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0 Subject: RIBC AAA ESPN retrospective

Posted by: JeffG
- [44182712] Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 12:07

Lets get some convo going... you can use Guru's template, or just pass on your own recap.
1JeffG
      ID: 44182712
      Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 12:19
What a rollercoaster season I had. Here is my story.

After a half a month I was DEEP in 15th/16th place, not even close to 14th. My number 1 pick Soto was on the DL to start the year after a postive Covid test, Third rounder Springer and fourth rounder Donaldson were mired in ealry slumps Sixth rounder Hoskins was not hitting. My early MI guy Semien (5th round) would not earn his high draft slot all year. UGH. On the pitching side I am killing it with saves. Workman earned his 8th round selection and was doing his thing for a bad Boston team, and the early MLB saves leader was 23rd rounder Zack Britton because the regular bomber closer was out. Workman would be traded to a Phillies team that was competive and became the closet there. This was good because I drafted as RP2 Will Smith high (14) hoping for saves that would not come.

My SP is just eh. Marcus Stroman (13) opted out. But some bad starts by my other top picks Flaherty and Woodruff had me sitting at like 3 and 1 in ERA and WHIP at the quarter pole.

There are real mistakes I drafted (in retrospect of course) that in longer seasons i would have perhaps held on to hoping for a turn around... but this is a sprint. I cut bait with Wong (12), Khris Davis (15) and Miggy Andujar (16) who were all garbage early.


My team had some really great pickups along the way. Jake Cronenworth was added the first week of August, and he had quite the season.. especially slotted as a SS... he is a high draft option in 2021. Robbie Grossman also a mid season aqusition helped in all 5 categories. Jeimer Candelario also provided another mid season bump. All made up for my drafting dumpster fires.

At the mid point i was a solid 16 in saves, around 5 above the next person behind me. I picked up a few closers in waiting (Bass, Pressley) who ended up in the role.... I definitely had to trade from strength. Steals my team was a 2.. a bad 2.... way way behind 3. But from 3 to 13 they were all bunched 'catchable' If i could jump within range... I have to make a move.

At the midway point of the year I had saves well in hand, and steals worth striving for.... I started looking for trading partners. No one responded to my note in the forum so i started to compose an offer. I figured one closer would not be good bait so i decided to trade MY TOP 2 CLOSERS (Workman, and Pressely) for steals help. I tossed an offer to Twilson who ghosted me... the offer want un-responded-to for 5 days so ESPN canceled the offer on a time out. I set up a similar offer to Goatlocker who was strong in steals and in need of saves. He accepted. I got the MLB steals leader at the time Villar (a third rounder) and Goodrum (a throw in to even the deal who also has SB) for my top two closers. I always hope the deal helps both of us. Goodrum got hurt and was dropped a week later, Villar got traded for real a few days after I got him, and would likely go from an every day Marlin and become a part timer for the Jays. UH OH. At season end Goat slightly dropped to a 12 in steals, and jumped to 11 in saves. Definite help for him. For me... Villar thankfully got his PT, and Goodrum was picked back up a few weeks later... I ended up jumping 9 slots to 11 in steals, while only falling 3 in saves thanks to my strong start.

While all that was happenning.. my SP was coming around. my curent score of 2 and 2 in ERA/WHIP was improving and I started climbing the food chain, I was getting good outings out of Flaherty and Woodruff. BUT... it is a big but too.... I was way behind in IP, killing me in the counting stats so there would need to be some adjustment coming.

My hitters were waking up and little by little climbing in all the counting stats and ratios there too. Soto in large part was the MVP of my team OBP/SLG at seasons end .490/.695 and even missing the first quarter or so of the season ended amoung the leaders in R and RBI.. and he swiped 6 bags... Trout JR! Brian Buxton.. my steals guy, found unexpected power (ended SLG .577 to go with his below average OBP - 2 walks and 2 steals on the season for Bux.. ugh). Springer, Hoskyns started earning their high draft slots and fill ins on days off like Calhoun and Nunez seemed to get their hits on the right days. My pick ups were doing the job too. Too late to catch the leaders I thought.... but lets make some noise.

From being bottom 4 for most of the first half... I saw my team rise from the ashes... I broke into the first division (top 8) with a month or so to go. Now what. I am so so far behind in IP. How did I let this happen. The last month of the season was adding/dropping a 5th starter to try to get the innings and the numbers up, but with a week to go I was still 100 IP behind. I streamed three starters a day for a while. Some helped, while most were free agents for a reason. I was suddenly in the top 6 as my K and W rose. I was 16/16 in those two on the final weekend (fell to 14 in K at end). A big reason for my strong finish was just catching up in those areas. I had my ERA and WHIP were both finally nearing double digits and I CRACKED second place on Wednesday, but with 4 days to go my pitching emploded and I fell back to 7 and 4 and was in 6th. It was that close with the weekend coming up. It is amazing... the league WHIP standings at seasons end from ranks 12 to 4 were so close, folks were falling or jumping 6 points each day in that category alone. I ended up back at 8 in WHIP, thanks in part to other managers streaming starters the last weekend. I was second on Sunday but out of pitching innings, YR would have a pitcihng weekend for the ages to earn his second place spot, and I held off Zen to finish third. A very satisfying ending after a very bad start.



It was very tough for me, a Yankee season ticket holder who goes to 20 games a year to not see any baseball in person all season... but I watched more baseball this year on tv than ever, most likely because we are not going out to shows, resturants, parks etc, and did not take a summer vacation. Baseball, and fantasy took much more of a center stage for me this year. I hope everyone made it through 2020, stayed safe and healthy. Wish you all well, and lets hope 2021 and beyond return to the way of life we remember, and we get more of a season.
2Seattle Zen
      ID: 301361318
      Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 15:55
I’m home recovering from my tonsillectomy so I thought I would do a COVID – season recap. Shortest regular season ever, what will it mean for fantasy? Will any lessons learned from this year apply to the future? Hmm.

One fact that is undeniable is that the draft this year is more important than any other simply because there is a lot less time to make up for a poor one. Some trends in baseball seemed to intensify in the shortened season, pitchers threw fewer innings per start. Sorta ends the argument in favor of Quality Starts over wins as there are so very few QS. But wins are now even more meaningless as some third rate reliever comes into the game in the fifth inning and gets a win because the analytics tells the manager to pull the starter after four.

A 1.00K/IP was once elite, now it’s just above average. And saves… for the longest time the debate over saves was about how difficult it was to chase saves as managers were changing the closer so frequently, now the idea of a closer is starting to look like a dinosaur. The Rays had 13 different pitchers record a save in just 60 games. You can’t even call that a committee.

Looking at our draft this year, I think we could say that we are in the Golden Era of First Round picks. Like last year, there were so many excellent players taken the first round and only two of the sixteen that could be called busts. I mean, Christian Yellich was considered a disappointment but he would have been the fourth best player taken in the second round! Trey Turner was the second best player overall in our format and was taken 12th this year. Juan Soto, who missed a significant portion of the season was the third best player overall. Jose Ramirez, Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper, Trevor Story, Acuna, Geritt Cole and Jason Degrom were all great players and those of us who have been doing this for decades know this is unusually profitable. Judy stretched to take her Phillie and bryce rewarded her with his best season since 2015. A 20 steals pace, is he teasing us? The busts were Noland Arenado and Alex Bregman and Toral didn’t seem to mind that Arenado had a down year.

Because his second round pick, Freddy Freeman, had the overall best season according to our player rater. He was drafted before his diagnosis with COIVD-19 and the stories of his case must have frightened the Canadian. Not many people in April would have imagined Freeman coming back and playing so well. Thumper had a poor pick with Walker Buehler at #16 but more than made up for it with Tatis Jr. at #17. He finished with the 5th best overall performance. After those two, though, the second round was pretty disappointing. I was happy with myself after picking the #13 draft slot because I felt I got a high quality pick in the first round and therefore got a high pick on the way back in the second round. Well, you have got to land that pick in order for your plan to work and I certainly did not #20 JD Martinez. He fell off a cliff.
Xander Boegarts was the third best pick of the round and much to my surprise, Tim Anderson turned out to be a good pick even though he was a six round stretch. In a theme we will see a lot this season, two Astros were terrible picks. Yordan Alvarez played in two games so was a waste in the second round and Jose Altuve waited until the post season to hit much to the chagrin of Tosh.

The Third Round had three great picks and six busts. Shane Bieber was the greatest arm of 2020 and one of the reasons youngroman finished second. I wrote up in my draft synopsis that I had second thoughts about taking Manny Machado. HA! The Pads were a feel good story of 2020, the emergence of Tatis Jr., the tremendous home run power of the whole line up, Dinelson Lamet and Machado’s MVP type season. The pundits love to talk about his home and away splits in his career and how he has been pedestrian away from Camden Yards, but he can simply crush and I am grateful. Adelberto Mondesi had a quietly good season for valkarie.
On the other hand, Steven Strasburg rewarded the Nationals front office with a true Strasburg performance, hurt himself and let the fans think that maybe Anthony Rendon should have been given that money. Kris Bryant absolutely stunk. Remember how he and Rizzo were media darlings far more than Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramriez? The talk is now that the Cubs may non tender Bryant. I wouldn’t draft him in the tenth round next year. Jose Baez was also awful as was Austin Meadows and Pat Corbin. Yoan Moncada, consider yourself lucky that those guys drew attention away from your disappointment.

The Fourth Round had fewer outright busts. Yu Darvish had an excellent year, it was his pitching and Hendricks that got the Cubs into the post season, not their bats. The second best pick of the round was DJ Lemahieu, sparkyanne’s best pick. He followed up his excellent Yankee debut with an even better season, winning the batting crown and posting an OPS north of 1.000. Another Royal middle infielder, Whit Merrifield, continued to marry four average categories with his high steals numbers to produce excellent fantasy seasons. Toral took Clayton Kershaw in this round, the first of four arms that served as the base of the best staff in our league.
The biggest bust of the round was Tommy Pham who celebrated his wretched 2020 by getting stabbed. Justin Verlander was also stabbed, but by trained surgeons and while his recovery will be longer than Pham’s, it was necessary. Josh Donaldson was disappointing in both the regular and post season. Carlos Correa had plenty of bat flips and not so righteous indignation in the post season but not the regular, much to the chagrin of bluehen. Joey Gallo complained that Globe Life Stadium is too big so therefore it’s not his fault he sucked.

The fifth round starred Jose Abreu. He was the star of the young squad on the upswing on the South Side. Judy was rewarded for her loyalty to Aaron Nola with an excellent year and Toral’s pick of Giolitto was profitable. Otherwise this round was pretty lame. Kirby Yates stunk. The Braves nearly made it to the World Series but that was in spite of Mike Soroka. Victor Robles disappointed Tosh and Thor couldn’t pick up his hammer this year. Unless Charlie Morton is pitching in a game 7, you should avoid him in 2020.

The sixth round was highlighted by master troll, MAGA enthusiast and Driveline evangelist Trevor Bauer. 100K, 1.73 ERA/0.79 WHIP and five wins. Outstanding year. He should be a second round pick next year but for some reason I think he will come at discount. Nelson Cruz again spit in the eye of age related decline and put up Big Papi numbers for the Twins. I really wanted him to slip two more spots but when he didn’t I ended up with Eloy Jimenez who made another step towards stardom. Excellent slugging percentage and quite a few Not Top Ten moments in the field. The busts were Roberto Osuna who was hurt and Josh Bell. Don’t know what went wrong with Josh, the Pirates were historically bad. Josh lost .200 points off his slugging %. Career lows in every category. He had 37 homers and 116 RBI last year, how can you even begin to guess what he will do in 2021?

Round Seven started out with a whimper. Mitch Garver was godawful and lost his job pretty early in the season. Here’s a guy with an amazing .995 OPS last year, 31 homers in 359 plate appearances. An elite .404 wOBA, ninth overall, better than Juan Soto. This year, .232. SLG% goes from .630 to .264. Drop offs like that just don’t happen! Almost as bad was Andrew Benintendi. I’ve never been a fan, thought he was overrated but even I was surprised at just how pathetic he was in 2020. He came to the plate 52 times. He struck out 17, walked 11 and got four hits. Three singles and a double. I sure hope that the pitchers who walked him this year were yelled at or removed by the manager. A .128 SLG%. Without pitchers hitting in the NL, was anyone lower than that?
The star of the round was Marcell Ozuna picked by Tosh. An outstanding 1.067 OPS and second overall with 56 RBI. He finished the season batting .394 with 10 HR, 33 RBI and 19 runs in Sept. I mention this because Tosh and I are in a local league together and he was offered Ozuna in a trade but declined. I did pick up Ozuna and rode him to my first league title! Randy finished one spot behind me in both of our leagues much to my delight!
Toral took Liam Hendricks who ended up as the second best pick of this round. Biggio, Woodruff and K Jansen were the other good picks. Corey Kluber disappointing and in his rationales Species crowed about the good luck he had when Spring Training was canceled right before his pick making G Stanton a steal at that point. Doesn’t matter how long you let Stanton rest, swinging the bat causes him injury, he was born to disappoint.

Round Eight had lots of disappointments, but not for me. Brad Hand was often panned by the touts as a likely loser of the closer role with J Karinchak in the wings eager to take over. Well, Karen did have a great season but he didn’t unseat Hand who had the second best reliever season overall, sixth for all pitchers. I was surprised when I realized that Michael Conforto had such a great year. I didn’t follow the Mets at all and don’t remember hearing anything about Conforto, a .322/.412/.515 is excellent but it was fueled by a .412 BABIP so a correction is in order.
While Bryce and Nola rewarded Judy, Scott Kingery was a curse. He had the third worst season of the players drafted. Don’t know how long she kept him in her lineup, he finished the year “hitting” .159/.228/.283 with no steals. Putrid. Gary Sanchez, Ken Giles, and E Escobar were all awful. Chris Sale didn’t throw a pitch and Great One wished that Craig Kimbrel had not.

Round Nine was the second round in a row where my pick was the best, this time Corey Seager. Corey kept the momentum into the post season where he is breaking Dodger and shortstop post season records it seems every night. Even with a career low walk rate, he is having a career year with the bat. .307/.358./585. He’s not even barreling up at his normal rate, it would not be a surprise if he improves his numbers in 2021. He has been healthy for the first time in a while and should garner a huge contract from the Dodgers here soon. Max Fried had a great season and was a big reason the Braves won the AL East. R Iglesias was one of the few closer lottery tix that paid off. Zack Gallen had profitable year, too.
There were some really awful picks in this round, the worst was Mallex Smith. He had a .170/.178 OBP/SLG with two steals. This was the worst of four terrible picks in a row for valkarie – Gary Sanchez, Mallex, Trey Mancini and Carlos Martinez. Tough stretch. Danny Santana, Gavin Lux and Amed Rosario were all awful, as well. Yuli Gurriel was the latest Astro to stink and Eduardo Rodriguez opted not to play this year.

The tenth round had some nice arms. Dinelson Lamet and Lance Lynn put in great seasons for Great One and Goatlocker. Alex Colome and Ryu were also profitable. Brandon Lowe may have struggled in the post season, but he was a great pick for the NY Jammers. Oscar Mercado was the second worst pick in the draft. An identical .174 OBP and SLG, oh, but those three steals! Two lotto tix that blew up in their managers’ faces were Ian Kennedy and Hansel Robles. Elvis Andrus had his worst year ever. Even with one of his best walk rates and his second best ISO rates, he had a .252/.330 with a measly three steals. I had to count this again but he has been the Rangers’ starting SS for thirteen straight seasons and he is only 32. The MadBum was just a Bum. Adam Eaton and Ryan McMahon were unprofitable.

I look at the next five rounds and wonder what could have been. I had drafted Kenta Maeda and Luke Voit in Happy Baseball, a 20 team rotoguru league that drafts before RIBC and I should have done so here, too. Instead, in the 11th I went with Encarnacion over Maeda and Toral grabbed the fifth best pitcher of 2020. The next round I took the opt out David Price and eventually bluehen took Voit. I also drafted R Odor and probably kept him in my lineup too long. The best picks after Maeda for the rest of the draft were Yaz, Voit, Marco Gonzalez, Kyle Hendricks, Trent Grisham, Zach Davies, Corbin Burnes, Wil Myers, Kyle Tucker and, of course, TAY – oh - Scar Hernandez, who was headed towards a top 10 finish before tweaking his oblique.

The worst drafted player was Jo Adell, taken by valkarie in the 22nd round. I know Jo wasn’t called up until later in the season but I see him on Val’s roster, did you keep him rostered the whole year? I see you kept Carlos Martinez, too. What in the hell for? 9.90/2.40 with no wins or saves?

The biggest disappointment, even more than Jo Adell, was the fact that sparkyanne, blue hen, NY Jammers, and Goatlocker made so few moves. It’s unlike RIBC to have teams abandoned. Sparkyanne and bluehen didn’t get anywhere near the number of innings pitched allowed. This inactivity made it easy for Toral and other top teams to pick up saves off the waiver wire and youngroman to stream top arms at the end of the season. Hell, I drafted one closer and ended up third in saves. Let’s do better.
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