Jeff Erickson

Holy cow ... this was written in earnest! It even pays lip service to correlation vs. causation. Good thing the WP decided that *this* was worthy of keeping instead of all their other cuts.

Yeah, since March 1 he's at 176.

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#TGFBI26

16.233 - Dillon Dingler. I missed on some of my other catcher spots in this draft, but Dingler has been one of my targets since November. He cut his K% by nearly 10%, while maintaining a 90.0 aEV and 28.2 line drive%. I'll take that for my second catcher.

Eight categories then!

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#TGFBI26

15.218 - Matt McLain. 2025 was a disaster for McLain in his return year after missing all of 2024, but he's fully healthy now and tearing it up this spring. My favorite spring stat so far? Four BB's, two K's in 26 plate appearances.

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Catching up on #TGFBI26

14.203 - Ian Happ. Happ is perfectly cromulent (yes, check that box for me). He's also the result of missing out on a few of my targets earlier in the round - Jac Caglianone, Daylen Lile and Spencer Torkelson, among others. Not exciting, but should help in 4 cats.

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#TGFBI26

13.188 - Alec Burleson. Burleson improved against LHP last season, and that should lead to more playing time in 2026 and potentially greater counting stats. He also has 1B/OF eligibility and good hard-hit metrics.

It's been a couple of years for me, for sure.

It might be having "... the food is terrible, but the portions are huge ..." vibes, but at least I got the timing right on Gavin Williams. It's been a run of yellow since then:

Porter Hodge has a right flexor strain and will be shut down from throwing for a couple weeks. He felt elbow soreness after his last outing. He’ll be reevaluated in 2 weeks & will open on IL.

Jordan Wicks has nerve irritation in arm/hand & wont get off mound until middle-late March. He’ll go on IL.

Andrew Abbott has been announced as the #reds Opening Day starter.

He's in midseason form!

I was today years old when I realized that Didi Gregorius is still playing! Good for him, just homered for the Netherlands against Luis Severino.

It's a TGFBI tradition like no other - putting me in one of the slower slow drafts!

But it sounds like @mikegianella.bsky.social is in a slower league than me!

What round are you in? We're at pick 175. Best available options after Williams are probably Bibee, Horton, Imai, Castillo and Imanaga.

I'm not sure what the ADP is for TGFBI, but in the last week across all NFBC drafts it's around 61.

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#TGFBI26

12.173 - Gavin Williams. I really thought that I'd take at least 2 more hitters before my next pitcher, but there's a drop after Williams that isn't as severe at some of my other target areas. He'll never have an elite BB%, but it settled into "acceptable" last year.

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#TGFBI26

11.158 - Francisco Alvarez. The downside to the "waiting for bargains" approach that comes with drafting in the middle of a snake draft is that sometimes the bargains for a position or category just don't come. That's been the case at catcher so far. Alvarez is a target but no bargain.

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#TGFBI26

10.143 - Jo Adell. Previously I talked about building up some batting average so that I could gamble on later power. This is what that looks like. Adell increased his aEV from 89.8 to 91.7 mph while lowering his K% from 28.0 to 26.5. Still not good, but right direction.

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#TGFBI26

9.128 - Christian Yelich. I've been landing on Yelich in nearly every draft. Will he regress from 29 homers? Almost certainly, but as always (h/t @pianow.bsky.social) the question is "regress to what?" Is it 17? 22? If it's in the 20-22 range, he's fine here.

Thanks! I try to post in both places - kind of have to in order to promote the site and the shows. The key at the other place is to stick with "Following" and avoid "For You."

I like all of those, including Yandy (though you give up some power with him).

Yeah, Soderstrom is a target for me, too. I like that range for 1B.

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#TGFBI26

8.113 - Jeff Hoffman. We just had a note on @rotowire.bsky.social that Hoffman plans to throw his fastball less frequently, to match his 2024 usage, when he put up better numbers in Philly. That's great, but why did he change at all last year?

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#TGFBI26

7.98 - Michael Busch. I had to address power with this pick, and pushed Busch over a couple of other players that might have otherwise ranked higher on my overall board. Busch's power gains are real, evidenced by his 92.2 mph aEV.

Jeremy Peña has a fracture in the tip of his right ring finger, according to the Astros. He will be reevaluated in two weeks

a baseball player wearing a jersey with the letter r on it Alt: Maikel Garcia

#TGFBI26

6.83 - Maikel Garcia. Once again, I went away from a pure power type here for a more rounded player in Garcia. I like the idea of getting stolen bases from a position that others are not getting them. Austin Riley went a round earlier.

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a baseball player in a arizona uniform is running towards home plate Alt: Geraldo Perdomo in a home run trot.

#TGFBI

5.68 - Geraldo Perdomo. This is at the high end of his range, but I wanted to grab a player with a good batting average that still helps across the board, knowing that I am going to have to take some BA risks to land power later.

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#TGFBI

4.53 - Roman Anthony. I love the batted ball, batting eye and even the sprint speed metrics. Absolutely a target of mine.