FYPD SZN (with rankings)
I put rankings in only because I am certain people will be more likely to click through that way.
The FYPD is not the thing that comes to a Brooklyn house fire. It’s the First Year Player Draft in dynasty leagues, and it’s the single best part of them. Right now it is traditional FYPD season for baseball leagues, though COVID-19 has, at least in our case, delayed them for a few weeks, as the traditional July 2 international signing period was delayed until January 15 (our traditional draft day). The waiting, which is normally the hardest part, goes on.
The silver lining here is that the learning continues, and minus a full minor league season, there’s more learning to do than ever. Before I joined my 24-team league a few years ago, I was a baseball fan and writer with scant knowledge of the minor leagues, but within a year I was a prospect hound, and I have not fully reverted to form. The FYPD isn’t just my favorite part of the year because drafts are the most fun part of fantasy (even if they are)—it’s because unlike traditional fantasy baseball, which tends to be an expression of what you know about the sport and fantasy game structure, the FYPD is a far more nebulous and challenging affair, challenging not just what you already know but pushing you to learn as much as possible in a relatively short amount of time.
Furthermore, the strategy for a FYPD is markedly different from that of a startup draft. When choosing among Major League Baseball players, the die has largely been cast on their values. Whatever knowledge is unknown—who will break out, who will be injured, who will disappoint—is known within fairly strict limits. There will be surprises, but nothing like the surprises an FYPD can unleash on you, years down the road. The range of outcomes in the top 10 picks a traditional draft are “average player at worst” to “best player in the game,” whereas in an FYPD there’s no guarantee the top 10 players selected in a given year ever step foot on an MLB diamond, to the point it’s statistically unlikely to happen.
As MLB teams have largely refocused their attention on the draft’s salary-depressing advantages, too, the FYPD system allows schmoes like myself to get up to speed on where the real action is taking place in front offices without making it feel like homework. “Solving” the FYPD problem is far more like solving a crossword puzzle than it is like doing times tables.
This year, I pick second and seventeenth overall, due to the perpetual rash of trading I outlined in my first post. The exquisitely named Spencer Torkelson, the No. 1 pick in the MLB draft, is the consensus No. 1 pick in FYPDs, because his particular skill—hitting a ball to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter—plays well in fantasy. The top actual draft pick usually hovers hear the top of the FYPD list, but in my (admittedly limited) years of doing this it’s rarely so cut and dried that the real No. 1 pick is also the definitive top dog for dynasty. On the bright side, it makes my No. 2 pick much easier. Perhaps unfortunately, that one’s pretty much a slam-dunk too, albeit a much less emphatic one.
Actually, let’s call it a layup. Barring some sort of disaster between now and whenever we draft, I’ll pick Toronto’s Austin Martin. There are several possible candidates for this spot, but they all have potential flaws that the ruggedly solid Martin, a Vanderbilt product, lacks. Ha-Seong Kim, who was listed as the No. 2 FYPD choice just yesterday on Prospects Live, may or may not have the same ceiling as Martin, but has the advantage of playing right away… but in nearing the tail-end of a rebuild, I’m still looking for upside. Zac Veen, a heavy hitting outfielder in the Colorado system, is well, in the Colorado system, and as one dynasty analyst told me, that’s one to avoid. Nick Gonzales, of Pittsburgh, is a nice player but seems a tick below Martin, and Asa Lacy, Max Meyer and Emerson Hancock are all pitchers, who we love to death of course, but, this far away from an MLB debut, makes them inherently riskier, so much so that my operating strategy since I began a full rebuild three FYPDs ago was “draft hitting, trade for pitching.”
To that end, of the six top-10 picks I’ve made since 2019 spread over two drafts, only three remain on my team, and the ones I jettisoned show just how fickle the FYPD can be. Two years ago, I also had pick 1.2, and after the top team picked Cardinals bopper Nolan Gorman—a near-consensus No. 1 that seems unlikely to justify it now—I chose the chalkiest guy I could imagine, a well-rounded middle infielder in the Reds system named Jonathan India, and got leaguewide plaudits for it. If Gorman’s stock has fallen over the last two years, India’s has gone in the tank, and, very early on, I realized the error of my ways and dealt him for I dunno what. Point is, it was a bad pick. The idea was that India’s above-average tools would coalesce into a well-rounded monster have not been borne out, and while they may yet be, I’d much rather have Casey Mize, the actual No. 1 overall pick who went 1.3 largely because of the pitcher tax.
But just to show you how fast things can change, let’s go over the next three picks, not leastwise because I had 1.5 and 1.6. I cannot remember if Yusei Kikuchi or Trevor Larnach went 1.4, but one of them did, at which point I took Nick Madrigal, whom I coveted, and Jarred Kelenic, who I really wanted, but expected to hang around. I traded Madrigal midseason 2020 because I wasn’t competing last year but he, too, was a better pick than India, and Kelenic would be the No. 1 overall choice if the FYPD was re-run. Promisingly, I still have two of my three top picks last year, having shipped away only J.J. Bleday among the trio of Bleday, Andrew Vaughn and C.J. Abrams. The second I picked Bleday (at 1.6), I knew I had made a mistake in overlooking Riley Greene, who went 1.7 and is widely considered a better prospect; sometimes the tides don’t wait weeks to shift. Sometimes it’s seconds.
That’s why trying to game my 17th pick for the upcoming FYPD is so hard, especially in a year where there’s so little known about some of the players due to the COVID-plagued seasons and, in many cases, non-seasons. I have a list of names, abetted by several FYPD ranks new and old, from which I will be able to choose, but only the shape of the top 10 is really coming into focus. With only a bit further ado, here are my top 10 rankings for this year’s, with the following caveats:
1) While I’ve called these rankings for SEO purposes (let’s get 50 views this time, baby!), it’s really more of how I think my league will draft the top 10, as currently scheduled. This takes into account some tendencies I know about my fellow owners, but most of the cases it’s just an educated guess.
2) Our league strongly favors starting pitchers, which gives them a welcome potential boost alongside the permanent worry of injury or flameout.
Anyhow, here you go. This is my project top 10 for 2021. If I’m right, drinks are on the house.
Spencer Torkelson, DET
Austin Martin, TOR
Nick Gonzales, PIT
Asa Lacy, KC
Zac Veen, COL
Emerson Hancock, SEA
Max Meyer, MIA
Ha-Seong Kim, SD
Garret Crochet, CHW
Garrett Mitchell, MIL