Fantasy baseball talk - how to value keepers
 

I am guessing there are quite a few Net54 members who also play fantasy baseball…

If so, I wonder if anyone has ever come across a calculator or methodology to help “value” keeper options in baseball? In our league, your “cost” for a keeper is their draft round the year before.

For instance, my keeper options and round drafted last year are:

Kyle Tucker - 2nd round
Manny Machado - 2nd round
Emmanuel Clase - 20th round
Spencer Strider - 20th round
Zach Gallen - 13th round

Has anyone come across or developed a calculator to help estimate the best value vs a players expected ADP? I’ve seen these in fantasy football but not yet in baseball.

Thx for any links of programs you’ve seen. (By the way… I’ve narrowed it to 3
To pick 2 final keepers. Finalists are Tucker, Strider and Clase)

Thx

Jeff

Hey Jeff,

I recommend checking out the Fangraphs auction calculator:

https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy-to...ion-calculator

You have to translate the dollar values into rounds, but I find it super helpful.

And I think you're on the right track - Strider is a lock, Clase is elite but Tucker is very tempting as a 2nd. I think he's going to have a great year.

Matthew

Thx Matthew… I’ll check that out!

I am starting to think about keeping Tucker (costs my 2nd round) since we have a snake draft and my 2nd pick would be 2nd to last in 2nd round (Tucker there is super tempting)

Hi Jeff,

I think the value of Keepers depends on the duration of how long you can keep them. If we are talking Dynasty style, where they are kept for life, more or less, I think that changes the conversation significantly.

If they are kept for a certain amount of years, and then put back into the pool, that's a different story.

Hey James - our league rule is that the “cost” of the keeper is the round in which the player was drafted the year before… but if they were a keeper the year before, they cost your 1st round pick the next year (which prevents year over year hoarding of the best players!)

I have a different view on this. If you keep Tucker, then that is your round 2 pick, so you keep him and your second choice.....Strider.
If you elect to keep Strider and Clase you can still get a excellent player in the second round in place of Tucker.
So would you prefer Tucker, Strider and a 20th round pick? Or would you prefer Strider, Clase and a secoond round pick....Austin Riley, or Lindor, or??? depending when your second pick is. If an early round pick, maybe Y Alvarez, B Witt, B Bichette? Or later pick and get Riley or Lindor or...??
I would prefer Clase, Strider and a second rounder.
Please let us know what you decide.
Good Luck!

I am in 2 leagues where we meet in person and do the auction. We do not have keepers as everyone likes the option of getting any one player in a given year. I also need to say......I won one of the leagues last year!

After more thought, everyone is probably keeping their number 1 picks so I would keep Tucker in the second round.

Last year I drafted auction style and was able to get Sandy Alcantara, Alek Manoah, and Shane McClanahan as three of my SP's. I also had Jordan Montgomery and Logan Webb to round out my 5.

I finished 1st in ERA, WHIP and Strikeouts, about 4th in wins, and 5th in Saves. And ended up winning the league.....two points in front of my brother. It was a close race as the second to the last day of the season, 4 different teams held 1st place at some point in the night.

I am hoping to duplicate getting this kind of staff this year and really hoping to duplicate another championship. I really like Edward Cabrera this year for Miami.

Any suggestions on players who may go at a good price at auction style?

Thanks,
Bob

Hey Bob,

If you're not too risk averse, Chris Sale could end up being a steal at his current price. I think Tyler Glasnow is a bargain where he's going (also some risk, coming off of injuries). On the deeper end of the pool, I really like your team's young phenom Andrew Painter, especially if he breaks camp in the rotation.

Matthew

Hi Matthew. Yes I was looking at T Glasnow. I will look into C Sale.....I did not consider him but I will check him out as spring training goes on.

I really like Painter. I may do with him like I did with Rutschman last year. I bid $1.00 and got Rutschman even though he was in the minors. Nobody Else bid so I got him. I drafted Elias Diaz in my reserves and immediately promoted him to my team in place of Rutschman so I did not lose any stats. Then demoted Diaz and promoted Rutschman when he was promoted by the Orioles. I had several inquiries about trading when he was promoted. But all the offers were so lowball offers it was not even worth a counter offer by me. They just wanted to steal him.

Being in a league here in the Philly area, it will be difficult to get A Painter on the cheaper side. If he starts in the year in the minors, I will have no problem drafting him on my team and wait for that call up and hope nobody else has the same idea. If he makes the team, I will have to wait and see what he goes for when the auction comes around.

Thanks again, I will take a look at Sale and Glasnow a little more.
Bob