MLB Daily Notes, March 16
Spring updates and the SP Barbell Strategy
Is this the greatest three weeks of sports of the year we’re about to hit? March Madness and the opening weeks of baseball?
Fantasy baseballers get to extend the greatness backward a bit with DRAFT WEEKEND. A lot of you have already done your drafts, but I’m guessing you’ve all got at least one more to do this upcoming weekend.
The MLB DW redraft league auction draft is tonight. So that will be fun. I thought about doing a live stream of it, but then I remembered my own lack of interest when other people do their own live draft streams. Why would anybody want to watch me draft a fantasy baseball team? That’s not to say that you should only make content that people really want. If it’s fun for the content creator, that’s all that matters. I did find myself watching a few minutes of the CBS guys drafting their OC team. It was entertaining. But I don’t think I’d ever take multiple hours out of my night to watch some other dude draft a fantasy team.
Being a fantasy sports content bro is probably the hardest job that has ever existed.
LUIS SEVERINO
I ended up taking Severino in the DC I’m doing right now. The guy has been cooking this spring, and we saw that on full display last night in the WBC. His velo has been up more than 1.5 ticks. He was hitting 100 last night.
Velo isn’t anything super new for Severino. He was at 96 last year even as his results bottomed out. Velo is super important for a fastball, but it’s fair to say that it’s not the only important thing. There’s this thing the people refer to as “empty velo”, which is heavy velo without the other movement components that typically make for an effective pitch. Maybe that’s what we’re looking at for Severino.
And we’re simply not going to see last night’s velo during the regular season. That was as big of a game as he’s pitched in years, maybe in his career, so this was not a typical start. He was maxing out, and he won’t be doing that in the regular season this year.
That said, his velo was up in spring action even before the WBC. So it’s reasonable to think that’s he’s healthier this year and we could expect more 97mph from the heater than 96. And the sweeper is pretty sick, as well. I’m not anywhere close to calling Severino a standard league target, but in the mid-400s of ADP it’ll play. He’s the A’s Opening Day starter, you’d think. So the volume should be there.
His over 3.5 K’s (I got it for -130) was a total lock last night, and it hit with ease. I wish I had run up the ladder. Those are the kinds of spots we’ll be looking for with player props early in the year. We’ll use these dudes who have shown elevated or diminished velo in the spring and bet accordingly.
Let’s remind ourselves of guys with a ton more velo this spring compared to last year, focusing on dudes who actually are getting drafted in fantasy leagues this year.
Randy Vasquez +2.4
Dustin May +2.3
Kodai Senga +1.9
Hayden Birdsong (hurt) +1.8
Shota Imanaga +1.7
Stephen Kolek +1.6
Ryan Weathers +1.4
Lance McCullers +1.3
Ben Brown +1.3
Roki Saasaki +1.3
Luis Severino +1.3
Didier Fuentes +1.3
Richard Fitts +1.0
JT Ginn +1.0
We’ve already looked and discovered that these velo gains only stick about half of the time in the regular season. So the ones around +1mph are a coin flip to matter at all. But I don’t think anybody goes from +2mph in spring to “no gain at all” in the regular season. To me, that’s reason enough to move up Randy Vasquez, Dustin May, and Kodai Senga. Everything in moderation, though.
Injuries
JOSE RAMIREZ
Jose Ramirez has a shoulder thing.
That’s probably nothing. But it’s pretty rough when a first-round player gets hurt, even a little bit, days before your draft. What do we do tonight? Do we downgrade him a spot or two? A dollar or two? It looks like he did go as high as #9 last night.
Let’s talk about this first round. In truth, it’s not that important of a round. People ask me a lot about who they should take in the first round. And the right answer is pretty much “it doesn’t matter as long as they stay healthy this year”.
The top (larger) tier:
Shohei Ohtani
Aaron Judge
Bobby Witt Jr.
Ronald Acuna Jr.
Juan Soto
Jose Ramirez
Tarik Skubal
Paul Skenes
Garrett Crochet
I’m throwing all three SPs in there just because I do think you could go any which way with that. Skubal has emerged as the #1, but I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to take Skenes or Crochet. And sometimes you just wanna start with a tier one stud SP.
So any ding to J-Ram drops him into consideration with these hitters:
Elly De La Cruz
Julio Rodriguez
Kyle Tucker
Corbin Carroll
It does look like Carroll will be ready to go for Opening Day. So I like him as a first-round pick again. I guess I can’t make a super statistically sound argument against J-Rod. But the optimal strategy with him would seem to be to try to trade for him after the first month or two. His career splits by month:
March/April: 90 wRC+
May: 123 wRC+
June: 106 wRC+
July: 149 wRC+
August: 163 wRC+
Sep/Oct: 155 wRC+
He is a career .229/.300/.354 hitter in March and April. It’s 107 career games, so not exactly a set in stone thing. But his struggles in the WBC add another layer of paving on the street of this narrative. If you’re in a softer league, I think it’s a good strategy to opt for someone else in the first round and then see if this March/April thing happens again. If it’s May 10th and he’s hitting .220 again, it’s time to pounce and see if you can get a discount on him via trade.
Back to Jose Ramirez. He’s my #5 hitter for roto:
Judge
Ohtani
Witt
Soto
Ramirez
Acuna
I think it’s a coin flip situation with him and Acuna. Obviously, Acuna has 1.1 upside. But it’s not as though there’s no risk with Ronny either. He’s had multiple knee surgeries and has played 150+ games just twice in his career. What if that crazy 2023 season (41 HR, 73 SB) had never happened? Would he be more of a second round pick?
Another angle for Acuna dislike - any little knee thing probably puts extinguishes the green light. He stole just nine bases last year in his return. He’s been aggressive on the bags so far this year, so I think the most likely outcome is another 25+ steals, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see him coming in under 20 steals.
But let’s not get confused here. Acunaa is a career .289/.384/.908 hitter. He’s insanely good and he’s as healthy as he’s been in years right now.
With third base being the way it is, I’m sticking with JRam over Acuna, but again, it’s basically a push.
ZACH NETO
This is probably another nothing-burger.
I will say that my initial read on Neto (during the Angels preview back in November) was that he’s a touch overrated this year. He’s the #6 shortstop off the board in recent drafts:
Witt (ADP 3)
Elly (9)
Gunnar (13)
Lindor (27)
Turner (29)
Neto (33)
Betts (60)
Abrams (65)
Perdomo (77)
Bichette (95)
I don’t think that’s wrong. He is a better categories contributor than Mookie Betts at this point, and he’s tucked in there behind Lindor and Turner. But there are leagues and drafts where Neto will go against of Lindor and Turner, and I don’t think I’d do that.
The Angels are bad, and Neto has bad plate discipline (27% K%, 4.7% BB% last year). That stuff is overrated in roto leagues. If he’s going to rip off 30-30 again, you don’t really care about the walks. But the one thing that bad plate discipline often does is turn into cold streaks. And it doesn’t seem like we’ve had one of those with Neto yet. I think he’s going to have some pretty clear “down years” in his career, unlike Lindor and Turner. Maybe this is one of them.
It’s speculation and #feelings, which isn’t the right way to approach it. But yeah, I don’t really want Neto. Especially with my boy CJ Abrams going for so much cheaper. I think both of these guys could come in right around 20 bombs, 30 steals, and a .245 batting average. Neto is a touch over-priced, and Abrams a touch under-priced.
Seiya Suzuki
He did something to his knee in the WBC. Right now, we don’t have any updates on the results of the tests. Drafters are worried!
He went for a 143 ADP in NFBC drafts last night. That’s four rounds later than usual. Could be a steal, or it could be not enough of a drop. I’m helping you big time here, I know! But we have to wait and see what the test results say.
I will mention that a knee thing isn’t the worst case for a guy like Suzuki. He’s not much of a stolen base guy, so you don’t need that from him for fantasy value. And the Cubs are pretty comfortable with DHing him. That’s already been a big part of his role. So even with a non-100% knee, he could be perfectly fine still hitting bombs and driving in runs as the Cubs DH.
It’s potential good news for Matt Shaw, who would be the playing time beneficiary if Suzuki does get pushed out of the outfield (either to DH or to the IL) early on.
THE SP BARBELL STRATEGY
Look man I’m pretty into weight lifting. I know that when I’m on video podcasts I look like I’m 147 pounds and I even state with my mouth that yes, I am 147 pounds. But in reality that’s just a show and a lie so I don’t make you guys feel bad about yourselves. I mean, having a successful fantasy baseball blog AND being jacked at the same time is just unfair. None of you would ever sleep again.
So I know a good bit about barbells. And for you 150 pound losers out there, let me show you what one of those looks like:
How this applies to fantasy drafts is the skinny nature of the barbell in the middle. So when we saw SP barbell strategy, we mean taking SPs early and taking SPs late, and not taking them in the middle rounds. I think this is pretty viable this year. I like the top three a lot. There’s a clear tier one to tier two gap that we don’t usually see. And then there’s this group of BLAH in the middle.
I’ll put these names on the first set of plates on the barbell:
That’s 20 SPs. I’d include a couple other guys in there (Sheehan, Misiorowski, Pepiot, Lodolo, Rasmussen) to make something like a top 25.
And then you have this:
That’s a lot of names, and there are exceptions. But most of those names, I don’t care for.
I think it’s interesting and viable to grab three SPs in your first five picks, and then go to work on offense.
Then you can finish your staff after pick 225 or something with dudes from this list:
Jack Flaherty
Ryan Weathers
Kodai Senga
Braxton Ashcraft
Mike Burrows
Parker Messick
Zebby Matthews
This isn’t a strict list to adhere to, but most of you will know the guys I like and the guys I don’t by now.
And again, there are plenty of guys in that clump of middle-round names I like. I could see myself grabbing Skubal, Gilbert, Eury, and Misiorowski early. Grabbing Trevor Rogers in the middle, and then just taking 2-3 of those “last round fliers” I like to talk about. That should get us a decent offense with a ton of SP upside.
So that’s the SP barbell strategy. I’m going to give it a try in the auction tonight. I’ll be buying one of the stud SPs if they’re at a reasonable price, and I’ll be aggressive on Eury/Misiorowski/Sheehan, and then I’ll be buying a handful of SPs for $1-$3.
OR WILL I? If you’re in the league, maybe you think I just somehow helped you out! Maybe you think you know what I’m going to do tonight! Or maybe this is all an elaborate scheme to trick you.
It’s not, though. I really think that stuff.
Good luck this week, boys! Let’s finish draft season strong! Best weeks of the year!