Shortly after 6 PM ET this past Monday, the slow draft was over. Kolten Wong rounded out my first completed “real” fantasy roster of 2018, and The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational League #12 season was officially underway.
Organized by Justin Mason of Friends With Fantasy Benefits, The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational, or TGFBI, as the Twitterverse likes to call it, is a collection of 13 mixed-leagues, each featuring 15 teams. The 195 writers involved are all playing out the contest hosted by Tim Wagner and the folks at Fantrax, if you’re keeping score at home.
As it turned out, despite it being a snake draft, TGFBI was a useful preparation tool for my Tout Wars Mixed Auction draft, as I got an updated sense of how my colleagues were valuing certain players. More specifically, was my plan to draft a guy for 15 bucks a pipe dream? Was he more likely to cost $20 or even more?
OK, I’ll keep the suspense to a minimum. Here are a handful of examples of players who pique my interest heading into Tout Wars and my later drafts but were taken earlier in TGFBI than I expected.
Aaron Nola (Round 4, Pick 8)
I was thinking that I could comfortably draft Nola as my SP2, even in a deep mixed league. Well, it is possible, but unless you’re willing to use two of your first four picks to take starting pitching or buy multiple $20-plus starters, Nola might need to be your ace. Coming off a fine 2017 campaign that included a 3.54 ERA, a 1.21 WHIP and a 9.9 K/9 rate across 27 starts, the 24-year-old righty could be ready to make the jump to the fantasy ace class in 2018. But considering that he has yet to even toss 175 innings in a season and has dealt with injury woes, I think it is more likely that the ace leap is delayed until at least 2019. While I am a Nola fan, I probably won’t be willing to pay the price it will take to roster him.
Jean Segura (Round 5, Pick 5)
After enjoying a career-best season with the Diamondbacks in 2016, Segura was a disappointment last year in Seattle, though a pair of DL stints that limited him to 125 games had a lot to do with his underwhelming counting stats. Early in the offseason, I had zeroed in on Segura as a potential high-profit pick, figuring that he would be available at a discount thanks to his modest 2017 production. Not a chance. As the 65th overall pick in TGFBI League #12, there’s not much room for profit. I still might draft Segura in at least one of my leagues, but I’m not nearly as confident as I was a month ago.
Delino DeShields (Round 7, Pick 2)
Speaking of a month ago, it was nearly one month ago when I drafted DeShields with the 152nd pick in my NFBC Draft Champions league. Since then, the 25-year-old speedster has been named the Rangers’ starting center fielder and leadoff hitter. Fresh off a 2017 campaign in which he swiped 29 bags while scoring 75 runs in 120 games as a part-timer, DeShields now carries tremendous fantasy appeal in this age of stolen base scarcity. My initial feeling was that grabbing him early in the seventh round was a reach, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that he is well worth the 92nd pick.
Ozzie Albies (Round 7, Pick 5)
Only 57 games into his big league career, Albies is already a top-100 fantasy option. Although drafting him here might seem overly optimistic, keep in mind that if we extrapolate his 2017 stat line over the course of a full season, we get 17 homers, 80 RBIs, 97 runs scored and 23 stolen bases to go along with a strong batting average. Unscientific, I know, but we don’t need a scientist to tell us that this 21-year-old has a bright future as a steady five-category contributor. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one willing to draft him in this round.
Blake Snell (Round 10, Pick 14)
Remember all that talk over the winter about Snell being a great late-round sleeper? Let’s just say that it will require more than a late-round pick to secure the services of the promising Rays southpaw in 2018. Snell got off to a rough start last year, frequently struggling with his control, and ended up spending a good chunk of the first half in the Minors. He turned things around in the second half, however, going 5-2 with a 3.49 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP in 14 starts while striking out nearly a batter per inning. There’s a reason why Snell was viewed as a top prospect. That said, pitching in a tough AL East division for a team that is unlikely to provide him with much run support isn’t exactly an ideal situation for any young pitcher, especially a young pitcher who still has trouble consistently throwing strikes. I liked Snell when he was a late-round sleeper, but a top-150 player? I’m not quite ready to buy into that valuation.
Zach Steinhorn is the 2016 Mixed Auction Tout Wars champion. Follow him on Twitter @zachsteinhorn
