This article is part of our Rounding Third series.
When I tell people how many leagues I'm in, the third question I get (after "are you insane?" and "how do you manage all those leagues?") is "… don't you end up owning everyone when you play in so many leagues ….?" I'm in 15-20 leagues per season, and it'll be 15 roto-style leagues this season, along with four Scoresheet leagues and one Strat-o-Matic league. Despite playing in so many leagues, I still miss out on so many players, and not all by choice.
Before we discuss the missing, let's take a quick look at my collection of teams – I finished my annual spreadsheet Tuesday night to better track who I have and where in the event that news and/or one of my players breaks. The trigger for that this year was Dinelson Lamet's elbow injury. With higher-profile players such as Madison Bumgarner and Justin Turner, I already knew which leagues were impacted. But often when news breaks I have to act quickly on it, and it's handy to have all of my players in one place.
(Thanks to Chris Liss for allowing me to steal his layout.)
Let's lay this out in sections – first, the NFBC leagues – four drafted, one to go Wednesday afternoon:
The next set includes my other redraft leagues, including one AL-only auction (Tout Wars), one NL-only auction and three more mixed league drafts. I have one more redraft – the league that started RotoWire, Amici, an old-school AL-only 4x4
When I tell people how many leagues I'm in, the third question I get (after "are you insane?" and "how do you manage all those leagues?") is "… don't you end up owning everyone when you play in so many leagues ….?" I'm in 15-20 leagues per season, and it'll be 15 roto-style leagues this season, along with four Scoresheet leagues and one Strat-o-Matic league. Despite playing in so many leagues, I still miss out on so many players, and not all by choice.
Before we discuss the missing, let's take a quick look at my collection of teams – I finished my annual spreadsheet Tuesday night to better track who I have and where in the event that news and/or one of my players breaks. The trigger for that this year was Dinelson Lamet's elbow injury. With higher-profile players such as Madison Bumgarner and Justin Turner, I already knew which leagues were impacted. But often when news breaks I have to act quickly on it, and it's handy to have all of my players in one place.
(Thanks to Chris Liss for allowing me to steal his layout.)
Let's lay this out in sections – first, the NFBC leagues – four drafted, one to go Wednesday afternoon:
The next set includes my other redraft leagues, including one AL-only auction (Tout Wars), one NL-only auction and three more mixed league drafts. I have one more redraft – the league that started RotoWire, Amici, an old-school AL-only 4x4 league that won't draft until April 7 – not because it's old-school, but because we all have schedule conflicts:
And then finally three keeper leagues, with one more to come – the RotoWire Staff Keeper League, drafting April 3:
Notable Omissions:
Using the ADP results from 12-team leagues drafted in the NFBC (i.e. the most recent data sets from the most reliable source), I wanted to see how much of the top of the player pool I was really missing out on. I did this two ways – by the top five rounds overall, and then the top 10 per position.
Looking at the top five rounds, I own at least one share of a little more than half the pool – 34 of 60. It's interesting that I'm missing six players apiece in the first two rounds, with slightly fewer missing in the next three.
1st: Jose Altuve, Clayton Kershaw, Mookie Betts, Paul Goldschmidt, Bryce Harper, Chris Sale
2nd: Corey Kluber, Kris Bryant, Joey Votto, Gary Sanchez, J.D. Martinez, Noah Syndergaard
3rd: Luis Severino, Dee Gordon, Jacob deGrom, Josh Donaldson
4th: Andrew Benintendi, Jose Abreu, Byron Buxton, Corey Seager, Marcell Ozuna
5th: Carlos Martinez, Justin Upton, Willson Contreras, Chris Archer, Edwin Encarnacion
As this list gets deeper, the more I expect to see more omissions, as they become a little more purposeful, representing an unwillingness to reach for the "helium" guys, fear of injury or just a disagreement in their valuation.
The list of omissions by position is pretty interesting, too:
C: Sanchez, Contreras, Salvador Perez, J.T. Realmuto, Welington Castillo
1B: Goldschmidt, Votto, Abreu
2B: Altuve, Gordon, Whit Merrifield, Jonathan Schoop, Rougned Odor
SS: Seager, Elvis Andrus, Xander Bogaerts
3B: Bryant, Donaldson, Nick Castellanos
OF (top 20): Betts, Harper, Martinez, Benintendi, Buxton, Ozuna, Upton, Khris Davis, Billy Hamilton
SP (top 20): Kershaw, Sale, Kluber, Syndergaard, Severino, deGrom, Martinez, Archer, Gerrit Cole
RP: Corey Knebel, Roberto Osuna, Felipe Rivero, Edwin Diaz, Ken Giles,
This process really opened my eyes. I'm still not taking elite starting pitching early – I have but one share of the "big 4" starters of Kershaw/Sale/Kluber/Scherzer, and am missing three more of the top-10 starters in Thor, Severino and deGrom. That isn't really by design, except maybe in the case of Clayton Kershaw, who I passed over with picks 3 and 5 in two NFBC contests. If any of my competitors from Wednesday's Online Championship draft read this beforehand, you'll know which direction I'm going in the first round with pick 11.
I think it's also interesting that I haven't touched half of the top 10 catchers, including the top two. That's almost certainly a feature and not a bug – I rarely will pay up for the elite catchers. That probably won't change for my NFBC draft, though I can't promise the same when it comes to Gary Sanchez in my final draft – the 4x4 AL-only league I've been in forever.
He didn't make the top-20 list of starting pitches, but I also don't have any of Luis Castillo, which makes me sad. But he's getting pushed up all over the place in my leagues to the point where I don't see much profit potential. I also don't have any Joey Votto, and he's my absolute favorite player in the game. Hopefully that can be a correctable error.
Frequently Appearing
Instead of listing in order of appearances, I'm going to break this down by position. I think it's easier to track in this manner.
C: Yadier Molina (5), Austin Hedges (4), Manny Pina (3), Robinson Chirinos (2)
• Most of my leagues require two catchers, so it's a little surprising that I don't have more repeat players here. Molina always seems to fit well on my teams. His better batting average for the position helps reduce my batting average risk elsewhere, with so many other catchers bringing .220 to the table.
1B: Eric Thames (5), Miguel Cabrera (4), Ryan Zimmerman (3), Cody Bellinger (2), C.J. Cron (2), Wil Myers (2), Matt Olson (2), Joey Gallo (2)
• I guess I'm the Eric Thames Guy now. Yikes. I'm not thrilled about this, and yet there I was last Saturday, still taking him in the NFBC Main Event. At least my earlier acquisitions of him were either in a keeper league or before the Brewers got both Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich. I'm much happier about having four shares of Miguel Cabrera. It could blow up if that back never heals, but in most cases I was getting a pretty solid discount on an inner-circle HOF-quality hitter. I wish I had more Joey Gallo, by the way.
2B: Jason Kipnis (4), Ian Happ (3), DJ LeMahieu (3), Chris Taylor (2), Jonathan Villar (2), Robinson Cano (2), Cesar Hernandez (2)
SS: Trevor Story (4), Freddy Galvis (3 - two on reserver), Alex Bregman (2), Francisco Lindor (2), Yangervis Solarte (2)
• I also own Story in the RotoWire Staff Keeper League as a keeper, so that will make five shares of him once we get to that draft.
3B: Todd Frazier (2), Eugenio Suarez (2), Justin Turner (2)
• It speaks to the depth at third base, and that so many third basemen are eligible at multiple positions (e.g. Alex Bregman, Joey Gallo) that only three players are solely listed here.
OF: Max Kepler (3), Odubel Herrera (3), Kevin Pillar (3), Franchy Cordero (3), Joc Pederson (3), Giancarlo Stanton (2), Starling Marte (2), Ryan Braun (2), Nomar Mazara (2), Tommy Pham (2), A.J. Pollock (2), Aaron Altherr (2), Teoscar Hernandez (2)
• I'm really surprised I didn't have one outfielder owned in more than three leagues. Sure, there's a wider pool to draw from, but there are also five-to-six spots to fill even before you get to multi-position eligibility. I guess Eric Thames is part of that equation here.
DH: Nelson Cruz (2)
SP: Kenta Maeda (4), Chris Stratton (4), Dallas Keuchel (3), Garrett Richards (3), Charlie Morton (3), Rich Hill (3), Trevor Williams (3), Lance Lynn (3), Dinelson Lamet (3), Amir Garrett (3), Madison Bumgarner (3), Zach Davies (3), Stephen Strasburg (2), Robbie Ray (2), Jhoulys Chacin (2), Trevor Bauer (2), Luis Perdomo (2), Jack Flaherty (2), CC Sabathia (2), Reynaldo Lopez (2), Matt Shoemaker (2), Miles Mikolas (2), Sean Manaea (2), Johnny Cueto (2)
• It's not just a matter of acquisition cost why I don't have more than two shares of the top tiers of starting pitchers. It's also draft strategy – I purposefully allocated a heavy amount of my budget to filling hitting slots in my auctions, and passed up aces for elite hitters in my snake drafts.
RP: Archie Bradley (3), Emilio Pagan (3), Cody Allen (2), Kenley Jansen (2), Craig Kimbrel (2), Keone Kela (2), Sean Doolittle (2), Hector Neris (2), Aroldis Chapman (2), Brad Hand (2), Andrew Miller (2).
• At the start of draft season I indicated that I wanted to hone in on either the top two tiers or wait until later, and I think I did a pretty good job of that. The only Tier 2 closer I didn't get was Roberto Osuna, and I'm not heartbroken over that. Your tiers may vary, as always. One downside – Archie Bradley Jr. is not the closer – Brad Boxberger just got the nod, and I only have Boxberger in one spot to back Bradley up.
Hopefully this sheds some insight into how I've been drafting my teams this spring and helps you in your leagues. Best of luck this season.
