Retro Drafting is a Thing.

I’ve now done three retro drafts, for 1982, 1990 and 1999. I wrote about the 1982 draft here, and have written about the 1990 and 1999 drafts at pattonandco.com, in the Stage Four thread.

I’ve finished in the Top 4 each time, but have yet to win one. I’ll be drafting next Wednesday night, taking apart the 1986 season. Fred Zinkie selected it because he won last week’s 1999 contest, jumping a mighty 11 points with his last round pick of Ryan Klesko.

I took apart the draft a few different ways. First I looked at how many draft dollars each team bought in hitting and pitching, using my earnings values (which give positive value to the Top 108 pitchers and Top 168 hitters based on their 10 category stats).

Then I compared their earnings to their expected earnings for each draft slot (basically my earnings list sorted from highest to lowest), to see their NET value.

And I compared these things to their actual finish. Here are the data:

Looking at this, it doesn’t really pass the smell test. Dean earned more than Fred? How did Jeff finish so high while earning so little?

Someone over at pattonandco.com pointed out that Fred added Pedro Astacio, who I had valued at -$20 on the season. That appears to have cost him two points in ERA and WHIP combined, because of the way those categories were grouped, but gained him many more Wins and Strikeouts.

Someone else suggested that this indicated a problem with my pricing, but I don’t think that’s true in a general sense. But in a very specific sense the issue of who gets a positive value seems to have a lot of impact on pitcher prices. I wrote:

Doug led in ERA and was second in WHIP. I was second in ERA and third in WHIP. Dean was third in ERA and first in WHIP. Fred was first in strikeouts and fifth in ERA and WHIP. And the three of us are way ahead of the other nine teams, with Fred finishing just ahead of seven of them. That’s efficiency. 

I think this shows not a problem with my pricing, but a problem with pricing in general. The dollar values work, but they then have to be applied to the right stats when you’re constructing your team. In other words, it’s not the meat it’s the motion.

But one issue to be aware of is that pitcher value very much depends on which 108 pitchers you value. The math will tell you one group, but as we can see, for a team in a particular position, a player like David Cone or Pedro Astacio will have real value and supplant one of the 70 inning relievers with a low ERA and Ratio that usually reside in the $1-$5 range.

So, if you go and reprice the actual pool, so that the worst pitcher is worth $1 and the 108 add up to $1092, the value of Pedro Martinez drops from $55 to $25. (I just did that.)

In the prospective leagues we usually price for, this phenomenon drives up the value of the best pitchers, but when we know what the stats are going to add up to it seems to do the opposite. Here’s how the Retro earnings looks with the pitching pool repriced. 

This doesn’t really make sense to me logically but eyeballing the Dollar totals in this chart makes more sense to me than the earlier one.

Note: I also adjusted the hitters in a similar way after noticing that the total wasn’t adding up to $3120. These results look more like what I would have expected, demonstrating that in a retro draft to get good prices you need to know which players will be selected.

The XFL 1982 Retro Draft Was Last Night!

For 17 years I’ve played with a bunch of friends in a quirky keeper 5×5 (OBP) fantasy league called the XFL. We hold a $260 auction in the fall at First Pitch Arizona, keeping up to 15 players off the previous year’s rosters with a $5 increase (+$3 for players picked up before they had ML playing time). Then, in March, usually, we have a 17-round supplemental draft to round out our 40-man rosters.

Only this year, you know, we didn’t have that supplemental. We first put it off until April 20, and then as that date approached we collectively realized that it made no sense to spend time on something when conditions in the majors this year may be totally different, or that there may not even be a this year, so we postponed.

Which led to the idea of doing something. Anything. What that turned out to be, under the direction of Ron Shandler, was a draft of the major league players from 1982. I’m not sure why Ron chose ’82. I pushed for 1980, since that was the first year of our game and Dan Okrent’s piece about the Rotisserie League the following winter in Inside Sports magazine was called “The Year George Foster Wasn’t Worth $36.” But 1982 was fine, it was the first year I played the game, joining the Stardust League that Matthew Berry wrote about recently, in its second year.

There are things about a retrospective draft that are different than they are in a prospective draft. Our regular drafts and auctions before the season is played are shaped by our expectations–our projections–of what players may do, what chances there are that they will do more, or less, and how we put a price on that range of outcomes.

In a retro draft you know what a player has actually done, and you know the context in which he did it. That makes it fairly easy to come up with a value for each player and a ranking of player values. But it turns out that the math only gets you so far. Here’s why.

The Split: Many years ago, in the early ’90s, Les Leopold and I developed the idea that each player actually had two prices. One was his actual worth in the fantasy season just played (that’s his retro price), and his draft price, which was based on his projection and market expectations, what I call in The Guide The Big Price. We theorized that in a retrospective auction you would allocate 50 percent of your budget to pitching and 50 percent to hitting. This was something I tried to test for a long time, but there wasn’t much interest until everyone had to stay at home for months on end.

But alas, in preparing for this retro draft, it quickly became clear to me that allocating 50 percent to pitching didn’t solve all the problems. The one problem it did solve is that of pitcher injuries and unreliability, which are one and the same for the most part. Pitchers who stay healthy are reliable, but pitchers get hurt a lot. So while we discount pitching in our draft price, splitting our budgets about 65/35, spending half on pitching for half the points seemed like a good strategy.

But if you do that, I soon realized, you’re going to have to compete in all five pitching categories, and if you do that you’re going to bump into the fact that in a draft you can’t really load up your staff with aces. If you have the first pick and take Steve Carlton by the time you pick again all the other high strikeout, high wins starters will be gone. Drafts, obviously, are different than auctions, so once again we’re not testing the split.

Dumping: A draft is a linear playing field. The difference between the price of each successive pick is the same. But the value of the player pool is not the same. So, when you graph, say, the auction prices in a mixed league and compare it to the line of selections in a similarly configured mixed draft, you’ll see that the value of the first 50 or so picks is higher than the line, while after the third round most picks are under the line.

The blue line are actual auction earnings (15 teams, $260) vs the cost in a draft.

I prepared by running the available players through my pricing spreadsheet, adjusting for a 12 team mixed league. Absolute prices weren’t important for this exercise, it was a draft, but I tried to jigger the balance between the categories so that I didn’t overvalue low-ERA low-production pitchers. The danger of doing that is because you’re (I) using computed prices for the player’s season. When we’re ranking players prospectively, we don’t price their optimal performance but rather one that’s in the middle of the range of possibilities. Drafting retroactively, you know what Joe Niekro’s optimal performance was worth, but if the value of his ERA and Ratio outstrip Steve Carlton’s monster strikeouts and wins in your formula, are you putting together a roster that can win?

Maybe.

As it turns out, Brian Feldman (fantasybaseballauctioneer.com) led off with Carlton as the first pick. I had the wheel and took Andre Dawson with the 12th pick and Joaquin “Donde Esta Mi Cabeza” Andujar for some reason. Niekro was still there, higher on my sheet, but at that point my sheet was too big, too many columns, and I misread hits allowed for strikeouts in Andujar’s case and typed his name into the sheet. It was fine, they were close enough, but I had already deviated from my pricing.

At the next turn I took Dave Winfield and Goose Gossage, creating my own mini Yankees run which also set off a closer run. But I didn’t really mean to turn this into a play by play. There are a few other points about this exercise.

If you love baseball and play fantasy baseball this is potentially a great way to get together virtually with friends and spend some hours with a new way to play and talk about baseball. Some of us played fantasy baseball in 1982, some of us weren’t even born in 1982, but we all knew how great Robin Yount’s season was, how bad George Foster’s was. There was lots to talk about while selecting teams.

Zoom allowed us to see the excellent drafting spreadsheet that is part of the Mastersball.com package. A handful of us were also on camera, though the demands of keeping up with our lists meant we weren’t watching each other. The rest were on audio feeds, which was filled with banter and reminiscing.

The spreadsheet updated after each pick with revised standings, but we didn’t start checking that (Todd Zola was updating the sheet and he’d have to be asked to show that page) until more than halfway through. If I’d been paying attention to it earlier I would have seen that by not taking Ricky or Timmy or Willie my pursuit of steals was doomed, which would have changed some of my later picks as I vainly pursued the bottom of the steals pack and failed. This came to a head fairly deep in the draft when I selected Dickie Thon’s 37 saves and didn’t make a dent.

Position scarcity is something I didn’t think about in advance and though I was in the lead for a number of the first 20 rounds my team faded at the end. I don’t think that was caused by scarcity because when you know everyone’s value the math tells you the tradeoffs. If you take Gary Carter in the third you’re getting fewer stats than if you take Gary Ward, do you get that back later? You might, but that’s not a sure thing. A properly formed price list would have the exact 168 hitters with the positions necessary to fill 12 team rosters and prices rejiggered to reflect the fact that some of those catchers are of negative value when you price all players. They’re not negative valued when you have to pay for them, the prices have to change.

In the end, Jeff Erickson pulled out to a good lead in the last round, optimizing his categories. I failed at optimizing, wasting value by buying too much average, wasting money on steals, and having too low an ERA and WHIP. We’ll be playing again in a couple of weeks, Jeff picked the 1990 season, and you can be sure we’ll all be paying more attention, not necessarily balancing the categories, but more effectively managing the categories we dump. Or not.

Click here for the draft results.

The 2020 Roto-Regs Draft is Over.

Back in the bad old days of the internet, when AskRotoman had a bulletin board visited by hundreds, before spam and malicious interlopers wrecked it, the regulars at the bulletin board formed a funny league. Funny because the format was different than other leagues.

For one, 20 teams. But only nine hitters (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, UT) and seven pitchers. A good man named Steve ran the league for a number of years. My memory is that the first year I finished second, and I’ve done worse every year since.

Actually, after the bulletin board was no more (I pulled the plug, sadly) the Regs league went on hiatus, but our friend Tim McLeod has revived it and I had my second new era draft last night.

You can see the results here. I’m not sure how transferable they are. Pitchers flew off the board because each round is so long you never know if the best ones will get back to you. Maybe that’s how we play now, or maybe it reflects these peculiar rules. In either case, it was a fun time.

My Tout Wars Mixed Draft.

This is my first year in the Tout Wars Mixed Draft league. The thing to remember about this league is that in the last four years Rudy Gamble has finished first twice and second twice, Adam Ronis has finished first twice and second once, and so since the 2015 season only one other player has finished first or second: Scott White, in 2017.

In the offseason Rudy suggested that he and Ronis had an advantage because of Tout’s rules allowing the top finishers first choices in picking draft position the following year. But a little research with NFBC leagues doesn’t show any advantage to earlier picks in a draft. Last year teams picking in the ninth, 10th and 11th slots has slightly better results than others.

There is talk about changing this rule, but I would like to see some solid evidence that having the first pick consistently helps team finish higher in the standings. For that we need to look at more years.

In last night’s Mixed Draft, I chose to pick in the No. 10 slot. This was based on the aforesaid research, thin as it was, but also on my observation that if you didn’t get one of the first two picks this year you were basically playing a jump ball for the next eight or nine players. Earlier in the week, in the National Fantasy Baseball Invitational, I lucked into the 11th pick (it was random), and scored Alex Bregman.

With the 10th pick in a league that uses On Base Percentage instead of Batting Average, I hoped I might get a shot at JD Martinez or Christian Yelich or some other of that 2-10 group of hitters, and I did. Only the guy who fell to me was unexpectedly Nolan Arenado, since Jose Ramirez didn’t drop as he might have. I did not debate this pick.

Here are some comments on the successive picks:

ROUND 2: Freddie Freeman. The alternative option was Rhys Hoskins. I like Freddie.

ROUND 3: Charlie Blackmon. Two of the Rockies big producers for my Colorado based team. I’m looking forward to seeing them on April 9th against the Braves. Yes, I’m a homer.

ROUND 4: Corey Seager. This was perhaps the most challenging pick. The question: Do I go Correa, who suffered with back injuries last year but says he’s healthy, or Seager, who missed almost the whole year with hip and elbow surgeries, but is expected to be healthy by opening day? When healthy they’re pretty similar. I picked Seager as much on a hunch as on a fear of back spasms.

ROUND 5: Clayton Kershaw. I would usually have taken one of the ace pitchers in the third round, but the only one left was Luis Severino, who earlier in the day was shut down with arm discomfort. In the fourth, as the only team without a pitcher and the second wave of starters just starting to go, I chose an offensive piece, figuring I could get someone comparable in the fifth. In this context, I’ll take Kershaw. He can’t be expected to throw 200 innings, he may not strike out an elite number, but he’s shown that he can get guys out anyway. If I get 150 innings like last year I’ll be very happy with this.

ROUND 6: Michael Brantley. Frankly, he showed up at the top of my queue based on my rankings in this format. Other guys in this area, like David Dahl and Michael Conforto, were tempting. I went with the queue.

ROUND 7: Dee Gordon. This round was very meh. I wasn’t thrilled with the hitters, didn’t feel like the pitchers were worth reaching for, but did have a need at that point for steals. Dee Gordon was a category play. It meant I didn’t need to worry about steals again. On the radio later, Glenn Colton asked me if I was concerned about Gordon hitting down in the order. I would be concerned if I needed 60 steals from him, but I’ll be quite happy with 25-30 and a not totally destructive OBP.

ROUND 8: Josh Hader. It was time for a closer. Instead I took an innings eating setup guy who strikes out a starter’s worth of hitters. He could get saves if things break right, but without an ace on board I decided to cobble a high skills pitching staff together out of injury concerns and question marks. I could have taken someone like LeClerc, who will likely get more saves than Hader, but he might not and he won’t be as decisively dominant. That was my thinking, at any rate.

ROUND 9: Michael Foltynewicz. Surely Folty fell this far because of concerns about his elbow, which has slowed his spring training. The reports sound okay at this point, he may miss an early start (or he could implode) but if he turns out to be okay he’s a big plus.

ROUND 10: Wade Davis. Here come some saves, I figure.

ROUND 11: Tim Anderson. A 20-20 shortstop who is just maturing into his prime is gold, especially since he’s shown some a smidge of progress on the walk-taking side of things. It does mean I need to find ways to shore up my OBP.

ROUND 12: Ender Inciarte. I should have taken Kepler here, but I had Inciarte ranked higher. I’m one who has been holding his breath for the Kepler breakout for some time now. Inciarte makes enough contact and runs enough that I might be able to use him or Gordon to make a trade later.

ROUND 13: Josh James. Like Folty, he’s hurt during spring training, and that seems to be enough to knock the youngster out of the rotation to start the season. Like Folty, he can strike out a lot of guys. Many of my targets for this round, Ryu, Maeda, and Peacock, were snatched up just before my pick. Maybe I could have waited til the 14th, but there wasn’t anyone coming up that one I fancied more.

ROUND 14: Sean Newcomb. He ran out of gas last season, his first, but he’s a bonafide strikeout guy who could quickly become a No. 2 with just a bit better control. And he’s not hurt.

ROUND 15: Josh Bell. This guy can hit. He can also walk. He’s constantly criticized for not hitting for big power as a first baseman, but he was exactly the sort of OBP sink that I needed. The funny thing is that I debated whether to go for Bell or Brian Anderson with this pick. They’re both essentially the same player, and both perfect for late in the day OBP leagues. I chose Bell because it feels like more power could come to him sooner. I’m not counting on it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

ROUND 16: Jorge Alfaro. Catching was getting very thin and I liked Alfaro a lot last year. There is less to like this year, at least for now, but the AB should be there in Miami and there is some chance that as he settles into the job he’ll blossom as I expected him to last year.

ROUND 17: Jimmy Nelson. Did not pitch last year. Was very good the year before that. I’m wary of shoulder rehabs, but the reward potential here is high. The pitcher taken before him was Carlos Martinez, no prize, and the next after was Jake Junis, who I would have liked to have. Love those AL Central pitchers.

ROUND 18: Gregory Polanco. More risk here, but we’re in the endgame and this is a mixed league. Not totally shallow, but there will be players to sub in for Polanco until he returns. The bigger question is how much he’ll run when he comes back, and how much the injury will sap his power.

ROUND 19: Reynaldo Lopez. He struck out more and walked fewer in the second half than in the first. For a young pitcher, one for whom I would excuse a fatigue-induced second-half melt down, that seems like a good sign. He also has the advantage of pitching a lot of games against the Royals and Tigers.

ROUND 20: Vince Velasquez. He’s not going to throw a lot of innings, he gets pulled after two times through the lineup, but he throws strikeouts and kept the ball in the park last year. No chance he becomes the ace he once looked like he’d grow into, but if properly managed he could be a very sneaky fantasy asset.

ROUND 21: Brian Anderson. Look what I found. Another corner with a nice stroke, excellent on base skills and not a ton of power. Anderson also has the virtue of qualifying in the outfield.

ROUND 22: Freddy Peralta. The theme develops. Peralta, like Josh James, could end up in the bullpen, where his strikeouts will soar as his innings drop. The big question is just how soaring the bases on balls remain, and whether he can continue to throw fly balls that don’t get out of the park. With young pitchers of talent, there is always a chance.

ROUND 23: Austin Hedges. Needed another catcher. Liked Hedges before he demonstrated just how hard it is for him to make contact with bat on ball. He has some power and a bit of pedigree, and he’s turning 27, which isn’t magic but gets him past the early struggles of a young catcher.

RESERVE ROUNDS: There are six reserve rounds in Tout Mixed Draft. Your roster doesn’t have to be complete after 23 rounds, but does need to be after 29. I took Kevin Pillar (useful power speed outfield backup, will play while Polanco is out), Brent Honeywell (staying on message), Framber Valdez (not in the rotation yet, but effective in there last year), Mark Melancon (could he close in SF? Closer monkey says so), Joe Jimenez (could he close in Detroit? Closer monkey says not yet, but he’s behind Shane Greene, who could be traded), and Yonny Chirinos (more in the Franber mode than the Honeywell, he looked promising last year).

In summary, I like my team. It could be really good if things work out, and could be awful if things don’t. The biggest issue will likely be that this staff of talented but risky arms will not run up the innings and will end up struggling in Wins and Strikeouts, even if it pitches well. It’s harder to pull this off in 5×5 than it is in 4×4. But it won’t take a lot of good luck to land in the hunt, which at this point, three weeks before the start of the season, is all you can hope for.

The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational

Justin Mason, of Fantasy Friends With Benefits, did a good big thing. He got Fantrax to host a bunch of 15 team leagues full of fantasy experts, plus put up a grand in prize money.

The rules are pretty normal, except there is that looming consolidated standings.

I landed in League 9, which included some folks I knew, like Adam Ronis and Tim Heaney, some I’d heard of, especially Doug Thorburn and Rob Silver, and a bunch of other foes who proved to be formidable, too.

This was a tough draft. There was no finessing picks. You had to take who you wanted, because they were not going to be there next turn.

Picking from the 13th spot afforded opportunity, I landed Blackmon and Bryant as my first two picks, but meant it was a long time to get back to my third pick, when all the stud pitchers were gone. Six of them in a row preceding my pick of Edwin Encarnacion. Okay, mostly gone. I could have made it seven by taking Yu Darvish.

This is also a league with one catcher. I like two catchers. Most catchers share time, two catcher rosters recognize this, and force decisions about how to allocate budget to backstops. One catcher diminishes the importance of almost all catchers. The 15th catcher isn’t a stud, but he’s not a waste. And if he turns out to be a waste, for whatever reason, the short roster means there will be options. Two catchers means you have to commit, and you have to work hard to recover if something goes wrong. I think that’s a tougher play.

In this league I have a pretty strong offense. That’s because I didn’t take a pitcher until the sixth round. And I then proceeded to make a mostly risk pitching staff. Jake Arrieta and Alex Cobb had yet to sign. Eduardo Rodriguez is hurt. Brad Peacock is a swing man in a deep staff. Kyle Hendricks wasn’t all he was supposed to be last year.

We can argue pitching all day. What I surely didn’t do was buy saves. This was a function of trying to buy high-skills pitchers who were still available. Guys like Hendricks, Jameson Taillon, and even Zack Wheeler. Did I want Fernando Rodney or Shane Green instead? No.

But not having two closers is a problem in a broad contest with many many scores of teams. As I said to Justin in an email the other day, I might easily win this league and not do well at all in the overall. To fix that I’m going to have to find some saves.

Fortunately, that’s possible. My Team (Five reserve picks are pitchers):

Pos Player Team
C Posey, Buster SF
1B Encarnacion, Edwin CLE
2B Merrifield, Whit KC
3B Bryant, Kris CHC
SS Gregorius, Didi NYY
CI Bird, Greg NYY
MI Anderson, Tim CHW
OF Blackmon, Charlie COL
OF Fowler, Dustin OAK
OF Hicks, Aaron NYY
OF Pillar, Kevin TOR
OF Souza Jr., Steven ARI
UT Cruz, Nelson SEA
UT Duffy, Matt TB
Totals
Pitching
Pos Player Team
P Arrieta, Jake PHI
P Givens, Mychal BAL
P Hendricks, Kyle CHC
P Hildenberger, Trevor MIN
P Kahnle, Tommy NYY
P Madson, Ryan WAS
P Peacock, Brad HOU
P Taillon, Jameson PIT
P Wheeler, Zack NYM
P Cobb, Alex (N/A)
P Lyons, Tyler STL
P O’Day, Darren BAL
P Rodriguez, Eduardo BOS
P Stroman, Marcus TOR

 

 

 

Round 1 of the ADL Reserve Draft 2017 Revisited

2017 ADL Reserve DraftThe American Dream League held its auction on Opening Day. 12 teams took (or kept) 24 players each (14 hitters, 10 pitchers) by bidding, and then, after a 10 minute break, had seven rounds of drafting. I came upon the sheet on which I wrote the reserve claims on that fateful day. My own reserve draft was very weak, which got me thinking about how much value was in our auction, and who got it.

The number in parentheses is their 5×5 earnings so far this season.

ROUND 1

Lucas Giolito: Future ace, right? Has a 4.47 ERA in Triple-A this season, with 59 walks in 129 innings.

Rowdy Telez: Young power hitter making the jump to Triple-A, didn’t click. Hitting .222 with only six homers in Triple-A.

Brandon Guyer ($2): Veteran role player never really found a role. 112 AB with two homers and two stolen bases with Cleveland.

Bradley Zimmer ($11): Guyer’s loss was Zimmer’s gain. Our first solid contributor. Only hitting .246 in 240 AB, but with eight homers and 14 stolen bases. He has struck out 77 times, but walked 25.

Guillermo Heredia ($8): Fourth outfielder has seen more playing time because of the Vogelbach failure and Gamel injuries. Hitting .287 in 286 at bats with six homers and one steal.

Eduardo Escobar ($9): Solid utilityman benefits from Jorge Polanco’s struggles. Hitting .250 in 280 at bats with 10 homers and four steals.

Sam Travis ($1): Only Hanley Ramirez ahead of him. Hit .278 in 43 at bats with no homers and one steal in a brief time in Boston, and is back in the minors in Triple-A, where he is having a mild season.

AJ Reed: Everybody’s hot choice for 2016 seemed like a good reserve pick, but even with Houston injuries he’s seen just six AB this year, but does have 25 Triple-A homers.

Byung Ho Park: Big swing for a big power hitter, who has spent a meek year in Triple-A, striking out 115 times in 355 at bats.

Yoan Moncada: Last year’s big failure won a big arm in trade for Boston. Now up with Chicago he’s hitting .186 and has struck out 36 times in 81 at bats. He’s still young and was solid in his time in Triple-A.

Jose De Leon: Future ace has been hurt all season, but did earn a W in his one appearance in relief for Tampa, despite allowing three earned runs in 2.2 innings.

Jose Berrios ($9): Future ace started the year in Triple-A, but has now made 17 starts for the Twins. The results have been a little up and a little down, with a 4.27 ERA and 1.20 WHIP, which with 10 wins for the surprising Twins is enough to have earned $9. My projection for him before the season was 4.25 and 1.31 with fewer wins.

$40 in earnings for this group. Four contributors.

How much in earnings in Round 2? F Martes ($3), Jacob May (-$2), Whit Merrifield ($22, on the first place team), Rey Lopez ($1), Franklin Berretto ($1), Nick Franklin ($0), Dan Vogelbach, Michael Kopech, Clint Frazier ($3), Joe Jimenez (-$3), Cody Asche (-$2), Tyler O’Neill.

$23 in earnings for this group. One contributor.

 

ASK ROTOMAN: Impossible Keeper League Question

Dear Rotoman:

I am in a 12 team fantasy baseball league, rotisserie style, with 4 keepers. You can keep 1 player for a maximum of 5 seasons. I finished 5th in the league last year and have the 1st overall pick of the year. It so happens that Mike Trout was kept the last 5 years and will be available to be drafted this year. Is there any deal out there that would make you think about trading that pick? Perhaps the other person’s number 1 and 2? Something more than that?

“Fishing for Improvement”

Dear FFI:

Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout (27)There are many questions about your rules that are hard to deduce. For instance, how many of the typical first-round picks are available in this draft?

And, do the keepers clog the round they’re taken for the teams that keep them? Or are they merely gone?

So, you may have technical issues with my answer, but I think the answer is fairly obvious (though the execution may not be).

First point: In shallow leagues, as you have, the best most hardest to replace players are worth a premium. Having the first pick and taking Trout is valuable in any startup league. In a league where much of the first two rounds of talent are kept, as I imagine yours is, having Trout has extra valuable.

Second point: There isn’t much you can do about the kept players. Your job is to maximize your haul in the pool. So, Trout is clearly No. 1. Whom of the available players is going to be your second pick? I think that player is your baseline.

Third point: If you can swap Trout for two players better than your second pick, you may have the makings of a deal. But that isn’t a sure thing. Remember: In shallow leagues top talent has an outsized value. And you certainly wouldn’t trade Trout for two players worse than Trout and your No. 2.

Fourth point: In shallow leagues, position scarcity matters a bit more than some expect. So, trading number one for two positions before No. 24 may make sense if you can see a way to score a top SS and a great 2B or, given your league size, a top catcher.

But: It’s hard to tell without specific information about all this stuff. Which is your job. I think it’s possible for someone to buy Trout off you and make you a good deal, for them or for you, but you need to go both for quantity and for position advantage when analyzing your league. That’s where your real advantage is going to be found.

It’s a tough deal to make, but it can be made.

Ruggedly,
rotomansignature

ASK ROTOMAN: Getting Ahead in Head 2 Head

Dear Rotoman:

I have played in a head to head league on CBS sports for the past five years.  The first year, I followed fantasy advice and skewed heavily towards hitters rather than pitchers.  I got destroyed that year.

Mat_Latos_01In this league, pitchers go first and often.  By the time I started drafting pitchers I was left with Mat Latos, Kyle Lohse, and downwards from there.  The best teams in the league had 12 starts for their pitchers each week because they had so many pitchers, while I had 5-8 starts.

Since then, I have sought the best bat available in the 1st round, two aces in rounds 2-3, and a decent player with position scarcity in round 4.  In the next 18 rounds, I target middling pitching, youth (ages 25-32) and OBP.  I don’t draft relievers until late and usually punt 2nd base and catcher.

Any ideas how I can improve my draft philosophy this year?

“Trying To Get Head 2 Head”

Dear Trying:

I guess after taking the standard fantasy advice, things didn’t go much better the next four years. Am I right? So you’re back.

I will not give you standard head 2 head advice, because you didn’t tell me your scoring system, so I can’t get to much into that. But I do have some suggestions I’m sure are worth taking a look at.

Take A Look At History: If the team that wins every year takes an ace starter early, and teams that don’t take an ace starter struggle, it’s probably worth giving the winning way a try. Not only will you end up with a better pitcher than usual, but your opponents will end up with lower-ranked pitchers in their later slots.

Take A Look At Categories: Different providers have different point values for different stats, so it is dangerous to get too specific about values from provider to provider. But CBSsports has a good stat download service, allowing you to download last year’s stats (I think) and definitely this year’s projections. You can then multiply the category values  by the player’s stats or projections in a spreadsheet, add them up, and see which players have real value across the season. One reason starting pitching often has a extra value is because points are given for a Win and a Quality Start and Strikeouts. That makes an ace on a good team a huge contributor when he pitches. Closers usually get a nice bump for a Save, too, though you can often find guys who get saves in the later rounds.

Take The Best Player Available: In auction leagues, you can concoct different strategies for your team by deciding how to budget your money, but in a draft league you want to focus on the best available player with each pick. Early on this is easy, the only questions will be whether you should take players at the less hitting-rich positions ahead of similarly rated guys at 1B and the OF. The answer is almost always yes, but you should always be looking at your next two picks, trying to find the best available talent for those two spots combined. I’m not sure how you’re dumping 3B and C, but my guess is that at some point you’d be better off taking better guys at those positions and scrambling at the end for your last outfielder.

Take Fun Guys Late: The last few rounds are the time to look for high upside risky players. There will always be boring productive guys on your waiver wire, so use those last spots to take erratic starters with high strikeout rates, and the home run hitting prospect who may not be called up until June, or the overall bum who has amazing splits against lefties or righties (or maybe at home versus the road). These types will vary depending on the size of your league and how aggressively owners chase this sort of talent. Just remember that you don’t have to be the most aggressive to score big here, if you study up before your draft.

The bottom line is that you’re going to win if your accumulate the most talent, so the only trick is knowing who has the most talent so that you make the best pick each time your turn comes. Good luck.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature

The First Round (and the second): Some Thoughts

Tim McLeod wrote me yesterday:

A funny thing happened today while I was testing some strategy play in a mock. I’m taking the first slot so as to get a better feel for Tout (Wars Mixed Draft) and drafted Kershaw first. The gentleman in the second slot just hit McCutchen by reflex without evening looking at the board. The comments were pretty fast and furious. Not only was I one of the few to take someone other than Trout first, he actually fell to the No. 3 pick. It was worth the price of admission for everyone other than the McCutchen owner, who wasn’t overly thrilled at the turn of events. We’re so conditioned to seeing Trout, McCutchen, one-two that it really did create some havoc. More testing to follow. Tim

This reminded me of Ron Shandler’s study of first round picks a few years back, showing that most of the talent taken in the first round doesn’t earn first-round value. He seemed to be suggesting that this meant you should go for the player you think most likely to earn first round talent, even if they’ll probably go later in the draft.

andrewmccutchenDepending on what draft position you’re in, that might be completely wrong or just plain wrong or possibly a little right.  In other words, if you have the first pick, you want to take the player among the top 29 you think is going to have the best year. While if you have the 10th pick, you want to take the player from the pool of players between the 10th and 19th pick you think is going to be best this year.

In a draft, you’re constantly assessing the talent available for your pick against the rest of the talent that won’t be available the next time you pick. While it’s possible to outthink yourself, for instance by not taking Mike Trout with the first pick, the fact is that Trout probably won’t be the top-rated player this year. Last year Trout was selected No. 1, but was the ninth best player in 5×5 BA, behind Jose Altuve (77), Michael Brantley (299), Victor Martinez (184) and Jose Abreu (86), on the hitting side, and Clayton Kershaw (9), Felix Hernandez (41), Johnny Cueto (159) and Adam Wainwright (34).

So, while Trout was the ninth best pick last year, only one player in the Top 29 beat him, so a perfect draft board powered by hindsight would have had Kershaw atop it, followed by Trout.

But should it have? You have to remember that you are not only drafting the best available player, but you’re also trying to set up the best available match in the second round. Here it gets tricky to evaluate, since hindsight gives us an answer that isn’t all that meaningful at this point. But last year, if you took Kershaw with the first pick, you would have ended up with Freddie Freeman or Elvis Andrus or Jose Reyes, while if you took Trout first you would have ended up with Max Scherzer (or Freeman et al, or Jose Fernandez, Stephen Strasburgh, Adam Wainwright or Madison Bumgarner).

These two points are the crux of snake-drafting good teams, and which is why I find it silly to mock somebody who ended up taking McCutchen over Trout, even on purpose.

For the record, here’s where the Top 30 players from 2014 finished the season (Top 29 finishers are in BOLD):

Mike Trout (9)
Miguel Cabrera (11)
Paul Goldschmidt (76)
Andrew McCutchen (10)
Carlos Gonzalez (358)
Ryan Braun (87)
Adam Jones (22)
Prince Fielder (580)
Clayton Kershaw (1)
Bryce Harper (238)
Joey Votto (424)
Edwin Encarnacion (58)
Jacoby Ellsbury (28)
Hanley Ramirez (102)
David Wright (140)
Chris Davis (295)
Jose Bautista (19)
Robinson Cano (18)
Jason Kipnis (220)
Shin-Soo Choo (268)
Yu Darvish (335)
Troy Tulowitzki (88)
Yasiel Puig (44)
Justin Upton (38)
Adrian Beltre (23)
Giancarlo Stanton (13)
Evan Longoria (98)
Dustin Pedroia (133)
Carlos Gomez (15)
Max Scherzer (126)

I’m sure Tim has more to say about this, too, and hope he chimes in.

By the way, the rankings are based on 5×5 BA prices, while Tout Wars uses 5×5 OBP. So these rankings aren’t definitive, but rather suggestive, and sure represent (roughly) the dynamic of roto values.

Why There Will Never Be A Rotoman 250. B/w The Rotoman 250.

the250-copyI’m asked sometimes why there isn’t a Top 250 player list in the Fantasy Baseball Guide. I wrote about this last year, explaining why, so I won’t repeat myself too much here.

But an interesting thing happened this year while putting together this year’s Mock Draft for the magazine, and I thought it might be helpful to talk about it.

Now that the Guide is back to an early printing schedule, the Mock happens in mid November, and no draft service has updated draft-ranking lists loaded on their sites. We used CouchManagers.com this year, and they were glad we were using the service so early, hoping it would help them develop and fine tune their rankings.

Rankings are an important part of a draft service, because they help drafters find the players most likely to be drafted when their turn comes, which makes the whole process move more smoothly. But rankings, like ADP, also serve as a powerful suggestion for who to take in any given round. Not only do they suggest who ranks most highly, but they’re like an advertisement shown to everyone else pitching that player. If you want a player who appears near the top of the list, you better take him now because he isn’t going to fall once he’s atop the ranking list.

The fact is, playing the ebbs and flows of demand that ripple through the draft software and its lists are one of the skills of drafting a fantasy team. And another reason why a Top 250 not based on your draft sites list is of limited utility.

But this year, for the mock, I decided to take my Dollar Values and turn them into a draft list.

To each price I added .4 for catchers, .3 for shortstops, .2 for second basemen and .1 for third basemen.

I didn’t change the prices of pitchers, but I knew I would have to manage when to take them by using my sense of the draft. I wanted an Ace and I wanted a solid closer, and after that I was willing to scramble. My strategy was to take a pitcher in the later rounds when there was no standout hitter available.

(Note: I think one could simulate approximate pitcher draft slots by subtracting a certain number of places from each of them, but I think we’re better served knowing where pitchers rank in value–remember, at these prices they’re only getting 30 percent of the draft budget–and make decisions based on that.)

The list I made for that night is a bit out of date, so I’ve made a new one based on my current prices. Enjoy.

THE ROTOMAN 250
1: M Trout, LAA, OF
2: A McCutchen, PIT, OF
3: C Kershaw, LAD, P
4: J Abreu, CHA, 1B
5: M Cabrera, DET, 1B
6: P Goldschmidt, ARI, 1B
7: J Altuve, HOU, 2B
8: G Stanton, MIA, OF
9: F Hernandez, SEA, P
10: R Cano, SEA, 2B
11: C Sale, CHA, P
12: A Jones, BAL, OF
13: R Braun, MIL, OF
14: D Price, DET, P
15: C Gomez, MIL, OF
16: M Brantley, CLE, OF
17: M Bumgarner, SF, P
18: A Rendon, WAS, 2B
19: S Strasburg, WAS, P
20: I Desmond, WAS, SS
21: B Posey, SF, C
22: J Bautista, TOR, OF
23: J Ellsbury, NYA, OF
24: B Harper, WAS, OF
25: H Pence, SF, OF
26: A Gonzalez, LAD, 1B
27: F Freeman, ATL, 1B
28: A Beltre, TEX, 3B
29: P Fielder, TEX, 1B
30: C Gonzalez, COL, OF
31: S Marte, PIT, OF
32: A Rizzo, CHN, 1B
33: J Upton, SD, OF
34: J Zimmermann, WAS, P
35: C Kluber, CLE, P
36: J Reyes, TOR, SS
37: T Tulowitzki, COL, SS
38: M Scherzer, WAS, P
39: J Donaldson, TOR, 3B
40: E Encarnacion, TOR, 1B
41: V Martinez, DET, 1B
42: A Pujols, LAA, 1B
43: Y Puig, LAD, OF
44: A Wainwright, STL, P
45: Z Greinke, LAD, P
46: K Seager, SEA, 3B
47: D Wright, NYN, 3B
48: B Hamilton, CIN, OF
49: M Kemp, SD, OF
50: J Cueto, CIN, P
51: I Kinsler, DET, 2B
52: A Chapman, CIN, P
53: D Gordon, MIA, 2B
54: D Murphy, NYN, 2B
55: E Longoria, TAM, 3B
56: C Hamels, PHI, P
57: M Holliday, STL, OF
58: J Votto, CIN, 1B
59: C Yelich, MIA, OF
60: H Iwakuma, SEA, P
61: J Lucroy, MIL, C
62: C Kimbrel, ATL, P
63: D Pedroia, BOS, 2B
64: B Revere, PHI, OF
65: H Ramirez, BOS, SS
66: S Castro, CHN, SS
67: A Gordon, KC, OF
68: T Frazier, CIN, 3B
69: R Zimmerman, WAS, 3B
70: Y Cespedes, DET, OF
71: N Cruz, SEA, OF
72: C Dickerson, COL, OF
73: M Ozuna, MIA, OF
74: J Werth, WAS, OF
75: H Kendrick, LAD, 2B
76: W Rosario, COL, C
77: G Richards, LAA, P
78: A Ramirez, CHA, SS
79: E Andrus, TEX, SS
80: M Machado, BAL, 3B
81: B Belt, SF, 1B
82: G Holland, KC, P
83: Y Darvish, TEX, P
84: J Samardzija, CHA, P
85: P Sandoval, BOS, 3B
86: N Arenado, COL, 3B
87: C Davis, BAL, 1B
88: B Gardner, NYA, OF
89: A Rios, KC, OF
90: M Adams, STL, 1B
91: J Heyward, STL, OF
92: W Myers, SD, OF
93: D Span, WAS, OF
94: M Cabrera, CHA, OF
95: L Martin, TEX, OF
96: J Kipnis, CLE, 2B
97: E Aybar, LAA, SS
98: M Carpenter, STL, 3B
99: B Butler, OAK, 1B
100: S Choo, TEX, OF
101: E Hosmer, KC, 1B
102: J Bruce, CIN, OF
103: J Morneau, COL, 1B
104: J Teheran, ATL, P
105: M Tanaka, NYA, P
106: D Santana, MIN, SS
107: N Walker, PIT, 2B
108: N Castellanos, DET, 3B
109: K Calhoun, LAA, OF
110: A Eaton, CHA, OF
111: A LaRoche, CHA, 1B
112: J Martinez, DET, OF
113: B Zobrist, OAK, 2B
114: C Blackmon, COL, OF
115: C Crawford, LAD, OF
116: S Gray, OAK, P
117: A Jackson, SEA, OF
118: D Mesoraco, CIN, C
119: Y Molina, STL, C
120: H Street, LAA, P
121: A Escobar, KC, SS
122: M Prado, MIA, 2B
123: C Utley, PHI, 2B
124: S Perez, KC, C
125: L Chisenhall, CLE, 3B
126: J Harrison, PIT, 3B
127: M Pineda, NYA, P
128: R Castillo, BOS, OF
129: B Dozier, MIN, 2B
130: J Loney, TAM, 1B
131: G Springer, HOU, OF
132: L Duda, NYN, 1B
133: D Betances, NYA, P
134: A Cobb, TAM, P
135: J Arrieta, CHN, P
136: F Rodney, SEA, P
137: K Jansen, LAD, P
138: A Wood, ATL, P
139: J Peralta, STL, SS
140: C Santana, CLE, 1B
141: Y Gomes, CLE, C
142: S Gennett, MIL, 2B
143: K Wong, STL, 2B
144: L Cain, KC, OF
145: A Craig, BOS, OF
146: D Ortiz, BOS, DH
147: M Trumbo, ARI, 1B
148: J deGrom, NYN, P
149: R Odor, TEX, 2B
150: B Moss, CLE, OF
151: J Hardy, BAL, SS
152: C Headley, NYA, 3B
153: S Cishek, MIA, P
154: D Fowler, HOU, OF
155: M Wieters, BAL, C
156: P Alvarez, PIT, 3B
157: C Johnson, ATL, 3B
158: C Carter, HOU, DH
159: A Garcia, CHA, OF
160: K Davis, MIL, OF
161: M Morse, MIA, OF
162: G Polanco, PIT, OF
163: D Stubbs, COL, OF
164: J Fernandez, MIA, P
165: D Fister, WAS, P
166: J Lester, CHN, P
167: C Carrasco, CLE, P
168: J Shields, FA, P
169: M Shoemaker, LAA, P
170: D Smyly, TAM, P
171: J Papelbon, PHI, P
172: T Roark, WAS, P
173: A Sanchez, DET, P
174: E Gattis, HOU, C
175: H Ryu, LAD, P
176: J Rollins, LAD, SS
177: J Segura, MIL, SS
178: D Jennings, TAM, OF
179: B Phillips, CIN, 2B
180: T Plouffe, MIN, 3B
181: A Ramirez, MIL, 3B
182: A Cabrera, TAM, SS
183: A Lind, MIL, 1B
184: O Arcia, MIN, OF
185: M Betts, BOS, OF
186: C Crisp, OAK, OF
187: A De Aza, BAL, OF
188: J Hamilton, LAA, OF
189: B Lawrie, OAK, 2B
190: J Mauer, MIN, 1B
191: J Jay, STL, OF
192: A Pagan, SF, OF
193: P Hughes, MIN, P
194: D Robertson, CHA, P
195: A Cashner, SD, P
196: M Fiers, MIL, P
197: M Melancon, PIT, P
198: B McCann, NYA, C
199: J Lowrie, HOU, SS
200: J Mercer, PIT, SS
201: J Gyorko, SD, 2B
202: T Yasmany, ARI, 3B
203: D Ackley, SEA, OF
204: M Bourn, CLE, OF
205: C Cron, LAA, 1B
206: R Davis, DET, OF
207: T Hunter, MIN, OF
208: J Lagares, NYN, OF
209: N Markakis, ATL, OF
210: J Soler, CHN, OF
211: D Salazar, CLE, P
212: J Weaver, LAA, P
213: M Cain, SF, P
214: G Cole, PIT, P
215: D Viciedo, CHA, OF
216: R Martin, TOR, C
217: C Allen, CLE, P
218: Z Britton, BAL, P
219: Y Ventura, KC, P
220: F Rodriguez, MIL, P
221: T Rosenthal, STL, P
222: X Bogaerts, BOS, SS
223: B Crawford, SF, SS
224: A Simmons, ATL, SS
225: D Freese, LAA, 3B
226: C Gillaspie, CHA, 3B
227: K Morales, KC, 1B
228: S Pearce, BAL, 1B
229: C Rasmus, FA, OF
230: M Cuddyer, NYN, OF
231: C Granderson, NYN, OF
232: R Howard, PHI, 1B
233: G Parra, MIL, OF
234: J Pederson, LAD, OF
235: A Pollock, ARI, OF
236: M Wacha, STL, P
237: Y Solarte, SD, 2B
238: D LeMahieu, COL, 2B
239: J Panik, SF, 2B
240: C Tillman, BAL, P
241: M Montero, CHN, C
242: W Ramos, WAS, C
243: E Cabrera, FA, SS
244: T Watson, PIT, P
245: N Feliz, TEX, P
246: S Kazmir, OAK, P
247: A Sanchez, TOR, P
248: M Stroman, TOR, P
249: J Verlander, DET, P
250: S Casilla, SF, P

I hope this is a good start for you in your draft.