Haddy has traded away here a future Hall of Famer, Buster Posey who so far in 2019 has not been very useful. Posey has been a part of our auction draft every single year because he’s always too expensive to keep. But, then in the draft enough teams realize there’s more money available than there are elite talents.
So guys like Posey get a lot of money based on name value. Not awful. Beach Bum is buying low on a potential second half bounce back. We’ve seen worse deals.
Clarke Schmidt is a 45FV prospect in the Yankees organization who is 23 years old and hasn’t gotten above A-ball. Pitchers can make large jumps and the level is less important than for hitters. So far this year he’s doing alright, but he’s probably a reliever.
Michael Baumann is a podcaster for The Ringer’s MLB Show who dabbles as a 40FV prospect in the Baltimore Orioles system. Both pitching prospects here are old for their level and have good numbers. Maybe something happens.
Posey is a waiver wire add, and the two prospects are also waiver wire adds. This trade is fine in the fact that for both teams, nobody lost anything, so there’s likely that nobody really gained anything.
Hustle’s Toxic $.02
Wow, I’m inspired by Jordan looking up prospects. Posey is having a down year and is quite an easy cut again, but he’s shown signs of life lately. Without a doubt Haddy will not regret giving away Posey, and if he does he will get him in auction for certainly less than $58. That being said, these prospects are nothing and I feel like you shop and research prospects a little better to find someone with more value. If Posey suffers a serious injury between now and the trade deadline, you get nothing. I still take the risk and do that if the price tag on him currently was nothing, which by this trade, it was.
Dan has all his draft picks right now and is currently one of the best teams in the league while using Alex Avila and Curt Casail. Does he really turn down a 2nd or 3rd round pick for Buster Posey? I would not if I were in his shoes. Those picks are easily sellable for somewhere between $3-12 if every other minor league draft is any indication. $3-12 is better than nothing, which was the return here.
News broke live on the podcast! 16 greed votes are in. Thus we can now announce the changes that have already been made in the Fantrax system. you can see in the link at the top how your and other teams fared.
Some highlights: Beach Bum was the only team to have two or less players greed. Both Wilfred Brimley Fighting Diabetesus and Trumpa Loompas had eight different players greeded for at least one auction dollar.
National League MVP Christian Yelich unsurprisingly grabbed 13 greed votes. Somewhat surprisingly one of the top finishers in the American League MVP race Jose Ramirez got just 10 greed votes.
With the greed vote done, 2019 auction values are now set. It should remove some of the shroud hovering over some players heading into next year’s auction draft.
As discussed in the Slack Channel and Podcast, there is definitely room to improve the overall quality of life in the league. The following proposed rule changes are intended to improve overall competitiveness, bring clarity to confusing rules, and speed up certain aspects of our game that should make playing much more fun.
The simple stuff…
Raising the greed money per team to $2 to spread among each of their 15 peers’ teams. You do have to select two different players who are not cost controlled to receive an extra one dollar raise. Cost controlled players would remain unaffected. However, top 30 players would no longer be a protected class.
This would go into effect after the 2019 season.
I believe the top 30 rule hasn’t been as useful or necessary as originally thought. Inflating everyone’s budget another $15 via the greed rule, theoretically adds another $30 player to the auction pool each year. This helps make the auction draft great again (MADGA), as potentially 15-20 more starters hit the pool each year.
There has been ample discussion on how to handle the current situation where teams have been selling off significant amounts of auction budget in exchange for prospects. I believe that nobody can really determine if it is broken. There is definitely argument for both sides of this logic. However, we believe after much discussion, that its not in our best interest to limit teams’ potential to make these kinds of deals. It is also not in the league’s best interest to allow teams to carry from year to year a budget that clearly overshadows the rest of the league.
The proposal: Adjusting the language written in the current rule regarding the final cut day:
Currently: On Final Cut Day, every team needs to cut players down to their Team budget. You must leave $1 of Team Budget remaining per each empty major league roster spot.
Proposal: On Final Cut Day, every team needs to cut down to a total team salary of $500 or less. You must leave $1 of Team Budget remaining per each empty major league roster spot.
The term “Team Budget” refers to your team’s individual budget for a season that started at $500 +/- whatever trades you made that incorporated budget.
Essentially, if you have acquired additional auction budget, you may take any surplus budget with you to auction, but will not be able to use it pre-auction to keep additional players already on your roster.
All trades made between the Final Cut Day and Auction that put a team over the threshold for this rule will be voided and reversed.
The rational here starts with MADGA and helps keep some kind of competitive balance. Teams can still swap budget and make trades, but Final Cut Day does impose limits of sorts.
The paradigm shift…
Eliminating long relief appearances. There is big time potential in the immediate future for long relief appearances to become not only more common, but also more predictable as provided by the Ryan Yarbrough/Tampa Bay Rays example. Due to a lack of flexibility with how we can handle these kinds of scenarios, where the majority (if not all) of the player’s fantasy value stems from circumventing our Games Started limit, the proposed solution is to eliminate all relief appearances that are 10 outs or more (3.1 IP). The player would be moved from that active roster to the bench retroactively by a commissioner. The newest solution is to count all appearances that last ten outs or more and take place in the first nine innings of any baseball game, count as one of your seven starts for the week.
This would go into effect for the 2019 season.
It is not ideal that the commissioner needs to be hands on in these cases, but the running theory is that players like Yarbrough become useless less useful on your roster because they will not often score points for you. So they end up taking a roster spot for nothing little return. Thus meaning that only the rare unicorn relief appearances need to be adjusted to count as starts which we believe will be few and far in between. This simply solves an exploit, without much damage to anything else.
The worst system in Dynasty Grinders… gone!
It is no secret that the cost controlled system in Dynasty Grinders is confusing. A series of rules and hard caps were created when the league began to make things simple and after three seasons, there’s nothing simple about it. Currently the following things are true about the cost controlled system:
Prospects are valuable and cheaper.
We don’t know their exact value until mid- to late-offseason.
Its not easy to predict what their value is going to be in-season due to basing their cost on future projections.
Its incredibly frustrating to have a player start their cost controlled status because of a cup of coffee stint in MLB.
The first bullet point is fine and in the spirit of dynasty leagues, it makes sense to keep. The other three make sense to eliminate. To do so, the idea is to base the player’s cost controlled raises on their previous season’s performance. This means that after Fantrax rolls over the league, we would be able to update all player salaries (short of the greed vote) immediately and teams can better budget around those changes, which should open up the entire off-season to activity. Subsequently, we can apply greed much earlier in the off-season to allow even more time to plan for the following season.
In almost all cases this causes these cost controlled players will receive raises similar to or less than they would have in the old system. This means that prospects are still valuable and cheaper to keep. But knowing how they’re performing in the year before you can gauge within a few dollars of what they’re likely going to cost the next season. We will also know after the season ends (even before the World Series ends!) exactly what they will cost. In some cases, where players don’t meet the the minimum threshold, they don’t have their “clocks” begin. Easier and more fun.
Currently players follow this system:
The year they break into the majors they are $0.
The next season they are automatically $1 if they have 1 PA or 0.1 IP.
In their 3rd year you pay 20% of their FanGraphs ZIPS auction calculator value.
4th year you pay 40%
5th year you pay 60%
6th year you pay 80% and then they graduate, become eligible for greed, etc.
The redesign of the system will base the players “bonus” on their performance. All players who finish the season with positive point totals will be placed on a scale. Minor leaguers who finish the season below the 60th percentile will not reach cost controlled status. All minor leaguers who finish above the 60th percentile will cost $1 in the following season.
Cost controlled players who finish below the 90th percentile will get the minimum $2 raise each season.
From there cost controlled players could get raises higher than $2 based if they finish above the following thresholds:
90th percentile: $4 raise
93rd percentile: $6 raise
95th percentile: $8 raise
97th percentile: $10 raise
98th percentile: $13 raise
99th percentile: $16 raise
For some context on what those limits were in 2018: players who scored less than 256 points did not hit the 60th percentile so they would remain minor leaguers. This ensures that players who get promoted in September or otherwise receive “cup of coffee” promotions do not see their clocks start.
Cost controlled players who finish below the 90th percentile (794 points in 2018) get the standard $2 raise.
Above that 93rd was 867 points, 95th was 932 points, 97th was 1044 points, 98th was 1099 points and 99th was 1197 points.
That’s a lot of numbers and data is going to be provided to show how that affects our league.
In keeping with our existing rule, players who are picked up from free agency and debut in that same season are not eligible for cost control status and will be subject to free agent raise rules.
This achieves all of the goals that we set out to do. We’re currently waiting for FanGraphs to bail us out each year to stick to how the system was designed. That puts us at their mercy and from the first two seasons, it did not do a great or consistent job anyway. Getting away from that, allows a lot more flexibility and the ease of planning for the future sooner. I think these are all good things.
The forgotten topic…
Simply, players who were picked up as free agents during the year who were kept from the previous season currently have their keeper value set to $5. This should be bumped to $7 effective after the 2019 season.
Yep.
THE RESULT…
UPDATED 12/04/2018: By a final vote of 11-5 in favor of these changes, the Dynasty Grinders New Deal package of rule changes has passed.
Our league has a bunch of moving, sometimes confusing, parts. Here are some answers to questions that have been asked or that we anticipate may be asked with regards to our final cut down date that just occurred and the upcoming auction draft…
Q: Can we cut players after final cut down date?
A: No. Free cuts are no longer allowed following our final cut date (March 27, 2017). However, the league rules do state the following:
There will be one cut related exemption: if between final cut date and auction date, you have a player that has surgery or is suspended, you will be allowed the option of dropping that player.
The only other exception to this rule is that players with green flags in Fantrax are not allowed on your roster when the auction begins, even if that player only gains a green flag shortly before the draft. Be aware and plan accordingly.
If you have a player with a green flag on your roster, we will enforce this the same way we enforce the seven day maximum rule during the regular season. You will need to either demote the player (if you have an available minor league roster spot), cut the player, or cut some other player to make room in your minors to demote the player.
Q: Can we still make trades after the final cut date?
A: Yes. Trades are still allowed, but both teams must honor roster and budget rules. This means that following a trade, both teams must be at/under their budget, at/under a 30 man active roster, and at/under a 20 man minor league roster. Both teams must also make sure that they have $1 of budget available for every open active roster spot.
If after a trade a team is in violation of roster and/or budget rules, the trade will be reversed.
You can also use the Rosters drop down on this site to view each team’s roster, budget, and projected available money.
We advise that all owners track and monitor their own budgets independently as well. It is ultimately your responsibility as an owner to account for and manage your team’s budget.
Q: Something in Fantrax looks incorrect. What should I do?
First, let’s be clear: Fantrax sometimes makes things harder than they should be, but it’s the most customizable platform we’re aware of. We do not believe in being limited by software.
At the bottom of every team’s roster, Fantrax displays the amount a team has spent. It does not, for whatever reason, display a team’s budget. The salary amount used is the total cost of all the players on your roster, both active and minor league.
The mobile app has it’s own issues. The Used field here is accurate, but the Remaining and Cap fields are not. Inexplicably, the mobile app displays as each team’s cap the league norm, rather than what the team may actually have. For example, if your team has $510 worth of cap, it will still say $500.
Our advice would be to use the mobile app for basic lineup changes and transactions only.
In the draft room itself, Fantrax does not count the salaries of players in your minor leagues. Yes, this is baffling. For example, if your team truly has $100 worth of budget, but you have a player that costs $5 in your minors, the draft room will display your team’s budget as $105. We will make manual adjustments pre-auction to account for and resolve this.
We have reached out to Fantrax about all of these issues.
Q: When and how can I fill empty minor league spots?
You can fill these spots when free agency opens after the draft or by trade. Reminder: per league vote, we will have a FAAB system beginning in 2017 with a minimum bid of $0.
Between final cut date and auction, you can trade for minor leaguers that have green flags in Fantrax to go into these open spots. Just remember, if they do not have a green flag, you will be unable to demote them and they will occupy a spot on your active roster until they get green flag status, which may or may not occur by the time the auction begins.
Q: So when is the auction?
This year’s auction will be on Saturday, March 18 beginning at 11 AM/EST.
Jordan’s thoughts: I believe Avisail Garcia was cut and picked up several times because he hits for power, but he doesn’t actually hit. Chen actually had better peripherals than his performance suggested last year. Steamer seems to like him, but the home run rate is the issue. Will it stabilize? Either way I’d rather have Chen, but I can see both players being auction draft eligible in two months.
Andrew’s thoughts: As a wise man once said, “garbage for more expensive garbage.”
Jordan’s thoughts: The STEAMER Projections mixed with our settings in the FanGraphs Auction Calc suggest that Pence is worth $33 at auction. With my projections for players being kept, combined with the teams I project to have ridiculous amounts of auction money. I love this deal for Dusty. Pence is a great price at $19. I think Pence in this auction could go anywhere from $10-$50, depending on the context provided by our second auction draft. So Dusty spends two pretty weak assets to guarantee himself an outfielder who has 2017 value. Love this deal for Dusty.
I guess for HLR, this is better than just out right cutting someone. But, the return seems quite light for the timing of this deal. Clear win for RMO.
Andrew’s thoughts: I don’t particularly like Hunter Pence at $19, but I do like Hunter Pence. I’d probably like him more at $12 or something, at which point, how much does $7 even matter? And Dusty has an enormous amount of budget, so whatever.
I think Dusty wins this trade pretty easily, but I also realize HLR was probably going to have to cut at least one of Pence and Alex Gordon, so instead of cutting and getting nothing, he gets a pick. Pence has been on his block forever and this is what he got, so the market for him must have sucked. Better to get something than nothing, I guess.
Finally, I like Andrew Triggs. He had a 3.20 FIP and 3.29 xFIP in 56.1 innings last year. He mostly worked as a reliever but did start six games, and if he does manage to land a spot in the rotation, he’ll be able to toss in cavernous Oakland. I like him as a dirt cheap depth option.
Jordan and Andrew get into the post-draft reviews, and talk about the season ramping up. How do we really feel about Jonathon Lucroy? What do you mean Bryce Harper went for a billion dollars? Trades happened, but we wrote about those. Matt Hollidaygot went for what the what what? We spent a solid section about what happens next. What to expect next off-season, including the steps leading up to next year’s auction draft. We talk forever it seems and holy crap baseball is close.
Last week was a busy week for Dynasty Grinders. As of today we’re now a full week removed from auction draft day. That 8 hour marathon was capped off this week by reviews, thoughts, notes and a monster trade. If you missed any of it catch up below!
The Auction Draft is Over! – Jordan writes a post last Sunday reflecting on the his immediate thoughts post draft.
Where was the value at? – Jordan follows up with a post looking at where the auction value was left in the draft. Or maybe where it was not.
The Best of What’s Left – Keith of We Talk Fantasy Sports reviews what could be found on the waiver wire/free agent pool after the 480 selection draft.
Fun with similar price points… – Andrew looks at the draft again to compare players bought at the beginning and end of the draft showing how the nomination order probably played a large role in determining some players values.
Bryce vs Max part duex – Jordan takes a second and likely final look at the biggest trade of the week. Compares the two players’ 2015 campaigns on a week by week comparison.
As an aside: you can probably tell by now that I don’t care too much about talking about my team publicly. Some owners are tight-lipped. Personally, I don’t think sharing my thought processes gives away any competitive advantage. If I have a thought that I think becoming public does compromise some advantage then, well, I just won’t share it publicly. Simple enough.
Coming into the auction, I hoped to get two cornerstone hitters and go from there. I did not plan for them to both play the same position.
To be clear, I love both these guys. I’m not upset that I have them. But I do wish I would’ve spent the cash — $70 went to Votto, $71 to Miggy — from one of these guys on a player from a different position. Like, say, Josh Donaldson ($68), Andrew McCutchen ($69), or Jose Bautista ($62).
In a vacuum, I’ll take Miggy or Votto over all three of those guys. But given positional need and roster flexibility, I painted myself into a corner taking two top tier first basemen.
Zips has a .336 wOBA for A-Rod in 2016. Steamer is much cooler on him. According to Steamer, he’ll be only the 105th best hitter. Fantrax, whose projections aren’t worth much, has him as the 71st best hitter. He was the 31st highest scoring hitter a year ago in a renaissance season.
No matter how you slice it, this is not a $1 player. Truthfully, $21 probably is a few bucks too much, but that’s true of a bunch of players. David Ortiz, who is A-Rod’s mirror image in a lot of ways (age, risk, production, position eligibility), went for $30. At 40, anything can happen with A-Rod. But I feel like I’ll get good numbers from him.
The problem is, he’s a utility-only hitter. And one of Miggy or Votto is plugged into that other spot, which leaves my options slim. I tend to try to accumulate talent first and worry about lineup composition later, but in this case I wish I hadn’t.
I love Patrick Corbin. (You love him too, given all the inquiries I’ve had for him already.) In his only full season in 2013, he posted a 3.43 FIP. Last year, in 16 games coming back from Tommy John, he picked up right where he left off with a 3.35 FIP. Oh, and he improved his strikeout and walk rates. He got swinging strikes on his slider 24% of the time.
The risk with him is clear. He could get hurt again, the track record is short, and he could be on an innings cap in 2016. I guess his home park is less than ideal too. But he’s also just 26 and has posted the kind of numbers most teams will seek from their SP2 or SP3.
And for $16. Marcus Stroman, who I like a lot, went for twice as much. I’ll take my $16 Corbin over a $41 Michael Wacha or $30 Masahiro Tanaka, for example. Off-season fantasy darling Raisel Iglesias, who I also like a lot, went for $29. Corbin struck out about a batter and a half less per nine, but also walked fewer and posted better FIP, xFIP, and HR/9 despite a BABIP that was higher by .041. I’m not saying Iglesias won’t be superior (because “upside!” or whatever). But $13 better? All I’m saying is I like this particular player at his particular price.
Markakis, meanwhile, is just an old favorite of mine from his time with the Orioles. Four bucks for a career .291/.359/.429 hitter makes me happy.
Of course, the “upside” here is nil and the power numbers last year were sobering. He hit three home runs all year with a .080 ISO. But in 2013, he hit 10 homers with a slightly better .085 ISO. He had a 2.1% HR/FB rate a year ago. Of players with 500 or more plate appearances, only noodle bats Alcides Escobar, Ben Revere, and Angel Pagan got less of their fly balls into the seats. Escobar went for $3 and Revere for $6, for whatever that’s worth. I don’t think getting back to double digit bombs is unrealistic — I think it’s likely, in fact — and if he does that (and frankly, even if he doesn’t) he will be a very solid starting outfielder at practically no cost.
Thought #4: I left too much money on the table.
I came in $10 short of our $500 auction budget due to trades, then proceeded to leave $21 in my pocket at draft’s end. That was very stupid.
Here’s what happened: after starting slowly, I quickly piled up some big dollar players. My first three players cost me $70, $71, and $71. Then I added a $21 A-Rod and $60 Johnny Cueto. My next two players, Sonny Gray and Tyson Ross, were had for $96 total. That was my setup through the first 98 nominees.
From there, I hybernated. I eventually grabbed Martin Prado ($4) at the 179th nomination spot. Going 81 spots and almost two hours without adding a player is a long time. The wait was deliberate. My cash was much lower than most everyone else’s, so I decided unless a player I really coveted came up, I’d sit back and let other teams spend, hopefully opening some holes for me later.
It worked, but I failed to hit those holes.
I sometimes undervalue hitters and/or overvalue my own ability to squeeze points out of lesser hitters. That cost me. I just waited and waited, and eventually the players worth spending on ran out and I was left with $21. I feel a lot better about my offense today if I’ve got an Alex Gordon ($17) or Matt Kemp ($11) to plug in. Or I could have, you know, taken that extra $21 plus the $21 spent on A-Rod and allocated it better. That’s enough to have bought a Starling Marte, Robinson Cano, Yasiel Puig, or JD Martinez, just to rattle off a few.
Thought #5: I should’ve kept pushing for Max Scherzer.
This sort of rolls into #1 and #4.
I bid Scherzer up to $85, then he went to Ferns for $86. There’s no telling how high the bidding might have gone if I’d kept pushing, but I wish I’d found out. If I land Scherzer, I almost definitely don’t get both Miggy and Votto.
I’m also not totally comfortable with Carlos Carrasco ($71) as my SP1, though I don’t mind his price. In other words, getting Scherzer would’ve likely took me out of the market for one of the hitters, but not Carrasco. Penciling him in as my SP2 behind Mad Max would’ve been fun.
Someone commented in the auction room after Carrasco went off the board that the winning bid was influenced by “hype.” To which I say: when a guy finishes as the 17th highest scorer on only 30 starts, the ninth best FIP, the fourth best xFIP, and the fifth best K/9 rate, the hype has some merit behind it. And he did all that with a high, unfortunate BABIP and elevated HR/FB rate.
I get the risks here. He’s gone over 100 innings in his big league career just thrice and has maxed out at 183.2. That’s on my radar. I won’t sleep easy knowing this. But he’s paid as a top 12-13 pitcher and all indicators are that, if healthy (a caveat that applies to every pitcher), he should produce right in that range.
Thought #7: I won’t have trouble rooting for my guys.
I don’t really believe in targeting players I “like” as in, hey, so and so is fun to watch on TV, so I should do something totally irrational to get him. It’s a tiebreaker for me when choosing between similar players. But I ended up coming out of this auction with a bunch of unheralded guys that I generally like beyond just fantasy stuff. Mike Napoli ($4), Nori Aoki ($1), Denard Span ($4), and Johnny Cueto ($60). The latter isn’t “unheralded” but I wanted to mention him so that I could link to that photo.
I remember a few years ago — I think 2011, but I’m not sure — I had Aoki on my MLB The Show team. Except I had no idea he was a real player. I thought he was one of the random minor leaguers or a fictitious rookie the game created. But he was awesome in the game. He was a slap hitter kind of like Ichiro, lashing line drives all over the place. He was fast, too. In video game baseball, I attempt a million steals. As soon as I realized he actually existed, I liked him even more and have been fond of him ever since.
I didn’t actually mean to win Dickerson. I was sort of half bidding him up, half interested in him at a bargain basement price. But I accidentally clicked him for the $10 winning bid which, actually, you know, might end up working out quite nicely.
This is a guy with perpetual health issues who is obviously going from a hitter’s park so favorable that calling it simply a “hitter’s park” isn’t enough. His perceived value is way down. But he’s still just 26 years old and has posted some remarkable offensive numbers. Of batters with 600+ plate appearance since the beginning of 2014, he has the 23rd best WRC+ (133). Because park factors play so vividly in how Dickerson’s viewed, I used WRC+ because it’s a park adjusted stat. wOBA (.390), which is not park adjusted, ranks him 11th in all of baseball under those same criteria.
Neither Zips or Steamer expect him to continue hitting so torridly, nor do they expect him to play a full slate of games. Maybe both are true. Maybe I’m trying to talk myself into the player. I mean, Max Kepler, who has logged a grand total of seven MLB at-bats, went for the same price. Depending on your lens, Dickerson at $10 is a bargain.
Closing thoughts…
Overall, I expect this team to compete. But the path will be tougher than it should’ve been, and that’s my own fault. I’m excited for the challenge.
Not that in anyone in Grinders should or does care, but I took the salaries players went for here and applied them to my team in the Dy-Nasty league you’ve heard us mention on a few podcasts, which uses pretty much identical scoring. My 25-man roster over there went for $792 total here. I’ve got another seven guys in my minors there that were auctioned off here and aren’t included in that total.
The roster I’m starting with is going to require a lot more effort and attention on my part. The margin for error is smaller. My offense is going to require patience and caffeine, because while there are quality players all over (I can’t wait until those of you who are new to this depth/scoring start seeing the types of players that become valuable), it’s a unit about as exciting as flossing your teeth.
But navigating that stuff is part of the fun, and I doubt anyone is looking at their team post-auction and seeing perfection. Everyone has work to do. I’m ready to get started.
Is their team name to be determined, or does TBD stand for something else? We may never know. Anyway during the auction draft do you know that moment when you are kind of poking around looking at the other team to see where they’re at. TBD looks great looking at that list top down. Until you go down. They punted pitchers so hard that I had to take several looks. There’s a lot here to discuss, probably the most fun roster to look at.
Hitters – Outstanding
Yep, I had to give it to someone. 1-10 the hitters here are just outstanding. Now, Matt Wieters had not been flagged for a wuss injury again at the time of the draft so we will pretend he’s okay. Warning, fantasy all-star list incoming: Eric Hosmer, Jose Altuve, Kris Bryant, Corey Seager, Troy Tulowitzki, David Peralta, JD Martinez, Miguel Sano, phew. Power, walks, contact, everything. The floor with this line up is so damn high that its impossible to ignore. If you have to nitpick, I can say that I don’t love Pillar in centerfield, but I have a feeling that will be solved at some point. Perhaps Pillar turns into a fantasy starter. Either way, I also don’t love spending $100 on short stops, but it looks like it could work out well here. There’s a chance that Sano ends up finding a position which helps this line up even more.
Pitchers – Whoops
Oh Christ. Really? I mean Phil Hughes is probably the most reliable starter here. Every other guy in that long list of eleven pitchers is someone I’m starting and praying each time. That’s a lot of prayers. Lets imagine that we are in a bar and talking with a buddy who knows enough about sports to not be a complete dumb ass and you are going over roster? Andrew Heaney… Yeah he could be good this year. Jimmy Nelson, yeah he seems like he could be good this year. Edinson Volquez, I mean he’s probably alright. Hyun-jin Ryu, he’s still pitching? Oh he’s recovering from injury? Is he healthy? Well I guess if he’s healthy he’s probably good. Jonathan Gray, well when he’s not pitching in Colorado. You see where I’m going here? I’m not sure Derek Holland, Jorge Lopez, Hector Santiago, Wily Peralta, and Chris Heston are recognizable to your bar buddy so we won’t ask. I’m afraid that if TBD got three above average starters from this group, it would have to be considered a raging success, and that’s not good enough. Maybe there is something in the bullpen…Well TBD drafted three relievers I guess.
Depth – Uh-oh
Well, first off, those four right fielders only qualify for right field. Two of them are rookies. Tulo has to be slotted for the utility slot so his short stop advantage gets washed away. Enrique Hernandez covers a lot of spots, but he does not start daily for the Dodgers. I like Chris Carter, but not enough. The pitching depth doesn’t exist. There’s plenty of bullets to grab depth on this roster, but right now it is ugly as sin.
Why 2016 would be bad…
Thigns are ugly if any less than two starting pitchers are viable from the group. If they don’t find three regular SPs, TBD’s season is over. If Kris Bryant isn’t worth $75, or if both short stops fail to be transcendent hitters. The season is just over. They went all in on the hitters, I love them, but they have to show up. There is a real threat for this pitching staff to score below 100 points on a weekly basis. Considering a good weekly score should be above 500 or 600. That’s way to much to ask of any line up.
Why 2016 would be good…
Luck will happen here, before April seven or eight of the starters show their competency and have reliable roles. TBD then is able to trade one of them to someone else desperate for pitching and get a nice piece. TBD then is also able to cut the others to pick up depth elsewhere. Meanwhile Seager and Tulo end up being top 30 hitters overall. Kris Bryant challenges for MVP because of his bat. The hitters can hit the ceiling easily enough, just a matter of the pitchers climbing from the mud.
