Rotohelp.com
Tim Polko is reviewing the fantasy magazines at his website, rotohelp.com. We’ve already written about Tim and his site, and while our point then was that all the “insider info” in the world doesn’t necessarily mean much, our bigger point was that Tim is clearly a good writer with well thought out and expressed ideas about baseball and the Chicago sports scene.
So, this is a site worth checking out.
On the other hand, I think the review of the RotoWire magazine is very thoroughly wrongheaded. I wrote to Tim about the article (which also references the Sporting News/Yahoo magazine review that ran the day before. I haven’t heard back from him and I’ll let you know if I do.
If you’re interested, here’s what I said:
Hi,
I’m trying to figure out what the difference between the 25 team mixed league prices I invented last year and the 25 team mixed league prices The Sporting News adopted this year are?
And why my magazine seems to be penalized for it and Sporting News is lauded.
I can’t argue with you on Ortiz and Lo Duca and any other prices you choose to criticize. My projections are my projections, there for anyone to see. And the prices are based on the projections.
I don’t see that Sporting News made projections. So, what are their prices based on?
I might be wrong about Lo Duca, but I doubt it. We’ll see on that one. But are you digging at me for ranking Toby Hall and Charles Johnson both at $12? TSN has them at $14 and $12? Are you arguing that’s better?
Similarly, Jose Ortiz is either going to earn $20 or he’s going to earn $6. Or less. I look at the data and I choose the latter. I wouldn’t blame you for going whole hog on him. Feel free. But to base the bulk of your critique of prices on a few specific prices, while ignoring the projections that they’re based on, is to undermine the whole idea of analysis, prediction and valuation.
That is, if you told me that all my prices were wrong because I had made a valuation mistake, and you were correct, that would truly render that part of the magazine worthless.
But if the magazine offers 600 plus player predictions, clearly labeled, and prices them (and says that they are emphatically not bid prices), and the prices are calculated correctly, then your argument is with the projections.
Which is why I’m flummoxed by your statement: “They never once discuss how they determine the rankings.”
The key says: Proj. 2002 is the value of the stats on the Projected Line (25 team mixed league 4×4). It is most emphatically not a Bid Price, but an idea of what we think a player will earn this year.
Rereading that and the discussion of price, I’ll agree that perhaps I’m not clear enough about the context. But the point, as TSN seems to concur, is that 25 team mixed league prices serve everyone. The prices are directly in line single league prices, and are scalable to mixed leagues.
And that in December we can make projections, because we’re evaluating talent, but we’re hard pressed to make bid prices, because it’s too early to judge team context.
The Sporting News went the other way. They seem to tell the prices for players, without any underlying data (namely, projections).
I can tell you that in our discussions while producing the magazine, there were players that each of us was high on and those we were low on. We’ve tried to incorporate that debate into the pages of the magazine.
If you think it’s more valuable to have guesstimates of what players will go for in the spring auctions, I think that’s a perfectly valid opinion. That isn’t what we did.
I think you should have creamed the magazine for the editing. There are some awful, sloppy mistakes that I’m very embarrassed by. They are my mistakes.
But when I’m not embarrassed I’m curious why it isn’t of innovative interest, or roto interest, to see past earning results for all major league vets. No other magazine gives player values for past years, nor compares what players earned last year with what they cost last year.
All of that said, I think I made a big mistake this year not figuring out a way to make the projected stats/prices agree with the player comments. That’s because we do them separately, and on the short schedule we have there’s no obvious way to reconcile them. But in the future we will somehow.
I think using inexpensive (recycled) newsprint for a magazine that will have no value after this year is a good way to economize. And if we didn’t raise the price we would probably lose money. If we lose money we will cease publication.
You are welcome to be the judge of whether or not that is a good idea.
Cheers,
Peter
Ps. The objective evaluation of player comments is a fine idea. But you give TSN 5 for 5 on Jeremy Giambi when they have him listed under first basemen, even though he doesn’t qualify there, and they even say he’s going to play right field this year. What’s up with that? And I had to hit three pages (outfielders, index, first basemen) to find him.
And damn straight we argue that Jason was better than Jeremy at the same age in the counting numbers, while acknowledging that Jason had a lower AVG. Getting the chance to play is often indicative of an ability to produce. Jeremy we say, thus far, hasn’t gotten that chance. The question is whether that’s because of something we can’t see in his stat profile. So? We also feature John Hunt touting Jeremy.
Oh, and while we’re at it, how does TSN address the injury questions to earn their fifth point?”
