Rank these Prospects for 2020 and then beyond.

[Gregg]

How would you rank these prospects in a 5x5 AL only OBP instead of ave. 12 team.

The salaries are what they will be when activated.

Luis Robert 15F, Joe Adell 15F, Alex Kirilloff 2F.

[Sour Masher]

I am not good with Only league salaries, so this is tough--I'm not sure how much to boost Krilloff for the $13 savings. Preseason, Robert would have been last, but he had by far the best season of the three and is ready now. The other two could use a bit more time in the minors. Long term, I would still put my money on Adell, but I like all these guys a lot. I don't think you can go wrong picking any of them.

That said, with an eye toward 2020 first, and beyond second, I'd go Robert, Adell, Kirilloff. That is not a slight to Kirilloff, who I think still has a show at being a Joey Votto-level stud, but he took a step back this year, and seems the farthest from realizing his potential.

[Gregg]

I own Adell and Kirilloff and would like to trade for Robert. He is owned by a Sox fan and will be very expensive if not impossible to get.

I beat out the Robert owner in dump days to acquire Kirilloff. I am wondering if I offered Kirilloff and my first round reserve pick (7th overall) for Robert if he might bite.

I posted to try to gauge the temperature of these three first to see if I really want to offer the trade and second if it would be a good offer.

[Roy Hobbs]

Adell

[Judge Jude]

how did stud prospects wind up at 15 units - and is that considered a feature, or a bug?

[Ken]

how did stud prospects wind up at 15 units - and is that considered a feature, or a bug?

That's a very typical 1st round reserve draft price.

That's actually the number I would normally expect to see in fantasy baseball for a stud prospect. I'd guess that's it's the norm in keeper leagues.

What exactly were you expecting to see??

[Judge Jude]

well, the norm for decades was 10 units for both farmhand selections and for in-season free agent pickups.

my league about 15 years ago went to 5 units for pitching prospects because so many washed out.
then a decade ago, we pivoted again so that all farmhands are now 5-S2 until losing rookie status (I didn't vote for that, but here we are. it boosts inflation, of course).

how many rookies actually earn $15? I mean, Vlad Guerrero didn't even earn that this year.

that's why I'm a bit confused by the high pricing. if it's supposed to discourage choosing minor leaguers in the reserve rounds (which itself if a newer wrinkle), why not make the price even higher? and if not, why $15?

[The Dane]

I have a league that also uses $15 for the first round salaries. It's an NL-only, so players that have no team can get picked up there. Last year, it was Kimbrel. A couple of years ago, it was Arrieta. It's also where toop hitting prospects go, especially if they look to get a lot of ABs. Kris Bryant was taken there. Alonso surely would have been had I not taken him in the 9th round a couple of years ago. These players SHOULD have a higher salary than some schulb. What this also does is make the bottom half of the first round a bit of a crapshoot. I rarely have picks down there, because I find this part of the draft too goofy, but when I get one, I often try to grab a minor league starter that will get opportunities this year and has high upside. Last year, it was Toussaint. He would have certainly gone in the next couple of $10 rounds for someone hoping to hold onto him, but I figured if he reached his upside, he'd be worth keeping at $15, and if he didn't, at least he'd be a guy. It didn't pan out, but the strategy is solid. I threw him back at $15, and his lousy season probably drops him into post-hype sleeper range.

This league takes top-rung minor-leaguers in the 2nd and 3rd rounds ($10 rounds) and guys further out in the 7th and 8th rounds (the first $5 rounds). I guess the thinking is, as Judge Jude states, the point is to discourage owners from taking prospects too early. It works, in my experience.

[Judge Jude]

The Dane,
I think our leagues are fairly similar overall - these wrinkles aside.

Toussaint has some promise, but a year ago could you really imagine him being worth keeping for 15 bucks in 2020?

some 2019 values results: LCastillo 19, Corbin 18, Paddack 17, Hendricks 15, Bumgarner 12.

hitters, 2019: Eaton 18, Conforto 18, Goldschmidt 17, Muncy 17, Machado 16....

[The Dane]

The Dane,
Toussaint has some promise, but a year ago could you really imagine him being worth keeping for 15 bucks in 2020?

Likely not, but looking at the 25 man rosters (we cut down from 40 to 25 just after the regular-season ends, then to 15 before the auction), only two players drafted in the first round were protected: Kimbrel and Keuchel, both $15 no-brainers, and the first two picks. Just for comparison, 10 of the 12 second rounders were protected, and 11 of the 12 seventh rounders were protected. Bottom of the first round is a total crapshoot. In that context, a flier on Toussaint made sense. If he impresses, his upside is tremendous and if I didn't want to keep him at $15, he'd be easy to trade at that price. We have daily transactions and stream pitchers, so every starter is a prime commodity. Had he had a decent season, he'd have been worth close to that. So, if he's wonderful, great. If he sucks, I can toss him back with the rest of the first round. The only problem would have been if he sucked but showed flashes of brilliance late. Then, I'd have been tempted to take a chance. There were two gems in Kimbrel and Keuchel that were strokes of luck for the two guys with those picks. Everyone else ended up with exactly what got: bupkis.

some 2019 values results: LCastillo 19, Corbin 18, Paddack 17, Hendricks 15, Bumgarner 12.
hitters, 2019: Eaton 18, Conforto 18, Goldschmidt 17, Muncy 17, Machado 16....

This league also has a good deal of inflation, especially with SPs and top hitters.

This year, I have two picks in the second half of the first round. I'll be trading them to someone else who believes they can get something good there.

[Judge Jude]

well, yeah, that's my thinking - find rivals who think they can get value in those reservee picks by adding minor leaguers.

aside from the sui generis of Kuechel/Kimbrel - only one of whom worked out ok -this strikes me as fool's gold.

even at 5-S2 until after they lose their rookie eligibility, I find that my 2nd-round farm picks in April - no one in anyone's top 100 will be available - are fungible and will gladly trade them away to a dreamer...

[Gregg]

It is "free" money. Until last year we could only keep 3 prospects. But we could keep them at there drafted price until they were activated.

It is better to use that $15 first round pick on potential or perceived potential than a Tyler Duffy or Trevor Cahill. So all of the Top prospects are grabbed in our league. The reason that many of them are now $15 is that the league used to wait until the $5 round, then a couple of savvy owners inflated those when they started scarfing them in the $10 round. Soon it became apparent that if you wanted the top talent you better grab them in the first round.

The reason you see $5 or $10 rookie in today's economy is that they were taken years ago when they first appeared on someone's list. In my case I drafted Kirilloff in the $2 round about 3 years ago. I ended up trading him to make a 2017 run. I traded back for him last year when I dumped. He was one of my 3 keeps over a few years.

I would be shocked if there were more than a couple of names that are available on anyone's top 100 list. That is why last year I traded away my #1 pick for a keeper. I may do so this year as well.

That is how we came to my question of how you rank Adell , Kirilloff, and Robert. Thinking about offering Kirilloff and my #1 (seventh overall) for Robert.

In the meantime I have been offered a $27A Tim Anderson and pick 1.11 for Kirilloff.

[Gregg]

That is how we came to my question of how you rank Adell , Kirilloff, and Robert. Thinking about offering Kirilloff and my #1 (seventh overall) for Robert.

In the meantime I have been offered a $27A Tim Anderson and pick 1.11 for Kirilloff.

Anyone else care to give an opinion?

[Big Tymer]

Adell > Robert > Kirilloff is how I see it. I own Adell and Kirilloff in an AL and passed on Robert a few years back to take Lewis. Jury out on whether that was the right call but Adell to me is a future 5-Tool stud. I’ve had mixed success at best with Latin prospects so after many years I will always favor the domestic option all things behind equal

[cleo]

I like Robert over Adell. I think Adell is still a few years off from MLB even with Calhoun's contract not getting picked up. Robert is going to be a top 25 roto pick by this time next year.