Fantasy Baseball Draft Picks Revisited at the All-Star Break
MLB’s All-Star break is a great time to reflect on how the fantasy baseball season has gone thus far and how well the top draft picks in your fantasy league have fared. Did you get some great bargains or get stuck with a roster of duds, or perhaps a little bit of both? These are the same players, in real life, who have helped or hindered their teams’ actual performance.
1st 100 Draft Picks Reviewed
With a few days off from regular-season baseball, I decided to see who were the best and worst players among our top draft picks. I focused on the top 100 players selected in our draft. Why the first 100? Well, in theory, they should be the best players, at least that’s what we thought back in March 2023 when we selected them in one of the first 10 rounds. And, it limits the scope of the project for enthusiastic, yet amateur statisticians like me.
10-Team Points League
Our league is a 10-team, ESPN points league with the full rosters of all 30 MLB teams as part of our player pool. This year we drafted 230 players (23 per team, composed of: 12 position players, 7 pitching slots, and 4 bench slots). Play is based on head-to-head matchups with cumulative points for the week determining whether we get a Win or Loss against our opponent.
We give 1 point for a single, a walk, a run scored or batted in, etc., like most points leagues–although we do not subtract for a batter striking out nor do we penalize a pitcher for a loss or blown save. We only give 2 points for a save, though (some leagues give +5), so relievers may be underrepresented. But since these rankings are based on each player’s ACTUAL performance compared to EXPECTED and since I’m using the percentage difference (rather than raw points) it should not make any difference.
Top 10 Draft Studs!
Below are the players who outperformed their projected fantasy baseball points by the widest margin. I actually included 11 players since there was a tie at #7 and Adley Rutschman was so very close to making it anyway (and he went to Oregon State which doesn’t hurt either!).
In my view the BEST VALUE is starting pitcher George Kirby of the Seattle Mariners given that he was the very last draft pick in this group (100 out of 100) and has exceeded projections by just shy of 38% (good for 2nd best). RUNNER UP for best value is outfielder Luis Robert Jr. of the Chicago White Sox, selected 90th in the draft and returning nearly 28% above expectations (5th best). And, I personally have one player on my roster who made the list, outfielder, Adolis Garcia of the surprising Texas Rangers.
You’ll also notice the list is equally divided between pitchers (5) and position players (5) not counting Ohtani, who, of course, does both. Other than Rutschman at catcher though, all the other position players are outfielders, except for Ohtani at DH. And what can you say about Shohei Ohtani (the easy #1 pick in the draft) who had the largest projected point total of all major league players and still exceeded expectations by more than 22%.
| Rank | Draft Position | Player, Team, Position | % ABOVE Projections |
| 1 | 37 | Ronald Acuna Jr. Atl, RF | + 38.5% |
| 2 | 100 | George Kirby Sea, SP | + 37.7% |
| 3 | 38 | Spencer Strider Atl, SP | + 30.7% |
| 4 | 73 | Adolis Garcia Tex, RF | + 29.2% |
| 5 | 90 | Luis Robert Jr. ChW, CF | + 27.6% |
| 6 | 50 | Zac Gallen Ari, SP | + 25.9% |
| 7-tie | 57 | Logan Webb SF, SP | + 22.5% |
| 7-tie | 14 | Mookie Betts LAD, RF | + 22.5% |
| 9 | 1 | Shohei Ohtani LAA, DH, SP | + 22.4% |
| 10 | 85 | Pablo Lopez Min, SP | + 22.2% |
| 11 | 78 | Adley Rutschman Bal, C | + 22.0% |
One player you may wonder about is Luis Arraez who’s having a remarkable season in his quest to hit .400. He missed the draft studs list by just six slots (coming in at #16) with a 16.8% increase over projections. Oh, and, you may remember Arraez was traded in the off season for pitcher Pablo Lopez who did make the top 10 draft studs (coming in at #10 exactly).
Top 10 Draft Duds. Ugh!
Now, we have the list of the worst players through the all-star break (those with the highest rate of underperformance). This list was a bit trickier because for many of the top 100 players drafted–who underperformed–their poor numbers were due to injury. So, I made judgement calls on whether a person had played enough that injury was not the key to their underperformance. Notably, I left Justin Verlander (12 games started and 70 innings) off the list for that reason. However, I did include his Mets teammate Max Scherzer (16 games started and 87 innings), so you may disagree with me in some cases. Anyhow, Verlander not only would have made the draft duds list, he would have led it by a wide margin at 42.1% below expectations.
I’m torn here about who to give the WORST VALUE award to. Unfortunately several players are deserving including Sandy Alcantara (drafted 18th), Corbin Burnes (drafted 2nd) and Max Scherzer (drafted 9th). All have had hugely disappointing seasons as starting pitchers for their respective teams (Marlins, Brewers, and Mets). Alcantara, after winning the NL Cy Young award in 2022, has fallen off expectations more dramatically than the others, but Burnes and Scherzer were both 1st round picks so I’m going to call it an ignominious three-way tie.
| Rank | Draft Position | Player, Team, Position | % BELOW Projections |
| 1 | 52 | Yu Darvish SD, SP | – 36.2% |
| 2 | 18 | Sandy Alcantara Mia, SP | – 31.4% |
| 3-tie | 55 | Cristian Javier Hou, SP | – 25.1% |
| 3-tie | 79 | Triston Casas Bos, 1B | – 25.1% |
| 5 | 2 | Corbin Burnes Mil, SP | – 24.8% |
| 6 | 9 | Max Scherzer NYM, SP | – 24.7% |
| 7 | 17 | Manny Machado SD, 3B | – 24.5% |
| 8 | 36 | Dylan Cease ChW, SP | – 23.1% |
| 9 | 68 | MJ Melendez KC, C, OF | – 22.4% |
| 10 | 70 | Jose Abreu Hou, 1B | – 21.1% |
Players Who Met Expectations (Almost Exactly)
The final thing I found of interest were those players who almost perfectly matched their preseason projections. Who are these marvels of consistency, or if not consistency, at least predictability? These may be the types of players you would like to draft again next year. It’s good to have a core of draftees you can rely on for a steady level of production. My criteria for this category was anyone within 2% of their projections which resulted in seven players making the list.
And the MOST CLOSELY MATCHED EXPECTATIONS award goes to outfielder Kyle Tucker of the Houston Astros (drafted 16th) who was as close to perfect as you can get by missing his up-to-the-all-star-break projections by a single point, a difference of just 0.4%.
There were a couple of surprises on the list, one being Matt Chapman of the Blue Jays who widely out-performed expectations for the first 6 weeks or so of the season (and appeared to be heading toward an MVP caliber year) only to drop back to earth in the ensuing weeks. But, overall he very closely met expectations. Teoscar Hernandez was the opposite; starting out very cool at the plate and ramping up production more recently. At first I was also surprised to see Fernando Tatis Jr. on this list since he missed the first 3 weeks due to a suspension; however, since that was known in advance of the season his projections would have been adjusted accordingly.
| Rank | Draft Position | Player, Team, Position | CLOSEST % to Projections (0.0% = met projections perfectly) |
| 1 | 16 | Kyle Tucker Hou, RF | – 0.4% |
| 2 | 88 | Teoscar Hernandez Sea, RF | – 0.8% |
| 3-tie | 56 | George Springer Tor, CF | – 0.9% |
| 3-tie | 19 | Rafael Devers Bos, 3B | – 0.9% |
| 5 | 35 | Fernando Tatis Jr. SD, SS | – 1.3% |
| 6 | 93 | Matt Chapman Tor, 3B | + 1.7% |
| 7 | 17 | Bobby Witt Jr. KC, SS | + 2.0% |
There were a number of players who nearly made the matched expectations list, in fact, if the criteria were expanded to include players who were within 3% (rather than just 2%) of expected production you’d see: Will Smith, LAD, C (- 2.3%); Anthony Santander, Bal, OF (+ 2.6%); Steven Kwan, Cle, OF (+ 2.7%); Shane McClanahan, TB, SP (- 2.7%); and Bo Bichette, Tor, SS (- 2.9%).
Summary
So there you have it, the studs and duds (so far) for the 2023 MLB season based on fantasy baseball points-league statistics. I may revisit this again at the end of the season and possibly include the full draft list in the analysis. Enjoy the All-Star Game and good luck to you in fantasy baseball!
Interesting analysis! My team managed 2 studs and 0 duds. Not entirely skill – Burnes and Javier were on my “like” list, but others scooped them up before me.