Baseball Draft Kit: Finding Value in the Scrapheap

This is the fourth time I have contributed this particular piece for the RotoWire Draft Guide. Sometimes I enjoy it, and other times it makes me wonder exactly what was I drinking when I let another guy in the league get a certain player for that low of a price. This article is initially written in early December so that it can make the print magazine, so it will sometimes include pre-hype guys as it did last year with Greg Bird and Eric Thames. That said, this same article last year suggested targeting Charlie Morton and Lance Lynn.

Winning a fantasy baseball league is more difficult than winning a fantasy football league. A primary contributor to this is the fact that unlike fantasy football, there are few casual fantasy baseball players. Everyone plays fantasy football and thinks they can wake up and roll into a draft with their mad skills to pick a daily or season-long winner. That is not the case with baseball. There is luck in baseball, but luck is minimized over a 26-week season and a 162-game schedule. Those that play it are immersed in it. They are looking at the RotoWire news updates multiple times a day, tracking information as it breaks on Twitter and listening to radio shows and podcasts trying to catch tips before their competition does.

When you are that invested in the players on your teams, it is only natural to get frustrated with them when they do not perform. We get angry with players when they do not perform at the level of their preseason projections for a few weeks, or in some cases, an entire season. Yes, Jonathan Villar, I am looking at you. When someone like Villar has that kind of season, fantasy players tend to shift from a pragmatic approach toward that player to a dogmatic one. DTM = "Dead to me," is the popular acronym for such an approach within the industry.

While that approach may offer some momentary relief from the frustration of previous relationships with a player, it absolutely holds you back as a fantasy owner. You may end up missing out on players that come back with successful seasons following disastrous ones because you assumed that the player would just continue to underperform. Many analysts refer to "last year's trash as this year's treasure" across their various platforms. If you had filled out your 2017 roster with the 2016 trash, flukes or has-beens, you could have constructed a 23-man roster such as this in a 15-team mixed league with standard scoring ($=2017 Tout Wars Mixed Auction Cost).

C – Yadier Molina $4 (earned $12)
C – Mike Zunino $3 (earned $6)
1B – Ryan Zimmerman $0 reserve (earned $30)
3B – Yuli Gurriel $0 reserve (earned $14)
CI – Travis Shaw $2 (earned $24)
2B – Whit Merrifield $0 reserve (earned $23)
SS – Eduardo Nunez $0 undrafted (earned $14)
MI – Jonathan Schoop $3 (earned $28)
OF – Aaron Judge $0 reserve (earned $43)
OF – Josh Reddick $1 (earned $17)
OF – Joey Gallo $0 reserve (earned $16)
OF – Brett Gardner $3 (earned $18)
OF – Cody Bellinger $0 undrafted (earned $26)
U – Logan Morrison $0 undrafted (earned $17)
P – Luis Severino $0 reserve (earned $25)
P – Robbie Ray $4 (earned $21)
P – Alex Wood $1 (earned $20)
P – Gio Gonzalez $2 (earned $19)
P – Ervin Santana $1 (earned $19)
P – Chase Anderson $0 (earned $14)
P – Corey Knebel $0 undrafted (earned $17)
P – Felipe Rivero $0 undrafted (earned $15)
P – Brad Hand $0 undrafted (earned $13)

It would have cost $24 to roster that particular group that delivered $451 of fantasy value and $414 of surplus value. This is not to suggest that you should walk away from your auction leaving a bunch of money on the table as you spend the entire auction hunting for the best value possible as there is value everywhere. If you value Tim Beckham at $10 and the room stops at $2, you say $3 and win the bid, you have saved $7. Bargains like that add up over the course of the auction.

The purpose of this recurring article is to remind everyone that there is value in what has most recently scorched fantasy hopes because recency bias is present in any auction or draft.

There are a variety of reasons that these players are available at little or no cost in your auction. Some are recovering from injuries, some are coming off perceived fluke years or realistically awful years, others have landed in an unfortunate playing time situation. In some cases, the player has no clear path to playing time during draft season due to crowded depth charts or rotations. Using those filters, let's seek out potential values for 2018 that should be cheap options to fill out your roster with the hope of earning a significant return on your investment.

Rebound From Injuries

Simply put, it is tough to excel at baseball, or life, when you are not 100 percent healthy. Xander Bogaerts was hit on the hand by a Jacob Faria fastball in early July and struggled with that pain throughout the entire second half. Before that fateful fastball, Bogaerts was hitting .303/.359/.447, but he hit just .235/.324/.347 after the hit by pitch. A healthy hand and wrist could lead to a return to a 20-plus homer season for the 25-year-old shortstop.

Gregory Polanco struggled through a shoulder issue in spring training, which lingered throughout the first half, as well as a May hamstring injury. He never seemed to get right, and disappointed the masses that had drafted him as a top-60 player. He is 26 and just a year removed from a very productive fantasy season.

Roadblocked

This is a potential gold mine for leagues that draft early. The Tout Wars draft was held two weeks before the season began and eventual AL-only champ Mike Podhorzer was able to roster both Aaron Judge and Luis Severino for $5 and run away with the league. Cody Bellinger was the NL equivalent of this. Unlike video games, there is no way to turn off injuries so they will continue to be a factor each season, turning today's blocked prospects into tomorrow's very profitable picks.

Victor Robles just needs one of Adam Eaton, Bryce Harper or Michael Taylor to get hurt (again), and Eaton's progress back from a torn ACL this spring may clear a path to the Opening Day roster. Willie Calhoun is still working on his defense in left field, which is likely a major factor in his demotion to Triple-A to begin the season. It may not be long after the start of the season before he gets a chance to showcase his bat. Willy Adames currently has Adeiny Hechevarria in his way, but has no reason to return to Durham other than the parent club controlling future costs in his contract.

Speedster Greg Allen is waiting in line behind the fragile Michael Brantley and the risky Bradley Zimmer. The same can be said for Anthony Alford in Toronto where the Jays set up a platoon of Curtis Granderson and Steve Pearce in left field, while acquiring Randal Grichuk from St. Louis to take over in right.

Other Names to Watch

Stephen Piscotty had a promising 2015 debut and a productive full-season breakout in 2016. Players typically take another step forward in their third year, but Piscotty backslid into a disappointing season, which makes him a perfect fit for this strategy given that he has still been above-average statistically in his career in a significant sample size of over 1,300 plate appearances. Piscotty's mother was diagnosed with ALS in late May, and it is natural to think that weighed on him during the season as well. St. Louis traded Piscotty to Oakland in December which allows him to be very close to home and his family. The change in parks represents a slight upgrade, and Piscotty could work his way into a more prominent spot in the batting order with the A's.

Blake Snell is a recent reminder on how there are no guarantees about how top pitching prospects will perform. Snell was winless over his first 15 starts in 2017 around a mid-season demotion back to Triple-A. He quietly went 5-1 over his final 10 outings while keeping his walks in check, keeping the ball in the park and looking much more like the prospect that excited us in 2016 rather than the disappointment he was for most of last season. His overall numbers from 2017 should keep his price down in drafts, making him a prime target in late rounds.

Jharel Cotton was the other hyped prospect that failed to deliver on expectations in 2017. He was a toxic combination of walks and homers and his 5.58 ERA and 5.68 FIP agree that he was terrible in 2017. That said, he was very good in 2016 with the Dodgers, and perhaps the change in organizations for the first time is to blame. He also struggled to get ahead in the count to use his amazing changeup and ended up overusing his not-so-amazing fastball. Unfortunately, he was sent back to the Bay Area on Tuesday for an MRI on his elbow, which may foreshadow a major injury.

This article appears in the 2018 RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Guide. You can order a copy here.