RADIO
Assuming the 2021 MLB season starts on time, we are on the precipice of fantasy baseball draft season. Spring Training will get underway next month, at which point, drafts roll out in full force. We aren't there quite yet, which makes sense. Many of the biggest free agents remain unsigned; the league is unsure of how COVID will continue to impact games, revenue, and the season itself. Nevertheless, there are early mock drafts and projections published.
Auction drafts continue to be outpaced by snake drafts. Because of that, winter ADPs are hard to come by. To collect draft figures, we would normally use NFBC ADP. However, they don't seem to have enough data points in January to offer a realistic auction outlook. We will check back with them closer to spring. Instead, we will use FantasyPros' auction calculator for a standard league.
Different systems may value different things, just like leagues will vary in their opinions or values for players depending on settings and managers' preferences. Every system results in certain players becoming overvalued. Rather than zero in on specific players, it is more useful this early in the process to see overvalued player archetypes (who will take the form of specific players in the examples that follow).
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The Most Expensive Player
In Fantasy Pros, this slot belongs to Ronald Acuna Jr. Leagues, though, may end up with any number of half a dozen players as the most expensive...which is the point. It isn't wrong for Acuna to be the top dollar-getter. Acuna at $65 is where the error occurs when Mookie Betts is priced at a whopping $15 cheaper, Fernando Tatis Jr. is $20 cheaper, etc. Don't spend up for the top guy if his price dwarfs his peers. There shouldn't be all that much that separates this group.
The tricky part with real drafts is this nugget of info is only learned after the fact. If we know Acuna will cost $65 and Betts $50, make the plan to select Betts instead. What makes auctions so much fun is the uncertainty and changes that occur on the fly. Maybe your league managers are skittish to start, and the very first player made available ends up going for a great value. By all means, stick in the Acuna sweepstakes as long as you wish; just be prepared to drop out after a certain threshold or to have buyer's remorse if the other elite bats go for considerably less. Are there really managers out there who wouldn't prefer Mike Trout ($56) and Alex Verdugo ($9) instead of Acuna on his own?
Poor 2020 Performers
In what league is J.D. Martinez going to go for $28? That makes him tied for the 21st-most expensive hitter in 2021. Perhaps he will have outfield eligibility in your league; he played there six times last season.
Even if he's not DH-only, this would be quite an unexpected market for a guy who just hit .213/.291/.389 in 54 games. That's a literal third of a normal season and was reminiscent of his Houston days before anyone knew he was a real player. He had an 89.5 exit velocity, a .231 xBA, a 41.6 hard-hit percentage. The list goes on. Across the board, his batted-ball numbers were as bad as they've been in years.
Martinez isn't the only player whose 2020 season is being somewhat dismissed because it's a small sample. Rafael Devers ($37) set career-worst marks in K%, BB%, and zone contact percentage. Christian Yelich ($49) saw his K% balloon up to unwieldy heights. These guys at least hit the ball hard last year...when they made contact. Even Yordan Alvarez ($27), who only had eight at-bats last season due to injury and is likely DH-only, is valued as a top-25 hitter. It isn't guaranteed to be the wrong move to make these guys one of your top hitters, but it sure feels riskier than necessary.
(FantasyPros seemed to overrate this group. Another publication could do the opposite by marking them down too much, or overrate those who excelled in the short year. Keep an eye on pricing for the likes of Shane Bieber, Jose Abreu, Luke Voit, Corey Seager, etc. in such instances.)
Uncertain Returnees
Justin Verlander ($25) and Chris Sale ($17) are probably still aces when healthy. Maybe that is a question with Sale, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't matter. You can't spend top-starter money on a guy who will play anywhere from half a season to not at all. Verlander and Sale respectively rank as the sixth and 13th (tied) most expensive pitchers for 2021. There is no scenario where they see enough game action to warrant such rankings, even if they perform as the two best pitchers in baseball when on the mound.
Verlander hopes to pitch in '21, but his general manager called that an "aggressive timeline." Odds are he misses the entirety of 2021. Sale's injury happened well before Verlander's, putting his rehab months ahead. Even still, his current timetable has him returning possibly in the middle of the summer if there are no setbacks. That would leave him with maybe 12 starts, and this is the best-case scenario.
Relievers
Josh Hader is really good but he doesn't warrant spending $17 to roster him. Edwin Diaz is occasionally really good. He definitely shouldn't cost a manager $16. In standard leagues where relievers only push the standings in one category, no manager should spend that much on any closer.
Hader is pretty much the perfect reason why. He is as good as a closer can get in terms of strikeouts and rate stats. Yet at his best, he will only strike out something like 60 percent as many hitters as the top starters. And in 100 fewer innings than similarly-priced SPs, his ERA and WHIP do not have as great an impact as a manager would hope. That's for the best case of the best closer. Everything trickles down from there. We can't even be sure any man finishes as his team's leader in saves, which would submarine his entire value.
This is the key point that separates RP from other one-category contributors. The position is so volatile that the top preseason guys may not collect the most saves, and tons of guys each year find themselves in possession of saves when it's all said and done. Just imagine if Kevin Merrell would get called up and siphon off all the steals that Whit Merrifield or Adalberto Mondesi would have collected in Kansas City. It doesn't happen like that at other positions. There is no realistic comp. It is a losing proposition to pay up for relievers in standard leagues.
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