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Fantasy Impact from MLB Trade Deadline Deals – Machado, Osuna, Archer

August 3, 2018 By Rick Leave a Comment

Manny Machado, Los Angeles Dodgers

A familiar face – 3B Manny Machado – in his new uni for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Many players traded places leading up to the MLB Trade Deadline. Rick gives us the fantasy impact of the key deals.

Holy that was a busy MLB trade deadline!

There were too many names traded to even try to cover them all. With every player going to a contender, a vacancy is created for a new player on a non-contending team and sometimes a player is blocked on the contending team with their new addition.

I do not intend to bother with trades like Zach Duke for Chase De Jong and Ryan Costello because the deal is too insignificant compared to the many bigger deals that went down. As the dust is settling, let’s see how the fantasy baseball landscape has changed as a result of the MLB trade deadline.

MLB Trade Deadline Deals

Manny Machado to the Dodgers

The biggest trade of all went down two weeks ago when Los Angeles Dodgers traded for Manny Machado. This guy will help any team’s offense, but his overall production could take a little bit of a dip going from the Baltimore Orioles bandbox to the pitcher’s haven at Chavez Ravine. But this guy is a stud and he will still put up good numbers anywhere.

Roberto Osuna to the Astros

Houston and Toronto traded closers with a bit of a tarnish. Houston grabbed Roberto Osuna right before he comes off suspension. The Astros are taking a bit of a public relations hit by adding a guy who was suspended for domestic abuse, but that won’t have any effect on your fantasy team. He is a relief ace and well worth adding if you can get him.

In return, Toronto acquired Ken Giles who was a darling closer before a mental meltdown lead him to a demotion to triple-A. The Blue Jays say he is going to be their closer as soon as he is promoted but unless your fantasy league collects points from minor league players, you are left to wait until Giles is promoted to Toronto to capitalize on that promise.

Asdrubal Cabrera to Phillies

In moving to Philadelphia, Asdrubal Cabrera’s value will remain stable, with maybe a few more runs scored. The most important value for Cabrera is that he is likely to pick up shortstop eligibility with the Phillies.

J.A. Happ and Lance Lynn to the Yankees

The Yanks added two starters to their starting rotation in different deals. Pitchers either thrive or wither when they end up in New York and I would bet on Happ to thrive. Count on wins and K’s as this veteran has pitched in the Big Apple many times as a visitor and should fit in quite nicely.

As for Lynn, there is no telling how he will do. He has had an off year and the unforgiving Bleacher Creatures might not take too well to him if he struggles out of the gate.

Zach Britton to New York Yankees, Jeurys Familia to Oakland, Brad Hand to Cleveland, Brad Brach to Atlanta, Keone Kela to Pittsburgh and Joakim Soria to Milwaukee

All six are out of their closer roles and into setup roles with their new teams. Their stats should remain steady except they will be trading their saves for holds.

Francisco Mejia to Padres

Mejia is a top-10 prospect and is the real deal. He’s an excellent contact hitter, developing power and will be an impact player. The San Diego Padres did very well here and have their catcher of the future for a couple of relievers that wouldn’t help a losing team win.

Mike Moustakas to Brewers

This was looking like a very solid move as the Milwaukee Brewers were adding a power bat to their lineup, but the move displaced Travis Shaw off of 3B to 2B, adding to his position flexibility. But then the Brewers made another deal…

Jonathan Schoop to Brewers

If Schoop plays his usual 2B, then a big logjam has blocked the Milwaukee River since the outfield and 1B are stacked up already. But Schoop could play shortstop, which is an offensive upgrade for the Brewers. I’m a big fan of Luis Ortiz, who was the most intriguing player going to Baltimore in the deal.

Chris Archer to Pirates

Archer is in desperate need of new scenery. I think a better team will inspire him to find his true self. The Pittsburgh Pirates had to send Austin Meadows to Tampa in the deal. The Pirates didn’t have room in their outfield for Meadows right now, but he will be a real asset for the Rays over time. A fair deal for both teams that should lead to an acceleration in production for both big names in the deal.

Wilson Ramos to Phillies

Ramos was having a good season for the Rays. Philadelphia couldn’t get consistency from their catchers so they had to spend on a backstop that will hopefully help them win a division crown. Ramos might see a slight uptick in RBI, but the other stats should remain steady.

Tommy Pham to Rays

I don’t get the Rays motivation here. Pham played well above his abilities in 2017 and this season was saw him come back down to earth. With the trade of Ramos, Archer and several other pitchers, the acquisition of a 30-year old who is not as good as his previous season makes me scratch my head. At any rate, don’t look for Pham to channel his 2017 season ever again.

Ian Kinsler to Red Sox

Kinsler is showing his age. Going to Boston won’t do a lot for his stats, since most of his good stuff is all used up. I would expect him to continue to struggle through this season even in a different uniform on a top team.

Cole Hamels to Cubs

Hamels is always a gamer. He’ll give you his best stuff, even if his best days are behind him… which they are. He’s still serviceable, but not spectacular any longer. He ought to give you slightly better ratios playing in the NL and more wins with a better offense, but this is not vintage Cole Hamels.

Eduardo Escobar to Diamondbacks

Escobar was hitting well for Minnesota Twins and gets the chance to do the same in Arizona because Jake Lamb couldn’t. I think the humidor will have minimum effects on Escobar’s value. Expect similar or slightly better numbers for Escobar in the desert.

Brian Dozier to Dodgers

Dozier is having a down year by his standards. There is no telling what the Dodgers just bought, but they are hoping to surround him with talent and re-ignite his power output. Dozier will get the bulk of the starts but will likely have to do a time-share.

Kevin Gausman to Braves

Atlanta Braves grabbed a lottery ticket for a handful of prospects. Gausman has great potential and frustratingly inconsistent results to show for his MLB time. He could become a stud or he might end up making fantasy owners continue pulling out their hair.

As I said off the top – that was a very active MLB trade deadline! None of this discussion mentions opportunities created by the trade for the vacancies. I hope to address this in the near future to see who was moved in each trade and see which player benefitted due to the newly created opening.

Filed Under: Fantasy Baseball

Target Percentages in Mock Draft Action

March 10, 2018 By kopasetic Leave a Comment

Target Percentages guided author Chris Spencer to draft Boston Red Sox OF Mookie Betts with the 8th overall pick in a recent mock draft.

Recently, I introduced the concept of Target Percentages, the percentage of the targeted total stats a player earns for your fantasy baseball team based on his projections. Part one explains the concept and calculations in more detail. For part two, I will show you how to use Target Percentages during a draft.

In a perfect world you would like each batter (or pitcher) you draft to, “pull their own weight” by contributing positively to each category. For a simple example, let’s say you are in a league where you start 10 batters. Ideally, each batter accumulates 10% (or 1/10 starters) of your Runs, 10% of you HR, 10% of your RBI and 10% of your SB. In the ratio categories you just want to stay positive. For other league setups you simply identify your positive contribution line by 1/x where x is the number of batters (or pitchers) you start.

For this mock draft exercise I am drafting from the 8th slot using the same settings continued from part one on Target Percentages: 12-team league, 5×5 roto with 13 hitters, 9 pitchers and 3 bench spots. My positive contribution line is 7.7% (1/13) for batters and 11.1% (1/9) for pitchers.

I use color coding to draw attention to the players that are contributing positively and pulling their weight or better on my cheatsheet. Green indicates players that are giving me a positive contribution in that category by scoring 7.7% or more for batters or 11.1% or more for pitchers. Yellow indicates one percentage point away from being green (for batters, 6.7% to 7.69%). This indicator lets me know visually that they are close to contributing positively in that category.

I, personally, don’t color code the ratio categories since I am indicating negative numbers already in red. I suppose you could switch it around and color code positive contributors in green and maybe go down to -0.25 or -0.50 in yellow to indicate they are close to positive. Target Percentages are a tool to use however you see fit.

The last bit of draft prep I do is to identify my Star Players. I add up how many green categories for each player + positive ratio categories and that is their Star Factor. Hello, Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt! You will never see a 5-category pitcher. Why? They will never give you enough of what you need for Wins and Saves. These multi-category players are the ones you want to, um, target!

Click the image for the PDF cheatsheet showing target percentages detail used in this mock draft.

Here is a sample cheat sheet for this exercise. Click the image to open the PDF in a new tab. Please refrain from critiquing the cheatsheet (wink). This is meant as a demonstration of how to use Target Percentages during a draft. For this exercise I did a mock draft using FantasyPros’ Mock Draft Simulator. And, away we go…

Pick 1.8 (#8) – I am looking at Giancarlo Stanton, Mookie Betts or Manny Machado, or I can go Matt Scherzer, Chris Sale or Corey Kluber. I don’t like to draft a pitcher this early. Maybe at the turn, but not at 8. It really boils down to Betts vs. Stanton or in terms of categories the decision is SB and AVG vs. HR and RBI. Betts just misses being a 5-category star and I’m partial to banking high AVG guys early so the pick is Betts.

Batter R HR RBI SB AVG
Mookie Betts 9% 7% 8% 13% 2.00

Pick 2.5 (#17) – Ugh, I was really hoping that Scherzer, Sale or Kluber would make it back to me here but they were all taken. I still have one SP on my cheat sheet that gives me a solid starting foundation for my pitching squad in Noah Syndergaard.

I’m not positive that he will make it back to me as his ADP is late second round to early third, but I’m going to take my chances that I get him at pick #32. Looking at batters, I’ve got Machado, Francisco Lindor and Joey Votto remaining as 4-category stars. Much like Betts, Lindor is a few HR short of being a 5-category star and a shortstop, so I take him. Adding him to Betts gives me:

Batter R HR RBI SB AVG
Mookie Betts (OF1) 9% 7% 8% 13% 2.00
Francisco Lindor (SS) 8% 7% 8% 9% 1.50
New Batting Total 17% 14% 16% 22% 3.50

Pick 3.8 (#32) – Well, Thor is still here so I snatch him. The three 3-category batters remaining are Brian Dozier, Marcell Ozuna and Jose Abreu. Dozier is out due to the -2.00 AVG hit. I’m going to be taking enough hits later so I don’t need to do so now. Ozuna and Abreu are twins with the same Target Percentage lines so I’m going to cross my fingers and hope one of them is still there in the round 4.

Pitcher W SV K ERA WHIP
Noah Syndergaard (SP) 12% 0% 14% 1.25 2.00

Pick 4.5 (#41) – Well, all three 3-category guys went off the board. I’m going to snag one of the few batters out there with a high HR% and an AVG that doesn’t put me in a bottomless crater.

Batter R HR RBI SB AVG
Old Batting Total 17% 14% 16% 22% 3.50
Edwin Encarnacion (1B) 7% 10% 9% 1% -2.25
New Batting Total 24% 24% 25% 23% 1.25

Pick 5.8 (#56) – I’m beginning to see a lot of red remaining on my starting pitchers cheatsheet. I want to get a SP2 that will not put a sizeable dent in the solid ratios Thor gives me so I grab an Archer (Chris Archer) to go with the Hammer.

Pitcher W SV K ERA WHIP
Noah Syndergaard (SP1) 12% 0% 14% 1.25 2.00
Chris Archer (SP2) 11% 0% 14% 0.25 0.50
New Pitching Total 23% 0% 28% 1.50 2.50

Pick 6.5 (#65) – Whew, it worked. I was hoping Aroldis Chapman would make it back to me! He’s one of the four closers that are 0.75 or higher in ERA.

Pitcher W SV K ERA WHIP
Old Pitching Total 23% 0% 28% 1.50 2.50
Aroldis Chapman (RP1) 4% 24% 6% 0.75 0.50
New Pitching Total 27% 24% 34% 2.25 3.00

Pick 7.8 (#80) – I’m going with Andrew McCutchen who just misses projections in the green on Runs, HR and RBI. I feel it is important to point out that a player may have 8% for a category but still be yellow. This is due to rounding. McCutchen for example actually scored 7.66% in Runs but rounded up to 8%.

Batter R HR RBI SB AVG
Old Hitting Total 24% 24% 25% 23% 1.25
Andrew McCutchen (OF2) 8% 7% 7% 6% -0.75
New Hitting Total 32% 31% 32% 29% 0.50

Pick 8.5 (#89) – I had intended to reach for DJ LeMahieu here to get his +2.75 help in AVG, but alas, it was not meant to be. I’m starting to notice the lack of green left on my cheat sheet for HR and RBI so I take one of my favorites, Miguel Cabrera.

Batter R HR RBI SB AVG
Old Hitting Total 32% 31% 32% 29% 0.50
Miguel Cabrera (CI) 6% 7% 7% 1% 0.75
New Hitting Total 38% 38% 39% 30% 1.25

Pick 9.8 (#104) – I’m taking Rougned Odor to help me in HR but he is going to put me in the negative in AVG, which stinks. See what I did there? The good news is that there are some positive AVG guys still available in the outfield.

Batter R HR RBI SB AVG
Old Hitting Total 38% 38% 39% 30% 1.25
Rougned Odor (2B) 6% 8% 8% 8% -2.00
New Hitting Total 44% 46% 47% 38% -0.75

Pick 10.5 (#113) – Taking closer number two. You have to take one somewhere. Why not here? Brad Hand is one of the remaining closers available with a high SV% and positive ratios.

Pitcher W SV K ERA WHIP
Old Pitching Total 27% 24% 34% 2.25 3.00
Brad Hand (RP2) 3% 24% 5% 0.25 0.00
New Pitching Total 30% 48% 39% 2.50 3.00

Pick 11.8 (#128) – Kyle Seager, Ender Inciarte or closer number three. Still some decent OF out there so I am adding Seager. And, yes I see my AVG sinking lower.

Batter R HR RBI SB AVG
Old Hitting Total 44% 46% 47% 38% -0.75
Kyle Seager (3B) 7% 7% 7% 2% -1.50
New Hitting Total 51% 53% 54% 40% -2.25

Pick 12.5 (#137) – My third and final closer, Alex Colome. He was one of the few left with a high SV%.

Pitcher W SV K ERA WHIP
Old Pitching Total 30% 48% 39% 2.50 3.00
Alex Colome (RP3) 3% 28% 4% -0.25 -0.50
New Pitching Total 33% 76% 43% 2.25 2.50

Okay, hopefully you’ve gotten a good grasp of utilizing Target Percentages during the draft. I’m not going to go pick by pick for the rest of the draft, but so far I’ve drafted seven batters and five pitchers.

With my remaining six batters to draft as starters I need to draft C, MI, 3 OF and UT and make up 49% in Runs, 47% in HR, 46% in RBI and 60% in SB all while trying to get back positive in AVG. I will have to target players with an average HR score of 8.1% to achieve 100%. It’s not impossible to do this, but it limits some of the players you can select during the rest of the draft.

For example, a quick look at the remaining catchers and I see that there is not a single player with a HR% score greater than 6%. So, when I select my catcher, I have to make up for the shortcoming at another position.

With my remaining four pitchers to draft as starters I will focus on three starting pitchers and one reliever to make up 67% of Wins, 24% of Saves and 57% of K. This will be nearly impossible to do in the draft and speaks more to the nature of pitching in fantasy baseball. You will fill in the gaps with players from the waiver wire, a story for another day.

I hope that this example was helpful to you, and I hope you are getting the idea of how to use Target Percentages – they’ll keep you on target during your draft!

Filed Under: Fantasy Baseball

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