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May 19, 2017

Fantasy Freestyle

Home League Temperature Check

by Scooter Hotz

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My weekly column, the Deep League Report, focuses on deep AL-only leagues and deep NL-only leagues. I play in a deep AL-only keeper league myself with my BP colleague Mike Gianella, and I play in a deep NL-only keeper league, too, where eight of the 12 owners also belong to the AL-only league. I use these leagues to help inform my weekly column, seeing which players are available on the waiver wire or in free agency, which players are being dropped or reserved, which players are being picked up and how much FAAB is being spent on each player. Today I’ll take a look at how each of my teams are doing in these leagues.

AL-only

Current Place: 4th of 12

Current Performance by Category:

My Team

HR

RBI

SB

AVG

W

SV

ERA

WHIP

TOTAL

The Philly D Batteries

10.5

12.0

4.5

9.0

2.0

3.5

10.0

8.0

59.5

As you can see, this is a traditional old-school 4x4 league where R and K are dropped from the usual complement of categories seen in a conventional 5x5 league. Considering that I spent $210 on hitting (81 percent) and $50 on pitching (19 percent) at auction, it’s no surprise that my team is performing significantly better on the offensive side than the pitching side.

Pleasant Surprise: Aaron Judge

I drafted Judge as a farm player in the two-round minor-league draft in 2015. I like him, but I didn’t think he’d post anything close to a .320/.426/.720 line with 14 homers, 29 RBIs, 32 runs and three steals over any six-week period. I don’t think he’ll end up being a top-3 MVP candidate by the end of the season, but I do think he’ll keep hitting.

Unpleasant Surprise: Byron Buxton

I liked Byron Buxton a lot coming into the season. Once the season started, as just about every baseball outlet covered in excruciating detail, Buxton struggled mightily out of the gate, making very little contact and swinging at just about everything. However, there is reason to hope. As BP editor-in-chief Aaron Gleeman noted on Twitter on Thursday, the 23-year-old has hit .278/.375/.444 with a 27 percent strikeout rate and a 14 percent walk rate over his past 18 games after hitting .082/.135/.122 with a 46 percent strikeout rate and a four percent walk rate in his first 15 games.

NL-only

Current Place: 11th of 12

Current Performance by Category:

Team Name

R

HR

RBI

SB

AVG

W

SV

ERA

WHIP

SO

TOTAL

Pabst Blue Ribbons

5.0

8.0

8.0

5.0

2.0

5.5

4.5

3.0

1.0

2.0

44.0

Unlike my AL-only league, this is a conventional 5x5 league. A season ago, I traded away some assets for 2017 and beyond in an attempt to move up in the money standings. That cost me this season, as did the loss of my two top prospects headed into 2017 (Gleyber Torres and Lucas Giolito) to the AL. In the auction this year, I ended up with a more typical hitting/pitching split, spending 73 percent of my budget on hitting and 27 percent on pitching.

I did, however, try to compensate for my relatively weak keeper list by purchasing high-upside pitchers with big question marks. I also spread my pitching dollars around, not spending more than $15 on any one. How’s that working out for me? Um, not well.

Pleasant Surprise: Corey Knebel

An endgame purchase for $4 after a brief bidding war (former BP writer Keith Cromer and I were both saving our last few bucks for him), Corey Knebel has been outstanding in 2017, posting a 0.86 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP with 35 strikeouts and 10 walks in 21 innings. He also seems to have inherited the closer’s gig recently following the removal of Neftali Feliz from the role.

Unpleasant Surprise: Robert Gsellman

The Baseball Prospectus prospect team was significantly higher on Robert Gsellman than just about any other outlet going into the 2017 season and I was totally on board with them. Then the season started. Gsellman is currently sporting a 7.12 ERA and a 1.80 WHIP in 36 2/3 innings with 28 strikeouts and 14 walks. He also had his most recent start skipped, and is temporarily pitching out of the bullpen.

Honorable mentions on the unpleasant side: Kyle Schwarber, Rich Hill, Matt Moore

Scooter Hotz is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 
Click here to see Scooter's other articles. You can contact Scooter by clicking here

Related Content:  Fantasy,  Results,  My Fantasy Team

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Guarding The Lines: Th... (05/18)
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