I fell off the map with the site transition, but I'm back for some offseason advice. BTW, is there a keeper or one-year league for this thread/board? I imagine that it may already be filled, but if not, I may be interested in participating this year if there's a spot available.
I am facing a decision about which final two spots to use for keepers, if at all -- my league is somewhat unusual, with the stats being basically slanted towards WAR in real life, but not totally: so for pitchers, Wins are meaningless, Ks extremely important, HRs pretty bad (but over-comeable with good Ks), while for batters, RBIs and Runs don't count. It's a H2H points league, so no specific stat is make or break, and the idea is to try and generally tilt towards a sabre-friendly view of the sport.
We run a fairly big roster, with all the specific fielding positions (including dedicated LF, RF, and CF), two Utils, and 5 SPs and 5 RPs, with 5 bench spots that are often occupied by 4 or 5 SPs, so pitching is usually at a premium (we have everyday lineup changes, so you can get a ton of starts per week if you stack your roster and stream spots etc).
Teams are ranging from 245 to 300 in re-draft cash. I have 280, and several teams are right around me. I'm pretty set with 8 keepers: Goldy (32), Marte (11), C. Seager (7), Benintendi (6), Hoskins (7), Taillon (5), Keuchel (11), Carrasco (16). Here are my remaining options:
Polanco (7)
Cobb (11)
T. Williams (3)
Faria (5)
Nelson (4)
Rivero (2)
Obviously, it's plain as day that I'm a Pirates fan. I am pretty sure there's no reason to gamble on Polanco at that price -- the one thing that's still making me consider him beyond homerism is that he's a RF, and I have none, and they tend to be harder to come by for some reason.
I think it makes sense to take two of the pitchers, and have an even balance of 5 position and 5 pitchers as my starting point for the re-draft. I like Cobb, but I think 11 may be a bit too steep for him; it would help to know where he's going to sign.
Faria is probably the best out of the group, and right now, I am actually leaning towards Faria and Rivero. My reasoning is that RPs tend to get overpaid and recycled every year in the draft, and given my other options, nothing else is jumping out at me. Rivero probably gets 18-25 in the draft, maybe a hair less, so it's a pretty substantial bargain and I have to fill those spots anyways.
Nelson seems like a great stash, but he can probably be had for around the same in the draft, or on the waiver wire. T. Williams is an extremely underrated pitcher IMO, but I don't think he's got the upside to be a sure-fire keeper. There is also the option of just keeping one player, but given that they're useful in some capacity, I'd rather just spend a little less now since the average salary comes out to around 13.
So I guess my best options are really Cobb, Faria, and Rivero? Sorry for the long post- wrote it partly to process myself, but wanted to give a sense for my situation, and we're in the dead zone of an ice cold hot stove anyways...