Sorare MLB Late Season Buys & Sells: Winter is Coming
The offseason looms, is your team prepared?
Hello (Ether)Sports fans! Before we get into things I wanted to first apologize. I had a product launch, well, launching these last few weeks so my ability to write, tweet, and generally think clearly about sports was sorely diminished. But never fear, we survived launch (perhaps even thrived?), and I am back at it with some more actionable intelligence on the Sorare MLB front.
This week I want to take you down the path of a new opportunity that is fast approaching. We are nearing the completion of the beta stage - the first half-season - of Sorare MLB and have learned a lot. As I pointed out in a previous article, the player acquisition market is not yet efficient in terms of cost compared to the predicted scoring value. This is true for many players and is already a cornerstone for how I evaluate buying and selling players. I aim to share that knowledge with you!
Today I want to take that reasoning another step further, and I will start by proposing this:
The closer we get to the end of the season, the more your ranks should factor in long-term player potential.
Put another way, with each passing Sorare game-week, I adjust my ranks to have a little bit more dynasty player value, and a little bit less redraft. I still end up focusing on plenty of players that are good in both formats, but I limit my chances of overpaying for someone who is good now but facing more long-term risk.
Let’s dig in.
Dynasty vs. Redraft - A Refresher
Just a quick primer here, there are two major ways to value fantasy baseball, or any sport for that matter, player value. These are commonly known as Dynasty and Redraft.
Dynasty is named for its intent, you are trying to build a roster of players that wins for years to come. A Dynasty. To do this, you will typically be acting on players based on a multi-year time horizon.
Redraft is the opposite. It is full-on What Have You Done For Me Lately. Yea, you just got Janet Jackson-ed.
Neither is right or wrong and in most fantasy sports circles a league is either one or the other - Dynasty or Redraft. Sorare is different in that it fuses the two based on NFT ownership and playability. You play to earn cards now, but your players can stay with you year in and year out until you decide to sell them, Sorare the company goes under, or the sun burns out. Of course, this fusion makes it much, much harder to balance the now against the someday.
Looking at player rankings can help illustrate this point.
Redraft Rest-of-Season Top 10
Below are the top 10 players based on fantasy value, not price, for the rest of the 2022 season.
Aaron Judge - OF/DH - NYY
Jose Ramirez - 3B - CLE
Trea Turner - SS - LAD
Mookie Betts - OF - LAD
Shohei Ohtani - SP/DH - LAA
Ronald Acuna Jr. - OF/DH - ATL
Juan Soto - OF - SD
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. - 1B - TOR
Freddie Freeman - 1B - LAD
Corbin Burnes - SP - MIL
Dynasty Top 10
The top 10 players based on a multi-year fantasy value, not price.
Juan Soto - OF - SD
Ronald Acuna Jr. - OF/DH - ATL
Fernando Tatis Jr. - SS/OF - SD
*Due to his lengthy suspension, there is a lot of uncertainty here. I’ll add an 11th player to this list to show players you could conceivably buy now.Vladimir Guerrero Jr. - 1B - TOR
Shohei Ohtani - SP/DH - LAA
Trea Turner - SS - LAD
Bo Bichette - SS - TOR
Kyle Tucker - OF - HOU
Jose Ramirez - 3B - CLE
Bryce Harper - OF/DH - PHI
Rafael Devers - 3B - BOS
Did you see the difference? Most notably the Aaron Judges, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freemans of the world fall lower in a Dynasty rank than they do in Redraft, while players like Bichette, Tucker, and Devers sneak into the top 10.
Once again none of this is right or wrong, it all comes down to your style of play. However, the players who are currently in the top spots are drastically more expensive than their Dynasty counterparts.
Case and point, until very recently Bo Bichette was valued similarly to a middling starting pitcher, rather than a foundational asset to your roster. The same could be said for Kyle Tucker before that. We are dealing with market cycles here that tend to value immediate impact over anything else.
That means you, my dear reader, can profit from patience.
Now that we are all on the same page, let’s talk about a few players I am monitoring out there on the market, and a few players I would be actively looking to sell. Each of these guys are ranked within my top 100 players, helping prove the point that there is value to be had if you turn over the right rocks.
Please Note: “Buy Low” and “Sell High” are commonly used terms in fantasy sports. With Sorare MLB there is a real cost to making these decisions, so please do your own research before deciding on anything. My words are meant to be taken as my personal opinions and not financial advice.
Late Season Targets - aka Buy Lows
Whit Merrifield - 2B/OF - TOR
Brandon Lowe - 2B/DH - TB
Ke’Bryan Hayes - 3B - PIT
Ronald Acuna Jr. - OF/DH - ATL
Juan Soto - OF - SD
Let’s get the big two out of the way first. Juan Soto and Ronald Acuna in the buy low section? What? Indeed, this is the case. Not because they are cheap, mind you, but if the market is willing to pay triple their cost for players like Judge, Betts, and Ohtani, just to name a few, then my top two ranked players for the future have substantial room to appreciate. Late-season slumps and injuries are helping deflate the acquisition cost still further, making for an affordable - if that word can be used for such star-caliber players - entry point.
The next two players, Brandon Lowe and Ke’Bryan Hayes can also be talked about together. Both are young and have been moderately productive already, but both are working their way back from injuries. These injuries have had a major suppressive effect on their value, such that both can be acquired for under a third of their projected cost in my model. If you can be patient with these two players, you should be able to enjoy cheap, high-level production from them for years to come.
The last player, Mr. Whit Merrifield only hit the marketplace recently. Unlike most players who seem to have early spikes in value only to level off later, Merrifield has been apparently left for dead by the Sorare community. He is currently the most undervalued player my model has to offer, with an expected value of nearly 6.5x his current cost on the open market. That is pretty amazing for a player I have ranked in the top 75. For those out there ballin’ on a budget, Whit, aka “Hit”, Merrifield is the unsexy flex you can use to fill rosters for multiple seasons to come.
What does Twitter have to say on the subject of Buy-Lows?:
Late Season Avoids - aka Sell Highs
Aaron Judge - OF/DH - NYY
Justin Verlander - SP - HOU
Paul Goldschmidt - 1B - STL
Tommy Edman - 2B - STL
Jose Altuve - 2B - HOU
This is the section where I hurt some feelings, but some of this must be said. If you are looking toward the future with your roster management, there are times to cash out.
When you can sell Aaron Judge and fund an entirely new roster might just be one of those times. Yes, he is playing amazingly. Yes, he hits lots of home runs. But as of the time of this writing, Judge cards are selling for around 5x what I would rationally be willing to pay. Granted, I tend to like selling players coming off of historic or career-best seasons.
In fact, much the same can be said for Paul Goldschmidt, who is having an MVP-caliber season of his own. The market appears to be baking in his age a bit more here, so his card prices are more reasonable, while still coming in at over triple his expected cost in my model.
Justin Verlander is also having an amazing year, and you might be beginning to sense a pattern here. With his recent injury, prices have calmed down a touch, however, people are still willing to pay top dollar for Verlander, and are apparently willing to ignore the Cy Young candidate’s age (39). I am willing to cash in now before we see major signs of an age-related decline.
Tommy Edman and Jose Altuve round out the list here, with Edman being a case of a late-season sell-high opportunity after some monster game weeks, and Altuve being a simple chance to cash in on his name value. Both players are still great at what they do, and I am not saying sell no matter what here, but this does appear to be a chance to sell and backfill your roster with 2-3 similar players.
Twitter came with the 🔥 on this topic:
That’s all for today. What say you? Who is your most over or underrated player here at the twilight of the season? Drop those hot takes into the comments!
As always, thank you for taking the time to read my newsletter in this little corner of the Web3 fantasy sports world.
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*Final Disclaimer: The above advice is meant to inspire strategic thinking about SorareMLB, the fantasy baseball game, and is not intended to be taken as financial advice. Before making any decision involving your hard-earned money, please be sure to do your own research and not spend more than you can afford to lose.*