Most redraft leagues finished drafting, although we did have a few finish up this weekend, but in a multi part portion of the log this week we want to address what is and should be a growing segment of fantasy baseball leagues – keeper leagues.
And I am not talking about freezing stadiums – you would think in today’s computer driven world of schedules that major league baseball could manage to have a schedule that puts games in the last week of March and the first few weeks of April in stadiums that are either in California, Florida, or have permanent or closable roofs. Why do they continue to make fans and players freeze (far less sympathy for the players with those per diem checks) in Cleveland, Chicago, New York, etc?
So I am going to discuss the art of making freeze lists and other aspects of keeper leagues that by definition should have these leagues drafting AFTER opening day. Because if you draft before opening day you don’t have true definition of major leaguers who should be in the auction pool and those players who are minor leaguers and thus would be ineligible to be drafted in the first portion of the draft. Optimally keeper leagues should have separate minor league drafts, but there are some who just put the minor leaguers into their reserve drafts.
Back to the freeze lists for players on our teams. First they should NEVER include players who started the previous season in the opposite league. Sure FAAB them if they are traded over (or signed as free agents) but they should automatically be taken off fantasy rosters at the end of the season.
There are several typed of players we want to keep for our team for this year:
1) Underpriced players who contribute useful stats
2) Young players whose value is rising
3) STUD players who are not overpriced*
I think the first two groups are almost universally agreed on (fantasy players are rarely in total agreement). These players generate a “profit” of their projected stat value over the salary they have. What is often neglected is the correct evaluation of STUD players – regardless of position who are the toughest to buy at auction regardless of the price.
If you have Miguel Cabrera in an AL only league and you purchased him last year at $41 – congratulations you paid less than most owners in most leagues and frankly you had him at a better price than I did. But I Froze Cabrera at $47 for his third and final year and he helped me win that league last year as well as two years ago. And in fact it wasn’t his fault (economically or stat wise) that my team didn’t win the league in the year in between.
Frankly I will be surprised if Cabrera and Adrian Gonzalez don’t push a $50 price tag in this year’s auction.
You may not value Cabrera as highly as I do, but a hitter with his degree of consistency and solid contribution in four categories is a dramatic anchor for any fantasy team. If we added the inflation factor that is extremely high in keeper leagues – and generally misapplied as Todd suggests in his numerology since the spending is not linear – the one dollar players still go for one dollar – you can see why auction salaries on Pujols, Cabrera, Crawford (at least the version that steals 50+ bases), or Halladay are justified in being so high. The cost certainty is another very important factor. It is very difficult to judge the price to pay for other players at the same position should they be nominated for auction before Cabrera (or Pujols).
Conversely here are some types of players you should definitely NOT be freezing:
1) Players who cannot justify the salary for this year in any way shape or form but the reason you are keeping them is to avoid paying money (whether for contract termination or FAAB penalties) into the league pool. Whatever those costs might be the should be considered as sunk costs for last year’s team and not hamper your efforts to win this year.
2) Pitchers who just had a career year (unless there has been a solid, upward progression of their stats and they are still young enough to believe they will continue to improve)
3) Players coming off serious injury where you have not been able to ascertain their level of recovery to excel at a very hard athletic competition.
4) Hitters whose playing time is in serious jeopardy (to the best of collective knowledge) at your freeze deadline. As an example, I had a very nice $4 Felix Pie from last year’s auction that I had planned on keeping. When the Orioles signed Vlad, the number of at bats for Pie took a serious hit, and Nolan Reimold having a better spring didn’t help either. Now Pie may earn the same amount – heck he might even get the previously hoped-for at-bats, but it is not something I should have paid for at the time.
I will have another posting of the log with some specific players and price considerations later this week – there are many keeper leagues that will be drafting through this week and weekend with opening day changed to a Thursday and those leagues not being able to draft last weekend. If there are specific players you have questions about, feel free to list them and their prices here or on the message board and I will be glad to add them to the article.
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