Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

Last night my 15-team NFBC draft was by far the longest draft I’ve ever been in; it literally took a little more than five hours to finish. I was so tired afterward I had to go on a 20 minute run to rejuvenate myself.

Anyway, onto the draft. If you read my post about NFBC strategy you would have saw I was planning on getting Bryce Harper with my first pick. Well that flew out the window with the 11^th pick as the owner took Harper three picks ahead of my pick. Overall I was happy with my team. The biggest hole on my team was my lack of speed on offense. According to my projections I’m expected to finish 11^th in stolen bases, which is lower than I want (duh). My thinking during the draft was it would be harder to find power than speed via the free agent wire. My 5^th outfielder is Carlos Quentin and if he gets hurt his replacement will be speed first player. Most projections I’ve seen show him only playing 50-65% of the year so if he gets hurt and I sign a steals only player I’ll basically have a 20/25 player.

Catchers: I didn’t have a plan on when to fill my two catcher slots, but in most of the mock drafts I’ve done I’ve always waited for catcher because three of my favorites (John Jaso, Welington Castillo and Jason Castro) are always available at the end of drafts. I have Castillo hitting 18+ home runs and Jaso has an opportunity to score 70+ runs if he hits atop the Athletics batting order. If Jed Lowrie gets hurt, Athletics Manager, Bob Melvin is smart enough to see Jaso’s .359 career OBP and put him atop the order.

Infield: Troy Tulowitzki was too good to pass up at 14 overall. Injuries are a concern, which is why I drafted Ben Zobrist as a backup in the event Tulowitzki does miss time. Zobrist may be considered a reach, but I couldn’t pass up his position flexibility and the production he provides. In a league this deep, position flexibility throughout my infield is extremely valuable. I got Jhonny Peralta in the 22^nd round which was a steal. With the addition of Victor Martinez to the Tigers lineup, Peralta is in-line to have more RBI opportunities. However, since I got Peralta so late in the draft he’s extremely expendable if I need a middle infielder with speed.

If you read my fantasy guide you’ll know I love Eric Hosmer and Ike Davis. I’ll admit I reached a little early for Hosmer, but I wanted him and I didn’t expect him to come back around to me. Billy Butler is one of the safest players in game and I wanted to have some security to minimize the injury risk of Tulowitzki. Chris Parmelee was a flier with my last pick; he has first base eligibility but is projected to be the everyday right fielder and is slotted to bat 6^th in the lineup. I believe Kyle Seager was a steal with the 164^th pick. He went after Mike Moustakas, Todd Frazier and Will Middlebrooks, all guys I have rated behind Seager. I wanted to draft an outfielder at that spot, but the value of Seager was too good to pass up.

Outfield: I’m not a Angel Pagan guy, but I had no choice but to take him 224^th overall. Hopefully Pagan and Norichika Aoki can exceed their 2012 stolen base totals. The biggest regret from the draft was taking Alfonso Soriano over Lorenzo Cain. If I did, I would be looking better in the steals department, but Soriano is batting cleanup and he’ll have a lot of RBI opportunities. Also, he could be playing for a contender after the trade deadline. Franklin Gutierrez is someone who unfairly has the injury prone label, but his injuries have been fluky in nature.

Pitchers: I’m extremely ecstatic that Brandon Maurer will begin the year in the Mariners starting rotation. Maurer can legitimately miss bats and will pitch in the AL West; that’s a great combination. When I drafted Ricky Romero I didn’t know he was optioned to the minor leagues, so you can only imagine my shock after the draft to see what happened. After sleeping on it, I’m seeing this as good thing; when he fixes his delivery he’ll be closer to the pitcher he was in 2011, which makes him valuable. I like Jeremy Hellickson and Lance Lynn; Lynn has lost a lot of weight and looks ready to handle a 200 inning workload. I was extremely cautious about making Jake Peavy my number two starter, but he’s been healthy for the past year and half and I believe it will continue. I picked up Chris Tillman and Ivan Nova for their strikeouts because at that point I didn’t have enough. Honestly, I still don’t think I have enough. My favorite pickup was Chris Archer because even though he’s beginning the year in the minors, he’s the 4^th best starting pitcher the Tampa Rays have. If Archer began the year in the Majors he would be a top 40 starting pitcher because can miss a ton of bats, pitches in Tampa Bay’s ballpark and the Rays defense. If Archer makes it up to the big leagues by April, he can make up a lot of ground in strikeouts.

Bullpen: I waited until the 18^th closer went off the board before grabbing Ernesto Frieri and Brandon League. I never liked grabbing closers early because the position is so volatile. With Jim Henderson and Aaron Crow, I wanted to grab the pitchers next in-line behind closers who could lose their quicker and/or have the greatest chance of imploding. Royals’ closer, Greg Holland, has had a 2 mph decrease in fastball velocity compared to last year. Also, Holland isn’t the healthiest pitcher around. John Axford isn’t very good; last year was not an aberration folks. Henderson has “closer stuff” with a fastball that sits in the mid-90s and with a knockout slider.

Unbeknownst to me during my NFBC draft last night Ricky Romero was optioned to the minor leagues to work on his delivery. I love Romero as a bounce back candidate because I couldn’t find any statistical problems and it appears as though his 2012 year was all mental. Even though I drafted him not knowing he was sent to the minors, my rationale for drafting him is he can regain his delivery and be extremely effective when he makes it back to the big leagues. J.A. Happ replaces Romero in the rotation and becomes the 5th starter.

Andrew Cashner looked good in his start yesterday. His fastball sat between 94-97 mph and his changeup looked good too. It appears he’ll be ready for Opening Day.

Dan Haren looked bad in his start against the Marlins, giving up four home runs runs (two to Giancarlo Stanton). He had trouble commanding all of his pitches, especially his secondary offerings. He did strikeout three batters, but they were all looking; also, he didn’t miss a lot of bats. Most of the swings against him found barrels. He’s currently going as the 35th pitcher, which is too high for me. I rather have C.J. Wilson, Hiroki Kuroda, Lance Lynn and Jarrod Parker, who are all going after Haren.

Erasmo Ramirez was sent to Triple-A and Jeremy Bonderman was reassigned to the minors. This means Brandon Maurer and Blake Beavan will be the Mariners 4th and 5th starters. Maurer is the only pitcher you want in a mixed league as he can miss bats with mid-90s fastball, a plus slider in the mid-80s, and an average changeup that plays up due to the delivery. He’ll be able to miss a ton of bats and will have the fortune of pitching in the Safeco. Maurer isn’t known for his long bill of health so enjoy the production while you can.

This week is the most exciting time of the year for me because it’s draft week. After spending three months preparing I’m ready to get this show on the road. Last night I had my 16-team ESPN Up & In draft and I totally crushed it. After four or five rounds people were complaining about how its brutal playing with this many owners and that draft pool was thinning out. Like last year I bet most of the owners (including myself this year) will stop making daily moves after about six weeks. I’m participating in four NFBC Leagues, one 15-team and three 12-team; one of the 12-team leagues is for the $50K grand prize. I added the $50K grand prize a couple of days ago. Having three leagues already on my plate I was hesitant because I thought I wouldn’t have the time to be successful, but then I realized this may be the only time in my life where I’ll have the most time to devote to fantasy baseball so I said “Screw it. I spent a lot of time preparing and it’s time to see how well I can do.”

If you never heard of NFBC, you should give them a look if you’re looking to play for money with a larger payout. I never played in NFBC before but after doing a little research I realized I should’ve started a long time ago. Anyway, enough of my self-indulgence; let’s talk about my approach to my drafts.

Categorical Thresholds
The first thing I wanted to tackle during my draft prep was the category thresholds I would need to get to in order to win each league. I believe in order to win I will need to finish in the top 75% of every category (i.e. 3^rd and 4^th). The thresholds were based on data from my previous leagues and other sources such as here and here. Since this is my first year in NFBC I put a more weight on the external sources. The table below provides my categorical/statistical thresholds necessary to win a 15-team and 12-team mixed league.

My Draft Approach
NFBC allows owners to provide a weighting preference to each draft position through a system called Kentucky Derby System Preferences (KDS). Suppose an owner doesn’t want the first overall pick, he can give that pick the lowest weight. In my 12-team leagues I targeted the 8^th and 9^th pick because they provided the most consistent value with the first four rounds. After Ryan Braun and Miguel Cabrera every hitter is surrounded by question marks; now, Braun has off the field question marks and could be subject to a 50-game suspension, but the chances of that happening are less than 5%. The reason why I choose the 8^th or 9^th picks was I want to try to get either Joey Votto or Prince Fielder with my first pick and a fantasy ace in the second round; preferably Justin Verlander or Clayton Kershaw. With so much uncertainty for hitters in the first two rounds, starting pitchers are safer bets to sustain their draft day value. If one of those two pitchers does not fall to me, I’ll probably punt pitching with my first four picks.

For my 15-team league I wanted either the 14^th or 15^th pick; I got the 14^th pick. I want Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander or Clayton Kershaw in the second round. If you’ve read my blog you would have seen me utter the phrase “you can’t win your league in the first, but you can lose it” on multiple occasions. Targeting Harper goes against that adage because he has a lot statistical outcomes when it comes to 2013; he could be a monster and hit 30 home runs with 20 stolen bases or he could repeat his 2012 season. I agree drafting Harper goes against what I’ve preached, but in order to win I’m going to need players who outperform their draft day values and Harper is one of the players I feel has the greatest likelihood of achieving that.

My goal is try to get 100 home runs and stolen bases along with two pitchers with my first six draft picks in my 12-team leagues. In the 15-team league, I’m targeting 80 home runs and stolen bases with the first six picks along with two pitchers. If I can hit those thresholds I’ll be extremely happy and I’ll like my chances of winning. After the first six picks I’m going to go with value based drafting (VBD) and try to get players who can outperform their draft day value. With seven bench spots I want six of them to be devoted to pitching so I can stream them every week.

There were few strategies I considered. Waiting on pitching was a strategy I originally considered, but after more thought it’s imperative to draft a fantasy ace in order to create a competitive advantage. An ace is defined as a pitcher in my first tier of starting pitchers in my fantasy guide. There are two reasons why I want an ace. First, pitching is the deepest position and therefore everyone is going to have great pitching. Therefore, having an ace will allow a greater opportunity to win more categories. Second, as I mentioned before, aces are just as safe as hitters this year this year.

The next logical transition would be to draft two aces, but after I ran all the simulations I saw my hitting would be too low to offset the gains I had in pitching. Also, there’s more variability in wins and saves, making them less reliable. The only way this strategy could work is if I filled all the hitter positions before drafting another pitcher. Under that scenario I would have to stream pitchers the entire year, which carries a lot of high risk because pitchers are free agents for a reason; because they’re not good and therefore are subjectable to blow up starts (starts where they give up 5+ earned runs).

Closers
In my 15-team league I’m going to draft two closers and two high end relievers, preferably their “backups.” I’m going to wait until about 16^th closers are off the board before grabbing the two closers with back to back picks. In the 12-team league I want at least two closers, preferably three, with two-three relievers. Again, I’ll probably wait until the 18^th closer goes off the board before I try grab my closers.

Well, there you have it…my draft strategy. If you have any questions feel free to hit me up on Twitter @MattCommins.