2020 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Buy or sell last-minute ADP trends
Heading into the final week of draft season, Chris Towers breaks down whether you should buy or sell recent changes in draft price.
By
Chris Towers
•
2 min read
This bizarre MLB offseason is finally drawing to a close, which means, at long last, it's time to draft your Fantasy team. But it's worth remembering how we got here: CBS Fantasy went into Draft Prep mode back in January like normal, only we had no season by mid-March. That meant drafts stopped for three months, enough time to pretty dramatically change the landscape for Fantasy even without accounting for the weirdness of a 60-game schedule.
The effect of this is that the overwhelming majority of drafts are schedule to take place between Saturday and Wednesday before Opening Day, which makes Average Draft Position data sort of tricky to figure out. We've had plenty of drafts in recent days, which is enough to shift plenty of players are around, but with guys being taken off and added to the IL regularly, there hasn't exactly been a lot of stability. Last week, concerns about Aaron Nola's availability say him falling to the sixth or even seventh round range at times, but nobody's going to let him fall past pick 55 or so now.
So, the goal here isn't just to study ADP changes, but to also try to see if those trends should continue over the next week or if you should ignore them. I've got the 15 biggest risers and fallers in ADP among the top-200 picks in CBS Fantasy leagues right here, but I'm also diving into some of the players moving in either direction to tell you whether the rise or fall is deserved and how you should approach them in your draft. Being ahead of the curve on these players could be what separates your team from the also-rans.
Biggest ADP Risers
| RANK | PLAYER | TREND | AVERAGE PICK |
| 1 | James Paxton SP NYY | +10 | 126.13 |
| 2 | Kyle Schwarber LF CHC | +10 | 131.59 |
| 3 | Paul Goldschmidt 1B STL | +9 | 83.2 |
| 4 | Joc Pederson LF LAD | +9 | 180.97 |
| 5 | Starlin Castro 2B WAS | +8 | 151.51 |
| 6 | Eugenio Suarez 3B CIN | +7 | 108.39 |
| 7 | Willie Calhoun LF TEX | +7 | 139.18 |
| 8 | David Peralta LF ARI | +7 | 164.03 |
| 9 | Yadier Molina C STL | +7 | 182.38 |
| 10 | Jon Lester SP CHC | +6 | 162.22 |
| 11 | Mike Clevinger SP CLE | +5 | 42.38 |
| 12 | Carlos Carrasco SP CLE | +5 | 98.06 |
| 13 | Omar Narvaez C MIL | +5 | 184.85 |
| 14 | Fernando Tatis SS SD | +4 | 52.44 |
| 15 | Michael Conforto RF NYM | +4 | 138.37 |
Buy or Sell: Risers
Projections powered by
Sportsline
BUY. Verlander's ADP has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride since the spring, when he was a borderline first-rounder before suffering a lat injury during spring training and then undergoing groin surgery after play was shut down. Two spots isn't a huge jump, obviously, but when you're talking about the top of the draft board, it starts to matter quite a bit. Verlander remains a risk, but he also remains one with the biggest of rewards possible — he was the No. 1 pitcher in both Roto and H2H formats. If you're going to take the risk, he's as good as any.
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BUY. Like Verlander, Clevinger is continuing to get pushed up after recovering from surgery, in his case to his knee. Clevinger was the third-best starter in H2H points on a per-game basis in 2019, so there's plenty of upside here. I don't love Clevinger quite as much for 2020 as the rest of the industry, but he still deserves to go higher than this. Don't expect you'll be able to wait this long to grab him this weekend.
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HOLD. I don't see why Carrasco's value would be rising right now, but I'm fine with it. He's going to be in the rotation, but that was always true. In a H2H points league, he's one of the few SPARPs who might be able to make a significant difference for your team, given that he's one of the few who has proven he can handle a full workload. Carrasco already threw five innings in a recent intrasquad game, so he's about ready to go. He's not someone I reach for regularly, but I'm happy to have him if he falls. I guess this might be evidence that he's unlikely to fall anymore.
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SELL. Goldschmidt probably won't be a bad pick in the seventh round range, but I'm not sure there's much potential for profit either. He's a big name, one who was a first-rounder as recently as last season, but he's also clearly on the downswing of his career. Now that he doesn't run and isn't a .300 hitter, Goldschmidt is in that range of first basemen with Jose Abreu where you're paying for past production at a point where the bottom might drop out. I'd rather take Josh Bell in the same range, or just wait for Luke Voit, who should match Goldschmidt's production at a fraction of the cost.
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BUY. This is not nearly enough yet. He's the No. 42 starter off the board in CBS Sports leagues right now, behind the likes of Masahiro Tanaka and Eduardo Rodriguez, but we all know Paxton is better than that. Sure, his first year in Yankee pinstripes wasn't great, and yes, he's a significant injury risk. He's also an elite source of strikeouts who should have an excellent WHIP and mid-3.00s ERA. With no health concerns, he's a top-20 pitcher, and Paxton's healthy right now.
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Biggest ADP Fallers
| RANK | PLAYER | TREND | AVERAGE PICK |
| 200 | Masahiro Tanaka SP NYY | -8 | 116.84 |
| 199 | Mike Tauchman LF NYY | -8 | 141.03 |
| 198 | Lourdes Gurriel LF TOR | -8 | 167.72 |
| 197 | Zack Wheeler SP PHI | -7 | 58.33 |
| 196 | Jesus Luzardo RP OAK | -6 | 133.54 |
| 195 | Dylan Bundy SP LAA | -6 | 153.54 |
| 194 | Yoan Moncada 3B CHW | -5 | 86.05 |
| 193 | Jose Urquidy SP HOU | -5 | 131.96 |
| 192 | Cavan Biggio 2B TOR | -5 | 140.56 |
| 191 | Jon Gray SP COL | -5 | 166.55 |
| 190 | DJ LeMahieu 2B NYY | -4 | 45.93 |
| 189 | Tommy La Stella 2B LAA | -4 | 134.15 |
| 188 | Zac Gallen SP ARI | -4 | 135.01 |
| 187 | Mark Canha CF OAK | -4 | 154.39 |
| 186 | Nick Anderson RP TB | -4 | 164.17 |
Buy or Sell: Fallers
Projections powered by
Sportsline
BUY. He needs to fall more, in fact. Buehler won't be fully stretched out by the start of the season, as he just threw two innings in Friday's intrasquad game. He didn't throw much during the layoff in coordination with the Dodgers wishes, so he might only be ready to throw a few innings during his first few starts. It will be tough to trust Buehler early on, and if it takes him a few starts to get to the point where he's throwing 90-plus pitches, you've wasted a significant portion of the season. He needs to move behind the likes of Jack Flaherty and Shane Bieber in light of this.
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SELL. A resounding "SELL." A "SELL" that I scream from the top of a mountain. There's simply no justification for Ramirez going this late in either Roto or H2H points leagues. In fact, there's a better case for him as a first-rounder in both formats than that he should be moving to the back of the second. If he's there at the turn when it's your turn, congratulations: You just got two first-rounders.
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BUY. I added Luzardo to my list of busts at the last minute, because I have serious concerns about what he'll be able to give you early in the season. Remember, Luzardo missed most of the 2019 season with a shoulder injury and has made just 43 starts since going pro in 2016 — only two of which were longer than six innings. Luzardo returned to the team Friday after testing negative for COVID-19 twice, giving him just a week before the season opener to get ready, so the A's are sure to be careful with his workload early on. This is a pitcher who has thrown more than 85 pitches in a game just once, and they've already talked about working him in as a reliever initially. There were questions about how deep into games Luzardo would pitch even before this delay. Add it up, and while he's not a bad lotto ticket at this price, I'm going to pass.
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HOLD. It sounds like Dusty Baker is leaning toward starting Josh Redick as his primary right fielder, and with DH covered by Yordan Alvarez, there's no obvious fit for Tucker in the lineup on an everyday basis. Except, Alvarez is on the IL with an undisclosed illness and hasn't reported to camp, putting his status for Opening Day in doubt. That could open the door for Tucker to get everyday at-bats to start, and when it comes to a player as talented as Tucker, a foot in the door is sometimes all you need to force the thing wide open. I wouldn't draft Tucker expecting him to be a starter, but the all-around skill set is worth taking that chance on.
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