A month ago, Baseball Prospectus introduced the Scoresheet Draft Aid to help Scoresheet Baseball players with their drafts. Since then, the most common piece of feedback by Scoresheet players who have used it is that it's "too good" and that it levels the playing field, erasing the edge that can be gained by an opponent through hours, days, or even months of research. Now, to put that to the test, Scoresheet players who are in the final rounds of their public league drafts can try it out for free for three days, from March 21-23.  

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Not that anyone at Baseball Prospectus would be so shortsighted as to look at spring training stats when preparing for an important fantasy draft, but, um, connecting the Team Tracker to a sortable/searchable display of Spring Training statistics might have come out of such an endeavor.  

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Some of us have been sleeping this spring, including this author, who has been sleeping on baseball goingsons more than I'd like, due to other obligations.  But, in researching Value Picks this week, the real sleepers have been those fantasy owners who have allowed Dayan Viciedo's ADP to move from 215 to 283. If that includes you, dear reader, then wake up! He was a bargain at 215!

J.D. Martinez | OF | Houston Astros
Mixed: -$1 | NL-only: $11 | PECOTA OF Rank: 82 | OF ADP: 72

Sometimes, when you realize you've stepped in something malodorous, there's nothing to do but pause and deal with the situation at foot. Keep walking, and the substance will remain on your shoe, where it will begin to attract unwelcome attention. We made a similar misstep, in a proverbial sense, with some of our PECOTA projections this season. Recently, we discovered that National League pitchers were projected to be substantially worse than PECOTA’s logic intended due to a bug that slipped past our testing.

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Hi Beta Testers -

As the title says, we have Percentiles for batters ready a lot sooner this season, and would like to hear feedback. This URL has all the players projected for 100+ PA:

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Some projects are a labor of love, and working on the latest Baseball Prospectus Fantasy product - Scoresheet Draft Aid - was that for me.  A look behind the scenes at how this unfolded involves resident  Scoresheet expert Ben Murphy discussing various possibilities with Scoresheet Baseball's crack programmer Dave Barton. With my inattention to this project - something about books and former Royals utility infielders kept me from thinking much about it - Mr. Barton wrote on January 26, "I don't know about aiming for opening day this year."  Well, I wasn't going to have any of that, and starting in the second week of February, I pitched a tent in the (virtual) Prospectus office and worked to get this out in time not only for Opening Day, but even in time for most Scoresheet drafts. 

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“Preseason Value Picks” is an interesting notion to begin with… who is going to benefit from such analysis?  The obvious answer is owners whose drafts come the earliest, and Scoresheet baseball drafts are already progressing. These are very slow processes, from the perspective of traditional fantasy players, in keeping with the more ponderous tone of Scoresheet. Most Scoresheet leagues allow at least 13 keepers without salaries to worry about. The games are simulated, generating a weekly report with, you guessed it, score sheets for each game. So, before diving in to outfielders this week, I wanted to mention a tool we released yesterday for aiding with Scoresheet drafts (but which is available to all Fantasy and Premium subscribers): The Scoresheet Draft Aid. I'm working on a blog post with some more details, but in the meantime, feel free to utilize it knowing that it's specifically geared toward things that help a Scoresheet team (offense, defense, pitching), not typical fantasy categories.

Returning from that Scoresheet tangent to some “real” fantasy (is that an oxymoron?), drafts are kicking off very soon. Most people know that the top outfielders are Matt Kemp, Jose Bautista, Jacoby Ellsbury, Justin Upton, Carlos Gonzalez, Curtis Granderson, Mike Stanton, and Andrew McCutchen, in some order (and we've covered several of these guys with Keeper Reaper articles). The order in which they are taken is as much personal preference as cold, hard analysis. In the USA Today mock draft I participated in, those guys went: Kemp, Ellsbury, Bautista, [gap], Upton, CarGo, [gap], Granderson, McCutchen, then Jay Bruce and Josh Hamilton (this draft was held last December) went before Stanton.

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ADP could stand for “Arlington's Drinking Problem” this week, as rumors surface about megastar Josh Hamilton being seen imbibing Monday. Also, reader requests for Craig and Campana, and a look at someone who won't be kept in any leagues but may be worth an earlier pick than is assumed.

Josh Hamilton | Texas Rangers (ADP 30)
Shallow (30 keepers): NO
Medium (60 keepers): YES
Deep (90 keepers): YES
AL-only (60 keepers): YES
Super Deep (200 keepers): YES

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Welcome to the new Friday time slot, which is kicking off with some (overdue) responses to comments from last week

Following up on Chris Heisey, at present there's no real competition for a starting spot, and unless that changes, he should get about 90 percent of the playing time, which would be almost 600 at-bats, given his low walk rate and where he's likely to bat in the lineup. He hasn't been labeled a "proven veteran" yet, so there's always that chance that he could wash out, but Dusty Baker is loyal to players and sticks to his opinions, so it's more important that Heisey impress his manager in spring training than it is for him to post a 1.5 WARP in the first half.

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Do you keep the (other) American League stolen base leader, Coco Crisp?  Do you keep guys filling voids created by trades of Yonder Alonso and Carlos Quentin? And if you don't care about the White Sox, feel free to submit your own players for review and keeper consideration. All format questions are welcomed, not just the ones we usually profile here.

Chris Heisey | Cincinnati Reds (ADP 213)
Shallow (30 keepers): NO
Medium (60 keepers): NO
Deep (90 keepers): NO
NL-only (60 keepers): BORDERLINE
Super Deep (200 keepers): YES

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Super-early PECOTA projections are now available for Beta review at:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/extras/pecota/

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Happy Holidays (and Hollidays) from the Outfielder Keeper Reaper. Here's hoping you received all the five-category players you could dream of during this festive season!

Cameron Maybin | San Diego Padres (ADP 91)
Shallow (30 keepers): NO
Medium (60 keepers): NO
Deep (90 keepers): BORDERLINE
NL-only (60 keepers): YES
Super Deep (200 keepers): YES

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