The battle for Jose Fernandez - our 2014 fantasy thread!

Wooooo!
Opening day this year is March 30, so let's aim for a (Sunday) March 16th afternoon draft date. Will send everyone invites once league registration is open. If managers could post their keeper picks here by March 9th (seriously, please do this) that will give me a week to input them and set the draft order.

Because I feel a little dumber every time i look at AVG I plan on replacing it with OBP; which would make BB redundant so I plan on replacing that with XBH. I put a flier out on those stats changes on last year's thread and there was no complaints – but if anyone has an issue with swapping AVG & BB for OBP & XBH - now's the time to speak up.

Also, baring a change of heart, we have a manager departing this year. So any i love baseballors who want to join the fantasy league – there is a team up for grabs. ciderpress's keep eligible guy from last year: troy tulowitzki (29), jay bruce (27), jeremy hellickson (27), jarrod parker (25)... he also had the presence of mind to draft Manny Machado, Wilin Rosario and Greg Holland.

and as a reminder, here are the keeper rules:
• total of 5 keepers
• 2 of which must be 27, 28 or 29 yrs old
• another 2 players 26 or under
• one final keeper that can be either (basically anyone under the age of 30)
• age is based on that year's opening date
• for a player to be keep-eligible he must have been drafted on draft day by your team or traded to you by a team that drafted him. that means:
• free agent/waiver pick-ups cannot be kept
• if you keep less than 5 players - you will have a random filler pick inserted instead of a keeper. once the draft is complete you can drop that player for someone else that will count as your final draft pick (must happen right after the draft, so i can keep track of it)

I'll get the ball rolling with my picks:
David Price (28)
Felix Hernandez (27)
Starling Marte(25)
Jason Heyward (24)
Shelby Miller (23)

woohoo! this could obviously change pending terrible injuries, but for now i'm thinking:

oscar taveras (21)
wil myers (23)
stephen strasburg (25)
johnny cueto (28)
matt cain (29)

(i think i also have lance lynn and pablo sandoval as potential keepers)

christ, what a cast of future stars

brandon beachy (27)
asdrubal cabrera (28)
matt moore (24)
kyle seager (26)
brett lawrie (24)

i'm still reserving the right to swap out dom brown or chapman for a couple of these prized prospects.

maybe matt harvey too but he won't be back til 2015 so idk

jupton
fred freeman
chase headley
kris medlen

think thats all i got eligible, plz award me jose fernandez as compensation

i'll mail you the paperwork.

KISS THE RING, BITCHES is 22 characters, darn. need a more succinct team name.

Bish Boesch

Mike Trout (22)
Drew Smyly (24)
Andrew McCutchen (27)
Yovani Gallardo (28)
Prince Fielder (29)

terrible outfield

wow

Send SVs, Ks, ERA, WHIP, and especially K/BB -- a composite of last year's pitching staff looks exactly like

http://www.fangraphs.com/not/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/harrell.jpg

Freese in the Trap (new name TBA for 2014) will keep, as of today:

Carlos Gomez (28)
Clay Buchholz (29)

Bryce Harper (21)
Paul Goldschmidt (26)
Craig Kimbrel (25)

My bubble guy is Hyun-Jin Ryu who may replace either Buchholz or Kimbrel in the end. I'll update this thread if I decide as such.

STOKED FOR BASEBALL

ellsbury poly (new name forthcoming)

switching out harvey and chapman for lawrie and seager. can't imagine the latter two winning or costing me the league this season and would rather hang onto all my matts.

brandon beachy (27)
asdrubal cabrera (28)
matt moore (24)
matt harvey (24)
aroldis chapman (25)

pondering lincecum in exchange for asdrubal cabrera as well. *~~watch this space~~*

every time i see Seager's name - without fail - "Night Moves" pops into my head.

So apparently yahoo is creating an optional "NA" roster slot. Sort of like the DL but for guys in the minors, serving suspensions or on berreivment...
I'm on the fence on this one.

gentlemen...

quien es mas machado

yu darvish (27)
chris davis (28)
mat latos (26)
alex cobb (26)
evan longoria (28)

sad_trumbo.wav

jordan zimmerman 27
adam jones 28
billy hamilton 23
david robertson 28

i dont mean to mess therm up but id like to keep anther ?-26 not sure if i have one

^ if somehow allowed, i would be willing to trade a 0-26 y.o. player + a late round pick <-> a mid-round pick. i know i brought this up as something i would be happy to do BUT i don't think a conclusion was reached re: if (a) the commish was ok with it, (b) the league was ok with it, (c) the yahoo league system could even support it. anyway beats being forced to draft john macdonald. pedro alvarez (26) and salvador perez (23) are on my will-not-keep list, despite eligibility.

ALSO I want to amend my keepers after using my brain for a minute.

Freese in the Trap (new name TBA for 2014) will keep, as of today:

Carlos Gomez (28)
Hyun-Jin Ryu (27)

Bryce Harper (21)
Paul Goldschmidt (26)
Craig Kimbrel (25)

not crazy about the idea, tbh. it sort of punishes anyone who doesn't follow this thread in the offseason closely, whereas when the season is active we have yahoo notifying people of trades - and who's up for grabs etc (giving managers the chance to vote against trades they feel a lopsided).
and it also means I'd have to scour the fantasy thread to make sure I got all the keeper trades that happened between seasons.

i'm not so against it that if there was a wide consensus in favour of it I would fight it. but nobody else seemed to weigh in and I'd just don't want people feeling like they were left out of trade opportunities because they happened in January in a place they didn't realize they should be checking.

Fair enough, either way I wasn't going to keep these dudes but i figured might as well try to find them a good home/find my draft positions a better home

i think anyone who miscalculated on their keeper picks can view this as an opportunity to go all-in on Jose Fernandez and/or Tanaka!

league has been renewed – invites mailed out. if anyone is having trouble getting in, let me know.

draft is set for March 16th at 3 pm est. and new stats are set.

out of curiosity -- with the "less than 5 keeper" rule, how people get a fill-in they have to drop -- would it work to instead set the auto-draft players to the last rounds? or can you even do that? or does that even make sense?

hmmm - there might be a way to do this. once all teams are confirmed i'll be able lock the league and play with the setting.

Bish Boesch is now Ausmus Tietchens.

I'm going to go with

Beachy
Harvey
Moore
Chapman
and
Lincecum

"Lincecumlords" checking in

wow

i'm in btw, been debating over my keepers for a few days

Rich Homie Braun

carlos gonzalez (28)
derek holland (27)
brandon belt (25)
giancarlo stanton (24)
jurickson profar (21)

wait actually apparently holland is hurt so give me

carlos gonzalez (28)
matt carpenter (28)
brandon belt (25)
giancarlo stanton (24)
jurickson profar (21)

just for giggles, here was our first real round of drafting last year:

1. Justin Verlander
(Det - SP)
ellsbury poly
2. Matt Kemp
(LAD - OF)
Yeezus Montero
3. Albert Pujols
(LAA - 1B)
Quien Es Mas...
4. Robinson Canó
(Sea - 2B)
I Am Sasha K...
5. José Bautista
(Tor - OF)
CAIN
6. Adrián Béltre
(Tex - 3B)
Thee Tee Ohs
7. Cliff Lee
(Phi - SP)
Sad_Trumbo.wav
8. David Wright
(NYM - 3B)
Brick in the...
9. David Price
(TB - SP)
CarryOnMyHey...
10. Paul Goldschmidt
(Ari - 1B)
Freese in th...
11. Josh Hamilton
(LAA - OF)
alexi ohgodno
12. B.J. Upton
(Atl - OF)
Bish Boesch
13. Chase Headley
(SD - 3B)
emoji uehara
14. Adrián González
(LAD - 1B,OF)
mclouth lagoon

missing out on wright and price in order made me panic enough to reach for goldschmidt... feels good man

keepers are still harper / kimbrel / gogo / ryu / goldschmidt...

villar love triangle #1 2014

not gloating but that first round Lee pick was super risky yet worked out due to the unique scoring structure of the league. Injury aside, Verlander 1st round 1st pick was smart too, hard to get elite pitching in a 14 teamer.

just joined i need to get a new quality name together.

AIR BUD SELIG looking unsurmountable.

looks like possibly 5 guy from last year's first round might wind up being kept.

sorry therm, the last years draft feature is nifty and i found a youngster i missed:

sad_trumbo.wav

jordan zimmerman 27
adam jones 28
billy hamilton 23
david robertson 28

+

kenley jansen 22

he's 26!

would it work to instead set the auto-draft players to the last rounds? or can you even do that?

thanks for the suggestion - looks like this will work, which will make things a little simpler.
now anyone with less than 5 keepers can just select their extra pick(s) at the end of the draft.

oh bref said his debut was age 22 thought it was his age

w/ a name like kenley it's hard to believe he's older than 15 tbf

Brick in the Mauer (name possibly to be changed)

Ryan Zimmerman (29)
Clayton Kershaw (26)
Mike Minor (26)
Anthony Rizzo (24)

... and that's it, I don't have any other keeper eligible players to choose from. I had a bunch of guys turn 30 this year and I missed the draft last year!

didn't you trade away Strasburg aswell?

Yep - I have Strasbourg now. And he will do what I tell him to do. Or I will once again finish in 11th place.

I got back Rizzo in the Strasburg trade, so either way, I only would have had four keepers at the start of this season.

also, i've realized that going with cueto is probably not a good idea this year (chronically injured + changed his delivery after the last time his arm exploded). so i'm going to hope that sandoval will deliver another contract year performance (also he apparently lost 42 pounds this offseason, fwiw). my revised keepers:

oscar taveras (21)
wil myers (23)
stephen strasburg (25)
pablo sandoval (27)
matt cain (29)

panda=bsohl

pretty much

xpost

i think you still got the better end of that deal! i traded you a keeperable Kluber for about 4 or 5 starts from Garrett Richards, whose knee promptly exploded.

oh i know i got the better end of the deal, though i sure didn't think it was a coup at the time. i just wanted to keep somebody. anybody!

i didn't know klubs was gonna turn into scherzer, i thought he was kinda brandon beachy 2.0

too bad about richards, i figured it was a better deal for you considering how well he was pitching. must have carried my SP injury curse along with him. :/

oh no big deal! ironically i made that deal in an effort to shore up my hitting with pujols (who did just fine), but after that trade the rest of my hitters collapsed while my starting pitching finally got better, even with richards getting injured.

anyway at this point i'm just hoping to make 3rd place.

btw does anyone else feel like the innings pitched cap is too high? i've had a bunch of starting pitchers all year (to the point that the # of batters i've been able to keep on my roster has been thin) and i'm STILL going to end up way below the IP cap

i asked about that maybe two ago and everyone seemed ok with where it was back then (i think it *was* 1425). 1400 – where it is now – is the standard ceiling for most leagues and we have set-up guys going too.

lol wanna talk about trades lets talk about trades then

- I send Choo for Chris Davis (arguably I win but Davis was basically team poison so everoyne lost).
- I send Sonny Gray for Iwakuma and Doolittle -- kinda hoped better than a ~4 ERA from iwakuma (he's posted a 3.91 since I got him, and Doolittle only notched 10 saves -- not great). Down one keeper
- I send HJ Ryu for Hanley Ramirez, who posted 150 ABs in ~3 months. down one keeper
- I send Chris Davis, Javier Baez (KEEPABLE), Kimbrel (!!!) for Scherzer/Uehara. Scherzer decent but unremarkable. Good K's, bad rates. Uehara a total mess, 8 saves, ~5 ERA. Down THREE keepers.

Sum: down five keepers in the name of winning this year, currently battlnig to stay in 3rd. ;_; I stand behind my deicsions, they were good gambles, and I'm not COMPLETELY fucked on keepers next year, but... damn man. :(

ok. you made out worse than me. i'm glad i hung onto my top keepers tho: King Felix & Jose Fernandez. Jason Heyward to a lesser degree.

I love the trades this year. Super aggressive moves. The only way I built a winner last year was from two years of plowing elite stars into elite keepers.

Yeah, it was a good year for interesting trades in our league.

I traded for keepers at around the same time my offense finally caught fire, so I got better in the short and long term. I really fluked out with the timing of those trades. I'm not sure I have enough under-25 keeper eligible players though, but at least I have a real decision to make for next year, as opposed to this season when I had almost no keeper eligible guys left.

also you're closing in on me again. your sleeper agents have really fucked my shit up.

It'll take an epic collapse at this point. However, you are trending downwards -- don't doubt the tides!

I also couldn't help but notice that you rearranged some deck chairs on your roster in response to my rearranging of deck chairs on my roster. You're panicking!

i looked at my keepereligibles.xls and i think everyone has at least 5 eligible keepers, at least 2 from each category (assuming nobody dropped any since tuesday)

oh and thermo i will send that sheet when i get home, apparently i cant attach files in gmail at work so i workmailed it to myself and then i will go home and get it and send it blah blah blah

i was thinking - maybe a google doc that everyone can see would be the best way to go. great idea either way tho – thanks.

And streaming pitchers is not panicking!
Picking up Hosmer is panicking.

don't want to scare you guys but i moved up to ninth place the other night. #comeback

hah just emailed it and then read this, i will put it on google docs.

link

That's awesome, thanks!

Well - last day of the season. Good luck to everyone with their last-ditch, random free agent acquisitions!

How did you manage to get all your SP's teams playing meaningful games on the last day of the season, ensuring that all your best SP's would get the starts? There's no way you pulled this off without voodoo. I'm filing a complaint with the league commissioner ... oh, wait.

My bench guys are 6 for 7 with a HR so far today. R.A. Dickey as a spot starter seems to have worked out, and Cueto was great as usual, but I'm starting to think I'm not going to win the league this year. I'm hoping for a 4 HR game from Matt Kemp!

congrats Thermo!

i guess it's safe to say thanks! this is definitely the craziest single fantasy season i've ever had. and now that i went for broke, i'm going to spend the next year or two rebuilding.

Lucroy, Dee Gordon, and Neil Walker (i know right) were some fortunate grabs. Lucroy pretty much carried my offense (Ortiz too – but you expect that)

and i think this is the first time we have Canadians at #s 1 & 2 in the final standings!

Yes, congrats Thermo! You totally dominated down the stretch and left no doubt about who had the best team.

After five top three finishes in the past eight years (3x 2nd place, 2x 3rd place), I'm kind of wondering what it'll take to win one of these things ... I can't really complain though, because my keepers going into the year were so sketchy (except Kershaw) that I really thought this would be a rebuilding season for me.

2nd place and I couldn't even walk away with the Lightfoot Cup as a consolation prize? Tough league ...

well, you did land Kyle Seager for the next 3 years!

I have nothing bad to say about my keeper options for next year, that's for sure. I gotta take the next step one of these years though. Like the Blue Jays, I can't pull the trigger!

i was happy to land in 3rd place given that i was in 6th-9th for most of the year.

best surprise: Nelson Cruz. slugged .525 with 40 HR, 74 XBH, drafted in round 10
runner-ups: josh harrison and lucas duda, who i picked up down the stretch and were outstanding. oh yeah, and corey fucking kluber, who i drafted on a whim and traded away at midseason:(

encarnacion was kind of an odd pick at #2 (with miggy at #1 and fernandez at #3) i admit, but he delivered as i hoped he would: slugged .547, 63 XBH, 34 HR. he provided a little more power than miggy (and similar OBP) and jose fernandez had his terrible injury.

biggest disappointment: wilin rosario. i knew he'd be an OBP bomb, but i thought he'd still crank out 20+ HR with decent RBIs. nope! he's keeperable, but i'm on the fence.
runner-up: i drafted oscar taveras back in 2013, and played him way too much when he made it up to the majors this year. it was my fault for playing him, of course. and i'm keeping him in 2015, because i'm stubborn.

congratulations o mighty thermo!

my draft was terrible. my five keepers entering this season were harvey (injured but held onto nonetheless), matt moore (TJ surgery), beachy (TJ surgery), lincecum (terrible), and chapman (started injured, but then better than ever.) a bunch of other guys got injured and/or were useless (sabathia, avisail garcia, mauer, soriano, jackie bradley.) my best draft pick w/r/t value was doubtlessly morneau; i nabbed him in round 15 and he was great pretty much all season. the other good players i had were all either waiver wire snags (dickerson, mesoraco, richards) or acquired through trade (kluber, marte.)

my keepers next season are a lot better at least, i rarely traded before this season but once i realized there was no way to overtake the top three teams plus the fact that my keepers were all basically shit (except aroldis) i had to wheel and deal.

best surprise: Matt Kemp. I missed the beginning of the draft and was autodrafting with Yahoo's rankings. Kemp was chosen in the fifth round and I was pissed, but he rescued my offense in the second half.

best surprise from a decision I made: Denard Span, I got him on waivers after Zimmerman (I think) got injured for the 5849th time, he ended up becoming a full time player for the Nats (IRL) and was my most consistent player on offense from then on. Either him or Tanner Roark, I got him on waivers when (some SP got injured, can't remember who, I think they were all on the DL this year except for Cueto), he gave me 140+ IP, 15 QS, 2.64 ERA. I think I'll be rooting for the Nats in the playoffs.

biggest disappointment: Mike Minor. Pitched like an ace last year, never really got going this year.

Keepers: traded for Seager (thx Thermo!) and Ryu (thx Will!), drafted Cueto (thx autdraft!), Cashner and Paxton (who were injured for half the season but were great when they pitched). Rizzo had a breakout year and is just 25. Kershaw had an OK year.

My draft was putrid. Taking Votto with my first pick basically ended my season.

i took Dozier in both my leagues and dropped him after a slow first couple weeks. tuhrible GM.

and jose fernandez had his terrible injury.

i think you're confusing your teams. i grabbed Fernandez in the first round!

um - ok - i now realize you're talking about our draft and not your team! duh!

seeing E5 go at #2 really baffled me. he wasn't even on my short-list of guys i was going to aim for with #3 (tho i was assuming Fernandez would go #1 or 2).
either way – before the injury Fernandez was having a Cy Young caliber season. he'll be back well before the all-star break next year, joining Price and King Felix :D

your rotation is even better than andy k's outfield

I need to stick to one league -- always end up autopiloting both teams.

so i'm curious to know what everyone thought of having OBP and XBH this year?

Interesting! I actually really like both of them.

I can't remember if I ever asked this before, but: why the 7x8 pitcher bias?

since the league started we were kind of just adding or taking away stats we liked/didn't like and i was usually trying to keep balance as an afterthought to just having the stats we wanted.

with pitching – the way I look at it – we have two kind of "sole focus stats": holds and saves. we have set-up guys and closer for mainly their holds and saves. while they contribute to ERA, Ks and get the odd W etc – we add them with mainly holds and saves in mind. and with hitting, i view SB in a similar light. some players can contribute to all categories – but a lot of the time we keep an eye towards someone who can just swipe bases to keep us competitive in NSB and those guys are not going to contribute much to RBI, HR, SLG etc.

so it boils down to pitching & hitting having 6 "core" stats each – and then 2 outlier stats for pitching(HLDs & SVs) and one for hitting (NSB). to my mind, this keeps things fairly balanced.
i'm totally open to suggestions tho, if anyone thinks we could do better.

oh! and the other thing i want to resolve before 2015 season starts is the "NA" slot. it's a thing now and someone was asking about it and i'm sort of on the fence. it makes sense in that you can slide a guy who takes personal time or gets demoted in there and not have them wasting a roster spot. however, with our league i'm worried it might lead to "rookie hoarding" to a degree. basically i don't want prospects to be out of reach for teams because half our league pounced on draft day and was able to snag all the top-teir prospects due to come-up in soonish. either way i'm undecided and wouldn't mind feedback.

How many NA spots are allowed? If it's only one or two, I don't see a problem. People can hoard all the rookies they want on draft day, but we still only get five keepers.

no way i would do more than one.

Yeah... the other thing is it wouldn't actually add a round to the draft, so you'd still be filling the bench spot (the one opened up by moving a prospect to the NA slot) with an unkeepable player. As is, you can still stash rookies and hope for the best (I did it with Buxton who I dropped due to injury, and Baez who I traded due to lol-title-chase). If anything it kinda evens the "keeping-players-who-didn't-play" field between active and inactive players, if that makes sense (people who kinda quit after a couple of months are FAR more likely to keep their blue-chip prospects, since they didn't bother dropping them).

That said I think it's a neat idea but I'm not gonna be RA RA NA-SLOT CHAMPION, just seems kinda fun. I'll be happy either way, this is one of my favourite fantasy leagues! (huge thank you for running it again this year!)

oh and re: the 7x8 thing... what would you say to replacing Hold and Save with (Hold+Save)? Or alternatively, drop either W or QS? The latter makes a bit more sense to me, since putting big value into all relievers is kinda fun and what makes the league so unique. Wins are kinda goofy anyway, QS is starter-specific, and W is just starter-friendly (due to innings pitched).

i kinda like it when relievers score you the occasional vulture W. :s
Hold+Save is an interesting idea tho.

yeah one of my favorite things abt fantasy is when you have two starters going and they win and then two of your relievers grab the W and suddenly you're flush! usually this happens on the same day as a 2 for 37 from your hitters (2 singles.)

I also forgot to thank you for running the league again Thermo. Thanks!

I always liked QS. Hold + Save is an interesting idea.

yea i also think holds+saves is a cool idea..i think maybe 2 yrs ago saves were prohibitively hard to find mid-to-late in the season and idk if they deserve to have that much value alone

ok - so looks like, barring yahoo adding some new stats, we'll be merging SV+HLD and adding a NA slot.