

One final reminder is that all keeper trades will go through our standard trade bidding wars. Some of our most involved bidding wars over the years have been of the pre-season keeper variety, in fact.

I’ll try to keep the blogs coming leading up to opening day. Lots to talk about and…as of today…its baseball season!