Listing Toward Listicles

The Power of Knowing Your Order

How’s Your Draft Prep Going?

And…

My first auction was last November, for the XFL. We buy our $260 team then. We have our 17-round reserve draft this coming Sunday night.

The following Sunday morning I have Tout Wars NL.

The Saturday after that it’s the Marshall League, and the Sunday after that the American Dreams League.

Each week it’s something different. And it’s a different draft list.

XFL means fixing what I put together last November, plus digging deep for prospects. Tout NL means deep National League dive from scratch.

Marshall is a quirky 12-team mixed league with a deep bench and funny pitching scoring (a 180 start cap that means you’re chasing K/9 more than straight strikeouts).

ADL is deep AL, in which I have Garrett Crochet and Shane Baz as keepers for $5 apiece, and Bryan Woo for $8. I have one other keep, choosing between Jason Foley $7, Michael Wacha $5, or Salvador Perez $18.

I mention all this because this month we juggle the news, the ups, downs, and injuries of Spring Training, while compiling our draft lists and finalizing them. And then we auction/draft.

In other words, show time.

Some Tips for Making Draft Lists

Identify your catchers first. You want to make sure you know who is in your league’s catcher pool, and you want to make sure multiposition players who qualify at catcher go as catchers. Who are they?

Multiposition Catchers (20 games qualify): Salvador Perez (C/1B), David Fry (C/1B/OF) (60-day IL), Hunter Goodman (C/OF).

Your league size and roster rules determine how many players from each position you roster. In a 12-team AL or NL only with two catchers, you would roster 24 catchers, 12 first basemen, 12 second basemen, 12 shortstops, 12 third basemen, 12 corners, 12 middle infielders, 60 outfielders, 12 DHs, and 108 pitchers.

To make sure I’ve identified enough players at each position, I put my overall list in a spreadsheet. Then I identify the Catchers and mark them. I highlight them using a color, but you could put XX in a cell next to their names. Whatever. You just want to make sure you can tell they’ve already been selected so you get the requisite 168 hitters, without doubling multiposition guys.

Then I do the same for each of the other positions. List the first basemen and you’ll see Salvador Perez and David Fry listed. Filter them out and take 12 1B, 12 2B, and so on and so on.

How you handle them during your auction/draft is your choice. Some like to manage on a computer. I prefer a few pieces of paper with tiny printing so I squint more but shuffle less.

Here’s my friend Walter’s draft sheets splayed before him on auction day some years back.

This is my sheet from 2022 for first basemen. After I select out the player so I know I have enough at each position, I recombine them into primary position lists (I don’t have a list of middle infielders).

The C123S0 column, a part of the Patton $ Online software (paid subscribers here can ask for a free Patton subscription by asking), tells me what positions players qualify at. If they have capital letters they qualify.

I include the projections so I can quickly scan for power, speed or playing time.

The Bid column has a price for players who’ve been kept. Those with a 0 are available. I paid too much for Bobby Bradley that year.

The $ column is the value of the projection, using Patton’s formula. Sometimes, if I’m down to the end and

During the auction I write down the actual price paid next to my estimated bid price and try to keep a running tally, like a blackjack card counter, to see if more or less money is being spent than I expected.

Since my “budget” matches the league budget, if more money is being spent than expected, there will be bargains later. And vice versa.

Another great thing about lists is you can color code targets, injury risks, must avoids, buy at any price (I’m looking at you only a little facetiously Corbin Carrol). That can help you focus on getting superior results during your auction.

Is this Corbin Carrol’s year? Photo: Jeffrey Hyde on Flickr.

Do you have something to share about list making and draft prep? Put it in a comment here:

FOR SALE

Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide A-Z 2025 is out, as you may have heard, and has nearly 300 Picks and Pans. You can buy it now!

Buy the softcover book from IngramSpark by clicking here. It’s $19.99. Order it online by clicking the link and be emboldened to bypass the Amazon monster. And please, let me know if you find a bookseller who can order it. I would like that.

Buy the softcover book ($20) or Kindle book ($10) from Amazon by clicking here. The contents are similar to the black+white pages of the old Professional Edition, with hundreds of profiles, projections, and bid prices by me, Rotoman. Organized alphabetically, to make it easier to look up players by name, all season long. And with nearly 300 comments from fantasy experts like Mike Gianella, Scott Pianowski, Vlad Sedler, Doug Dennis, Phil Hertz, Dave Adler, and injury notes from legend Rick Wilton.

The Kindle version is also available for free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Download it to your tablet or computer with Kindle software, it doesn’t work on the smaller readers because of the formatting, and you can scroll through as often as you like for no cost.

Buy the PDF file by clicking here. It is $12 and available immediately via a link on the confirmation page.

ANORA

My favorite movie last year was Nickel Boys, but I thoroughly enjoyed Anora, which won Best Picture at the Oscars last night. I thought it was terrifically paced and told, and wonderfully acted, but at the same time felt that it didn’t dig beneath the surface of the characters. Why are they who they are? How did they come to be in this situation? What do they really want?

The frequent baseball writer Will Leitch, before the awards, did a good job explaining how the movie succeeds without directly engaging those questions. Recommended!

HOUSEKEEPING

I encourage your comments, suggestions, and questions. I’ve been looking at depth chart issues and position battles, but it would be great if you clued me in to those that interest you.

If you see a mistake, please say something so I can fix it. There is now a corrections and changes page, which lists the significant changes I’ve made to the Master Sheets.

If you aren’t yet a subscriber please consider joining. You can get all access to the data files and special subscriber content for one month for $7. I’ll be turning off renewals for monthly subscriptions March 20th, so you don’t even have to cancel.

The Master Sheets are up for paid subscribers and there is a link after the signature below.

Sincerely,

Thanks for reading. The Master Sheets are after the paywall, now…