Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
Worked on my first full league wide cheat this weekend to get a taste for the new season. My league is unique with 16 total categories being counted for in a head to head format, so maybe that skews things a little, but not that much IMO.
(Hitters : BA, SLG, HR, R, RBI, SB, D+T, & OBP) (Pitchers : ERA, WHIP, K, SV, W, APP, QS, & HD) [ Our goal was to have a unique hitting portion and a pitching portion that required value in middle relievers. It's worked fairly well so far].
Final, note, this is a keep 5 max for 3 years, but just about all the big names are required to be released this offseason, so that has almost no effect on my higher end guys. Where the keepers usually take a huge chunk of players is in the 7-13 round type players.
So, Catcher
There is Mauer, Soto, McCann and Martin. Martinez is under them and just under him are Doumit and Inge. Catcher is always scarce anyway but after these guys there is nothing at all out there. Flyers and rookies. Again, nothing unusual in the position.
1st
Howard towers over all others, then I see Tex, Pujols, Cabrera & Fielder. Mourneau, Gonzalez, Berkman and Youkilis are the next grouping and Derek Lee manages to stand slightly above what is just a drop off in everything and abounding crap. There is always value depending on where someone is taken, but I guess I expected a little more depth here. If you miss out on the top 5 guys, it almost makes sense to make sure you get one of the next 5 even if you overpay - unless you are overloading somewhere else.
2nd
Ick. Ick. and Ick. Utley is the top, everyone knows that. Uggla Pedroia and Kinsler round out the next group, and then there is a small group of Roberts, Cano and Phillips. After that, death. The dropoff to me is massive. There will be 2 teams in my league that have a negative value starting 2B in my basic chart. Ugly.
3rd
Arod and Wright are head and shoulders above all. Next is Longoria (and Youk pops up again here - dang position eligible quirks). Then comes Ramirez, Reynolds, Huff, Atkins, Chipper, Davis and Zim. Some decent depth here. Looks like everyone will have a solid starter here. And even the drop off to the "lesser" tiers isn't that dramatic until you get into 19/20 range of guys on the list.
SS
Reyes and Ramirez. Duh. Then Rollins. A small cliff, then Peralta, Jeter, Drew and Young. Then Tulowitski, and then.... nothing. Slightly deeper then 2B but not by much. Middle infield sucks.
OF
Ton of depth here. I have 34 guy with solid starter rankings, and not that much of a massive spread between different groups of guys. With a U spot to fill as well, and not much depth anywhere else, I'm guessing most people with leagues such as ours where you start 3 OF and 1 U will be doing a lot of 4 OF setups. It's the case more often the not anyway, but this year it seems like you are almost forced to do it given the scarcity elsewhere.
SP
There is a lot of slightly above to above average guys will fill out rosters in my league. I have 42 guys on my list that fit the starter role with some decent value with Shields, Parra, Snell rounding out the bottom of that area. It doesn't seem like there are a ton of absolute studs though. Lincecum is there, as are Santana and Sabathia, and I can push around 2 or 3 others guys to be the top of the top, but after that you can pretty much move them around anywhere in the next 30 spots. Obviously, some are better shots then others.
RP
Since we have categories that allow the middle and swing men pen guys to have value, my list here would be much different then most. But there are a few interesting tidbits. There is depth here, simply because there is a ton of uncertainty and there are always a bunch of guys that fall into 20 or saves that weren't projected that far. No matter the RP list, though, I have to think that it continues to be a bad idea to focus any energy on this position beyond maybe getting a projected 30 dave guy around the 10th round or so, if a run didn't take them all before hand. (The stud guys will start to move in the 6th or 7th in my league because someone always figured they will grab two top studs and "win" that category going away. They never do, though. )
So, overall, hitting seems to be a premium almost across the board while there is solid SP depth. Once again, the draft will be bat heavy for me hoping everyone focuses on the top names in the SP ranks, leaving me to get the lower tiered guys that manage similar numbers anyway. I'm also initially amuzed by the spread of "known" names with the up and coming guys. Seems baseball projections almost across the board do a better job then their football counterparts in allowing new blood to overtake known commodities. But, at least in my league, the names always win out in the end for the typical owner. The result is a draft board all over the place.
C sucks as always and the middle infield is bad. There isn't as much at 1B as I would have thought, while 3B is ok. With a rich OF and solid SP possibilities, I can see why all the mags I've seen to date have Hanley and Utley so high in the top 300 on such a consistent basis. You grab that guy and you are a few steps ahead before the end of round 1. And I'm expecting my already unusual draft to be all over the place once again.
Given that this all could change as I play with the numbers, it should be a fun offseason leading to a very interesting draft.
(Hitters : BA, SLG, HR, R, RBI, SB, D+T, & OBP) (Pitchers : ERA, WHIP, K, SV, W, APP, QS, & HD) [ Our goal was to have a unique hitting portion and a pitching portion that required value in middle relievers. It's worked fairly well so far].
Final, note, this is a keep 5 max for 3 years, but just about all the big names are required to be released this offseason, so that has almost no effect on my higher end guys. Where the keepers usually take a huge chunk of players is in the 7-13 round type players.
So, Catcher
There is Mauer, Soto, McCann and Martin. Martinez is under them and just under him are Doumit and Inge. Catcher is always scarce anyway but after these guys there is nothing at all out there. Flyers and rookies. Again, nothing unusual in the position.
1st
Howard towers over all others, then I see Tex, Pujols, Cabrera & Fielder. Mourneau, Gonzalez, Berkman and Youkilis are the next grouping and Derek Lee manages to stand slightly above what is just a drop off in everything and abounding crap. There is always value depending on where someone is taken, but I guess I expected a little more depth here. If you miss out on the top 5 guys, it almost makes sense to make sure you get one of the next 5 even if you overpay - unless you are overloading somewhere else.
2nd
Ick. Ick. and Ick. Utley is the top, everyone knows that. Uggla Pedroia and Kinsler round out the next group, and then there is a small group of Roberts, Cano and Phillips. After that, death. The dropoff to me is massive. There will be 2 teams in my league that have a negative value starting 2B in my basic chart. Ugly.
3rd
Arod and Wright are head and shoulders above all. Next is Longoria (and Youk pops up again here - dang position eligible quirks). Then comes Ramirez, Reynolds, Huff, Atkins, Chipper, Davis and Zim. Some decent depth here. Looks like everyone will have a solid starter here. And even the drop off to the "lesser" tiers isn't that dramatic until you get into 19/20 range of guys on the list.
SS
Reyes and Ramirez. Duh. Then Rollins. A small cliff, then Peralta, Jeter, Drew and Young. Then Tulowitski, and then.... nothing. Slightly deeper then 2B but not by much. Middle infield sucks.
OF
Ton of depth here. I have 34 guy with solid starter rankings, and not that much of a massive spread between different groups of guys. With a U spot to fill as well, and not much depth anywhere else, I'm guessing most people with leagues such as ours where you start 3 OF and 1 U will be doing a lot of 4 OF setups. It's the case more often the not anyway, but this year it seems like you are almost forced to do it given the scarcity elsewhere.
SP
There is a lot of slightly above to above average guys will fill out rosters in my league. I have 42 guys on my list that fit the starter role with some decent value with Shields, Parra, Snell rounding out the bottom of that area. It doesn't seem like there are a ton of absolute studs though. Lincecum is there, as are Santana and Sabathia, and I can push around 2 or 3 others guys to be the top of the top, but after that you can pretty much move them around anywhere in the next 30 spots. Obviously, some are better shots then others.
RP
Since we have categories that allow the middle and swing men pen guys to have value, my list here would be much different then most. But there are a few interesting tidbits. There is depth here, simply because there is a ton of uncertainty and there are always a bunch of guys that fall into 20 or saves that weren't projected that far. No matter the RP list, though, I have to think that it continues to be a bad idea to focus any energy on this position beyond maybe getting a projected 30 dave guy around the 10th round or so, if a run didn't take them all before hand. (The stud guys will start to move in the 6th or 7th in my league because someone always figured they will grab two top studs and "win" that category going away. They never do, though. )
So, overall, hitting seems to be a premium almost across the board while there is solid SP depth. Once again, the draft will be bat heavy for me hoping everyone focuses on the top names in the SP ranks, leaving me to get the lower tiered guys that manage similar numbers anyway. I'm also initially amuzed by the spread of "known" names with the up and coming guys. Seems baseball projections almost across the board do a better job then their football counterparts in allowing new blood to overtake known commodities. But, at least in my league, the names always win out in the end for the typical owner. The result is a draft board all over the place.
C sucks as always and the middle infield is bad. There isn't as much at 1B as I would have thought, while 3B is ok. With a rich OF and solid SP possibilities, I can see why all the mags I've seen to date have Hanley and Utley so high in the top 300 on such a consistent basis. You grab that guy and you are a few steps ahead before the end of round 1. And I'm expecting my already unusual draft to be all over the place once again.
Given that this all could change as I play with the numbers, it should be a fun offseason leading to a very interesting draft.
