First TD Bets — Wild Card Monday Slate
Alex Christenson
It’s still relatively early in the fantasy baseball offseason. At least for me. I’ve said this many times before – I don’t like to draft my teams until mid-to-late March.
I want all the information in front of me before I make these season-altering decisions. I want to know if certain free agents have found a team. I want to know if spring training injuries have taken some players out of consideration. Yet, there are some people out there who don’t care. They want to draft, and they want to draft now. And it’s my duty to address those who might have a fantasy baseball draft on their calendar this week.
So that’s exactly what I’ll do in this exercise. No intro this week, let’s dive right into this edition of Small Ball. Below, I will discuss a handful of players who I’m fading at their current ADP in head-to-head points leagues.
Why Should We Fade?
First, I’d like to discuss the theory behind “fading” a player, avoiding that player in your drafts at cost. The rationale behind fading is they won’t provide enough value in that draft slot to make your team better.
Why won’t they provide enough value, you might ask? There are a handful of reasons. Depending on your scoring format, there are certain nuances that could make player archetypes more valuable than others. A league that penalizes one point per batter strikeout would devalue Elly De La Cruz to some extent. A league that doesn’t penalize for batter strikeouts would make De La Cruz far more valuable. So make sure to double-check your league settings before finishing this article. I’m going to assume that batters are penalized for strikeouts. That’s how my league does it, and most points leagues include some sort of penalty.
Other reasons to fade a player could center purely around value. Did that player just have a career year in 2024, making their draft cost higher based on recency bias? Could there be some helium around a flashy new rookie asset? Perhaps a player switched teams during the offseason, and the market is overreacting to that transaction.
There are many reasons to fade a player. But this isn’t an end-all-be-all situation either. Players included in this article could be overvalued at the time of publishing. A month from now, they could switch to being undervalued. It all depends on where the market values this player in February versus March. So if you’re reading this article a month from when it was published, be sure to double-check the current market to see if the rationale for fading still applies.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here are some players I’d currently be fading at market price if my fantasy drafts were this week.
For this article, I’m using current live draft trends from ESPN ADP.
Marcus Semien, 2B, Texas Rangers
ESPN ADP: 37
Semien is one of those “boring” players. You know he’s going to play every single day. You know he’s going to be near the top of the runs leaderboard. He will hit for power occasionally. Sometimes, boring is good. But is he top-30 fantasy baseball good? Not to me.
He will accrue a ton of at-bats. How valuable will those at-bats be? Not top-30 valuable. Our FTN Preseason Projections forecast just 20 home runs and 69 RBIs for the Texas leadoff man. We also have him for sub-100 runs scored (93) and a sub-.250 batting average (.249). The one positive with Semien is he’s coming off a career-low 14.6% strikeout rate at the dish. So he won’t be racking up negative points for a boatload of K’s. He’ll certainly accrue points for your fantasy team. There just isn’t much upside for a 34-year-old who will turn 35 near the end of the season and doesn’t do anything at an “elite” level. Semien won’t kill your fantasy team, but he won’t win your league if you take him near the top 30 (third/fourth round). Players like Ketel Marte, Freddie Freeman and Rafael Devers are going less than 10 picks ahead of Semien right now in points leagues. Which player doesn’t belong in that group of four? It’s pretty obvious.
Ronald Acuña Jr., OF, Atlanta Braves
ESPN ADP: 34
I’m including Acuña in this article as more of a general lesson. I’m currently fading injured players at cost in almost every circumstance – even a superstar like Acuña.
Our own Lucas Biery included Acuña in his latest Sinking Your Battleship series, highlighting risky fantasy baseball selections at each position. I thought he made a great case, and it’s yet another reason to fade Acuña, where he’s still going inside the top 40 in drafts. This is Acuña’s second torn ACL injury in the last several seasons.
Here’s an excerpt from Biery’s article that has me wary of Acuña’s draft stock:
“Multiple reports have come from the Braves signaling that Acuña will not begin the season on time, and some reports have mentioned June as a potential debut date, which would make this draft pick an absolute disaster. Acuña is likely going through his rehab steps, and they will determine his plan based on how much progress he is making.”
We’re a few paragraphs in here, and there’s just so much going on with Acuña that I’m passing at a third-round draft cost. Why use a premium pick on a player who’s playing time is so uncertain at this juncture? Even if he began the season on time, will he steal as many bases as usual? His ISO power numbers have been on the decline since the 2020-21 seasons. Will the second major knee injury derail his skill set to some extent? I’m letting my opponents burn a premium draft asset on this player. If it comes back to haunt me, I can sleep at night.
One final point: Acuña fills an outfield role in fantasy baseball. That’s the deepest position in the game and can be addressed later in the draft and/or via the waiver wire throughout the season. That factors into this fade call as well.
Bailey Ober, SP, Minnesota Twins
ESPN ADP: 102
Let’s move into the middle rounds. I’m sorry, but how are we drafting Bailey Ober ahead of arms like Zac Gallen, Bryce Miller, Justin Steele and Tyler Glasnow, to name a few? I might be in the minority to some extent, since our projections are rather favorable toward Ober, but I’m not sold.
Ober probably carries more value in roto/category leagues because of his solid ratios. In points leagues, however, I’m willing to bet that Ober just put together one of his best seasons and is being overvalued in draft season. He averaged roughly 15 points per start last year in points leagues, which ranked just outside the top 20. The year before? He was really solid again at about 13.4 points per start, which ranked just inside the top 40.
Those are his only two seasons with more than 100 innings. He was never a big-time prospect. He’s never been known as a strikeout artist, though he did rank inside the top 15 last year with a 9.62 K/9. That was also a career-high. Are you sensing a trend here? Ober is coming off his best fantasy season from a points-per-start perspective. He’s coming off a career-high in K/9. He also set a career-best mark with a 1.00 WHIP. I’m not trying to argue that Ober is a bad pick in fantasy baseball. But has he done enough to vault ahead of the Gallen/Miller/Steele/Glasnow tier of arms? Glasnow was a first-round pick last year, and for good reason. He pitches for the best team in baseball and is one of the best strikeout pitchers in the sport. I don’t mind if he only starts once per week and throws less innings in a crowded rotation. On a per-start basis, there aren’t many pitchers better than Glasnow in points leagues. Gallen has been a proven commodity for roughly six straight seasons. Not to mention, he was SP4 on a points-per-start basis just two seasons ago. And who was SP5 that year? Steele.
These are starting pitchers who deserve to be valued as set-it-and-forget it options. I can’t in good faith select Ober in the seventh/eighth round over those other arms. Could Ober duplicate last year’s numbers and prove me wrong? Sure. But will he outperform most, if not all the other starters I outlined earlier? I highly, highly, highly doubt it, and I will fade him at cost.
Cal Raleigh, C, Seattle Mariners
ESPN ADP: 119
I want to throw a catcher in here, because it’s an incredibly important position in any fantasy baseball league – points leagues included. Raleigh, of course, isn’t going near the top of fantasy drafts, but he’s roughly No. 7 off the board at the position. That’s too high.
Of all players with at least 500 plate appearances, Raleigh had the 13th-highest strikeout rate in the league last season (28.0%). If there’s a whiff there’s a way for the 28-year-old backstop, and we can’t have that dragging down our fantasy teams at a shallow position. Even his FTN Projections of 32 home runs and 87 RBIs won’t help us much when he’s hitting .230 and striking out virtually once per game. For what it’s worth, Raleigh is another player coming off a career-best season in many offensive categories. This isn’t Johnny Bench we’re talking about at the dish, so I’d rather let others draft the strikeout machine when I can wait several rounds and take a handful of players I’ll discuss in next week’s “Small Ball: Players I’m Targeting at Cost.”
Honorable Mentions
For those with short attention spans, I will include a group of players I’m also currently fading at ADP – in bullet form.
- Pete Alonso, Free Agent, 1B
- Brendan Donovan, 2B, St. Louis Cardinals
- Nolan Arenado, 3B, St. Louis Cardinals (It’s not the Cardinals, I just don’t like the price)
- Willy Adames, SS, San Francisco Giants
- Ian Happ, OF, Chicago Cubs (This dude is never a bargain, ever)
- Corbin Burnes, SP, Arizona Diamondbacks (Price scares me, even as D-backs fan)
- Ryan Helsley, RP, St. Louis Cardinals (I promise, it’s not STL, just overreaction to ‘24 variance)
I know I said bullet points only, but I want to take a few moments to address some of these, since I only highlighted four players above with lengthy explanations.
Alonso is currently a free agent. We don’t even know his landing spot yet. He’s become somewhat of a one-trick pony as well. Last season was a letdown. So perhaps he bounces back wherever he lands. I don’t want to draft him anyway. I’d much rather take a first baseman I’ll discuss at length next week in the same vicinity.
I’ll group all three Cardinals together. Donovan is fine, but it’s another example of a career year bolstering a player’s ADP the following season. I’m not saying he’s a bad pick, I’d just prefer other players at his price range. Arenado is finally starting to show signs of a potential decline. The name recognition alone has kept him in the top five at the position in terms of ADP. It’s simply not worth the price. As for Helsley, he led the league in saves last year with 49 with the Cardinals winning just 83 games total. That means Helsley saved 59% of their wins. That’s absolute insanity. Remember, Helsley was essentially an afterthought at ADP coming into this past season. Now he’s top 5 ahead of Mason Miller and Raisel Iglesias? No thanks. Well, actually, thank you for your services last year Helsley. You helped me close down some championships.
Adames is easy. Strikes out too much, career-high in HRs, new park in San Fran. I don’t want to waste my breath (or fingers) speaking or typing anything more on Ian Happ. Why are we always drafting this guy higher than other players who are better? Burnes is interesting. His strikeout stuff has been declining, and call me a pessimistic Arizona fan, but when have any of their big-name pitcher signings worked out? I know that has nothing to do with whether Burnes can succeed or not. His price is still a tad high.
That’s it for this week. Stay tuned for Feb. 21 when I highlight players I am targeting at their current ADP.
