Laika

I don't see the s word anywhere. Article says White had a shoulder impingement in Jan and Atkins is “exceptionally confident that he is going to be in the mix.”

yeah I guess many European countries don't seem to like baseball, but there is opportunity just based on the VOID of proper team sports they do like. look at Germany for example. they like soccer, they sort of like hockey... what else? basketball? I don't see why baseball couldn't eventually be cool in a country like that. What did basketball do to make momentum in Europe decades ago? It's essentially a pure North American export sport. I bet f***ing handball is in their top 8 most popular sports. Some of these European countries seem to be much more into individual sports and athletics.

yeah, no interest in going scorched earth ever, in any league

SS Jackson Merrill - SD 8 SS Adael Amador - COL 19 SP Bryce Miller - SEA 35 SP Dylan Lesko - SD 38 RP Logan Allen - CLE 39 OF Samuel Zavala - SD 47 SS Warming Bernabel - COL 60 CF Drew Gilbert - HOU 80 SP Reese Olson - DET 100 SP River Ryan - LAD 120 Feel like I fully re-stocked my farm here. A top 20 prospect, seven guys who are clear or fringe top 100 prospects, and two pop up pitchers with stats and/or stuff. They join Oneil Cruz, Oswald Peraza, Bryan De La Cruz, and Hunter Brown on my farm and Johan Rojas currently on my bench. Pretty sick farm for a win-now MLB roster.

This draft was also much stronger than any prior prospect draft we have done, if my memory serves.

The areas more ripe for baseball popularity expansion are probably South American countries and the Asia-Pacific countries not currently into it, for whatever reason.

Or is the Fantrax point system just bunk? When you look at the players tab and view either 2022 points or projected season points, the top of the list is almost all pitchers. I kind of think their point system is just wrong. If you run the Fangraphs Auction Calculator with our initial stats (substituting in FIP for HR/9) pitchers #2 to #100 scale form $84 to $10 (I am ignoring DeGrom) and hitters #1 to #100 scale from $81 to $18 seems fine?

So we have 9 teams. That's just enough to run the league I think, so we are a go. I'll leave it open for another ~24 hours. Ideally we get a few more entrants so we can play with 12-15 teams. If we don't get close to 15 then I will expand rosters and add some extra positions. Expect the pitching categories to change before the draft. Ace pitchers are overvalued with these stats. I will change a stat or delete a ratio.

Dinger implementing a Five Year Plan to make this last pick I guess

Look at the young core in 1985 Bell - 25 Moseby - 25 Barfield - 25 Stieb - 27 Key - 25 Fernandez - 23 Gruber - 23 Henke - 27 Even Mulliniks, Upshaw, and Clancy were under 30. They really only relied on two players 30 or older. Whitt and Doyle. I doubt Dennis Lamp or Garth Iorg mattered much. McGriff, Wells, and elite prospect Sil Campusano on the farm

I set it up for 15 teams but we can run this with anywhere from 10 to 20 teams, I think, and just adjust roster depth accordingly.

the commies would love it they could appear to be okay at baseball thanks to taiwanese talent

Burnes + Turang for Bichette

Yeah last year we did "best ball" with a points system and 40 man rosters, and on any given day only your top 9 hitters and pitchers would score points. It was cool IMO but maybe a bit out there / confusing for people. Decided to go with something more traditional this year. I actually think "best ball" would be cool for a head to head league. Imagine a dynasty league where you didn't have to do the daily lineup setting - all you had to care about was 26/40 man roster construction. It would be like doing the GM job without having to the manager job too.

Made a draft n hold if anyone is so inclined https://www.fantrax.com/newui/fantasy/joinLeague.go?leagueId=qh3jukzcle76235y details in the fantasy advice thread on main board

I made the league https://www.fantrax.com/newui/fantasy/joinLeague.go?leagueId=qh3jukzcle76235y It is setup like this right now: 15 teams 26 man rosters. No bench. Roster mirrors MLB rosters: Cx2, SS, 2B, 1B, 3B, CI, MI, CF, OFx3, UTIL (13 hitters) SPx5, RPx6, Px2 (13 pitchers) Scoring is roto, 7x7 using RBI, R, SB, HR, AVG, OBP, SLG; W, K, SV+HLD, ERA, WHIP, K/BB, HR/9 We can tweak stats and rosters based on the # of teams who join and everyone's preference! Draft is set to start Sunday as a "slow-ish" online draft using the Fantrax draft room. 1 hour windows, with a clock freeze between 1am and 6am ET. If someone misses two windows consecutively the system will put them on autopick. The draft might take several days, but with 1 hour windows it will never grind to a halt. It is highly suggested that people use auto-pick and a ranked queue: you should absolutely toggle the options to "only pick from queue" and "fill active slots first" if using autopick. If you have to stop paying attention, toggle off the "only pick from queue" one but leave autopick and the second option on, and then at least the computer will draft a complete roster for you. The league has no trades, no adds/drops, and no lineup setting. You need to draft a 26 man roster that fits your slots perfectly. If you f*** up and draft a bench player, there are no mulligans! You are just SOL and playing one man short from day 1. Oh yeah, and with no lineup changes if you draft Ohtani it will be for SP or UTIL - not both. That's important to keep in mind. I can already see that I might need to tweak the P stats, seems like Aces are a bit too valuable

Yes. There is a lot of luck, but injury risk and job security are also part of the equation. Also these leagues typically have deep rosters, so everyone suffers a couple season ending injuries. Maybe starting 9 plus CI, MI, second C, fourth OF, and additional UTIL slot. Depending on amount of teams.

There's just no bench. Every roster spot is an active player and they accrue stats all season. No adding anybody new and no cutting someone if they suck. It's basically a DRAFT ONLY league. You can watch the standings if you want or just check in in October to see how smart you were.

1850 points vs 2857 points in 280 less games gretzky has more assists than howe had points incomparable PIMs are a negative!

draft season itch does anyone want to do some kind of draft and hold? on fantrax could do a normal draft or a slow draft with extended windows but maybe only 30 minute or 1 hour windows so you'd HAVE to set and use a queue especially overnight maybe a 6x6 roto with AVG, RBI, R, HR, SB, OBP --- K, SV+HLD, W, ERA, WHIP, K/BB could run it with anywhere from 10 to 20 teams and adjust league depth accordingly. maybe do deeeep rosters either way so the draft tests your depth chart and prognostication knowledge. no in-season transactions or trades or lineup setting.

You just KNOW that getting Varsho from Arizona was like pulling teeth, too. If I was them, I would have been dead set on dumping Alek Thomas and his noodle bat on someone else.

It's continuously funny to me that national baseball writers will just remain ignorant of the fact that you can park adjust pitching value. Like who f***ing cares what Bassitt's ERA was at home. Do you think Toronto expects him to pitch to a 2.75 ERA at home, in Toronto? His WAR was his WAR.

I'm not a huge fan of this offseason. In raw WAR totals from 2022, the Blue Jays upgraded from 9.9 to 11.0 -- or about one win. But that undersells Moreno's long-term value, so it mostly feels like the Jays are just kind of spinning their wheels here. I also have some concerns about the new players. Over the past two seasons, Bassitt had a 2.74 ERA at home pitching in good pitcher's parks with the A's and Mets and 3.85 on the road. Now he moves to a tougher division in a tough park for pitchers. Varsho struggled against left-handed pitchers in 2022, so he has to show he's more than a platoon bat. Kiermaier is coming off labrum surgery, while Belt is coming off the worst season of his career and will be 35, so those are two bets on older players. It could all work and push the Jays to a division title: Varsho and Kiermaier are both plus defenders and Belt was terrific as recently as 2021 (.274/.378/.597). I know they had the catching depth, but the best long-term option might have been to keep Moreno, let Alejandro Kirk serve as a DH and ride out Hernandez's final season. Grade: C

Clarke Schmidt is good. They have a handful of other interesting SP candidates, most of them just touched AA for the first time in 2022 so I don't know how ready they are. A bunch of guys who would be 3rd to 6th round picks in the LOD NPD. Deivi Garcia is still alive. Their depth is good, better than Toronto's I guess, but quite young.

When they started mandating cheesy calls, like every horizontal stick = hooking and every little one handed chop = slashing. The trapezoid for goalies is lame IMO. And yeah, I liked it when there were huge open ice hits all the time. But I understand the need to change some of that. Fighting was cool.