March Madness: My endless month of expert drafting, declaring keepers, defending Yoan Moncada and auction messiness (2024)

When I was going to Boston College, there was a yearly event called Middlemarch. You had to complete a campus-wide scavenger hunt to find tickets. If you got your hands on one, you were granted entry to an event at a converted mansion on Upper Campus; essentially an insane circus of the senses: gaudily-decorated rooms, music, drinks — it was as fun as it got, and knowing my alma mater, probably completely scrubbed from the school history.

A second way to get in was volunteering to decorate and prep for the event. It was a solid month of painting, construction, amateur carpentry, and long nights figuring out how to make wood planks, fabric and Christmas lights look like the night sky without hammering holes into the walls (that particular year, it was Titanic themed and we had the upper deck). This is how I got in. I volunteered two years in a row. And it set me on a path where I got used to March being nuts.

Fast forward many years, and March is still jam-packed. Outside of getting our preseason content done here, I have drafts and auctions nearly every day. I was in two NFBC Draft Champion leagues (run as a slow draft with four hour clocks and email alerts), a 24-team dynasty Scoresheet league (run as a slow draft with email alerts), about five BestBall10s (run as a slow draft with email alerts), the underground NYC-based expert 15-team mixed Gotham Diamond District League (live auction), Tout Wars AL-only (live auction), the Scott White 24-team dynasty league (online auction), a CBS AL-only auction (online), and three more leagues coming this weekend (my online points home league, an online ESPN H2H categories league, and a live AL-only keeper auction). On top of all that, my friend’s sister went into labor Tuesday night and her husband’s draft was at 8:15 p.m., so I jumped in for him and selected his team. Congratulations on the baby, your gift is a 22nd round Lewis Brinson.

In trying to sort things out, I’ve had some decisions to make and themes that emerged, and I thought I’d share them here. There’s no order to much of this, just notes I kept that I thought might be useful. So away we go…

Tout Wars AL-only decision time: Aaron Sanchez vs Drew Smyly with my last $3

At the end of the Tout Wars AL-only draft, I had a choice to make: Drew Smyly or Aaron Sanchez for $3 to close out my team. I’ve always been partial to Smyly, but as the nominations went around the table, I started to lean Sanchez a little bit. Maybe I shouldn’t have:

Sanchez (career): 458 1/3 IP, 3.44 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 7.0 K/9

Smyly (career): 570 1/3 IP, 3.74 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 8.7 K/9

But it came down to this, as it sometimes does in auction endgames — I had the 12th pick in the reserve draft. Which pitcher did I feel more comfortable about leaving exposed and dropping to me at that pick? I figured Smyly would still be around. Nobody is on that Rangers rotation (despite it having a ton of upside and potential, front to back) and Smyly has become a forgotten man, despite having a 1.20 WHIP (1.199, to be exact) and a K/9 of nearly 9 over his career. Aaron Sanchez, for whatever reason, is sexier. So I bid my $3 on Sanchez, got him, and, sure enough, Smyly fell to me at No. 12 in the reserve.

I definitely prefer Smyly, but trying to read the room allowed me to get both.

However, I soon discovered I’m an idiot…

Alex Cobb somehow got deleted from my cheatsheet

I usually bring paper and pen for live auctions, but I was using a laptop for Tout Wars because the position eligibility requirements in AL-only are 15 games the previous season (they’re usually 20), which did things like make Yuli Gurriel 2b eligible. As more multi-position eligible players popped up during prep, I decided to just suck it up and use a spreadsheet on my computer, as crossing players off in several positions on paper was going to consume time that I could use instead to shift my plans as things unfolded. You have very little downtime in an auction; a quick Ctrl-F and delete-fest when a player was nominated would save me 30-45 precious seconds over searching for them in several columns to scribble them out. That all adds up.

Anyway, there’s no way I would accidentally delete Alex Cobb from a piece of paper. But, lo and behold, after I made the Smyly/Sanchez decision, I started prepping for the reserve round, which is me writing names on a piece of paper and making feverish markings next to the names to indicate where I want them and which way to go if someone is taken I wanted. Cobb popped into my head through the exercise as someone who I didn’t think went. I searched the live auction spreadsheet and… I’m an idiot. I don’t know how I did this or what stupid button I hit, but I would’ve gone Cobb over both Smyly and Sanchez given the opportunity. Glenn Colton and Rick Wolf took Cobb with the No. 1 reserve round pick.

Cobb, by the way, may look like a disaster if you only see his final line (4.90 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 6.0 K/9), but his first half/second half splits held a deep secret that nobody (except Colton and the Wolfman, apparently) has tapped into yet; namely, they are incredible:

Cobb’s never going to strike guys out, but with Ks so prevalent these days, you can get that from nearly any other pitcher. At $1 in an AL-only league, or even for free as a reserve, he will likely be a tremendous bargain with low ratios, which have become a scarce commodity in fantasy baseball. You have to believe the second half numbers were a result of Cobb working his way back from a lost 2017 season and shook off rust for this to work, and that’s just as good a theory as any.

My Tout Wars AL-only team

I don’t want to get too optimistic, but I like it a lot (here’s a link to a Google doc with all the results). I noticed Jeff Erickson’s projection machine does not (via his AL-only recap). I’m stealing his little graphic from his recap out of spite:

…although how can you be mad at a guy who puts “Yay!” after your name? Also, this projection has me beating the reigning champs (Colton and the Wolfman) and the guy who holds the Tout AL record for most points (Mike Podhorzer). So I’m okay.

Here’s my team, done Gene McCaffrey capsule style (and feel free to skip ahead to the next section for Thursday night drafting and drinking, stealing pens from bars, and a cameo from SNY’s Maria Marino!):

Danny Jansen $14: I usually don’t pay more than $6 for a catcher, but this year’s crop is weird. I’m not tooting our own horn here, but Gene wrote a brilliant piece about the changing catcher landscape and then Andrew Stoeten, who covers the Blue Jays, gave this answer in our survey of the team writers (which, I guess, also led me to Sanchez):

Jeff Mathis $1: I was throwing a few catchers out, trying to sneak them through for $1 (Chance Sisco, James McCann, Max Stassi) and eventually settled on Mathis. Look, it’s a veteran Rangers staff and maybe some of them will speak up if they prefer the veteran pitch framing expert. The only player standing in his way is Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who is just 23 years-old and played more at third base than catcher last year.

Tyler White $12: This being an OBP league, I think White is even more valuable. I was willing to go to 17 for him. I think he’s going to have that big of a year — big power numbers, runs and RBI. He’s very good. He was one of the players I wrote about when I had to defend my unorthodox rankings a month ago.

Vladimir Guerrero $23: This was a “crickets” bid and I couldn’t believe it. I was ready to go 28. I was going to call him out at 21, then went to 23 right before I said a number after his name. Going once, going twice… and he was mine. Twitter was not particularly kind when the SiriusXM account asked if I paid too much, but I don’t know what I’m missing here. His oblique injury is just Grade 1 (the lowest), he’ll probably be up by May, and he’s going to be an offensive juggernaut in a hitter’s paradise. This is not a $23 player, this is a $30-something player, even if he’s toiling in the minors for a month.

Greg Bird $5: I’m among the few who think Luke Voit doesn’t have the first base job locked up yet. How quickly we forget that Bird was supposed to be better than Aaron Judge. He had a .396 minor league OBP and .881 OPS. The only time he saw over 450 at-bats, he hit 20 HR. This is the first season in the last three where Bird has come in healthy with a normal offseason. I’m still worried Voit will take his job and get a lot of playing time, but in AL-only, I’m okay betting n the skill. Maybe the Yankees trade him for an arm. Maybe he goes to Triple-A and Voit slumps early. Maybe he wins the job and Voit is traded. For $5, I’m getting an OBP force with big power upside.

Yuli Gurriel $16: He’s my starting 2b, with 1b and 3b eligibility, which made me OK paying up for him.

Fredy Galvis $5: I know he’s not an offensive force, but his defense will keep him in the lineup and he does have a 20-homer season under his belt, as well as double-digit steals in three of the past four years.

Troy Tulowitzki $3: It’s worth a shot, right? In that park, with that lineup, and that skill?

Giancarlo Stanton $40: There’s not much to really explain here. I wanted Judge; Howard Bender wasn’t letting up and probably would’ve gone to $50 to get him. He shot me a look of disgust for driving him up to $45 (I think we went back and forth from $39 up), but… he drove me up to $44, if bidding would’ve ended there. Judge at $45 is still going to turn a profit. So as a consolation prize, I get Giancarlo Stanton, with just as much power and just a slight downgrade in average. Maybe he gets super-comfortable his second year in NY and has an MVP-caliber season.

Mitch Haniger $29: High OBP guy with 26 homers in his first full season. I think he flirts with 30 this season, and he can add 6-8 steals. I have a very sneaky buildup of steals on this team, by the way. Or I did, until…

Greg Allen $8: I was aiming for Leonys Martin here, but his bidding went to 10 and I pulled back at that point. This was also before the Carlos Gonzalez signing was announced, which I might be overrating as a move that could hurt Allen’s playing time. He has five steals this spring, he had 21 last year in 91 games, and I could see him going 40-plus if he can get 450 ABs.

Anthony Santander $1: There weren’t a lot of outfielders left at this point, and he could slot into the Orioles lineup as an every day player… eventually.

Tim Beckham $1: I was googling Beckham furiously at the end, making sure I wasn’t missing something. But no, the starting shortstop for the Mariners was available for $1. I know J.P. Crawford is coming, but Beckham is also a former No. 1 overall pick who hit 22 home runs two seasons ago.

Brandon Drury $1:At the very least, he’s Vlad insurance. But when Vlad comes up, Drury is still going to play. From the Book of Stoeten, again:

As for the pitching staff, it’s a little weird:

Roberto Osuna at $22 is there for 35-40 saves and a decent K total (although how weird was his 7.6 K/9 last season?). Mychal Givens ($9) is my second closer and hopefully can rein in his electric arm enough to get to 17-20 saves. He’ll also get a ton of Ks for me. Yusei Kikuchi for $17 came from our own Corey Brock singing his praises this preseason:

Dylan Bundy ($7) and Carlos Rodon ($8) are in the same boat, risk-wise — talented youngsters who could produce triple their auction price (or could kill the entire staff, but I think their bad years were injury-related and they do well).

I screengrabbed my “remaining SP” list at the time I bought Bundy, thinking of this column I’d eventually write. The players in fuchsia were my targets; the prices were actually Scott White’s AL-only auction values that I wanted to use as a guide to get a feel for what the room might have been thinking. I know in my head what I’ll pay for players, but knowing where someone else values the players, especially in an auction, is far more valuable:

Collin McHugh ($10) and Tyler Glasnow ($16) are going to be high-K studs. They’re both devastatingly underrated and could be the MVPs of this team.

.@nandodifino has big expectations for Rays’ Pitcher Tyler Glasnow.
Do you agree?

Check out https://t.co/3Tcb8GZ1Ma for live auction results for #TOUTwars AL Only! pic.twitter.com/dH2O8TK43R

— Fantasy Sports Radio (@SiriusXMFantasy) March 16, 2019

Matt Boyd ($9) is so intresting. He had Arrieta-esque minor league numbers and was flying high early last year, until just about the time Chris Bosio was fired. But ignore his ERA and check out his WHIP each month (you may have to scroll to the right):

Boyd finished with a 1.16 WHIP, which I consider near-elite (MLB average was 1.30). I don’t know what’s going on here, but his FIP and xFIP were both higher than his ERA. I guess you could point to a low BABIP, but sometimes we get lost in the new metrics — Boyd had a low WHIP, he’s still developing, and I think he breaks out this year. And if I went 9, some smart players went 6, 7, and 8, so I’m happy to not be alone here.

My reserve round picks were Devon Travis (once he returns from knee surgery, he could play some outfield), Smyly, Jose De Leon (everyone is going hard after Brent Honeywell, but De Leon might actually be better and at least just as far along in his recovery from Tommy John — and I can immediately IL him and pick up someone new), and Leury Garcia (who could start in the White Sox outfield and holds underrated speed and power).

That’s it for that team. More Tout Wars stuff later!

The GDD auction at House of Brews

The Gotham Diamond District League is the brainchild of Steve Cozzolino, who used to be part of the Fantasy 411 crew (back when Cory Schwartz and Mike Siano were still talking fantasy at MLB). Steve basically rounded up a bunch of NY-area experts and invited them to a league at a bar. It’s fun and loose, but also kind of cut-throat.

I partner on a team with Dane Martinez (aka SpittinSPEEDZ). I met Dane a few years ago when a mutual friend told me to check out his podcast. It was Dane giving waiver wire advice over A Tribe Called Quest beats. It was definitely in violation of copyright law, but it was great. We hit it off, and formed Blood Orange, based on Dane going to Syracuse and me growing up there. We even have a logo:

We almost quit the GDD before this year, because it was run on daily lineup moves. And that’s the worst league setup ever. Dane has two jobs! I have to keep Jake Ciely’s ego in check! We don’t have time for daily lineup moves! Steve put it to a vote in January, and weekly moves won. So we returned.

This year’s draft was at House of Brews in NYC. It used to take place at a bar called 5th and Mad, on the east side. I accidentally went there first, not bothering to check the email and just assuming it was at the regular place. And the bouncer promptly told me there wasn’t a draft there. So I had to walk from 36th and Madison to 51st and 8th:

I called Dane to tell him I messed up, and he suggested we meet at Smith’s Bar on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen for a drink and last-minute prep:

Meanwhile, Steve is texting us, asking where we are.

Other participants in this draft include SiriusXM’s Adam Ronis (also known as Lisa Ann’s radio sidekick who isn’t mentioned in the promos), ESPN’s Tim Heaney, RotoWire’s Ian Kahn (who played George Washington in AMC’s “Turn”), Fantasy Alarm’s Colton and the Wolfman, the unaffiliated Alex Cushing (formerly of MLB.com), Jen Piacenti, and Team BFFs Gregg Sussman and Frank Stampfl. It’s a tough league. So naturally Dane and I showed up and order a pitcher of Coors Light.

But not before this exchange occurred:

DANE: “What kind of pitcher do you want?’

ME: “High strikeout guys, like Syndergaard, Darvish, Glasnow”

DANE: “No I mean Coors or Bud Light”

Dane and I planned out our strategy a couple weeks earlier at another NY bar (there’s a theme here). Fun fact, I’m a connoisseur of pens from bars with the bar’s name on them. Our draft prep bar had awesome pens the year before and I walked out with five after telling our waitress how great they write. House of Brews also has awesome pens… but I had to leave before the end of the auction because the last ferry home was in about 30 minutes. So we wait until 2020 and hope my current House of Brews pen holds out on ink until then.

Anyway our strategy was to pay up early for big players and then relax a little in the middle, have some fun, and attack the endgame with cheap plays. It’s a 15-team mixed league and that leaves a lot of good players at the end for $1-$3. I think Larry Schechter really brought this idea to the forefront in his book, Winning Fantasy Baseball. He’s won Tout Wars six times, mainly in the 15-team mixed format, so he’s worth checking out if you play in that sized league.

Here’s how we started:

and this is what we finished with:

During our downtime, we ended up hanging out withMaria Marino, who is one of SNY’s main hosts now. She bridged the warring tables of Blood Orange and Colton and Wolfman (literally, sitting in between us and using both tables for her quesadillas). She also regaled us with stories of her Instagram creepers. Note to anyone following a woman (or anyone, really) on Instagram — don’t start following that person and then immediately like her last 25 photos. That is weird. Anyway, Glenn and Rick decided it would be funny to upbid us by a dollar each time we brought up a player. It was more “in good fun” than anything, but they may have gotten stuck with some players they didn’t want. I honestly don’t know. I go into auction leagues with blinders on and have no idea who got what and for how much. I only care about my team.

Looking at our team again, I think Josh Donaldson may be the keystone here. If he can bounce back, that offense will absolutely hum.

And now Chris Vaccaro gets angry at me…again

Chris Vaccaro is one of our fantasy football writers at The Athletic, is in the NFFC Hall of Fame, owns New York’s Greenwich Street Tavern, and is a really excellent fantasy baseball player. We share NFBC Draft Champions teams every year, and won last season, celebrating with a steak dinner (along with Matt Modica). The steak dinner is legendary for two things — 1. Vaccaro has an obsession with the sauce at Wolfgang’s and it’s funny to hear him talk about how great it is, and, 2. Vaccaro insists on ordering the sides without any input from me or Modica. But we love him and it’s fun, so we keep going back.

Our strategy for the drafts is pretty smart and plays to our strengths: Vaccaro drafts the first 30 rounds, I do the last 20. So we get his ultra-controlling early drafting out of the way, and I take over with whimsical deep sleeper picks. Last year it was Lourdes Gurriel. This year it could be David Paulino, Kyle Crick, J.D. Davis, or Franklin Barreto.

Anyway it’s a random night in March, I’m doing BestBall10s and Draft Champions at the same time and the “it’s your pick” emails look exactly the same for both. And then when you click through the link, the draft rooms look exactly the same (they’re run on the same SportsHub Tech platform). So, naturally, I click on a link for an email that says I’m up and go into the queue… and I think, for a fleeting second, “this doesn’t look like a queue I’d put together,” but I’m in the middle of something else, so I scroll down and take Austin Meadows. Because I think you get something like .290 with 25 HR and 15 steals this year from him.

Two minutes later I get a text, “Why the f— did you just take Austin Meadows?”

It turns out the queue looked weird because it was Vaccaro’s. I thought it was my BestBall10 draft. But it was, in fact, his early portion of the Draft Champions. And this comes on the heels of our first 2019 Draft Champions together, where he told me he couldn’t make our 5/6 turn and I had to do it off the queue, so I ignored the queue and took Jurickson Profar and Josh Donaldson over Wil Myers. Those picks almost ruined our friendship and began a running Donaldson vs. Myers “joke” with us, which won’t end until Donaldson outperforms Myers by year’s end.

Donaldson’s ADP right now (100.23 NFBC ADP) is laughably low — he’s a third baseman who can hit .281 with 35 home runs and do 100/100 with runs and RBI. I think he’s past the calf issues that bothered him the last two seasons, and nobody — for whatever reason — is counting on him being healthy. And I think that’s going to result in Josh Donaldson winning people a lot of fantasy leagues this season.

Wil Myers is great, but he doesn’t have the batting average or the power (he’s hit 30 HR once, Donaldson has done it thrice). He can win the speed side of things, but at pick 80-100 (or, in my case, 60-70), Donaldson just offers too much to not take the risk.

Anyway, we hit the trifecta of Vaccaro anger when he jokingly(?) claimed after the GDD draft that Dane and I shut him out of Blood Orange, as it was originally me and Vaccaro co-owning the team (then lovingly known as “Chris Vaccaro’s Team”). So we made this for him:

BestBall10s are awesome

While we’re talking slow drafts, I want to quickly highlight BestBall10s. The format is what I think fantasy baseball players have been looking for to fix the game — you do the draft and the computer scores your team weekly, forming a lineup with your highest-scoring player at each position. I want to say you draft 32 rounds for 14 positions, so there’s a deep bench and a lot of fun strategy involved. But I can do probably five more before the season starts, and all I have to do in-season is check my standings. No lineups, no trades, no free agents to scramble to add at 11:55 p.m. on a Sunday. It’s pure draft and wait.

That baby draft

The guy who had the baby (Brian) ended up with a weird team. Which was totally my fault, but I got called into duty two hours before the draft started. It’s a keeper league with 16 teams, and his brother-in-law told me ahead of the draft that pitchers go very early. So I naturally took Aaron Judge with the first pick at No. 3 (Brian’s a Yankees fan and I was told to get him a couple). I figured I could attack the pitchers I like later — Tyler Glasnow, Rich Hill, Yu Darvish, Julio Urias, after building with a couple early arms. But these other owners were all over the place.

Glasnow went about four rounds earlier than I expected, for instance. And this brings me to a very important lesson that I like to follow with my teams, but try not to do too much with somebody else’s — go get your guys. Ranks and ADPs are guides, but all it takes is one other person in that draft to like Tyler Glasnow, and he’s gone. And the next six months you’ll be kicking yourself as he’s putting together a Cy Young campaign and you kept him in your queue in order to draft some boring position player or a catcher instead.

The staff itself isn’t bad, though:

…lots of strikeouts, Ks, and injury issues, but this was a massive draft and I was slow to jump on pitchers. It’s head-to-head categories, though, so I feel like we can run up the Ks and have decent ratios to win out every week. I’m not sure about wins, but it also counts quality starts. Kikuchi’s opener wasn’t heartening for the QS, but he had some nice numbers, otherwise.

I did have a “d’oh” moment by taking Ohtani the pitcher at the end. I was thinking Brian could immediately IL him and pick up another player. In my mind, I had bifurcated the pitcher and hitter. But since Ohtani The Whole won’t be on the IL for long, if at all, the pitcher won’t, either, so he’s not as attractive of a stash. Oh well. Top free agent pitchers here include Vince Velasquez, Ervin Santana, Blake Parker, Sandy Alcantara, Jaime Barria, and Nate Karns. So… good luck to Brian! And check out these bats:

AL-only keeper league with weird rules

Last year, after trying to chop down my leagues, I was talked/peer pressured into joining an AL-only dynasty league with weird rules (no bench, no adds unless someone is hurt, trades have to be made for the same position to make sure you have a full roster). I finished in third, though, and now have 12 possible keepers to whittle down for nine slots. Here are the 12 I’m deciding between (and you’ll see a lot of $10 players in here because that’s the standard price for a free-agent injury replacement in-season):

Martin Maldonado $1 – he’ll start, probably get 425 at-bats, and every little bit helps from the catcher spot (we start two). For $1, I’m probably not going to upgrade much in the auction.I’m leaning toward:Don’t keep him and just re-buy him, or spend a little extra for a Max Stassi or Danny Jansen.

C.J. Cron $10:I like his power, I think his average has some potential, and the Minnesota lineup should get him enough runs and RBI to push past the 80 mark in both. But I feel like this room may not value him as much as I do and I could get him back for $7 in the auction. I’m leaning toward:Not keeping but redrafting.

Jeimer Candelario $4: This is, I think, an obvious keep. Candelario’s overall numbers last year (.224, 19 HR, 3 SB, 22 doubles) were blah, although the 19 HRs stand out. He started hot and then faded, pretty harshly, in the second half:

But I think the power going over 15 HR was a nice surprise and the fade could be attributed to a rookie just finding his way on a really bad team, where he was carrying a lot of that offense. I’m leaning toward: keeping.

Andrelton Simmons $2: Definitely keeping him at this price.

Yoan Moncada $14: Moncada worked this offseason to fix the holes in his game and really knock down his strikeout rate. There are promising peripherals in his stats last year that suggest he was thiclose to turning those strikeouts into walks or hits. He has real power and his minor league numbers suggest he can up his OBP with legitimate patience. I’d go as high as $24 if we were going to auction him off. I’m leaning toward:keeping.

Cedric Mullins $10: Mullins has power (14, 13, 12 HRs in the minors with just one season of 450+ ABs), a good amount of speed (20-plus steals twice in the minors), and developing patience. He’s likely going to play every day — and lead off — in a Baltimore offense that seemingly doesn’t have a ton surrounding him, but there are power bats (Mancini, Davis, Trumbo) who could knock him in. But here’s the thing — he went for $11 in Tout AL-only and $10 in the CBS AL-only auction. But then $15 in LABR. So do I throw him back and maybe get him at the same price with an extra contract year? Or do I just hold on a player I like a lot at what is really under his value? I’m leaning toward:keeping.

Stephen Piscotty $13:That’s too good of a price to pass up. Definitely keeping him.

Jose Berrios $22:He was $25 in Tout and $23 in LABR. His spring numbers aren’t great, especially his 11 strikeouts in 15 innings. I like Berrios a lot, but the question is, can I let him go and get him back later at a better price because he doesn’t have that buzz? I think I can. Plus, it frees up $22 in my budget, so if things get weird, I can adjust in-draft. I’m leaning toward: not keeping. Maybe trading him for a couple minor league draft picks!

Mychal Givens, Jose Leclerc, Trevor May $10 each: I put a message out to the league saying they were all on the block. I got two replies, but everyone had the same concerns: Leclerc could be traded, Givens is having a terrible spring, and May isn’t the declared closer. In fact, our own Dan Hayes thinks it’ll be Blake Parker to start:

So I ended up not trading any of them and I’m keeping all three. In a best-case scenario, they all close and I have trade nuggets later as I amass a huge lead in saves. Worst-case, Leclerc is traded in July and Givens loses his job. May gets five total saves on the season. What I think will happen? Givens gets about 27, Leclerc gets 25, and May is a high-K shutdown machine who finishes with 21 after taking over in June, full-time.

Matthew Boyd $5: Another no-brain keeper. See above! And check out Eno’s latest column to see some reasoning I agree with.

This is the part where I call out my college friends

You know how on Christmas Eve, you sling those “Merry Christmas!” group texts back and forth with friends? We have one for our fantasy league, made up of 12 friends from college. Right now, we have five guys in the NY/NJ area, four in Boston, two out in California, and then Dan O’Brien in Colorado (he gets a shoutout because he has flown back east for the draft and would’ve done it again this year). So I used that Christmas text message to get everyone thinking about people congregating in their cities for a quasi-live draft, since we hadn’t done that in about five years. Three months later, and after wavering and weak excuses, I’m doing the draft alone, online, in my home. There was such promise.

I’m burying this anecdote at the bottom of the column to see if I actually have any college friends. I know a couple of them subscribe.

Potpourri

-At the start of Tout this year, Ron Shandler announced the Lawr Michaels “Zen and Now” award, to be given to the participant who embodies Lawr’s spirit of “this is fun” while performing at a very high level, fostering a sense of community, and generally being a great guy. I thought it was a particularly touching moment at the start of the auction.

-I wish I had more time to spend at these fantasy events with Ray Flowers. He’s fun.

-Before I start any online draft, I go search for five players to bring up in the queue: Tyler White, Tyler Glasnow, Yoan Moncada, Julio Urias, and Josh Donaldson. Those are the five I want anywhere and everywhere I can get them.

-You draft Rich Hill with the understanding that he’s going to pitch about 140 innings. But seeing he has a knee injury right off the bat is kind of disheartening. Still, it lowers his price a little in these last few drafts I have.

-I say this all the time, but the key to winning your draft is proper queue management. Go in a half hour early, set up the queue, and constantly adjust it as the draft goes on. Your plan should change at least six times and having players to move up and down quickly and easily is a huge help.

(Top photo: Abbie Parr/Getty Images)