How do we get Taylor Swift into fantasy baseball? Your 2024 ILX Fantasy Thread! (also, there is an opening for a new manger!)

Ok. I’ll probably remember this one since I had frelick on my short list to target later in the draft

my picks for Send Nootbaar. feel like Lawlar has a high ceiling for stupid puns.

Jordan Lawlar 21
Logan Gilbert 26
Austin Riley 26
Ian Happ 29
Josh Hader 29

Ohtani Dancer in My Hand:

Michael Harris II (23)
(Future Red Sox Superstar) Triston Casas (24)
Bo Bichette (26)
Logan Webb (27)
Shohei Ohtani (batter) (29)

Def playing the long game, drafting Lawlar last year!

giolito injury news has made this lineup for giolito shuffle a lock:

Adley Rutschmann (26)
Emmanual Clase (26)
Luis Robert (26)
Ke’Bryan Hayes (27)
TJ Friedl (28)

have we forgotten about the opening series in Korea on March 20th? seems like we might want to conduct the draft earlier.

i had, yes. ugh. the sunday 17th is not doable for me. would have to be Sat 16th, or in the evening Mon/Tuesday. i don't want to push it too far up incase someone doesn't see the date change in time.

looking at the probable starters, Yamamoto and Glasnow(?) vs Darvish and Musgrove probably? I'd feel bad about anyone missing a start with one of their SP keepers, but that doesn't look likely. for the hitters it's not so bad to miss two games out of 162, but maybe some LA/SD owners can weigh in on preference

Literally any weekday evening works way better for me than the proposed draft day in the OP.

looks like i can make the games count retroactively (tho i cannot find how to do this in my commish tools right now):
https://ca.help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN6317.html

xpost. noted.

Also I'm still finalizing my last 2 keepers. Need to monitor some spring training data before I make that call tho...

i'm completely ok with the 16th, it would just feel weird to me to conduct the draft with a couple of games already in the can, even if we can retroactively count the stats. idk how much it matters to anyone else obv.

This happened before (maybe when I was commish?) and there was a mid-tier player who went off in an exhib game played internationally played before the draft and they ended up going a couple rounds earlier than anticipated. Seeing as this is rotisserie (ie, not points or H2H), I don't think those games are enough to move the needle.

I’m fine with the retroactive stats solution, but if it gets moved my preference is Saturday > Monday > Tuesday. I’m pretty open that week.

lets see if this works...

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JPSW77D

i only just now noticed the spelling mistake in the thread title

(and now do you finally get my youtube ref?)

also more importantly are you replacing 2B with another offensive stat?

as much as i would like to, nothing else looks all that great to use in it's place; and i'd like to keep the amount of stats the way they are for balance between pitching and hitting

What was the argument for 2Bs instead of XBHs? Overvalues HRs but undervalues 3Bs?

Or a negative OFF stat? Ks is a nice equalizer.

(I think I used GIDPs one year as well lol)

more or less. i think a few people thought home runs were just too overpowered with xbh

xpost

GIDP was kiboshed because it punished cleanup type hitters with lead foots hitting a head of them

Yeah my rationale was that guys who hit with runners on get more RBI chances so GIDPs a nice way to balance that out for guys who play on weaker teams who do not have the luxury of RBI opps.

I also remember a year where we drafted after Opening Day in Japan one of those years, and it didn't really make a difference? But I'm fine with moving up the draft by a week.

sorry i've been not as attentive as i should be! i am in full on winging it mode, but i need to get my list of keepers. also i submitted to surveymonkey (bow down to the one you serve) for the draft dates, i'll do my best to make whichever date so i don't get autodrafted!

we're at 9 answers so far and it's weirdly very interesting lol

baseball fans, tell me what to do. i am faced with an agonizing choice for my 27+ keepers.

one of them is cody bellinger, who is definitely going to be MVP in 2024, chance of regression = 0.0000000001%
the other? JACK FLAHERTY OR AMED ROSARIO
goddammit

on the other side, i will obviously keep Eury Perez. then, i must pick 2 of francisco alvarez, lars nootbaar, hunter greene, and everybody's favorite little big guy who runs fast, alejandro kirk. i'm going with lars nootbaar just because i like to root for the home team, and i've seen him do some very athletic things so i believer in his potential. so
FRANCISCO ALVAREZ OR HUNTER GREENE

speaking from experience, get off of Jack Flaherty's wild ride asap

I’m smelling a comeback player of the year award for amed rosario!

smell the rosarios!

formerly A Moon-Shaped Pujols, now obviously:

Honey Nut Chouri◎s
20 CHOURIO
26 LODOLO
26 HOERNER
29 AROZARENA
29 HELSLEY

ok - 11 respondents. think it's safe to call this one...

9 vs 2 in terms of picking a new date.
Most preferred date was a tie between the Sat 16th and Tues 18th; and a tie between Tues 18th and the OG date for what most people found workable.
Highest rage score, after the "none" option: Sat 16th.

So looks like our new date will be Tuesday the 18th starting at 7:30 est. apologies to the two managers that had that date as their least favourite option.

I will change the league setting shortly; and anyone with outstanding picks, please get them in my mid week next week.
i should prolly get a mod to edit the initial post as well.

Tues the 19th?

FFS. yes. Tuesday the 19th. sorry about that.

trying to do too much this morning.

apologies to the two managers that had that date as their least favourite option.

if i finish in last again this season i'm going to blame it on this!! ;) ;)

no worries, and there's a chance i could join for at least part of it (aka do the draft in the background of a band practice lol)

could always do a little pre-ranking (esp if there are young guys you'd like to target) and then join in part way to fix whatever mess the auto draft left you with.

i was the other person who ranked that at as my least favorite option but it's OK, should still be able to join

appreciate all efforts made to accommodate the rescheduled draft

good news - looks like Votto No Get Enemy will live on under the stewardship of clemenza! i think this might be his first foray into fantasy nerdball?

That spreadsheet looks like hieroglyphics to me, but I'll tentatively give it go. No guarantee I'll last. Thanks for the invitation.

baseball fans, tell me what to do. i am faced with an agonizing choice for my 27+ keepers.

one of them is cody bellinger, who is definitely going to be MVP in 2024, chance of regression = 0.0000000001%
the other? JACK FLAHERTY OR AMED ROSARIO
goddammit

on the other side, i will obviously keep Eury Perez. then, i must pick 2 of francisco alvarez, lars nootbaar, hunter greene, and everybody's favorite little big guy who runs fast, alejandro kirk. i'm going with lars nootbaar just because i like to root for the home team, and i've seen him do some very athletic things so i believer in his potential. so
FRANCISCO ALVAREZ OR HUNTER GREENE

EURY PEREZ
HUNTER GREENE
FRANCISO ALVAREZ
AMED "MVP" ROSARIO
CODY BELLINGER

fuck, oops, sorry for including that text at the top! i meant to delete before posting my keepers:

EURY PEREZ
HUNTER GREENE
FRANCISO ALVAREZ
AMED "MVP" ROSARIO
CODY BELLINGER

lars nootbaar has fractured his ribs. i am sorry lars.

clemenza, i predict that you'll have a great time doing this, if you participate! and if nothing else you can race me for the cellar

Stumbling along blindly here, will help from Thermo, but these will be my keepers:

Grayson Rodriguez (24, P)
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (25, 1B)
Bryson Scott (26, 2B)
Corey Seager (29, SS)
Sean Murphy (29, C)

I'll change my team name as soon as I think of a good Ball Four connection.

Grant BallFour?!

Ok, since i don't think we are in danger of adding or losing any more managers, i am going to lock the league and will post the draft order later today.

i think there is just one last manager that needs to get their selects in and then i can start plugging those bad boys in.

Lets try to get final keep selects in by the 14th.

Is this still valid or out-of-date?

i briefly bobbed back up to 6th place earlier this week, it did not last
my team is actually decent rn but i dug myself way too big of a hole back in may/june

https://i.imgur.com/kUlvXPS.png

I've basically thrown in the towel, so that will aid and abet you.

Some of us have worked all season for that sweaty, thrown away towel

My pitching staff is 100% responsible for that “unlucky”

much easier said than done, but next season i hope to improve just by fielding a full team more often and getting closer to the IP and GP limits for the season. at the moment, i am projected to finish the season with 1218 IP, which is just 87% of the limit of 1400 IP. on the position player side, i'm projected for 1376 GP, 94% of the limit of 1458.

scanning the standings, one thing every team in front of me has in common is that they simply have more games and innings pitched which counted. i'm thinking next year i'm going to start streaming at least one SP position (for those new to fantasy baseball, streaming means picking up a starting pitcher for one game, then dropping them the next day and replacing them with someone else who is starting, in a cycle) in order to bulk up my counting stats a lil

conversely (as per my post above), streaming was a disaster for me after injuries/demotions crippled my staff and made a bad situation worse. i just had the worst fucking luck streaming this year.

have you streamed in other years? and do you do it with all your SPs, or just like one constantly rotating spot? i'm thinking of doing the latter

usually i wind up streaming towards the end, because i always wind up with *some* IP space.
generally i want to start the season with all the pitching i think i'll need (6 healthy starters).
this was just such a horrible season for me for pitching in general. and since i was curious, here is how my streaming (or short lived) starters fared (3 starts or less):

Jack Flaherty: 12 IP, 5.25 ERA
James Paxton: 18.2 IP, 8.20 ERA
Luis Gil: 5 IP, 9.00 ERA
Simeon Woods Richardson: 3.2 IP, 2.45 ERA
Slade Cecconi: 4.1 IP, 12.46 ERA
Ben Lively, 15.2 IP, 4.60 ERA
Cole Irvin: 7.2, ERA 2.35 ERA
Erick Fedde: 6 IP, 7.50 ERA
Carson Spiers: 6 IP, 6.00 ERA
Alec Marsh: 3 IP, 21.00 ERA
Davis Daniel: 5.1 IP, 6.75 ERA
Yariel Rodríguez: 4 IP, 4.50 ERA
DJ Herz: 2.2 IP, 6.75 ERA
Robbie Ray: 6.2 IP, 9.45 ERA
Dean Kremer: 6 IP, 0.00 ERA
Jon Gray: 7.2I P, 1.72 ERA (then promptly went on the DL)
Kodai Senga: 5.1, 3.38 (started season on Dl and then was out for the season after that start)
Jeffrey Springs: 8.2 IP, 6.23 ERA

So "streaming" is just a guy you pick up from the scrapheap for a short stay?

sometimes these guys will surprise you, such as me picking up Spencer Strider on a whim right before he entered the Braves rotation in 2022. sometimes they're Logan Allen.

xpost clemenza, yep. i imagine there could be some strategy with it, too - on any given day, even in a deep league like ours, there are at least half a dozen SPs who are available as free agents, and sometimes one or more of them have quite favorable matchups. even relatively mediocre major leaguers are capable of kicking ass on any given day. in contrast, there's the typical fantasy starting pitcher spot on the roster where you just play them every time their spot in the rotation comes up, even when they're going against a team that hits really well, or on the road on a rainy day, etc, just because you need those innings.

however - i don't intend to spend any time doing that. my thought is to just scan the list of available SPs, spend about 10 seconds thinking about it, and then let jesus take the wheel

- and also i guess i'm just going to try it with one spot in the rotation rather than the whole rotation. although...now that i think about it, another advantage of streaming multiple pitchers would be you'd open up more roster space for batters?

or not? i have no idea. and yeah i can imagine it going really poorly as well, a la thermo's experience this year

i've had mixed results from streaming. it's almost always going to end up in mixed results because you end up streaming a lot of young/rookie pitchers (because the established pitchers are claimed or known to be bad) so you're working based on SSS and unpredictable matchups and luck. often what i do is start out with a set rotation, but if a pitcher is struggling i'll drop him and stream for that spot until i hit on someone who seems like a good shot for the future, then i'll hold on them until they prove me wrong.

you can definitely get lucky and find some stud pitcher that no one has heard of. of course then he's not going to be keeper-eligible for you anyways, which sucks too.

That would definitely require 10 minutes every morning at least, and I'm sure, like most everyone in this league, aren't up to that. If we were playing for cash, maybe a different story!

aren't = I'm not

(Says the guy who devotes 20 minutes most mornings to Immaculate Grid.)

Season post-mortem:

R1.12: Zach Elfin = met expectations
R2.15: Marcus Semien = bust
R3.38: Alex Bregman = bust
R4.41: Max Fried = bust
R5.64: Spencer Torkelson = bust (demoted to minors)
R6.67: Shane Bieber = bust (season ending injury)
R7.90: Teoscar Hernandez = met expectations
R8.93: Nolan Arenado = bust
R9.116: Josh Naylor = exceeded expectations
R10:119: Nathan Eovaldi = exceeded expectations
R11.142: Nestor Cortes = exceeded expectations
R12.145: Willson Contreras = bust (season ending injury)
R13.168: Chris Martin = bust (anxiety induced IL stays)
R14.171: Andrew Kitteridge = exceeded expectations
R15:194: Jack Suwinski = bust (demoted to minors)
R16.197: Noelvi Marte = bust (spent 1st half of season suspended for PEDs, since activated he has been... not good)
R17.220: Tommy Edman = dropped immediately, was out half the season

Keepers:
Juan Soto: met expectations (#4 overall)
Kyle Tucker: bust, missed half the season with a "bruised shin"
Spencer Strider: bust (arm fell off, traded him for James Wood)
Willy Adames: exceeded expectations, certified stud
Triston McKenzie: bust, dropped him after his long recovery from "alternative to TJ treatment"

oh this looks fun let me do it too

1. (13) Kevin Gausman BUST. 4.09 ERA, ranked around 200, only 150 Ks
2. (14) Zack Wheeler (PHI - SP) GREAT. He'll hit 200 Ks with quality rates, goood enough for a top-3 pitcher
3. (39) Yandy Díaz (TB - 1B,3B) BUST. Has mostly ridden the bench and almost gotten dropped a few times, always manages to pick it up just enough to stay
4. (40) Andrés Giménez (CLE - 2B) BUST. I reached for him due to his age, but he was expected to be top-100 at least. All rates down from last 2 years, only 8 homers so far :(
5. (65) Brandon Nimmo (NYM - OF) FINE. Was bust for a while, but picked it up big time lately.
6. (66) CJ Abrams (WSH - SS) FINE. bordering on ANTIBUST for much of the season, but fell way off in the second half. I got him for steals (and AT a steal in this round) and he's young so I can keep him.
7. (91) MJ Melendez (KC - C,OF) BUST. I cannot remember why I drafted this bum in this round. Insane.
8. (92) George Springer (TOR - OF) BUST. long gone from my team. one of the worst players in baseball i wanna say this year?
9. (117) Shane Baz (TB - SP) BUST-ISH. Got dropped, expected more, but he wasn't... AWFUL. K/BB was trash though
10. (118) Carlos Rodón (NYY - SP) FINE. neither exceeded nor failed to meet expectations. which made him one of my best pitchers lol
11. (143) Carlos Correa (MIN - SS) FINE. hard to fault him considering i got him down here and never dropped him. tolerable
12. (144) Tyler O'Neill (BOS - OF) GREAT. Better than expected and keeper eligible. was REALLY good for a month there, fat lot of good it did me
13. (169) Taj Bradley (TB - SP) GREAT. or at least when i look. when i don't look he absolutely implodes lol. surely i will look at his aggregates and not just "follow my gut" when i keep him next year ah shit ah fuck
14. (170) Colt Keith (DET - 2B,3B) WHO CARES. cut him early because i needed another position, named my team after him, saw he got picked up so i am sure he's thriving now.
15. (195) Aaron Civale (MIL - SP) WHO CARES. drafted late and dropped early.
16. (196) Max Scherzer (TEX - SP) WHO CARES. thought i was clever drafting an injured guy for when he came back, he came back, was fine and then got hurt again lol
17. (221) Samuel Basallo (BAL - C) WHO CARES. minors stash

KEEPERS
David Bednar (PIT - RP) BUST. Probably one of the most damaging bums on this team, absolute bust
Jhoan Duran (MIN - RP) BUST-ISH. did not meet expectations, but tolerable
Ronald Acuña Jr. (ATL - OF) BUST. great until he got injured RIP
Nathaniel Lowe (TEX - 1B) BUST. i dropped him, but keeping two 1Bs was not a great position anyway
Pete Alonso (NYM - 1B) FINE. almost met expectations. can't keep him next year tho lol.

BUST: 8
BUST-ISH: 2
FINE: 5
GREAT: 3
ANTIBUST: 0
WHO CARES: 4

(I made a category called antibust for anyone who was REALLY good at value but i ended up with 0 of them)

i'm happy to be the HYUNDAI TEAM TO BEAT. tbh i didn't care about coming last for the longest time but now that someone is trying really hard to finish ahead of me i'm kinda motivated to ruin that. also going first to worst is awful(ly funny)

also i updated the keeper sheet. link is somewhere upthread

okay --

1. (11) George Kirby (SEA - SP) He has been TOTALLY VERY GOOD, he was great up until recently and then he like most of my pitching completely fell apart
2. (16) Tarik Skubal (DET - SP) INCREDIBLE -- very happy with this guy
3. (37) Royce Lewis (MIN - 3B) BUST for me, but I did trade him with some regret for the excellent Jose Ramirez, so it worked out.
4. (42) Xander Bogaerts (SD - 2B,SS) BUST -- never again, this guy is replacement level at this point.
5. (63) Christian Walker (AZ - 1B) GREAT -- injury aside, he's been terrific
6. (68) Christian Encarnacion-Strand (CIN - 1B) BUST -- this guy was supposed to be hot shit, not total shit
7. (89) Jarren Duran (BOS - OF) AMAZING -- I drafted him based on something I always look out for, which is a high number of doubles coupled with some over the fence pop and speed. i was banking on a breakout and it worked.
8. (94) Christopher Morel (TB - 2B,3B,OF) SUCKS -- he's somewhere in the Rays lineup now, striking out a lot.
9. (115) Justin Verlander (HOU - SP) COOKED -- he was okay for awhile and i only cut him due to a lack of room when everyone started getting injured, now he's just bad.
10. (120) Edouard Julien (MIN - 2B) SUCKS -- was hoping for a solid middle infield and despite a week or two where he was very good, he was a disaster.
11. (141) Griffin Jax (MIN - RP) GREAT -- i don't typically draft many RPs, glad he was one of them though.
12. (146) Joel Payamps (MIL - RP) NOT GOOD -- he wound up being ok for someone else for awhile but he's back on in the free agent pool now
13. (167) Mitch Keller (PIT - SP) GOOD - drafted, sucked, dumped, picked back up in time for a really helpful run of quality starts. Now he's back to hit or miss.
14. (172) Mitch Garver (SEA - C) BUST -- the first of about half a dozen catchers i went through
15. (193) Trevor Story (BOS - SS) BUST -- i was banking on something better than a wrecked shoulder and lousy hitting, not necessarily in that order.
16. (198) Clayton Kershaw (LAD - SP) BUST -- held onto him forever only to watch him wash out
17. (219) Tyler Rogers (SF - RP) GOOD -- he wasn't good for awhile so i dropped him and picked him up again, he's been helpful.

KEEPERS
18. (224) Yordan Alvarez  (HOU - OF) GREAT - I made what might've been a useless parallel move in trading him for Ohtani, but I was maybe not going to keep him anyway due to leaning more towards Skubal, Kirby, and Duran.
19. (245) Freddy Peralta  (MIL - SP) NOT AMAZING - He was ok but I traded him for Glasnow. Probably a lose-lose deal.
20. (250) Fernando Tatis Jr.  (SD - OF) MEH - it feels like ten years since he was a top 3 consensus player but i'll keep him in 2025.
21. (271) Corbin Burnes  (BAL - SP) GOOD - he was on many lists the top ranked pitcher coming into this year, so he was a bit disappointing.
22. (276) Corbin Carroll  (AZ - OF) BUST but then AMAZING - I was really lucky to pick up Profar early on because he picked up CC's considerable slack. It looks like he's fully back now, but it might be too late for me.

My work here is done.

mid tier teams, i am coming for you. i am in the midst of the greatest last place to 9th place late season run in ilx fantasy baseball history.

Chicago White Sox, I am coming for you.

are you tanking? not sure if the draft order is determined by previous years standing, but i salute your long-term vision

Just negligent. And bad at this.

Draft is a weighted lottery. Somewhat annoying to set up, but I think the fairest way to do things. So, while the basement teams will probably all land p high in the draft, we also had the 1st place team draft in top 5 not long ago.

nice, that's awesome! more effort for you, appreciate that, but seems more than fair

i guess i'll do one of these post-mortems. going into the draft i wanted to have a reset year to restock my keepers, however we all saw how my streaming pitchers went...

R1. (5) Jackson Holliday, 20 yrs – dud. he's young and i'll probably keep him; but did terrible, got demoted, got recalled, briefly did ok, then did terrible again.
R2. (22) Aaron Nola - performed about as hoped
R3. (31) Bobbly Miller, 25 years - that boy ain't right. wanted to land a young arm i could hold onto and liked Miller a lot. got destroyed to the tune of a 8.52 ERA in 13 starts.
R4. (48) Paul Goldschmidt - dud. career worst season.
R5. (57) Will Smith - was surprised he fell to me. he did ok but not as good as I'd hoped. has been supplanted by Tyler Stephenson
R6. (74) Anthony Santander - finally some good news. meh OBP but a wild career high in HR (43) (so far)
R7. (83) Shota Imanaga – amazing. probably my best pick. dude dominated this year
R8. (100) Pete Fairbanks - dud. dude was a mess
R9. (109) Kodai Senga - dud. seemed like a soldi IL stash. took way longer than expected to recover. pitched one game. died, then died. out for ROS
R10. (126) Jake Burger - down season, but serviceable
R11. (135) Steven Kwan, 27 - career high in HR (13) and generally amazing first half, followed up by a terrible slump bookended by injuries
R12. (152) Kyle Harrison, 23 yrs – dud. hedged my bets w Miller here, and this was less of a disaster. 4.56 ERA and some injuries. might keep (shrug emoji)
R13. (161) Starling Marte - did ok when not hurt
R14. (178) Bryan Abreu - dud. started the season terribly and then did amazing after i dropped him
R15. (187) Colton Cowser, 24 yrs - UGH. didn't have high expectations, dude got off to an amazing start then hit a wall. then dropped. then he got hot(ish) again.
R16. (204) Ryan McMahon - did ok
R17. (213) Alex Cobb - dud. dropped his ass p quickly
keepers
Gunnar Henderson, 23 - fucking amazing year.
Jesús Luzardo, 26 - dud. pitched terrible, 5.00 ERA and then went down with an injury
Ozzie Albies, 27 - dud. was not good and also hurt a good chunk of the year
Shane McClanahan, 27 - decided he was worth keeping, even tho he had tommy john and missed the season
Bryan Reynolds, 29 - did fine. didn't have huge expectations

god did this ever go wrong. it's a miracle i'm not lower than 9th and i have no idea who i should keep aside from Henderson and McClanahan. have to decide on three from Holliday, Kwan, Harrison, Albies and Luzardo.

Post mortem -- I'll always remember this as the season in which I traded away the likely MVP's of each league. When things were looking up in mid-June, I even spent one day in first place! I know it's lame to blame injuries in fantasy baseball, but I'll do it anyway. I had an All-Star team worth of talent that spent way too much time on the IL, mainly on offense, and there were too many holes to fill.

1. (9) Aaron Judge. A+. The Judge for Sale trade worked out. Sale had 10 W, 1.96 ERA, 143 K's in 110 IP for my team. Take away those numbers and I'm in last place in multiple pitching categories.
2. (18) Jose Altuve. A+, couldn't have asked for more.
3. (35) Edwin Díaz. C, not nearly as dominant as expected.
4. (44) Christian Yelich. Was looking like an A+ pick with his best season in years until he went down for the season.
5. (61) J.T. Realmuto. C+. Good player but missed significant time with injuries.
6. (70) Raisel Iglesias. A. My best RP.
7. (87) Ha-Seong Kim. B. Good but limited to 120 games. Currently injured.
8. (96) Paul Sewald. NA. The first of the bad autodraft picks, I ended up with way too many relievers. Dumped him in preseason.
9. (113) Kenley Jansen. NA. Autodrafted. Dropped him in preseason and grabbed Ranger Suarez, who gets an A+ for his first half, D for his second half (he was injured).
10. (122) Tanner Scott. Dropped him after a slow start to the season. Not the best move on my part.
11. (139) Jordan Montgomery. F. Suffered with him for eleven starts and a 6.00 ERA before giving up. The real life Diamondbacks unfortunately don't have that option.
12. (148) Rhys Hoskins. Couldn't find a spot for him in the lineup with three first basemen on my roster (thx autodraft), tried to trade him unsuccessfully (and unsurprisingly), dropped him in June.
13. (165) Jonathan India. Dropped him in preseason, the first of my season long search for decent starting pitching.
14. (174) Ryan Mountcastle. C-. Not bad as a fill-in first baseman.
15. (191) Gavin Williams. C-. Injured in the first half, inconsistent in the second half.
16. (200) Lars Nootbaar. D. Kept waiting for him to break out but he never did.
17. (217) Matt Chapman. Dropped him in pre-season but didn't really have a spot for him in the lineup.

Keepers:

18. (226) Shohei Ohtani (Batter). A+++. And traded him for Yordan Alvarez (.423 OBP, .669 SLG, 15 HR while on my team), who has another year of keeper eligibility.
19. (243) Logan Webb. A. A rock.
20. (252) Bo Bichette. F. Multiple IL trips and unmotivated when he did play.
21. (269) Triston Casas. C. But injured too much.
22. (278) Michael Harris II. B-. But injured too much.

Summary: Harris II, Casas, Bichette, Realmuto, Kim, and Yelich all lost significant time due to injuries. That's just the offense. Some of my replacement pickups worked out, but that's just too much talent, and too many injured guys. If half of them had stayed healthy and produced then it's a top three offense in the league even with the Judge trade. If Suarez had stayed in Cy Young form in the second half, and if Williams had come back from injury strong, then I might have had the starting pitching to hang in near the top of the standings (after trading for Sale, of course) and avoided having to cycle about a dozen waiver wire starters in and out of the rotation looking for a solution.

That's a lot of ifs though. It happens. I should be able to come back with a decent keeper core next year, choosing from Harris, Casas, Bichette, Webb, Alvarez, Williams, Kim.

no season recap for me yet, i'm still playing to win the championship. this morning i picked up mitch keller as a streamer sp, and he immediately got shelled by the brewers. but, i forgot to start him, so he was on the bench. now that's winning fantasy baseball

i've thought of a long-term strategy that would be very fun for me but potentially unsportsmanlike or un-fantasy-like.

what if i just become the St. Louis Cardinals? with this strategy, i would try to acquire the entire st. louis cardinals starting position players, pitchers, and bench, giving outstanding bargains to whichever managers agree to give me the most and best cardinals players. this would also affect my draft strategy, as i would target someone like tink hence or jj wetherholt in the first few rounds, to make sure that no evil anti-cardinals manager would swoop them up years before their major league debuts

because basically my season recap is that i bet everything on the cardinals and lost badly

i'm not going to do a full postmortem either but looking back at the draft, a personal highlight was drafting abner uribe and jose siri immediately before paul skenes was drafted by someone else. i even had skenes on my target list, but apparently getting a few extra saves and a few steals at the beginning of the season was more urgent.

the most consistent problem i had all season was 1b. i took a risk on drafting nolan jones, who was either awful or injured all season, pretty early, with anthony rizzo, who was also bad or injured, as my backup. there were never any other decent 1b options available, i ended up slotting brendan donovan in there for most of the season. the worst of it is i'll probably still hold onto jones next season because i only have two keeper options in the young age range.

the most consistent problem i had all season was 1b. i took a risk on drafting nolan jones, who was either awful or injured all season, pretty early

and yet... you still wouldn't let him go in a trade. in fact, i had to remind you he was on your roster because you claimed he wasn't 😂

correct, i would not let him go in a trade for spencer torkelson, a trade that would not have benefited me in any way.
tbf jones was pretty forgettable this season

a trade that would not have benefited me in any way.

torkelson was worth +1.36 points, jones was worth -1.24 points. that's +2.60 points you would have benefited!

I will confirm torkelson was a disaster most of the season. I dropped him in my other league after he was finally, mercifully demoted. Then he comes back up (after seriously not earning a promotion) and starts socking dongers again. I wouldn’t be surprised if all his value come in the back 6 weeks and fully support anybody who was highly suspicious of that man.