OFF-SEASON POWER RANKINGS PART II

Let it never be said that I don’t try hard to entertain you all

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy” —Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

DISCLAIMER: The method and calculations for determining this iteration of the power rankings has changed from the first article. If you want to understand how the sausage has been made this time around, read the intro

We are less than a month away from the draft, and a month past my last power rankings. Things have changed a lot in that time, and much like a lot of owners in our league, I too have taken a hatchet to my methods.

The first power rankings was borne from a fervent desire to analyze a team’s potential success through quantitative analysis and data, and for the most part it succeeded, but there have been notable gaps.

Owners are drifting harder than ever into the two camps of, “The Draft Doesn’t Matter” and, “People who think the draft doesn’t matter are dumb”. As such, we have seen draft picks traded at a higher rate than ever before, resulting in massive disparities between the “Draft Rich” and the “Draft EBT Recipients”.

So how do I quantify this wealth disparity in a way that plays into the overall power rankings? Did I need to make changes to the existing method as well? How much have things changed since a month ago?

I spent a significant amount of time refining my method, tightening past assumptions, and running the numbers, and what you see is the culmination of that effort. The result was a power rankings set where only two owners stayed in the same position, one owner rose as many as three spaces, and one dropped as many as five. Allow me to take you through the new method and changes:

the factors
#1 - Average keeper adp

Last time, there were two numbers which factored into my power rankings of all owners. This time there are three. The first is largely the same in that I took each team’s most likely keepers and averaged their NFBC ADP together to determine what the average ADP was for a keeper on that team. I utilized the NFBC rankings as of February 14th, so these numbers may be different from the first article.

Also, I took Richard’s words to heart and initially was going to include the conditional keepers in this calculus, but I found that their inclusion significantly skewed the data since most of them had ADP’s in the high 100’s to 200’s and beyond. So, while the conditional keepers will be included in the lists of players for each team, they were not included in the number sets for these calculations. Their inclusion in the overall picture though, did allow for a more accurate representation of the overall keeper landscape.

#2 - Average round value per keeper

This category was calculated in the same way except rather than having the total round value being a cumulative number, I instead calculated it out to be the average value generated per keeper. This made it more internally consistent with how the ADP values are calculated, and just made more sense from a data perspective.

#3 - total draft picks in the first ten rounds

Here is the new statistic which I included to attempt to account for the yawning disparity between some owners who have veered heavily into amassing picks or trading them away. Since all teams end up with rosters the same size, I decided to utilize the sample which most owners have anecdotally identified as the most valuable type of draft pick, picks in the first ten rounds.

I counted how many picks each team had in the first ten rounds, THAT ARE NOT BEING USED FOR KEEPERS. I felt this was the fairest way to illustrate the strength of draft capital and flexibility, the Bill Belichick method, if you will. If there were ties, the tiebreaker was which team had the higher mean draft pick value in the first ten rounds.

And that’s that. That’s the data set. Each of the three factors was equally weighted in the overall value. I will include each team’s ranking in the three contributing categories so you as a reader can decide how much you agree or disagree with the valuation based on your own subjective view on which of the trifecta matters the most or least. The owner’s ranks in each of the three categories was averaged together into a final score, which will be displayed with the ranking. In the case of a tie, which happened twice, the team which had the highest single score in any of the individual categories took the higher spot.

I’m not going to include the raw data in this article because it’s too unwieldy to document in a way that won’t make me upset. If you are interested in seeing my incomprehensible notes I’ll send you a picture so you too can cry about the appealing taste of gun oil.

And now, with many thanks for hanging with me for this long, I present the final, definitive, comprehensive Off-Season Power Rankings.

#1 - andrew heller (+1) (3.33 overall score)

#2 (42.6) - AVg Keeper adp
#4 (+12.0 rounds) - AVG Round Value per keeper
#4 (8 picks) (5.6 avg pick value) - Draft picks in first ten rounds

(1) Trea Turner
(9) CJ Abrams
(15) Nick Pivetta
(23) Jacob Degrom
(24) Paul Skenes
(24) James Wood

(FA) Chase Burns (Conditional)

Heller gained a spot in these rankings mostly due to not having many keepers in the first ten rounds of the draft. His keepers didn’t change much, but continue to be one of the most solid groups out there. In the first iteration of this list I had Burns as the sixth keeper, so now that I’ve included conditional keepers in the lists it allows me to slot Pivetta in as the sixth keeper, bettering the average ADP significantly. Turns out having five keepers with an ADP of 53 or better is real strong.

As with last time, I didn’t factor team composition into these rankings, but anecdotally it’s worth noting that this crew skews pitcher heavy, so expect Heller to go hitter heavy with his first few picks.

#2 - richard martindell jr (+2) (4.33 overall score)

#10 (64.5) - avg keeper adp
#1 (+18.3 rounds) - AVG round value per keeper
#2 (11 picks) (6.4 avg pick value) - draft picks in first ten rounds

(18) Elly De La Cruz
(23) Jackson Merrill
(24) Junior Caminero
(FA) Hunter Goodman
(FA) Nolan McLean
(FA) Andy Pages

(FA) Jacob Misiorowski (Conditional)

One of these things is not like the ooootheeeer

Boy oh boy we get our first case of an owner who really benefited from the inclusion of the Draft Pick metric. Richard has largely built his very successful squad on the backs of keepers with massive value disparities between their keeper rounds and ADP. This has also lead to him not having to spend any of the first ten rounds on keepers, which also gives him immense draft capital.

It’s all very attractive, with the minor blemish that Pages single handedly tanks Richard’s AVG Keeper ADP (Pages’ ADP is 125). If he had a player inside the top 100 he likely would have jumped to seven on that list, but them’s the breaks, and we will all look mighty foolish if Pages ends up working out for him. All the same, this is an impressive rank and the rebuild is definitively complete.

#3 - Patrick Weaver (-2) (5.00 overall score)

#1 (38.3) - avg keeper adp
#3 (+14.2 rounds) - AVG Round value per keeper
#11 (5 picks) (6.2 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(1) Vladimir Guerrero Jr
(16) Gunnar Henderson
(17) Corbin Carroll
(21) Cole Ragans
(FA) Roman Anthony
(FA) Augustin Ramirez

(FA) Cam Schlittler (Conditional)

The question was never whether Patrick would fall in these rankings with the inclusion of the draft pick metric, but by how much. The fact that he is still in the top 4 even after trading away most of his top 10 draft picks speaks to the absolutely unrivaled talent that he has built up in his roster, and this is even with the forced exclusion of Aaron Judge, who all but assuredly becomes a seventh keeper for Pat.

If there’s a warning bell here it’s Corbin Carroll’s hamate bone fracture. Any diminished power from Carroll or hangover from the injury starts to introduce vulnerability into a Stars and Scrubs strategy. Patrick ties for the lowest number of draft picks in the first ten rounds, and should he suffer injuries or under-performance to any of his studs, the drop off to the second tier players on the rest of the team could be pronounced.

#4 - ian shaw (+3) (5.33 overall score)

#5 (48.8) - avg keeper adp
#8 (+5.8 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#3 (10 picks) (5.8 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(1) Fernando Tatis Jr
(5) Yordan Alvarez
(6) Ketel Marte
(8) Cristopher Sanchez
(17) Michael Harris II
(FA) Drake Baldwin

(FA) Jac Caglianone (Conditional)

Welp, what can I say about this? Yes, I changed my method and yes it resulted in me placing higher in the overall rankings. Sue me. Last year I amassed a group of what I thought were reliable names with little regard to diminished draft flexibility and it backfired spectacularly when those names either got injured or under-performed. This year I decided to do mostly the same thing except trade Jackson Chourio twice in order to have my cake and eat it too.

My Round Value metric suffered from trading Chourio (and my AVG ADP to an extent), but in the end I felt it was worth it to have ten draft picks in the first ten rounds and six in the first four. I’m planting my flag in the “Draft Matters” camp. We’ll see how it plays out.

#5 - michael staron (same) (5.66 overall score)

#3 (45.6) - avg keeper adp
#7 (+6.3 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#7 (7 picks) (5.3 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(4) Riley Greene
(6) Cal Raleigh
(7) Eugenio Suarez
(8) Hunter Brown
(18) Zach Neto
(20) Tarik Skubal

(FA) Trey Yesavage (Conditional)

We come to the first of the two teams who didn’t move up or down. Trading for an extra seventh round pick earlier in the off-season helped to diminish the impact of slotting in Suarez in his most recent trade. While Greene seems pricey (kept 2 rounds earlier than his ADP), Mike has solid flexibility in the first three rounds, being one of the few teams to not be keeping a player in the first.

The big surprise here is the admission that the twice traded for Spencer Strider will likely not be kept, making him the strangest fantasy wet fart of the off-season, being traded for twice and then cast aside. What do you have against guys named Spencer, Mike?

#6 - joey mcdermott (+2) (5.66 overall score)

#6 (49.8) - AVG keeper adp
#5 (tied) (+7.0 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#6 (7 picks) (5.0 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(1) Bobby Witt Jr
(9) Pete Crow Armstrong
(10) Jarren Duran
(12) Logan Webb
(14) Brent Rooker
(24) Spencer Schwellenbach

(FA) Samuel Basallo (Conditional)

WE WERE SO CLOSE. 6 - 6 - 6, the devil’s team! Dan it’s all your fault as usual.

Anyways let’s look at this. Joey’s keepers look a lot better now that I’ve included the Conditionals (yes, thank you Richard). Slotting Basallo to the conditional spot allows Jarren Duran, who doesn’t look too bad in the 10th spot, to slot in.

The big negative here is that Schwellenbach is now dealing elbow inflammation and will be starting the season on the 60 day IL. If this were any other team or player he would probably not be a keeper anymore, but it’s tough to see who would take his place. At round 24 he may still have enough value for Joey to ride it out, but it’s not a pretty situation, and had I done this a few days later the AVG ADP would have suffered because of it, so take this ranking with a grain of salt.

Spencers are just straight up not having a good time.

#7 - jonathan sitko (-1) (6.00 overall score)

#7 (60.0) - avg keeper adp
#2 (+18.2 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#9 (6 picks) (5.5 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(17) Oneil Cruz
(21) Jackson Chourio
(21) Wyatt Langford
(FA) Kyle Stowers
(FA) Nick Kurtz
(FA) Ben Rice

(FA) Sal Stewart (Conditional)

Boy this list looks a lot sexier with Chourio in it. Jon was a mere 0.1 away from unseating Richard at the top of the AVG Round Value Per Keeper metric, and it is very obvious why with his list not having a player kept at a round higher than 17. That helps a lot to balance out the pain of losing four of his top ten draft picks to trade.

Luckily, if you believe in that, Jon retains his first and second round draft picks and will likely have to spend at least one of those picks on a pitcher (all his keepers are hitters). With industry breakout darlings like Rice, Stowers, and Stewart on the list, this is the slate that I think is most likely to end up in the top 4 at the end of the year even if it’s not there right now.

Except for Vinson of course.

#8 - dan topczewski (-5) (6.00 overall score)

#8 (61.3) - avg keeper adp
#5 (tied) (+7.0 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#5 (8 picks) (6.4 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(2) Ronald Acuna Jr
(11) Brice Turang
(12) Julio Rodriguez
(15) Jordan Westburg
(17) Jesus Luzardo
(19) Tyler Soderstrom

(FA) Brandon Sproat (Conditional)

Yup, that’s a slide alright

Two things happened which caused this. One, Dan traded Chourio away which cost a lot of rounds of value without recouping much in ADP. Two, Dan traded Perdomo and Tucker, also sacrificing a lot of draft day value. The Perdomo and Chourio moves only matter if you think that keeper value matters, which Dan has already said he doesn’t.

Westburg and Soderstrom are really dragging down the ADP’s with figures of 120 and 91 respectively, but both still have legit breakout potential. The thing that also hurts is that even though Dan has done well to retain 8 picks even with his liberal trades, most of the picks that have come in to replace those going out are at lower rounds, skewing his average pick value in the top ten at 6.4, which was tied for the second lowest of any team.

#9 - vinson mulvey (same) (8.00 overall score)

#11 (72.8) - avg keeper adp
#12 (+3.5 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#1 (12 picks) (4.9 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(4) Max Fried
(7) Bryan Woo
(9) Cody Bellinger
(11) Byron Buxton
(12) Seiya Suzuki
(18) Trevor Story

(FA) Luke Keaschall (Conditional)

Here we see the cliff. The drop off in score between team 8 and team 9 was the most pronounced drop in the whole list. And with the first team after the cliff, I have to say, I dunno.

I am the least confident, once again, in my projected keepers for Vinson’s team as I am for any team. This is partly because Vinson has been very fluid and active with trades and also because he has not telegraphed intended keepers outside of casual comments, so once again this is my best guess. And that is what it should be taken as, a guess.

All the same, Vinson is essentially the opposite of Patrick. Nega Patrick, if you will. None of Vin’s keepers are higher than an ADP of 40 and all of them generate value in the single digits of rounds. Alternatively, Vinson has amassed the most draft picks in the first ten rounds of any draft in league history, with the ability to expand the number should he throw back fringy keepers like Fried or Bellinger. If you believe in draft capital and flexibility then this is the apex of that art form.

#10 - james swindell (+2) (8.33 overall score)

#4 (45.8) - avg keeper adp
#9 (+4.8 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#12 (5 picks) (7.0 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(1) Juan Soto
(2) Manny Machado
(4) Hunter Greene
(6) Pete Alonso
(16) Maikel Garcia
(FA) Kyle Bradish

(FA) Jacob Marsee (Conditional)

I’m going to preface this by saying that I am biased against this slate, so take whatever I have to say with a grain of salt.

This build feels very similar to what I did last year. James has four keepers in the first six rounds of the draft, the highest of any team. And like the words of caution I threw towards Patrick, the same can be said to James. If Soto goes down with a bad knee, this team is probably toast. If Hunter Greene’s groin explodes again, this team is probably toast.

The hard truth is that James has one draft pick in the first four rounds of the draft, which is tough for filling out a roster. When I said Pat was gonna run stars and scrubs, this is even more so the case. Maybe it works out, but it’s going to be an uphill battle.

#11 - brooke weaver (-1) (9.00 overall score)

#9 (63.6) - Avg keeper adp
#10 (+4.6 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#8 (7 picks) (6.0 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(1) Shohei Ohtani
(2) William Contreras
(10) George Springer
(14) Cedanne Rafaela
(14) Jeremy Pena
(21) Garret Crochet

(FA) Bubba Chandler (Conditional)

Here is another case of the conditional draft pick clearing the way for another obvious addition to the slate of keepers. I really like Jeremy Pena at round 14 in this list, and having Bubba slot in at the 7th keeper spot makes that possible. With that, this slate looks very solid even if the numbers are underwhelming, mostly because they’re being dragged down by Contreras in the 2nd and Rafaela’s uninspiring ADP of 132.

All is possible in Shohei if you believe in him. Give him your energy and he will make a spirit ball large enough to smite all your foes.

#12 - mark johnson (-1) (11.00 overall score)

#12 (78.0) - Avg keeper adp
#11 (+4.3 rounds) - avg round value per keeper
#10 (6 picks) (6.2 avg pick value) - draft picks in the first ten rounds

(1) Jose Ramirez
(2) Kyle Schwarber
(5) Bo Bichette
(11) Sonny Gray
(23) Jackson Holliday
(FA) Geraldo Perdomo

(FA) Carter Jensen (Conditional)

Wow the model likes Mark even less this time around. Yes I’m referring to my method as the model. Eno Sarris gets a model. Bill Belichik gets a model. So I get a model. And the model thinks this team is still ass.

Even with Perdomo, Holliday is now injured so is he even a valid keeper now? Bichette, Gray, and Holliday all have ADP’s outside the top 100. Not to mention the fact that Mark won’t pick until the third round, which is very tough. It’s Ramirez, Schwarber, and a bunch of dudes. If you buy 2025 Perdomo as real then this team looks a lot better, but it’s an inflexible build. There aren’t enough studs to call it Stars and Scrubs. There isn’t enough value or draft picks to call it a draft heavy build.

This team doesn’t do any of the three measurable categories well, so it will be on Mark to finesse his way back to the playoffs. He is skilled and he is determined, which is good because this will be a crucible.