Flags Fly Forever Fantasy Baseball

We did it! In our very first try at the NFBC Main Event, we finished 121st out of 855 entries, which sounds mildly impressive at best. But more to the point, we won our league, completing a dramatic reversal of our early-season misfortunes (well documented in earlier episodes). After briefly patting ourselves on the back, we look at the 2024 season through the lens of our draft, our waiver pickups, and our in-season management. We make some overall observations about the strange run environment of 2024, and the particular quirks of the Main Event competition. 

Mike mentions his excellent BP article from June, "Even Rutherford B. Hayes Made History," which you can find here: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/article/91878/even-rutherford-b-hayes-made-history/

Thanks, everyone, for listening during the 2024 fantasy season! We will have some fun podcasts over the next few months (hopefully with a few Very Special Guests) before we get back to our positional previews for 2025 in January.

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro. 

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

Everyone is already drafting (whether mock or real) for 2025, but we at Flags decide to look back at the board from 2024 and ponder some questions about the first round, about what happened to the elite starting pitchers (spoiler: they were pretty good, Spencer Strider aside, womp womp), about whether drafting elite closers was a good choice, and what types of roster construction seemed to work out. 

In spite of ourselves, there is more Corbin Carroll talk, and we introduce a new character to the Flags Fly Forever extended universe: one Gavin Sheets (or Gavin Sheetz, if you're from certain counties of the Keystone State). We had fun, and we hope you will, too.

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro. 

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

Since the last podcast, a lot has happened in the world. One of things that hasn't happened is the White Sox winning a single game.

Today we avoid current events to discuss some fallout from the trade deadline, with quite a bit of attention to the closer landscape for the rest of the season. Also, we make some more general observations about a deadline that was low-key interesting, even without a lot of stars moving teams. And the podcast ends with a brief mention of the most Giant player who has never played for the Giants until now.

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro. 

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

Hey, it's (just past) the middle of the season, so Mike and Jon talk a bit about how patience with slow starters and consistent FAABing have worked wonders for their suddenly-halfway-decent Main Event squad.

Then we dive into Mike's midseason valuations, which you can find here: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/article/92181/midseason-fantasy-valuation-update-2024/

Sure, the pitching landscape looks weird but--guess what?--it does every year at midseason. We talk about what to do if your staff is full of found money like Reynaldo Lopez, Seth Lugo, and Jake Irvin. (spoiler: don't stand pat!)

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro. 

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

We have a conversation with Larry Schechter, fantasy legend and author of the new book, The History of Fantasy Sports. We talk about how the history of fantasy baseball is more complex than you might think, some of the people and personalities that led us to where the game is today, and where it might go in the future. 

You can find Larry's book at all of the usual online purveyors, though if you'd like to support local bookstores you can order it here: https://bookshop.org/search?keywords=larry+schechter. 

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro. 

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

Mike and Jon welcome Rotowire's Jeff Erickson for a free-range conversation centering on our midseason process, specifically as it relates to player evaluation, the timing of cuts and adds, roster management, FAAB strategy, and how we balance our time spent on baseball with, you know, living our lives. 

We start off with a little DadCast(tm) conversation before getting down to baseball stuff.

You can find Jeff's work at www.rotowire.com, on many Rotowire podcasts, and on the Sirius/XM Fantasy channel. 

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro. 

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

Mike and Jon talk about the tragicomic Mets, the utility of rolling three-week samples, not holding too tightly to fast starters who slow down, and then we conclude with a little game where we discuss players whose rest-of-season value has changed the most, for better or worse. Sorry, Bo Bichette.

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro. 

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

What to talk about as the MLB season rounds the first-month post? Well, Mike and Jon text regularly about many things--and a good portion of those are baseball-related. So we looked at a few text exchanges we've had over the last couple of weeks and continued the conversation "in person," as it were.

Topics included:

- how can we "plant flags" for early-round players that we value when we are inundated by the groupthink of ADP? (or, should Zack Wheeler have been a first-round pick?)

- why does the three-week sample at the beginning of the season hold sway over our minds and player evalutions long after those hot or cold starts have ended? (or, why do you still feel bad about Francisco Lindor when you should feel bad about Matt Olson?)

- it's a wacky ERA leaderboard! Is this small-sample nonsense or is the SP landscape changing?

It's a freewheeling grab-bag of a conversation, hope you enjoy!


Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro.

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

We kick the ass of April doldrums with the help of our Very Special Guest, the one and only Grey Albright of Razzball and ostentatious eyewear fame.

After some desultory baseball discussion we talk about New Jersey's favorite defunct libertarian tourist attraction and torture park--I speak, of course, of Action Park! (If you want to know more about this hell/heaven on earth, please watch the HBO documentary, Class Action Park.)

Other topics we cover:

Awkward middle-aged man goodbye hugs
What Grey's Reading
Internet: net gain or loss for humanity?
Why none of us are eager to travel to Florida
And many other topics

Look, if you've listened to Grey before, you know this is a chaotic shitshow, but it's also a lot of fun.

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro.

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

We're getting all T.S. Eliot on you, because for us, and for fantasy basebal content, April is kind of a dead zone. Rather than overreact to fast and slow starts, we discuss some process points in evaluating your early-season roster and negotiating FAAB at this time of year. We do this through the lens of our own underperforming Main Event team (at what point does "underperforming" just become "bad"? hopefully we won't have to answer this!). 

Also, find out who the player is that was inexplicably dropped in our league and our approach to FAABing for him. That's a tease, my friends!

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro.

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.