Is Mike Trout The Best Fantasy Baseball Value Ever?

[Greg Ambrosius]

I know we can all look back over the past three decades and find all kinds of values that were so phenomenal you couldn't believe it. Heck, we don't even have to go back decades to find one of the best fantasy values ever as Jose Bautista was a 29th round pick in the NFBC in 2010 and then went on to lead the majors with 54 homers while driving in 124 runs and scoring 109 runs. Now THAT'S VALUE.

Again, we can go back and find all kinds of value picks through the years, but is there a greater fantasy value pick than Mike Trout in 2012? Yes, he was drafted in just about every NFBC league last year and his ADP in all of our leagues was 282. In the Main Events from late March, he was going pretty regularly in the 20th, 21st and 22nd rounds. That means over 300 in many cases. Now he's arguably a choice for the No. 1 overall pick in 2012.

Have we ever seen a greater rise in one season than that? Bautista ranks right up there, but he wasn't No. 1 overall. And he wasn't 21 years old. Outside of Doc Gooden's incredible rookie season or Fred Lynn's incredible season of 1975 before there was fantasy baseball, I can't ever remember a rookie with this big of an impact before. And Mike Trout might just go down in history as having the greatest fantasy baseball value ever.

What's your thoughts on that last statement? I'd love to hear them.

Interestingly, you'd think that most league champions this year made it to the top because they have the best fantasy value ever. If you got Mike Trout in the 21st round, shouldn't you be leading your league and maybe the overall competition? Well, not necessarily. And surprisingly, few league champions actually have Trout on their rosters.

In looking at the Top 20 in the overall standings for the Main Event as of yesterday, only THREE teams had Trout on their rosters. They included the 4th, 5th and 9th overall teams. That was it. I thought for sure the number would be much, much higher, wouldn't you?

Once we have the league champions, I'll dig a little deeper into how many teams had him. We can even calculate just his Main Event ADP for you.

Then comes the interesting projection: Where do you think he will go on Draft Day 2013? Does he go No. 1 overall, ahead of Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera and Matt Kemp? Should be a fun, fun top of the order in 2013, as it always is. Let us know where you think he will go on Draft Day and let's see how it plays out in a few short weeks.

[Greg Ambrosius]

I don't think there's any question that Mike Trout was the best value of 2012 in the NFBC. In fact, you'd expect most teams that won their league title or finished high in the overall standings to have Trout on their teams, right? I mean, he HAD to be the difference maker in 2012, right?

Well, in fantasy baseball it takes much more than just one big sleeper to win it all for you. And in fact, Trout WASN'T the over-riding factor in teams' successes this year. I'll go through each Main Event league to see how many title winning teams had him on their roster and post that here soon, but here's one interesting fact already:

Of The Top 20 teams in the NFBC Main Event Overall Standings, ONLY 3 had Mike Trout on their rosters and they finished 3rd, 7th and 8th overall. Great, great job all, but I definitely would have expected more Top 20 teams to have Trout on their rosters. Pretty surprising.

Those teams drafted Trout:
Round 21, 2nd pick
Round 22, 1st pick
Round 19, 9th pick

[Greg Ambrosius]

WOW!!! Surprisingly only 7 of 28 NFBC Main Event league champions had Mike Trout on their roster in 2012. That's only 25% of all league champs. Very surprising to me.

It didn't matter what draft spot you had in 2012, EVERYONE had plenty of shots to draft Mike Trout. He went earlier than the 19th round once and as late as the 26th round. On average he went in the 20th round. Here's a look at each Main Event league and where he went in each league, just to remind you of what you could have had!! Also, the league champions are designated who had Trout:

League - Round That Trout Was Drafted - Champion Had Trout (Yes)
Chicago 1 - Round 25, Pick 3 (Yes, Chris Cosley)
Chicago 2 - Round 23, Pick 1
Las Vegas 1 (3/24) - Round 21, Pick 4
Las Vegas 2 - Round 22, Pick 2 (Yes, Chris Beeler)
Las Vegas 3 - Round 21, Pick 3
Las Vegas 1 (3/31) - Round 20, Pick 3
Las Vegas 2 - Round 19, Pick 7
Las Vegas 3 - Round 21, Pick 2
Las Vegas 4 - Round 20, Pick 6 (Yes, Gregory Glukhovsky)
Las Vegas 5 - Round 22, Pick 1 (Yes, Nic Cassavetes)
Las Vegas 6 - Round 20, Pick 1
Mahwah 1 - Round 20, Pick 2
Mahwah 2 - Round 14, Pick 15
New York 1 - Round 21, Pick 11
New York 2 - Round 21, Pick 2 (Yes, Anthony Palavis)
New York 3 - Round 21, Pick 13
New York 4 - Round 20, Pick 3
New York 5 - Round 19, Pick 5
Online 1 (3/24) - Round 17, Pick 10
Online 2 - Round 19, Pick 7 (Yes, Kevin Kirves)
Online 3 - Round 19, Pick 3 (Yes, Greg Headrick)
Online 4 - Round 24, Pick 7
Online 1 (3/31) - Round 19, Pick 4
Online 2 - Round 22, Pick 11
Online 3 - Round 22, Pick 4
Online 4 - Round 24, Pick 5
Online 5 - Round 26, Pick 3
St. Louis - Round 23, Pick 13

[Greg Ambrosius]

Trout's ADP in the NFBC Main Events (28 in all) was 304.

His ADP in the First Weekend drafts was 292.

His ADP in the Second Weekend drafts was 311.

Pretty cool data.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Another interesting note....
Although Greg Headrick did indeed draft Trout and win the Online three league, he was dropped early and picked up by another team.
Guess you can say he hooked the league, despite letting the big Trout get away.
Which is probably a larger achievement.
Still, I'll bet he wonders how far he could have gotten in the overall with Trout's help.

[Greg Ambrosius]

It's even more interesting to look at Trout's value in a 12-team league because again you would think that one big sleeper pick like that could carry the day. However, only 6 of 21 NFBC XII teams drafted Trout (29%), which is just slightly ahead of the 25% in the Main Event. Also, those teams that drafted him and won a league title really didn't jump on him any earlier than any other league. It's as if very few owners were targeting him this year and probably rightly so with the Angels saying that he was headed to the minors for much of the season.

Anyway, Trout's ADP in the NFBC XII was 307

Owners who drafted him in the NFBC XII and won their league title took him on average at 301. In the NFBC Main Event the league champions who drafted him also jumped him only slightly, with an ADP of 306.

Trout wasn't even drafted in one NFBC XII league and he went as low as 30th round in one league and as high as 18th in another league (way to go Gators!!).

Here's a look at each NFBC XII league just so you can beat yourselves up for not taking him earlier:

Online April 4th, 2 pm: Round 25, Pick 10
Chicago: Round 29, Pick 10 (champion Matthew Anderson/Richard Kulaski took him)
Las Vegas April 1 10 am: Round 27, Pick 3 (champion Matthew Shepherd)
Las Vegas March 30, 1 pm: Round 29, Pick 2 (champion Rick Thomas)
Las Vegas March 30, 10 am: Round 28, Pick 9
Las Vegas March 30, 4 pm: Round 26, Pick 5
Las Vegas March 30, 4 pm League 2: Round 28, PIck 10
Las Vegas March 31, 4 pm: Round 25, Pick 12
Las Vegas-Mahwah: Round 25, Pick 9 (champion Shawn Childs)
Las Vegas-Online: Round 23, Pick 2
Las Vegas-St. Louis: Round 26, Pick 12
Mahwah-St. Louis: Round 20, Pick 3
Online March 27: Round 25, Pick 9 (champion Kyle Brinkmann)
New York April 1: Round 23, Pick 6
New York March 31: Round 25, Pick 11
Online April 1: Round 28, Pick 4
Online April 3, 7 pm: Not Drafted
Online, April 3, 7 pm League 2: Round 30, Pick 8
Online March 23: Round 18, Pick 11 (champion Marc Meltzer)
Online March 30: Round 28, Pick 5
Online March 31: Round 26, Pick 8

[TParsons]

Another interesting note....
Although Greg Headrick did indeed draft Trout and win the Online three league, he was dropped early and picked up by another team.
Guess you can say he hooked the league, despite letting the big Trout get away.
Which is probably a larger achievement.
Still, I'll bet he wonders how far he could have gotten in the overall with Trout's help.

I can't let Greg be the fall guy for the dumbest move in fantasy this year ( or in history?). This was my doing. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I did it.

Great year, Dan. It was a dogfight for the second year in a row.

[DOUGHBOYS]

You're a heckuva player.
Get in a different league next year!

[Greg Ambrosius]

I know this is probably an odd correlation, but ever since Mike Trout started taking Major League Baseball by storm he reminded me of Fred Lynn in 1975. I remember that season well because the Red Sox became this powerful team behind Lynn and Jim Rice. Lynn went on to win the AL Rookie of the Year Award, the AL MVP Award, was an All-Star in 1975, a Gold Glove winner and almost a batting champion at the age of 23. He finished second in the AL with a .331 average, hit 21 homers, drove in 105 runs, led the AL with 103 runs scored, stole 10 bases and led the AL in doubles (47), slugging percentage (.566) and OPS (.967). He was just this pure hitter who was also so fluid in center field. Had fantasy baseball been around back then, he would have been a great Draft Day bargain (he would have likely been drafted higher than Trout after hitting .419-2-10 in a 15-game September audition) and a Top 5 pick in 1976.

So how did Lynn fare during his Sophomore Season? In almost as many at-bats, Lynn hit .314-10-65-14 with 76 runs. He didn't really have a bustout season again until 1979 when he hit .333-39-122-2-116 and then hit above .300 only once after that and never topped 25 HRs or 90 RBIs again. Pretty amazing.

I'm not saying that Trout will go down Fred Lynn's career path, but I've never seen anyone have this big of an impact so quickly outside of Lynn and Doc Gooden. I chose to look up Lynn's Sophomore Season because it gave me some insight into what Trout faces next year. It can't be easy the second time around, it just can't be. But maybe Trout is more capable of handling the spotlight and in a lineup with so many weapons. We'll see.

And with Cam Newton struggling so badly for fantasy owners who took him in the Top 20 overall this year, it just scares me to see the ype again for a young player. But again, maybe Trout will prove history wrong. Do you think he will?

[BK METS]

Maybe I am biased, but I still think RA Dickey is as much of a value pick. The guy nearly won the quadrupal crown in pitching (1st in Ks, 2nd in wins, 2nd in ERA, 3rd in WHIP) and was undrafted in 24 main event leagues and had an ADP of 325. At worst, he would be a close second.

[NorCalAtlFan]

not even close.

great year for dickey, but your fandom is clouding your judgement.

[ChiScottieBaseball]

Where does everyone think Trout goes in next year's drafts? I'm thinking No. 1 or 2!

[Gekko]

no lower than 3. if he is killn it in spring training, he will be #1 in most drafts.

[bjoak]

In terms of value, Trout was the #1 fantasy player this year, but Dickey was not far behind at #4. That said, in terms of round value, pitchers aren't taken that early, so it would be easier to find the type of value Dickey provides in a draft. Also, Trout was the #1 player going away, so even though Dickey is #4, he'd still earn you more than a hundred less points in the overall. And that's not even considering you would have fattened up his stats by playing someone in his stead while he wasn't around in April.