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Jon Anderson checks NFBC ADP data to see which players were the biggest risers and fallers in February fantasy baseball drafts.
The fine people over at NFBC have really put together an awesome fantasy sports product. You can participate in fantasy drafts all year long, and the platform is just great.
One of the coolest things they do is keep detailed ADP data. You can even select custom date ranges to limit the drafts you want to search. I thought it would be interesting to do just that.
I went back in time and exported the ADP data from just drafts that finished up in December and January, and then compare those figures with drafts that were completed in February. Let's take a look at some risers and fallers.
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February Risers
Inside the top-50
| Player | Dec-Jan | February | Diff |
| Pete Alonso | 56.6 | 48.6 | -8.1 |
| J.T. Realmuto | 52.2 | 47.6 | -4.6 |
| Tim Anderson | 34.9 | 32.0 | -2.9 |
| Ronald Acuna Jr. | 12.1 | 9.3 | -2.8 |
| Rafael Devers | 17.3 | 14.8 | -2.4 |
| Yordan Alvarez | 30.4 | 28.1 | -2.3 |
| Aaron Judge | 38.4 | 36.2 | -2.2 |
Outside of Realmuto (catcher bump), Tim Anderson (steals bump), and Ronald Acuna (possibly delayed season bump), we see some of the biggest power bats in the league gravitating upwards a bit. I think this may be driven by the speculation over the changed baseball. Scott White over at CBS wrote this great piece about how the deadened baseball brought power numbers down in an uneven way.
The guys without eye-popping exit velocity numbers suffered the most. That piece alone, along with other Twitter discussions about the topic, may have pushed these huge power bats like Alonso, Devers, Alvarez, and Judge upwards a bit.
Inside the top-100
| Player | Dec-Jan | February | Diff |
| Byron Buxton | 61.3 | 53.4 | -7.9 |
| Jorge Polanco | 82.0 | 75.2 | -7.0 |
| Jonathan India | 92.8 | 86.3 | -7.0 |
| Brandon Lowe | 78.3 | 72.6 | -6.8 |
| Javier Baez | 63.5 | 58.6 | -6.5 |
| Daulton Varsho | 94.4 | 89.5 | -5.7 |
As far as we know, Byron Buxton did not pull a hamstring yet this year, so he has been moving upwards as people more and more want to get ahold of that massive upside.
Other notes:
- Maybe some more people have taken a look at how good Jorge Polanco was in 2021 because he is on the way up.
- We saw some pretty cheap prices on India early on, but that has corrected a bit. I imagine he continues to trend upwards as more non-expert leagues draft, just giving him that Rookie of the Year bump.
- Catcher bump for Varsho! Lots of smart people have been talking him up as a great fantasy option this year, and he's gotten a bit expensive because of it.
Overall
| Player | Dec-Jan | February | Diff |
| Trevor Bauer | 311.2 | 218.0 | -93.2 |
| Stephen Strasburg | 319.4 | 292.9 | -26.5 |
| Rowdy Tellez | 328.0 | 304.1 | -23.9 |
| MJ Melendez | 400.4 | 380.7 | -19.7 |
| Seiya Suzuki | 216.6 | 197.8 | -18.8 |
| Mitch Garver | 195.2 | 177.5 | -17.7 |
| Jake McGee | 289.8 | 272.2 | -17.6 |
| Kyle Finnegan | 403.9 | 387.0 | -16.9 |
| Eugenio Suarez | 202.8 | 187.8 | -15.0 |
The "Bauer Bend" is real.
The news came out in early February that he will be avoiding any legal trouble, and now the question goes to if Major League Baseball will institute some sort of punishment. There is still plenty of risks here about his 2022 status, but you see the pivot that fantasy managers made on him after that news broke.
Other notes:
- There may be a bit more optimism about Strasburg's health as he's entered the top-300.
- Then we have some more of those raw power bats like Rowdy Tellez, Mitch Garver, and Eugenio Suarez moving up a bit - they are strong options for late dingers are tougher-to-fill positions.
- Seiya Suzuki will certainly move up even more when he lands on a team, but he's already starting to see some helium.
Other notable risers: Marcell Ozuna (-14.3), Josh Donaldson (-14.6), Corey Kluber (-13.6), Elias Diaz (-13.0), Carlos Carrasco (-12.7), Joey Gallo (-12.0)
February Fallers
Inside the top-50
| Player | Dec-Jan | February | Diff |
| Sandy Alcantara | 38.8 | 44.5 | 5.7 |
| Lucas Giolito | 42.1 | 46.8 | 4.7 |
| Cedric Mullins | 31.5 | 35.3 | 3.8 |
| Marcus Semien | 35.5 | 39.1 | 3.6 |
| Walker Buehler | 16.1 | 19.4 | 3.3 |
| Brandon Woodruff | 18.9 | 22.1 | 3.2 |
| Max Scherzer | 17.8 | 20.9 | 3.1 |
| Shane Bieber | 31.3 | 34.3 | 3.0 |
- Holy pitchers! Drafters have discovered the strength of the middle-tiers of starting pitchers and have started to back off the back-end ace tier.
- Lots of people may have looked more into the power peripheral numbers of Mullins and Semien, who seemed to overperform in homers last year - they are headed slightly downwards.
Inside the top-100
| Player | Dec-Jan | February | Diff |
| Luis Castillo | 84.7 | 96.5 | 11.8 |
| Logan Webb | 60.6 | 70.9 | 10.3 |
| Jack Flaherty | 73.0 | 81.6 | 8.6 |
| Lance Lynn | 63.9 | 71.0 | 7.1 |
| Kevin Gausman | 66.4 | 73.2 | 6.8 |
| Chris Sale | 55.2 | 62.0 | 6.8 |
| Frankie Montas | 88.3 | 94.3 | 6.0 |
| Robbie Ray | 47.6 | 52.5 | 4.9 |
| Kenley Jansen | 91.2 | 96.0 | 4.8 |
- More pitchers moving downwards, that's a very interesting trend to see. It could be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy as well just because as pitchers move down, managers have less urgency to draft them since they see so many of the really good arms still available.
- There may be less and less confidence that Kenley Jansen ends up back with the Dodgers. You would think he would be the closer wherever he lands, but if you are leaving the Dodgers for another team, you're almost certainly downgrading in projected saves opportunities.
Overall
| Player | Dec-Jan | February | Diff |
| Ken Giles | 280.8 | 329.3 | 48.5 |
| Josh Jung | 279.0 | 325.5 | 46.5 |
| J.P. Crawford | 331.7 | 364.5 | 32.8 |
| Hunter Dozier | 355.2 | 387.5 | 32.2 |
| Jacob Stallings | 355.6 | 385.1 | 29.5 |
| Pavin Smith | 369.1 | 396.9 | 27.9 |
| Michael Fulmer | 356.7 | 383.9 | 27.1 |
| Sixto Sanchez | 342.2 | 367.2 | 25.0 |
| Brandon Marsh | 372.1 | 396.7 | 24.6 |
| Vidal Brujan | 334.1 | 358.7 | 24.5 |
| James Kaprielian | 342.7 | 367.1 | 24.4 |
| Adam Frazier | 323.0 | 346.4 | 23.4 |
| Randal Grichuk | 364.6 | 386.9 | 22.3 |
| Andrew McCutchen | 360.3 | 361.6 | 21.4 |
| Anthony Santander | 254.4 | 275.5 | 21.2 |
| Adbert Alzolay | 341.1 | 362.1 | 21.0 |
| Ha-Seong Kim | 371.6 | 391.8 | 20.2 |
| Eric Hosmer | 361.0 | 381.1 | 20.1 |
- That Mariners bullpen is super crowded, and that has sent confidence in Ken Giles downwards.
- The very unfortunate news about the injury to Josh Jung has made him pretty much undraftable in redraft leagues, so don't make that mistake!
- Lots of other fringe-starters on the list, these are mostly guys that could get bumped out of playing time if their team signs one of the many remaining free agents.
Other notable fallers: Danny Jansen (17.8), Devin Williams (17.6), Pablo Lopez (17.5), Matt Barnes (15.8), Camilo Doval (13.8), Andrew Vaughn (12.9)
Thanks for checking out the post, hope you enjoyed it!
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