Another piece for my friends from the tundra, with some preseason fantasy mongering. And a bit of fun, I hope.
peter
Target Percentages in Action
I’ve never seen anyone use this method for draft tracking. The basic idea: Set target goals to finish third in each category. Then rate players on your draft sheet by the percentage of the total you need in each category they provide.
I’m always skeptical of these sorts of strategies, because assuming that everyone knows what they’re doing, the value they pull out of the draft or auction is going to be roughly equivalent. Which means you should not be able to walk away from the draft board with a winning team. The proof of this is that in the example the writer uses seven of his first nine picks on hitters and just barely picks up 50 percent of the totals he needs in Runs, RBI and HR. You have to assume he’s not going to do better than that with his last seven picks.
But in leagues that don’t have much trading, especially, this seems like it would be an effective way to make sure you draft a balanced team.
Most Valuable Unwanted Hitters
As with the recently posted pitcher’s list, these are the hitters that went unwanted by Patton and Fenger in this week’s software release with the highest projected value (by me).
- Norris Hopper, CIN
- Joe Koshansky, COL
- Ryan Raburn, DET
- Brian Barton, STL
- Michael Aubrey, CLE
- Frank Catalanotto, TEX
- Oscar Salazar, BAL
- Johnny Estrada, FA
- Brian Barden, STL
A much different sort of list than the pitchers. I’m not sure what that means. Maybe those guys are expecting the young hitters to make their teams and be eligible, unlike the pitchers.
For a change of pace, here is a list of the guys they give prices to, that I haven’t been able to bring myself to make projections for:
- Henry Blanco, SD
- Brad Wilkerson, BOS
- So Taguchi, CHN
- Raul Casanova, NYN
- Chris Gomez, BAL
- Jolbert Cabrera, BAL
- Jason Lane, TOR
- Angel Pagan, NYN
- Kevin Cash, NYA
If these guys are still in the running for jobs next Friday they will get projections.
She’s Deep, He’s Shallow: Why Fantasy Baseball Snobs Are Wrong – Fantasy Baseball Canada
I wrote this one for a new site started by some friends from the north. Enjoy.
Top Earning Pitchers with No Bid Price
I’m working on this week’s update for the Patton $ Software and Data and found a category that might be of interest. These are the pitchers that neither Alex nor Michael have put bid prices on, who I have given the highest valued projections. I guess this is really a reflection of my prejudices this year filtered by Alex and Mike’s bids. If they think they’ll be around on draft day they aren’t on this list:
- Tommy Hunter, TEX
- Ben Sheets, FA (Texas likely)
- Wade Davis, TB
- Jeff Neimann, TB
- Daryl Thompson, CIN
- Ian Kenneday, NYA
- Kevin Mulvey, MIN
- Jon Niese, NYN
- Tommy Hanson, ATL
- Anthony Swarzak, MIN
- Kyle McClellan, STL
- Casey Janssen, TOR
- Dustin Mosely, ANA
- Eduardo Morlan, TB
Make of this what you will. Or can.
Are Catchers Brittle?
It has always been a truism that Catchers get hurt more. I’m not sure this Roto Think Tank story about a Eugene Freed study goes very far to prove anything. But it does suggest that the opposite is true.
More math needs to be done over more seasons to be convincing, but the better argument (I think) is that catchers get hurt in fits and starts. Relying on a costly catcher may increase your risk, but getting real production from a dead position has its own rewards. The strategy changes if you’re trying to win one year, or every year.
Position Battles: White Sox 2B
It is rather amazing how much writing about fantasy baseball there is out there. When I see something wrong or awful I try to note it here, but much of it is informative and pedestrian, like this story. It features useful and well-reasoned summaries of the careers of Chris Getz, Jayson Nix and Brent Lillibridge, and comes to the conclusion that Gordon Beckham is best qualified for the job and probably won’t play there this year. It is also dry as toast, which is certainly better than witless humor, but it also reminds me there are only so many hours in the day…
BP NL LABR Team
This is kind of an odd post, since it’s a faketeams.com listing of Clay Davenport’s LABR draft. The big Fantasmagoria issue of Sports Weekly is coming this week, with all the LABR prices, but until then it’s interesting watching the individual teams dribble out.
My only question (and the reason I post this) is why Fake Teams would stop buying catchers at par (no bump up for position scarcity) if they got one?
The beauty of what Clay did here lies in the demonstration of  what happens when you spend you money on Catchers and Corners. It isn’t obvious that this team is a winner, in large part because the pitching needs help every which way, but it isn’t obvious that going to the extreme screwed things up, either.
There are lots of reasons this won’t end the argument. Try small sample size, for one. But it is a mock-draft-like demonstration of the benefits and costs of approaching the game a certain way.
Fantasy Baseball internet radio by Jeff Erickson
In about 45 minutes I’ll be on Jeff Erickson’s Fantasy Focus radio show, on blogtalkradio.com. I’ll let you guess what we’re going to talk about. If you get here late, the program is also a podcast, which should live on forever. Classic.
Here’s the show:
We had decided to talk about wonky subjects, which was fine by me. I’m resistent to the whole “who’s your best sleeper” approach to the radio. I have a few elaborations.
In NL and AL only leagues position scarcity gets figured in if you properly price your players using the proper pool. That is, you give everyone their relative price and you find that you only have 10 positive values for catchers, and you need 24/26. You delete all the other players with positive and negative values who aren’t catchers, until the 24/26 catchers are in your pool, and then reallocate the money, making the last catcher worth a buck. Catchers alone don’t get all the benefit of scarcity.
The same holds true in Mixed Leagues, but there are two differences. It’s much harder to draw the line at the bottom, so it’s a little haphazard who makes the draft list and who doesn’t when the catchers are added. And, mixed league prices aren’t linear, so the best players get paid more for being reliable and better than the abundantly replaceable players in the middle and bottom. So the best catchers’ prices go up because they’re the best, period, as well as because they’re catchers. I’m not sure how you would go about quantifying this. I guess aggregated real world results compared to linear prices would get you part way.
As to rules, I don’t have a dog in any rules fight. I think players should play a game that satisfies them and makes them happy. It’s fine if you want to promote dump trading, and it is equally fine to squelch it. I discuss different rules and wrinkles with an eye to solving problems people are having in their leagues, which doesn’t make them happy.
The sleepers I wrote down before the show were Cincinnati’s Ramon Ramirez and the Cardinals’ Joe Mather. You can find more at pattonandco.com.
Rotisserie Concepts Done Right!
Mike Gianella knows a lot about rotisserie baseball and the way it should be played. He’s kind of like one of those old timey coaches, with a chaw in his jaw, a calculator in his pocket, and the good sense not to contradict either. I’ve written about Roto Think Tank before, but reading some recent posts today reminds me about just how sensible Mike is.
He doesn’t think much of position scarcity, but when he’s allocating bid prices he tends to favor the catchers and shortstops of similar value, since they’re harder to replace. That sort of thing.
I wouldn’t say that Mike is breaking much new ground, but in a world where the old ground is continually being ploughed under, there is a great virtue to clear writing and solid ideas, well explicated. (Note: Mike writes for The Fantasy Guide, too.)