How do we get Taylor Swift into fantasy baseball? Your 2024 ILX Fantasy Thread! (also, there is an opening for a new manger!)

So very shortly all you lucky, lucky people will have received an email letting you know the league has been renewed.
I'll set the draft date for Sunday, March 24, at 4pm EST. If this time is a calamity for anyone, let me know here and we can all bicker about a new time.
So please have your keep picks in by the 17th.
I will take a look if any new stats are available (i'm still lukewarm on doubles); but i am not hopeful.
Will should be along with a link to his awesome spreadsheet at some point. And speaking of Will, he is the man to beat this year after whooping us all last season. But free agency is a bitch and the league is wide open!

We also have a manager departing; so if we have any aspiring managers lurking, ✖'s old team - Votto No Get Enemy (I never got the reference) - has some decent keepers just waiting for a big spending owner to swoop in.

w/r/t thread title:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_VNbWB41AI (44m22s)

w/r/t x's reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQBC5URoF0s

w/r/t doubles: dumb cat imho

here i am with that link!

as always, look there, see who's available for you to keep, and their age. if anything seems off lmk and i'll fix it!

i might as well post my keepers now, subject to change but unlikely:

1B - Pete Alonso (29)
1B - Nathaniel Lowe (28)
OF - Ronald Acuna (26)
RP - Jhoan Duran (26)
RP - David Bednar (29)

with trea aged out, nola aged out, REDACTED out, and shane bieber sucking now... look, i won last year, ok? they can't all be multi-year dynasties. back to the ol' "drafting for the future" mode!

i'll have a team name eventually too

i was just looking at the keepers today. i'm 95% sure i know who my five are - of the seven eligible keepers i have, one is a pitcher who has been bad recently and is about to age out and the other is wander franco (lol). but i'll hold off until closer to the deadline in case lucas giolito gets bit by a radioactive spider or another one of my players turns out to be a horrible pedophile.

tentative keepers for Corbin Burnesen (maybe the last year I'll have that name...)

Corbin Carroll (23)
Fernando Tatis Jr (25)
Yordan Alvarez (26)
Freddy Peralta (27)
Corbin Burnes (29)

guns of buxton, prospective keepers...

bobby witt jr
esteury ruiz
luis arraez
jazz chisholm
pablo lopez

probable keepers for probable second-to-last finisher "the weimer republic"

hunter brown
josh jung
jeremy pena
devin williams
alexis diaz

i remember this time last year i was wondering if i had a curse on my pitchers; and then the Alek Manoah debacle did not help that feeling. RIP to him after one year of being a keeper.
so here's this years likely picks for (the soon to be renamed) Newcombes On de Blok:

Gunnar Henderson (22)
Shane McClanahan (26)
Jesus Luzardo (26)
Ozzie Albies (27)
Bryan Reynolds (29)

likely keepers for Giolito Shuffle (also due for a name change - i almost talked myself into keeping Giolito and hoping he could at least be playable in Boston but then remembered he's about to age out of keeper status anyways)

Adley Rutschmann (26)
Emmanual Clase (26)
Luis Robert (26)
Ke’Bryan Hayes (27)
TJ Friedl (28)

I’m already having second thoughts about McClanahan, since he’ll be out for most of the season. I don’t have the best options tho, aside from hoping Manoah can return to form (but holy shit his 2023 was a disaster). Munoz is the only non disaster option, but kind of a waste using a pick on a reliever.

i will be jettisoning jeremy pena back into the universe and keeping sal frelick instead.

Ok. I’ll probably remember this one since I had frelick on my short list to target later in the draft

my picks for Send Nootbaar. feel like Lawlar has a high ceiling for stupid puns.

Jordan Lawlar 21
Logan Gilbert 26
Austin Riley 26
Ian Happ 29
Josh Hader 29

Ohtani Dancer in My Hand:

Michael Harris II (23)
(Future Red Sox Superstar) Triston Casas (24)
Bo Bichette (26)
Logan Webb (27)
Shohei Ohtani (batter) (29)

Def playing the long game, drafting Lawlar last year!

giolito injury news has made this lineup for giolito shuffle a lock:

Adley Rutschmann (26)
Emmanual Clase (26)
Luis Robert (26)
Ke’Bryan Hayes (27)
TJ Friedl (28)

have we forgotten about the opening series in Korea on March 20th? seems like we might want to conduct the draft earlier.

i had, yes. ugh. the sunday 17th is not doable for me. would have to be Sat 16th, or in the evening Mon/Tuesday. i don't want to push it too far up incase someone doesn't see the date change in time.

looking at the probable starters, Yamamoto and Glasnow(?) vs Darvish and Musgrove probably? I'd feel bad about anyone missing a start with one of their SP keepers, but that doesn't look likely. for the hitters it's not so bad to miss two games out of 162, but maybe some LA/SD owners can weigh in on preference

Literally any weekday evening works way better for me than the proposed draft day in the OP.

looks like i can make the games count retroactively (tho i cannot find how to do this in my commish tools right now):
https://ca.help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN6317.html

xpost. noted.

Also I'm still finalizing my last 2 keepers. Need to monitor some spring training data before I make that call tho...

i'm completely ok with the 16th, it would just feel weird to me to conduct the draft with a couple of games already in the can, even if we can retroactively count the stats. idk how much it matters to anyone else obv.

This happened before (maybe when I was commish?) and there was a mid-tier player who went off in an exhib game played internationally played before the draft and they ended up going a couple rounds earlier than anticipated. Seeing as this is rotisserie (ie, not points or H2H), I don't think those games are enough to move the needle.

I’m fine with the retroactive stats solution, but if it gets moved my preference is Saturday > Monday > Tuesday. I’m pretty open that week.

lets see if this works...

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JPSW77D

i only just now noticed the spelling mistake in the thread title

(and now do you finally get my youtube ref?)

also more importantly are you replacing 2B with another offensive stat?

as much as i would like to, nothing else looks all that great to use in it's place; and i'd like to keep the amount of stats the way they are for balance between pitching and hitting

What was the argument for 2Bs instead of XBHs? Overvalues HRs but undervalues 3Bs?

Or a negative OFF stat? Ks is a nice equalizer.

(I think I used GIDPs one year as well lol)

more or less. i think a few people thought home runs were just too overpowered with xbh

xpost

GIDP was kiboshed because it punished cleanup type hitters with lead foots hitting a head of them

Yeah my rationale was that guys who hit with runners on get more RBI chances so GIDPs a nice way to balance that out for guys who play on weaker teams who do not have the luxury of RBI opps.

I also remember a year where we drafted after Opening Day in Japan one of those years, and it didn't really make a difference? But I'm fine with moving up the draft by a week.

sorry i've been not as attentive as i should be! i am in full on winging it mode, but i need to get my list of keepers. also i submitted to surveymonkey (bow down to the one you serve) for the draft dates, i'll do my best to make whichever date so i don't get autodrafted!

we're at 9 answers so far and it's weirdly very interesting lol

baseball fans, tell me what to do. i am faced with an agonizing choice for my 27+ keepers.

one of them is cody bellinger, who is definitely going to be MVP in 2024, chance of regression = 0.0000000001%
the other? JACK FLAHERTY OR AMED ROSARIO
goddammit

on the other side, i will obviously keep Eury Perez. then, i must pick 2 of francisco alvarez, lars nootbaar, hunter greene, and everybody's favorite little big guy who runs fast, alejandro kirk. i'm going with lars nootbaar just because i like to root for the home team, and i've seen him do some very athletic things so i believer in his potential. so
FRANCISCO ALVAREZ OR HUNTER GREENE

speaking from experience, get off of Jack Flaherty's wild ride asap

I’m smelling a comeback player of the year award for amed rosario!

smell the rosarios!

formerly A Moon-Shaped Pujols, now obviously:

Honey Nut Chouri◎s
20 CHOURIO
26 LODOLO
26 HOERNER
29 AROZARENA
29 HELSLEY

ok - 11 respondents. think it's safe to call this one...

9 vs 2 in terms of picking a new date.
Most preferred date was a tie between the Sat 16th and Tues 18th; and a tie between Tues 18th and the OG date for what most people found workable.
Highest rage score, after the "none" option: Sat 16th.

So looks like our new date will be Tuesday the 18th starting at 7:30 est. apologies to the two managers that had that date as their least favourite option.

I will change the league setting shortly; and anyone with outstanding picks, please get them in my mid week next week.
i should prolly get a mod to edit the initial post as well.

Tues the 19th?

FFS. yes. Tuesday the 19th. sorry about that.

trying to do too much this morning.

apologies to the two managers that had that date as their least favourite option.

if i finish in last again this season i'm going to blame it on this!! ;) ;)

no worries, and there's a chance i could join for at least part of it (aka do the draft in the background of a band practice lol)

could always do a little pre-ranking (esp if there are young guys you'd like to target) and then join in part way to fix whatever mess the auto draft left you with.

Your 2B can only play a max of 162 games, right now you are trending at 163 games. I personally wouldn't start paying attention to those limits/maxes until the ASB and then again at the trading deadline.

xp yes, just to keep in mind there are days off in real life, so it’s there to show you what your projected games are

Fwiw, I won last year and I did not obsessively fill spots on my team to ensure each position got its 162 games. Nor did I hit my 1400 IP limit, not even close iirc. But the year before's winner used this start to get effect. Both methods are valid

BTW while we're on the topic, is there any way to see this stuff on mobile?

That sounds reasonable. I've gotten into a routine of checking in the morning and then again closer to game times, and that's about the extent of what I can do. Unlike a certain online game, I won't get obsessive.

Will: that info should be in the same spot on mobile. It’s right at the bottom for me.

abner uribe, a closer candidate i took a flyer on in the last round of the draft, has now provided me more wins (1) than either kutter crawford or cole ragans, my two best starters by most other statistical measures

yennier cano leads my team in wins

yahoo was already brutal to copy-paste drops (for the keeper spreadsheet) but they've made some tiny change that now just... adds random line breaks when copying from their site. good lord my kingdom for a csv export

Twenty points separating first place from eighth!

I forgot to set my lineups yesterday and missed 2 stellar starting pitching performances. :-\

haha, yeah, i moved last week (still unpacking) so i haven't been paying close attention to my roster, and i found today that both of my catchers and three of my starting pitchers are on the IL! we are playing hurt

so is there a new spreadsheet? apologies if it was already linked, i only seem to have last year's.

it's good i have solid pitching because my hitters have mostly been nightmarish, none of them have been up to par except Royce Lewis (small sample size of two at-bats.)

I have no shortstop today, and no way to get one in there. All you have to do is choke up a bit and guide something out to left field.

Another solid start by Kikuchi tonight. My starting pitching--Berrios, Hicks, Kikuchi, Bello, Grayson Rodriguez--has been amazingly good thus far. Only Luis Castillo has been a disappointment, but he finally had a great start last time out.

i got Bello as a flier in my other league and he has surprised me so far

my team is a Jackson-Holliday-esque 1-23 with -1 NSB today.

my hitting over the last week -- 39-209 with three HR

i think if i started a random assortment of "most dropped players" in the transaction trends i'd have done better.

I don’t play fantasy baseball but Wilyer Abreu looked great when he was called up in September and he’s looking exactly like that right now - might be a good cheap pickup for anyone in search of an outfielder. Potential plus defence and plus arm, when he’s going well he’s got good plate discipline and pop

aaaand he got picked up this morning! am surprised he wasn't drafted tho, given this is a keeper league.

and looks like Clems and i jinxed Bello

Damn...I guess I'll take a look at the scrapheap list as a stopgap.

ha i didn't even see gyac's post before i picked up abreu, i just really really need some offense

now that i'm not in first place any more, i feel like i'm allowed to complain: my draft choices have mostly worked out, but picking nolan jones in the third round has ... not. i was not familiar with the dude or his strong performance last season, but he was hyped up by a bunch of the sources i was using for draft planning, so i took him high, and he has been a black hole of offense so far. he's just 25 and keeper-eligible so i'm holding on in hopes that he warms up eventually.

Was able to add the 2018 NL leader in CG (2) and shutouts (1)--jackpot.

looks like zach_tbd made the right choice in keeping amed "MPV" rosario. though jack flaherty hasn't been terrible either.

if we're going to reflect on our draft choices, this is my first round choice's stat line since getting called up: .059/.111/.059/.170

Feel obliged to point out that Abreu’s nickname is Thicc Willy. Despite being a solid little guy he can run like nobody’s business. Abreu truther out. 🤟🏻

Btw Bello says he was playing with a sore back last week & they don’t anticipate him being off longer than the 15 day minimum.

Draft thoughts:

R3: Bregman .555 OPS, -3.1 offensive fWAR, 0 HRs
R4: Fried 4.97 ERA/1.38 WHIP, was supposed to be my 3rd SP1 after Strider (RIP) & Bieber
R6: Bieber: 2 ++ starts then shipped off to the Tommy John glue factory
R8: Arenado (drafted because I didn't trust Bregman's floor): .728 OPS, 1 HR

A fantasy rite of passage, I'm sure: my favourite team (allegedly, anyway) mounting a late comeback, up against one of my two fantasy closers. If you know who my favourite team is, you know how it turned out.

it's a really weird way to watch baseball, i agree. i am definitely a fantasy homer, to my detriment, because i do pick more cardinals players because i like to root for them, and i do sometimes bench very good baseball players because they're playing the cardinals and i don't want them to do well that day.

and then sometimes i do start the very good players anyway, and as they're kicking the cardinals' ass irl, i'm kind of grimly satisfied at how things turned out

I don't check my hitters each night--seems like it'd be a lot of work--but I do look in on starting pitchers, and they continue to keep me afloat: good games tonight from both Grayson Rodriguez and Jameson Taillon, who I picked up off the scrapheap to take Bello's place.

It's definitely weird to start my ace pitcher against my favourite team and to root for a 0-0 game won by the good guys in extra innings. We do what we have to do.

I so enjoyed my one day in first place!

yeah i have to remind myself that whatever's going to happen will happen regardless of my rooting interests!

I wonder about Varsho and whether I should've kept him. I traded Trout for him last year (I was rebuilding!), because I believed in his potential, he's a Blue Jay, and I thought it was possible he gained Catcher status (he didn't). Hope he keeps it up, I see he's on the 1st place team

We all turn into our favourite real-life teams that we hate: I'm going to be right in the middle all year, bouncing between 9th and 7th place.

I'm now using all four of my IL spots: Bello, Rodriguez, Murphy, Crawford. Is that unusual or par for the course?

I think it's probably actually more unusual to not have at least three of those IL slots occupied at any given time.

xp PRO-TIP: if you have an extra IL spot or two, consider picking up a good player that might come back down the road. you can always drop them again if one of your guys has to go in that IL slot. if you pick up a FA though, there has to be a spot open. your free agent can't go directly to your IL.

same for na

you can actually add straight to your IL now!
currently i have all 4 IL slots, plus a bench spot occupied by injured players.

oh is that the case? even easier to bury your treasure

you can actually add straight to your IL now!

― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Wednesday, May 1, 2024 10:37 AM (two hours ago)

Are you positive? I just tried to do an IL pick-up 1:1 for an IL drop and the league settings wouldn't allow it.

i also tried, and didn't have any luck replacing one IL for another ["would put you over max roster size"]

don't remember if i tried adding a player directly to an empty IL spot or if i had to drop someone (i mean, i could check my log)

Huh. I remember doing it earlier - but maybe it was my other league?! I’ll have to go through the settings I guess.

If it is something i can switch on, would we want that for our league, or would it feel too “easy mode” for us?!

Also how mad would everyone get if I suggested LF, CF, RF positions instead of 3x OF next season?!

hm, would definitely switch OF positions to "advanced". not sure

Also how mad would everyone get if I suggested LF, CF, RF positions instead of 3x OF next season?!

I would be mad because NYY is using Soto in RF instead of LF, giving me 2x legacy RF keepers (w/ Kyle Tucker).

That said, if we could find a way to grandfather in (this would take *MOD/COMMISH POWERS*) those of us who established keepers based on the rules at the time, I would be game?

yes, i had to check bc i have 2 likely OF keepers, and they are LF/CF, and wouldn't be ok if they were the same position.

it appears i had to clear a spot on my active roster for Manoah (IL) to be added there before going on my IL, which maybe makes sense anyway?

Seemingly at this point I have three outfield keepers but it looks like I would be okay within the new rules, though maybe it would be a moot point if Corbin Carroll keeps hitting like Larry Bowa... 😵‍💫

My team crapped the bed this week and I've fallen from first to seventh (32 points back) in only three days!

and i seemed to have climbed a few spots despite half my pitching staff being dead.

hmmm. what about having CF, OF, OF then? shoving a CF to a corner spot or moving a guy from one corner OF spot to the other happens often enough in baseball that there's less of a need to make a distinction for LF/RF as long as you have at least one guy capable of playing CF.