MLB Daily Notes - March 11th
ADP Tool Busts, I spend a fortune on macaroni and cheese, the Orioles are a beautiful mess, and I cover more spring standouts.
Some bad news first, the ADP dashboard is now broken. Not sure how many people were using it, but it was a pretty cool tool for tracking ADP, and now NFBC has made a change to their website so it doesn’t work anymore. Prior to Friday or so, you could extract one day’s worth of drafts as long as there was at least one draft on that day, but now they’ve made the minimum five. Apparently they have done this so people can’t figure out who specific high-stakes players are drafting, and I suppose that makes sense.
These “Main Event” things are about to start, and it’s pretty serious business up there. The entry fee is nearly two grand, and the top prize is $100K or something. So if you follow some of those guys, you’ll be seeing some of that talk over the next couple of weeks.
I can never imagine paying that much money just to play fantasy baseball against people that are definitionally really good at it. How many fish are playing a $2000 fantasy baseball league? And the prizes are so ridiculously top-heavy too, it’s gotta be pretty close to just being a lottery situation. But to each his own, they’re certainly interesting leagues to follow!
Spent so much money this weekend without even making any big purchases. We went out to eat like three times and accidentally went to this antique show yesterday. Baby Trea is a big time eater now so he needs a little bit more than just the scraps from everybody else’s plate, so I’m out here buying five meals now! We go to this soup/sandwich place a lot, much better than fast food but still not a fancy place by any means. And man I paid $47 for lunch yesterday, $47! I don’t want to be a boomer complaining about inflation, but look I’m a 33 year old conservative dad, at some point you just have to embrace what’s coming. Good news is, I can rest easy thanks to God’s provisions, my normal career, this Substack, and those sweet, sweet yearly tax credits from Uncle Sam.
As for the accidentally going to an antique show, my wife and I were desperately looking for something to do yesterday after church, lunch, and the kids down-times. When it’s cold outside things get pretty rough. There’s only so much you can do inside before younger kids start getting wild. So my wife found an advertisement for this Lego thing going on about 10 miles away. It was advertised like a big Lego sale and seemed really cool. So we go and the truth is that it was just these Lego bro’s with a booth at an antique show. It cost money to even get in the doors, and then we got the kids some Lego stuff and I ended up buying one of those Nintendo emulator things, which I’m pretty excited about. Going to be hitting up some Super Mario with my daughter tonight.
It is HOME LEAGUE DRAFT WEEK for me. The reason any of this stuff exists is because my buddies and I started a fantasy league back in high school circa 2007, and we got way too into it over the years. That is the root of my interest in fantasy baseball, fantasy baseball is the root of my interest in data stuff, and so on and so forth. This will be our first ever in-person draft, I think. My buddy’s dad has this super nice house with just a beautiful climate-controlled deck, so we’re going to have a day of it on Saturday. Super pumped about it. There will be content on Twitter about it on Saturday whether anybody wants it or not.
Half the league are paid subs here, and stupid ass Clint was trollin’ me hard last week by liking all of my draft prep posts. So he’s ready to roll. I am probably going to go in there and execute a completely different strat than what I’ve written about. Might just rip off 3 early SP picks and grab Adley Rutschman early.
Now to things that people might care about. I think I’ll put out a podcast later today going over the pitching metrics I use the most. I’ll break down what the metrics are, what’s good, what’s bad, etc. That seems like a good idea to establish things before the season starts going. I use a lot of non-traditional stats, and there are probably a lot of people reading that don’t exactly know what I’m talking about.
If it goes well and I like it, we’ll do the same with hitting metrics later on.
Spring Stories
Marte Partay
Noelvi Marte hit the PEDs and now he’s gonezo for 80 games. It does make you wonder if the Reds knew about this months ago when they signed Jeimer Candelario. But regardless, it’s quite clarifying for fantasy purposes.
1B: Encarnacion-Strand
2B: McLain
SS: De La Cruz
3B: Candelario
LF: Steer
CF: Friedl
RF: Benson/Fraley
DH: India/Benson/Fraley
The Benson/Fraley stuff is up in the air, but there are no longer concerns about those young infielders, they should all get everyday reps, and they should all be drafted in all fantasy leagues. I really, really like CES and Candelario where they get drafted. It also does benefit Benson & Fraley, both of whom are pretty enticing fantasy picks in their own right, I want a lot of these Reds bats.
Some spring stats on the Reds:
Red Sox Rotation
Lucas Giolito is out for possibly the full season, which brings Garrett Whitlock into the picture. Boston extended Bello and Houck recently, so Houck seems to be a starter as well. Pretty clear-cut rotation now:
Pivetta
Bello
Crawford
Houck
Whitlock
I love Crawford and Whitlock as late SPs, and I’ve gotten warmer to giving Bello another shot this year even with his [fantasy] struggles last year. Lots of value in that rotation, and honestly I think it still is an above-average rotation.
Orioles Bats
As if we didn’t already have enough going on, Coby Mayo joins the group now. There’s some talk that he could make the club out of spring now. He’s another one of the team’s top prospects and had a really impressive year in 2023:
614 PA, .290/.410/.563, .974 OPS, 24% K%, 15% BB%, 29 HR, 5 SB
The league-adjusted OPS was .920, which is still fantastic. There aren’t too many guys at any level hitting 25+ homers and keeping the strikeout rate under 25% with a high walk rate. Impressive skills.
But it’s hard to know who to draft in Baltimore. If Mayo is the guy, that would seem to come at the expense of Jordan Westburg who is currently listed as the Opening Day third baseman.
Mayo is slashing .333/.429/.600 this spring while Westburg is at .240/.269/.480, and that shouldn’t really matter to these managers and GMs, but I bet it still does.
Jackson Holliday is having a nice spring as well. In 29 PAs he’s at .286/.310/.607 with a homer, but a frightening 38% K% and 3.4% BB%. The K% in the minors last year was 20% and the BB% was 17%, which would make me expect something like 25% K% and 10% BB% in his first go-round in the Majors, but of course it’s possible he struggles with the strikeout against Major League pitching early on.
“Prospect growth isn’t linear” is one of the lines you hear a ton from the prospect bro’s. And it’s true, I can’t say it’s not! But a little secret is that K% growth isn’t linear either! Sometimes a 19% AAA K% turns into a 35% Major League mark.
And another thing - what in real life is linear? The “growth is linear” thing is just statistical jargon to say things grow at a steady and predictable rate. What in life changes in a steady and predictable way? I guess like… human growth. Like I can pretty well predict how tall and heavy baby Trea will be in a year, but it’s still not linear.
There’s a line there from 0-1, and a separate line there from 2-13, but you can’t describe the full plot as a line. That’s a “liney curve”, which is now the official term.
I told my daughter this weekend that girls are prettier than boys, and she agreed. I then told her that boys are stronger than girls, and she got real mad. She was like “no dad everybody is strong”, and I’m like okay that’s a nice thought but I’m not going to let you buy into these reality-denying niceties. She’s real proud of herself now that she can beat her younger brother in sports and foot races and whatnot, but don’t worry I’m constantly reminding her that it’s not for long.
It was also funny that she was willing to give girls the nod on being pretty, but went real quick to equality about strength. If she just wanted to imagine that boys and girls are even in everything, that’s one thing - but you can’t pick and choose!
I’m not quite as harsh and dream-crushing as I make it sound in real life, but my parenting style would definitely inspire plenty of feminist outrage. It’s actually not even true in my daughter’s world that boys are stronger than girls. Physical separation probably doesn’t even start until they’re 10 or something. Maybe it fits right along with that plot above where girls and boys split around age 13.
My wife and mother in law were right there when I was crushing my daughter’s dreams, and they were fine with it. It’s a very trad life I live.
I still don’t think Holliday makes the team, but his presence in AAA makes it tough to depend on Westburg/Mayo even moreso. Ramon Urias is still hanging around as well, so he could get reps. He wasn’t awful last year with a .702 OPS in 405 PAs. He’s not a fantasy guy obviously but it’s not as though the Orioles need to be completely reliant on these young guys to fill 2B and 3B.
It’s hands-off all of them in drafts for me, but if any of them are on waivers once it’s clear they will play, you should go grab them. The sneaky part of this is that Mayo might actually be a better short-term fantasy asset than Holliday just because we know he has real power with those 29 cock rockets last year. That was a dinger every 21 PAs, really impressive.
O’s spring stats:
Cannon Balls Coming
This is what Greg Brown, Pirates play by play announcer, says sometimes when a Pirate hits a homer. Get it? Cannon balls like what a pirate would use?
The Pittsburgh friggin’ Pirates lead the spring in homers with 31. Four big-time standouts so far in that lineup:
Oneil Cruz: 3 HRs, 1.252 OPS, 14% K%*
Ke’Bryan Hayes: .3 HRs, .864 OPS, 0% K%
Bryan Reynolds: 3 HRs, .821 OPS, 12.5% K%, 12.5% BB%
Henry Davis: 4 HRs, 1.280 OPS, 25% K%, 8% BB%* doesn’t count a pitch clock violation strikeout
March has always been the most exciting month of the year for Pirate fans, and this one is taking the cake. All four of those names could actually be very good hitters, we’re not dreaming here. Cruz could be one of the best hitters in the league, we already know Reynolds is very good, and then Hayes & Davis have the young and the skills going on.
The output hasn’t been nearly as good for Jack Suwinski or Rowdy Tellez, and the hopes are that we get 50 bombs out of that duo. But you know the rules of spring:
If a player you like is doing well = it’s meaningful, break out city
If a player you like is doing poorly = spring doesn’t mean anything
This isn’t just me going fanboy mode here either. Cruz, Reynolds, and Davis are extremely interesting fantasy buys. All of their ADPs are too low, in my opinion, and there’s unquestioned upside. Hayes steals bags, limits strikeouts, and has bat speed enough to be a 20+ homer guy. Cruz is a 40-20 threat, and Davis could be one of the better offensive producers at the catcher position (once he gets eligibility there, which shouldn’t take long).
The other big name I’m following on the Pirates is Jared Jones. He was awesome in the minors last year and is clearly a top-five SP in the organization right now. The team has to know that, but we’ll see if they take him to the Majors right away or do the service time thing. The stuff and command he has is good enough to make him a fantasy-relevant starter this year, so he’s someone to keep a close eye on. I wouldn’t draft him, but if he’s in the rotation I’d probably stream him early on in deeper leagues and see what happens. I’ve drafted him a few times on the NFBC.
Prospect Updates
Wyatt Langford has homered four times but has a 31% K% and a 16% BB%. So that’s good and bat, he should be rostered speculatively now, but I still don’t want to pay the current price for him. If I die, I die.
Jackson Chourio leads the spring in PAs, so the Brewers are wanting to get him as many reps against big league pitching as possible before he inevitably starts in the outfield for them on Opening Day. He’s handled it well with a .314/.351/.400 line, no homers but a solid 19% K%.
James Wood continues to play a ton with 36 PAs, just one behind Chourio. He’s still stuck on three homers but has managed strikeouts well at 19%.
Value Veterans
This could be the year of the value veteran. Eloy Jimenez is one of these guys. With his history of injuries, DH-only eligibility, and lackluster performance a year ago he’s practically free in drafts. But the guy is healthy now and is just racking up the knocks (.484/.500/.677 in 32 PAs). I’m certainly willing to take the big discount there and hope for the best.
I think the same can be said of Byron Buxton and Giancarlo Stanton. We talked about them last week as ADP risers, but they’re still uninjured and still cheap enough, so I’ll be eyeing them up in drafts.
Pitchers
Nestor Cortes sits near the top the batters faced leaderboard. He is healthy and is looking good this spring with a nice 26.5% K% and 4.1% BB%. If we get health and anything close to that K-BB%, he’ll be a fantastic value at SP.
AJ Smith-Shawver has also been getting a lot of run. He’s faced 38 batters with a 29% K% and an 8% BB%. The velocity is up and he just might make the Braves rotation. Remember that he was a hyped prospect but did not pitch well in the Majors last year. We can certainly forgive a small sample for a pitcher in their first time facing big legaue hitters, he could be a breakout SP this year and I might even make him my last SP on my team if it’s looking like he’ll break camp with the big league club.
And to just keep talking about A.J. Puk, he has a 31% K-BB% after facing 35 batters. Really high 16.7% SwStr% on his 72 tracked pitches with a 53% Strike%. He is worth a flier for sure, but there are plenty of fair questions about if he can function long-term as a traditional starter.
Injuries
I’m not super up to date on this. I don’t get to pay much attention during the weekends with the family, so there are better sources for updates on that. I did see some elbow discomfort for Gavin Williams and a back problem for Devin Williams.
That’s enough for me to bypass them near their current ADP, although it’s not definite that either of them misses any time at all. Just keep that in mind if you’re drafting before we have more clarity on them.
And that’ll wrap it up, I’m going to get to work on talking about pitcher stats. Thanks for reading this, and to the 2-3 women who read these, it was nice knowing you.
Immediate update: The Braves optioned Smith-Shawver to AAA, so he will not make the rotation initially.
I’m a 65 year old male who’s been married for 38 years. Women most definitely can pick and choose and they do, oh yes they do.