Sometimes I just don’t understand
Mar 27th, 2007 by winabango
First of all i would like to apologize for the lack of posts over the last few days. I bought a new car last night, and so that was my focus lately. This is what happens when you have a growing family, and small cars.
On Sunday night, I also had my draft for the Fantasy Baseball Mafia league that I am in. This is an NFBC style league that is a 12-team 5×5, 28 round draft, and 5 player keeper league. These guys are all fans of the MLBRadio show Fantasy 411. So I spent plenty of time preparing for the draft. But there is one thing that I just do not understand one bit. Why do listeners of their show draft closers early and often? They did it when I mock drafted against them, and they did it again on Sunday night. It just does not make sense to me. Check out the list of closers and when they were selected:
- Francisco Rodriguez - round 4 pick 3
- Joe Nathan - round 3 pick 6
- Jonathan Papelbon - round 4 pick 11
- Mariano Rivera - round 5 pick 3
- BJ Ryan - round 4 pick 6
- Billy Wagner - round 4 pick 10
- Houston Street - round 5 pick 4
- JJ Putz - round 5 pick 7
- Trevor Hoffman - round 5 pick 1
- Bobby Jenks - round 6 pick 8
- Chad Cordero - round 5 pick 8
- Chris Ray - round 8 pick 5
- Takashi Saito - round 9 pick 9
- Francisco Cordero - round 8 pick 4
- Tom Gordon - round 6 pick 9
- Brad Lidge - round 8 pick 1
- Brian Fuentes - round 9 pick 1
- Eric Gagne - round 9 pick 5
- Bob Wickman - round 13 pick 7
- Todd Jones - round 11 pick 6
- Jason Insringhausen - round 9 pick 12
- Octavio Dotel - round 13 pick 10
- Jose Valverde - round 8 pick 11
- Salomon Torres - round 16 pick 5
- Joe Borowski - round 13 pick 12
What the heck!!!!! 20 closers were taken from round 4 through round 9. That means 28% of the picks in those rounds were closers. Am I really missing something? Over the last three years at least 10 teams changed closers during the year for one reason or another. I am certainly not advocating “punting” a stat, but when you have a situation like this, draft other players and work the waiver wire during the year. I picked 11th in the draft, and here are my picks for the first 10 rounds:
- David Wright - pick 11
- Grady Sizemore - pick 2
- Vernon Wells
- Chris Carpenter
- Gary Sheffield
- Robinson Cano
- Ben Sheets
- Adam LaRoche
- Cole Hamels
- Jason Giambi
I feel that I picked significantly better overall value for my team. I reached a bit for LaRoche, but it worked out when I was able to get Giambi 2 rounds later.
So what did I do about closers? Nothing, well not really. Here are my relief pitchers:
- Joel Zumaya - round 14 - He will get me tons of Ks, and may even end up closing by the end of the year.
- Seth McClung - round 19 - Only true closer that I have to start the year, but I can dump him for a waiver wire move.
- Pat Neshek - round 22 - Another high K, low ERA guy that will help my team, and I can dump for a waiver wire pickup when the time comes.
- Jorge Julio - round 25 - this was where I out smarted them. I have been paying attention to MLB Trade Rumors, and new that he was probably going to be traded. So now I have Florida’s closer while Lindstrom and Tankersley were drafted by other teams.
By the way, I was also able to get Barry Zito in the 17th round, Eric Chavez in the 15th, Jason Varitek in the 20th, Austin Kearns in the 24th, and Brandon Phillips in the 13th. Check out the complete team listing here.
And to think that I was worried about this draft.
I agree that closers get drafted too high. I ended up with Paplebon, only because when I drafted, he was a starter. Now he is drafted several rounds earlier, yet his contributions to Ks, WHIP and ERA will be half of what he would have provided in 150 + IP as a starting pitcher.
I was in the same boat last saturday at my draft. I’m in a 14 team head-to-head roto style league and the top closers started to go off the board around Rd. 3. WTF! By the time I got around to getting a closer in about the 8th round ( I was determined to not get sucked in to the RP run in the early-middle rounds) Gordon was the best option left on the board, but since my league counts a hold as a save (even more crazy that people went closer crazy so early)Scott Shields was probably my best RP pick-up. Besides those two, I also managed to pick up Dotel and Meredith. Hopefully, the waiver wire will be bountiful this year, because I’m not too confident in competing in the Save/Holds category. One jerk drafted KRod And Wagner in Rds. 3&4!
I have the #4 pick in an 8 team NL only league….assuming everyone picks ‘by the book’ would would you take in Rounds 1-5?
Assuming that everyone picks like they should is an occurrence that will never happen. That is why I target positions for each of the first 5 rounds. I would target players in this order:
1 - OF
2 - OF
3 - CI
4 - MI
5 - SP
With that in mind, i would go:
1 - Carlos Beltran
2 - Jason Bay
3 - Garrett Atkins
4 - Bill Hall
5 - Brett Myers
With those picks you get power, decent overall speed, decent batting average, a multiple position player, and a solid starter. If you want a stud pitcher, then choose one in the 4th round and pickup a middle infield in the 5th. In my opinion that would lay a solid foundation for you team.
Hi Winabanjo,
Been busy and have not had time to visit your site too much over the past week.
Ok, regarding your draft, this is my take: Who’s your starting SS? If taken after the 10th I can only imagine its someone like Renteria/Drew/Greene. I probably would have gone after a SS earlier since value was dropping to you with the inordinate amount of closers taken. That really is unbelievable.
I would also pick up Hermanson and/or Coffey. In Tampa, imo, it is not going to be McClung, but I am sure you heard that already. My money’s on Reyes. So you do have a couple of options. Also I would look at Howry…that guy has some juice and Dempster was horrible last year so that likely indicates a very short lease.
Lastly, I like the Paulino pick-up in our league…will diffenently help the avg.
Ed
aka Springfield Isotopes
Ed,
Good to see you again. You may want to read the Brewers Team Preview, I mentioned about your team there. I thought Paulino would definitely be better then Lo Duca.
My Shortstop is actually Orlando Cabrera and I picked him in the 11th round. He added some needed speed to my team.
Trust me on one thing, McClung is on a very short leash.
Kelly
If you are in a competitive league you can’t just ‘work the waiver wire’ for all of your saves because the other 13 teams are doing the same. Thats what makes the league competitive. In roto you need to get a real closer at some point in the draft or you are at a disadvantage.
Pretty funny you got Sheets in the 7th round when he could easily be the 2nd best fantasy pitcher in baseball this year. Yeah yeah he was hurt the past 2 years but it was one single injury and he’s been throwing fine for 8 months now. I’d be more worried about Zambrano’s arm falling off from how much they abused him than Sheets having another set back.
While I would definitely agree that closers tend to go too early, I would also agree with Ender: there is a point where you need to grab one. You are indeed punting saves when your two closers are McClung and Julio. Not only that, you are going to be hurt in ERA and WHIP at the same time.. take a look at their numbers over the past few few years. Zumaya and Neshek are great, but unless and until Zumaya becomes closer, all they’re going to do is help neutralize the damage done by McClung/Julio.
In my most recent league draft I took Huston Street way “too early” at 59, because the top shelf was already empty. But I do not regret it at all, because now I have a solid #1 closer, and many teams do not. Due to “category scarcity”, it will be much, much easier to find a solid OF or CI during the season, than a solid closer. Your team is good otherwise, but I think sometimes the “never follow runs on a position” principle can be applied too strictly, to the point of leaving your team in a weak and vulnerable position.
P.S. Since I brought up the topic of “category scarcity”, I have been meaning to ask your opinion on something relating to the ADP report. Would it make sense to have tiered category scarcity reports that are analogous to the position scarcity reports? This would help those “It’s the end of the draft and I still need steals.. Who should I grab?” situations. Just a thought..
I agree that I messed up on the closer front in the league. When all of the top and middle closers were flying off the board early, I had decided that I would wait until round 13 and 14 to take closers like Dotel, Isringhausen Torres, and Valverde. The problem was magnified when those players went 5-7 rounds earlier then they should have.
I did make an attempt to provide the “situation” stats by adding the projections on the Scarcity Report. There is a notation in front of the player’s name that indicates if they met certain criteria.
What do you think of my team?
10 players NL only head to head…
C Brian McCann
1B Todd Helton
2B Rickie Weeks
3B Mark DeRosa
SS Jimmy Rollins
OF Alfonso Soriano
OF Brad Hawpe
OF Shane Victorino
Util Adrian Gonzalez
BN Scott Rolen
BN Chris Duncan
BN Wilson Betemit
DL Carlos Quentin
Pitching
SP Roy Oswalt
SP Barry Zito
SP Rich Hill
RP Adam Wainwright
RP Dan Wheeler
RP Matt Capps
P Aaron Heilman
P Todd Coffey
BN Tim Hudson
BN Noah Lowry
BN Joe Beimel
BN Tim Lincecum
BN Salomon Torres
Where can I improve?