Comments
The last twenty comments in true blog fasion, with the links to their authors and the player commented upon.
Welcome! You are invited to wander around and read all of the comments that have been posted here at Patton & Co., but as soon as you register you can see the bid limits that Alex, Peter and Mike propose for each player, and you can post your own comments. Registering is free, so please join us!
Even if you predicted Corey being traded to Philly....no one would have envisioned this batting order.
1. Harper
2. Hoskins
3. Dickerson
4. Segura
We haven't had similar trouble. Our league always has learning curve, but of our two newest franchises, one made the money in their fourth year, followed by a championship, and a third place finish. They have a shot tow in again this year for four straight money finishes. The other newer team, in their fourth year is also contending for the championship.
One solution is to not allow so many protections and to make turnover happen faster. We only allow 5 major league keepers plus two minor leaguers (or more minor leaguers at the expense of major leaguers). That helps b/c the draft matters more than keeping 10-12 or even more per team.
Plus, we force option/extension decision in the first offseason a player is signed/activated. This may be even more critical. It creates much faster turn over of players. The trend is to shorter contracts to compete with all of the teams with cheaper option players. Only guys like Alvarez, Vlad, and Eloy will be signed longer this year. Biggio and others will only get option years.
I think the pyramid protection system helps too. Give an extra keeper or two to 5th and 6th to encourage people to play for those spots.
Finally, the roster construction issues can be resolved. We added a 10th pitcher 4 years ago. We have considered removing a hitter. The balance is tough though. From where do you take the spot? Four OF seems wrong and would lead to extra OF free agents without helping free up hitters elsewhere.
The only other option is a redraft league, but for a home league, that eliminates any feeling of continuity and definitely removes the incentive to pick up players and make trades for teams in the bottom half. We did no trading for protections for a couple years and it lead to 1/3 of the teams just giving up in July and not paying attention at all.
The main points:
... over the last two or three years, my home league feels more out of sync with fantasy baseball than it used to feel. Part of this is probably because it’s a dinosaur of a league: a 33-year-old Rotisserie-style, AL-only league that stubbornly clings to 4×4 despite multiple attempts to join the early twenty-first century. But it’s not merely that. What used to be an intuitive and comprehensible format to new members has felt confusing and difficult to the last two or three people who joined our ranks. After a brief period where I kept getting frustrated that the newbies didn’t understand the rules, I realized that it’s not them. It’s us.
... deep leagues have become even more onerous thanks to major-league teams carrying 12-13 pitchers. There isn’t really much for us to do during the regular season on the hitting side unless a minor leaguer who isn’t already in our farm system (we can keep up to four minor leaguers at the beginning of the year) is promoted or if someone is traded from the “other” league. While the mono leagues in Tout Wars are similarly limiting, the freedom to speculate on minor leaguers and injured players via FAAB offers an additional wrinkle that keeps us more involved.
The same can be said for the unlimited reserve list my league uses for non-active major leaguers... Scott Pianowski of Yahoo! argued against the concept of an unlimited injured list for years, and I passionately argued against him. Now, I must belatedly concede he was right. A deeper free-agent list keeps things interesting during the season; seeing a team in my league with a combination of 28 minor league and IL players on reserve is somewhat demoralizing.
These drawbacks would be irrelevant if everyone in the league was as passionate and involved as they were a few years ago. Unfortunately, we’ve been locked into a familiar pattern of behavior the last few seasons:
- Three or four teams clearly have the best rosters coming into the auction. Little changes during the auction; if anything, the strongest teams get even better.
- Because of this somewhat obvious hierarchy (to most), teams at the bottom of the standings don’t try to improve and compete. The teams at the top don’t do much either, as they know eventually the teams at the bottom will give up and play for next year.
- The teams in the middle are caught in a crunch. They’re not bad enough to immediately give up, but they’re not good enough to trade their way into serious contention …. which doesn’t matter, because no one is trading (see No. 2).
- Finally, in late June or early July, the worst teams in the league give up on the season. They trade their expensive chips or players with expiring contracts to the top three or four teams in contention.
This pattern makes the league predictable, but it also saps interest during the season. Attempts to make a fair, this-year-for-this-year swap are thwarted frequently because it pays to wait for teams to start giving up. Why trade Justin Verlander for Mookie Betts when you can wait until June and trade a cheap Lucas Giolito for Betts and an option-year Charlie Morton? The larger problem with this pattern is that it creates a mushy middle where teams can’t do enough to win in July via trade unless they’re in the top two or three. Trading your future assets on July 15 to finish third instead of fifth might appeal to some, but it doesn’t appeal to most...
Mine too. Peter's too.
We traded him in the PCL in the off-season for...
don't ask.
By the way, BHQ's First Pitch Arizona is two weeks earlier this year, macthing the earlier start of the AFL. Here are the details.
Just one game ... highlights at the plate and on the field ... worth watching ... this kid has exceeded my expectations! Oh, Doctor!
In Baseball HQ's Friday newsletter:
Philadelphia Phillies OF Jay Bruce (oblique) was activated from the 10-day injured list Thursday, Aug. 8. The team also optioned OF Adam Haseley to Class AAA Lehigh Valley. Source: MLBRosterMoves
BHQ take: Bruce returns after about three weeks on the IL. After coming to the Phillies from Seattle, Bruce was red hot; however, he had tailed off just before getting hurt. Indeed, he was 0-for-14 in his last five appearances before hitting the IL. Even with the mini-slump, Bruce has a .271 xBA and a 168 PX. Obviously, those are numbers that warrant rostering Brice in virtually all fantasy leagues. Haseley hasn't been half bad himself. He has a .287 xBA and a 101 PX over 84 at-bats. Haseley will very likely be back with the Phillies in 2019. Whether he will warrant a spot on fantasy teams will depend primarily on playing time. —Phil Hertz
Can't chase him down. He must not have a BIS ID yet. Or I should say, we don't have it yet.
Two more knocks last night raising his batting average to .353, his on-base average to .426. That's about all he does, but in a time when everyone else is swinging from the heels it's a lot.
Emmanuel Clase is Wondrous ... FanGraphs is suggesting we should have a page for this guy :-)
VULTURE SAVE WATCH
Today:
1. Nathan Eovaldi — Brandon Workman has worked in three of four and four of six.
2. Nick Wittgren — Brad Hand has gone in two straight, and threw 31 pitches during a four-out save Thursday. Wittgren also pitched Wednesday and Thursday, but had a lighter workload (just 23 pitches).
Miami Marlins — Austin Brice has been activated from the injured list. He was impressive before getting sidelined in July, and he could become a factor in high-leverage innings out of the gate. Meanwhile, Drew Steckenrider is scheduled to visit with Dr. James Andrews for an evaluation of his right elbow.
Hierarchy remains: *Garcia | Quijada | Stanek.
* = closer-by-committee
Yesterday's top Game Scores:
Chris Sale* (BOS): 8.0 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 13 K, 0 BB, 91 GmSc
Madison Bumgarner* (SFG): 7.0 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 3 K, 1 BB, 77 GmSc
Elieser Hernandez (MIA): 6.0 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 7 K, 2 BB, 73 GmSc
Mike Clevinger (CLE): 7.0 IP, 2 ER, 3 H, 9 K, 1 BB, 71 GmSc
Dillon Peters (LAA): 6.0 IP, 3 ER, 5 H, 8 K, 1 BB, 57 GmSc
* pictured (at Baseball-Reference)
Six scoreless against the Braves for his second win. Two hits, two walks, seven strikeouts. His four-seamer only averages 90.8 but the exit velo is only 85.6 (three mph under the MLB average). His slider is in the high 70's.
Joins the 20 HR club in 349 AB. Slugging .749 in his last 29 AB.
Twenty-four days in a row, at least two homers by someone in the majors. Only four managed to do it yesterday.
Gio Urshela* (NYY): 3-5, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 3 R
Brian Anderson* (MIA): 3-4, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 2 R
Nicholas Castellanos* (CHC): 3-4, 2 HR, 2 RBI, 3 R
Hunter Dozier (KCR): 2-5, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 2 R
* pictured (at Baseball-Reference)
There were only 8 games last night and 4 players hit 2 HR!
The paywall strikes again!
Click on the name of a player (or thread) to go directly to that page and see the comment in context with the other comments.
In one of the more surreal moments of my roto-life, I was "watching" via Gamecast Kenley Jansen blew the save tonight via HR to Carson Kelly ... why? Because I did this 10 days ago ... sigh ...