While I’ve always appreciated the marathon nature of the fantasy baseball season, I do tend to get a little antsy in September, particularly when none of my teams are in title contention. In these cases, next spring cannot come soon enough. This year, one of my five squads has a chance as we head into the final three weeks, but I’m honestly at the point where I’m ready to start fresh and assemble entirely new rosters. Six months is a long time to monitor the same group of players, so by September, I’m often mentally ready to move on. Hey, it’s never too early to get a head start on draft prep, and as always, the first list I’m making is a list of players who I did not own in any league this year but who I’d like to own in multiple leagues next year. Here’s the beginning of that list.
Aaron Nola – I know, I’m not exactly going out on a limb here. I mean, who wouldn’t want to own Nola next season? I’ve always been a Nola fan, thanks in large part to his elite K/BB ratio, which I consider to be the most revealing stat when it comes to the future success of any young hurler. Still, his injury issues in both 2016 and 2017 scared me off just enough that I wasn’t quite willing to pay the top-30 SP price it required to draft him. Now, a Cy Young caliber season later (16-4, 2.29 ERA, 0.96 WHIP through 29 starts), I’m going to have to pay a top-10 SP price to draft him in 2019. But you know what? I’m OK with that.
Mitch Haniger – Haniger was a popular breakout pick entering 2018, the consensus theory being that if he could only stay healthy, he could turn out to be one of the season’s biggest profit earners. And that’s exactly what has happened. As of Saturday, the Mariners right fielder is on pace to finish the year with 28 homers, 98 RBIs, 85 runs scored and eight steals. Not bad for a guy with an NFBC ADP of 220. Also note that a strong walk rate has made him especially valuable in OBP leagues (.363 OBP). Just for fun, let’s name some of the outfielders who were on average selected before Haniger in NFBC drafts this past spring: Domingo Santana, Ryan Braun, Adam Jones, Delino DeShields, Adam Duvall. Hard to believe.
Mike Clevinger – Back in March, the biggest question regarding Clevinger was how he would handle the transition to a full-time starting role. The answer is that he’s handled it well…extremely well. The 27-year-old righty has been the model of consistency, allowing three runs or fewer in 22 of his 28 starts this season while whiffing more than a batter per inning and keeping the ball in the yard, serving up less than one home run per nine innings. Add in the fact that his numbers since the All-Star break are even better than his first-half stats and we could be looking at a future fantasy ace. I still can’t figure out how I was unable to land Clevinger in any of my leagues this season despite him being a target. I won’t let that happen again, regardless of the increased cost.
Rougned Odor – Sometimes, fantasy owners can allow a player’s negatives overshadow their positives to the point where their positives are completely ignored. I know I have a tendency to do this, and it’s what I did with Odor this season, avoiding him entirely in drafts due mostly to last season’s .204 batting average. It didn’t really matter that he slugged 30 homers while swiping 15 bags. I wanted no part of this AVG liability. Well, after a slow start to the season, the Rangers second baseman has bounced back in a big way, batting .299 since the All-Star break while swatting 12 of his 18 total homers in the second half. Although Odor will fall well short of posting his third straight 30-plus home run season, he needs only two more homers to reach the 20/10 plateau, and a better first half next season could result in a return to the 30/15 level. The bottom line is that Odor’s power/speed package is plenty valuable in fantasy, and taking into account his career .250 AVG and this year’s .265 AVG, last season’s .204 mark is looking like an outlier.
Zach Steinhorn is the 2016 Mixed Auction Tout Wars champion. Follow him on Twitter @zachsteinhorn.
