Prices

The First Round (and the second): Some Thoughts

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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.

ASK ROTOMAN: Help My 17-Team Deep League!

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Dear Rotoman:

I’m in a 17 team deep league with unconventional custom categories. I don’t have time to do my own custom predictions and valuations — so i’ve been using Baseball Monster to give me a sense of value. Do you know of any other sites that you would recommend higher? Thanks so much!!

“Unconventional and Custom”

Dear UaC,

It seems that Baseball Monster hasn’t been updated since the end of last season, so I can’t test their custom pricing tool. But I wanted to take on your question because it raises some good questions about customized categories and shallow versus deep leagues.

For one, you score every category the same. At least to start.

If you were making a price for Hit By Pitch, you would rank the hitters from first to last in that category. You would subtract the number of times the last drafted guy is expected to be hit from all the draftable players, which gives you the marginally valuable HBP. You can then divide the number of Marginal HBP by the total Marginal HBP and then multiply that times the amount of money allocated to that category (if your league had four categories, that would be one quarter—25 percent—of the money). Easy.

When you do this after the season you get the true value a player contributed in that category for the year.

But when you do this based on projections for the coming year you run into a few problems.

For instance, not every category is equally reliant on a player’s skill. Strikeouts and walks for pitchers are pretty reliable, at least until the pitcher gets hurt or his skills change, but wins, for instance, are not so reliable.

Clayton KershawClayton Kershaw, the game’s best pitcher, has won 13, 21, 14, 16, and 21 games in the past five years, making all his starts each year except last year. His marginal value would have been 6, 14, 7, 9, and 14, which varies wildly at or above the median marginal value (six each of those years) of a fantasy pitcher taken in the auction. In the three years he didn’t win 21 games, his value above an average starter in wins would have been 0, 1 and 3 wins. No great shakes at all.

So, how do you value those wins? Same pitcher, wildly divergent results. I dare say you don’t value them as reliably as you value his strikeouts. Yet in the standings, each category generates the same amount of value. But in Wins those values are compressed around the middle.

Another way categories vary in value is strategic. In the classic roto game, stolen base and saves guys generally cost less than you would expect based on the value they generate in those categories. While some part of that may be risk management, not putting all one’s eggs in one basket, another reason to devalue a category is because it’s possible to gain points in it without spending any money on it.

The ability to avoid paying for steals and saves in the auction encourages some teams to dump out of the category, spending money that might be budgeted for steals or saves on HR, RBI and Ks. Once a few teams do this, the demand for the top guys in these cats is lowered, and prices fall a bit. The category is still worth the same as other cats, but strategic investment creates and opportunity to reallocate resources more efficiently. You hope.

These are just two ways to evaluate your custom categories, and adjust your thinking about how money will be allocated for different players in your league.

Another factor is the deepness of your league. You call a 17 team league deep, but at that level the available replacement player is a starter. Maybe not a very good one, but good enough to fill in and produce when you have an injury. This bountiful replacement pool means that there is no reason to pay $2 or $5 or even $8 for a player. You can do just fine with the proverbial $1 player at a position or three. And what should you do with the extra money you save?

Buy scarce talent at positions where the talent isn’t that deep. Meaning, buy the best catcher, the best shortstop, the best third baseman, oh, and a reliable closer. Buy steals. Your goal is to get the players who do things that other players at their position don’t, and don’t worry about overpaying for them.

Get the best, then fill in as best you can.

Because, while the Baseball Monster pricer (and really all pricing software) might be able to tell you how much a player was worth in the past, it stumbles dealing with the non-linear values of the top players in a league that has a lot of available replacement talent.

The bottom line here is that you can call a league deep or shallow, but there is an actual definition that describes the difference. In a deep league almost all the available players are active on teams. There is virtually no replacement pool.

A league that has a replacement pool of some robustness is a shallow league. Maybe not as shallow as others, but it is a league that has the qualities of the non-linear pricing described above.

 

I’m sure there’s a formula out there to help translate the values of true deep leagues to far less deep leagues like yours, one that stretches the curve appropriately, but the best way for a fantasy player to make the adjustment is to sit down with the price list and to personally reallocate the excess values of the replacement level players to the best players. Adjust them also to better reflect your assessment of talent and the vagaries of your league, too. It is these things that matter more than hard and fast dollar values in a shallow-er league (much as any competently constructed pricer, like the one behind the pay wall at Rotowire, or the one in the Patton $ software we will be selling very soon, can give you).

Is there a free player pricer that works? There may well be, but the ones I used to use are gone. If you find one you would like me to evaluate, let me know. I’m happy to check it out and pass along what I find.

Linearly,
Rotoman

 

Top 20 Fantasy Baseball Hitting Bargains, through August 31

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Screenshot 2014-09-04 12.28.40None of the most expensive hitters show up on the list of profitmakers, because the known hitters are paid for on auction day. The Top 20 is a mix of guys having explosively good years after being paid to be a little above average, and the unknowns who weren’t bought or were taken in the end game, who have turned out to be pretty productive. It’s hard to look back to March and see how we could have predicted any of these breakouts, but the teams that landed these guys have a leg up on the rest of us.

Top 20 Fantasy Baseball Pitching Bargains, through August 31

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Screenshot 2014-09-04 12.19.47Profits are where it’s at, the more you have the more likely you are to win, and they can be found among starters and relievers, including setup guys. Starting studs can still turn out to be a bargain, but the differencemaker in pitching is the number of impact players who are either unbought in the auction or picked up for a buck or two in the end game.

The April Leaders: The best and worst of April

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I’m still working on getting the month report formatted properly, but this seems as good a time as any for some April Top 10s. This is for 5×5 BA for only leagues, thru April 30.

One thing to remember is that these prices are scaled to full season prices. If you wanted to judge them in terms of actual one-month production (or lack thereof) you would divide them by 6.25. So, Charlie Blackmon at this point has actually earned $43/6.25, or about $7.  That’s roughly what his end of year earnings would be if he stopped playing after Wednesday’s games.

More April Roto $ Reports will come out of the weekend.

TOP 10 APRIL HITTERS

Charlie Blackmon, Rockies, $43
Alexei Ramirez, White Sox, $39
Jose Abreu, White Sox, $37
Adrian Gonzalez, Dodgers, $37
Mike Trout, Angels, $37
Justin Upton, Braves, $36
Melky Cabrera, Blue Jays, $36
Troy Tulowitski, Rockies, $36
Justin Morneau, Rockies, $35
Giancarlo Stanton, $35

BOTTOM 10 APRIL HITTERS

Freddy Galvis, Phillies, -$8
Moises Sierra, Blue Jays, -$7
Tim Federowicz, Dodgers, -$6
JP Arencibia, Rangers, -$6
Jeff Baker, Marlins, -$5
John Baker, Cubs, -$5
Cody Ross, Diamondbacks, -$5
Juan Perez, Giants, -$5
Shane Robinson, Cardinals, -$4
Charlie Culberson, Rockies, -$4

TOP 10 APRIL PITCHERS

Adam Wainwright, Cardinals, $49
Johnny Cueto, Reds, $47
Tim Hudson, Giants, $42
Jose Fernandez, Marlins, $39
Jason Hammel, Cubs, $35
Francisco Rodriguez, Brewers, $33
Julio Teheran, Braves, $33
Felix Hernandez, Mariners, $30
James Shields, Royals, $29
Scott Kazmir, Athletics, $29

BOTTOM 10 APRIL PITCHERS

Felipe Paulino, White Sox, -$46
Carlos Villanueva, Cubs, -$37
Tanner Scheppers, Rangers, -$30
Bronson Arroyo, Diamondbacks, -$27
Ubaldo Jimenez, Orioles, -$27
Kevin Correia, Twins, -$26
Ricky Nolasco, Twins, -$25
Lucas Harrell, Astros, -$25
Mike Pelfrey, Twins, -$24
Ivan Nova, Yankees, -$24

ASK ROTOMAN: Wacha Flocka Cashner?

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Hi Rotoman –

Can you explain how prices sometimes do not coordinate with projections? For example below are your projections for Cashner and Wacha:

Cashner: 10 W, 3.53 ERA, 149 K, 1.24 WHIP
Wacha: 9 W, 3.45 ERA, 173 K, 1.16 WHIP

Yet you have Cashner at $16 and Wacha at $8.

Could the difference be perceived risk?

“Wacha Flaka Cashner”

Dear WFC:
In the Fantasy Guide, the projections are a starting point. They’re based on past performance rates regressed toward the mean, with some manual adjustments, scaled to a rough estimate of playing time (which is also regressed). The Projections are my attempt to describe a player using numbers. I hope that they give a sense how hittable a guy is, what sort of control he has, does he hit for average, can he run, that sort of thing.

The Big Prices in the Guide are my attempt to fix a guy’s value against the market. The prices are meant to be advice on who to buy and who to not buy. Essentially, I try to set the price on guys I expect to do well a buck or two higher than their “market” price. And guys I have concerns about, I set a buck or two lower.

It is important to note that the Prices add up to the budget for a 12-team AL or NL league with $260 budget per team. The reason to budget this way is because it helps you track the spending during the auction. If guys are going for more than the bid prices, you know that there are going to be bargains later. If guys are going for less? A bubble is born.

Now, let’s fast forward to March 15. That’s the day I posted the updated projections and prices here, for purchasers of the Guide. The adjusted projections were:

Cashner: 184 IP, 3.54 ERA, 10 W, 149 K, 1.14 WHIP
Wacha: 172 IP, 3.77 ERA, 11 W, 163 K, 1.24 WHIP

Now here’s the interesting part. The price for Cashner in 5×5 is $16. The price for Wacha is $15. But if you translate the above to dollar values, Cashner’s line is worth about $17, while Wacha’s is worth $8.

What happened?

Two things. As we hurtled toward the baseball season I learned that the market for Wacha is red hot. People consistently have him valued higher than Shelby Miller, which I think is a little wacky. It turns out that he tends to be going in the $16-$18 range in startup auctions. If I kept him at my pessimistic $8 price, it would look like a massive overpay when he went for twice that on draft day. But it isn’t really. The low end of the market for Wacha is $16, and I don’t want him at that.

Cashner, on the other hand, is a guy I want at $16. I mean, I’d rather have him at $14, and that’s been his average price this preseason, ranging from $13 to $15, but if I have to go $16 I’m okay with that.

The other thing I did was tinker with the projections to better reflect my perceptions about these two.

Wacha was a fastball/changeup guy last year. That’s it. An excellent fastball, a tough change, and early success, but it’s really hard to sustain a high level of success over multiple times through the lineup with just two pitches. No matter how good they are. My pessimism derives from the limited arsenal and the good chance that as major league scouts and hitters get repeated looks at him, there is going to be some payback.

The reason why most everyone thinks I’m wrong is because Wacha has added a curveball, which he threw a fair amount in his first start this year, and a cutter, which he didn’t throw much. It’s early, the pitches are new, and so there’s a lot we know. If he adds them effectively, he will become every bit the ace he looked like late last year. My bet is there is going to be some adjusting and he’s going to have some rough starts. So I think he’ll allow more hits and runs. We’ll see.

Cashner, on the other hand, is older, more experienced, has a more traditional fastball/slider/change repertoire already in place. I like him being at least as good as he was last year, when he earned $17.

The final word is that this process is one that consists of information, generated by the players that play, the press that follows them and tells the world what happened, and the numbers that describe what they did. This information is distilled by analysts as it comes in and added to both the projection, something of a description of average talent levels, and the market, which filters it all through the lens of risk and reward, which leads to bid values.

The whole process stops, for a few seconds at least, the moment the auctioneer says Sold! And then it starts all over again.

 

Projections for The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2014 owners were updated

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The March 15 release is complete. It has updated projections and prices for 4×4 and 5×5 leagues. Players have league identifiers.

Go to the download page, which is password protected. Fantasy Baseball Guide owners will find the password in the Guide. It is the first word of Rick Wilton’s injury report on Albert Pujols, in the hitter section of the Guide.

You can buy an electronic version of the magazine at thefantasysportsguide.com. Use the promo code rotoman2014 and get a dollar off.

You can also buy the Patton $ Data and Software, with more projections and prices updated through the first week of April. More info at software.askrotoman.com.

ASK ROTOMAN: Does Sizemore Matter?

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Dear Rotoman,

What are your thoughts on Grady Sizemore?

“Thinking Along”

Dear Thinking,

In the Fantasy Baseball Guide 2013 we ran profiles of both Grady and Scott Sizemore. With Grady we noted his three microfracture surgeries, his possible timetable of a midseason return, and said it was best to have no expectations. Scott Sizemore was expected to be healthy after surgery to repair his ACL, which he tore in 2012. $3 I said, for the As third baseman. But Scott Sizemore again tore his ACL in the second game, thus ending his 2013 season. Meanwhile, there was no sign of Grady. Which is why I decided to scratch both of them from the 2014 Guide. Oops.

Now they’re back. Scott Sizemore is competing with the equally back-from-the-dead second baseman Brian Roberts for the Yankees job at second base. And Grady is trying out with the Red Sox, ostensibly to serve as their fourth outfielder.

Here are the knocks on Grady. He hasn’t played a full season since 2008. He was passably productive (.788 OPS) in 503 plate appearances in 2009, and has been ineffectual when not not playing since. That’s a lot of down time. But Grady was a finely conditioned athlete (see illustration), and presumably hasn’t shirked on the upper body while rehabbing his knees.

Screenshot 2014-03-14 09.34.43Still, keeping muscle tone (and this isn’t a recent selfie, this is from 2009) is easier when you’re 31 (turns 32 in August) than it is to keep your bat speed and timing. Especially after years of not facing real pitching. Which isn’t to say he can’t do it.

I was skeptical last year of Victor Martinez coming back effectively after a year off. I could find little evidence of other hitters at his age missing a full year and becoming effective regulars again. Martinez, of course, did just fine. History is a guide, not a destiny.

So, Sizemore has age on his side, but has essentially missed his entire prime to injury. He lands on the post-prime part of his career with a history that offers only caution and hope. It would be nice if he regained some of his career, wouldn’t it?

The nice thing for fantasy players is that he’s a late-round low-cost flyer at this point. Skepticism is damping down his price, while there is a real chance for playing time if Jackie Bradley Jr. doesn’t grab hold of the starting job or someone gets hurt. That could mean real value if Sizemore can actually play.

The problem, of course, is that he’s a low contact high-walk-and-strikeout type of player, which means in a BA league he’s likely to hurt you in that category. He’s had a little power, and maybe will add to that, as guys often do as they move into their 30s. What made him specially valuable back in his glory days were his legs, but since they’ve been the motor of his downfalling, don’t count on big steals numbers. Still, you have to think that if he’s going to make the team as a backup centerfielder that the legs will be healed.

I haven’t put a projection in the software at this point because really? If you made me I’d say 300 AB, .235 BA, .350 OBP, 10 HR and 5 SB. I’d pay a buck for the chance that works out. I’d use a 23rd round pick in AL only. I wouldn’t assume any mixed league value.

I would also wonder why I thought an obvious bad pun was a good idea for a headline?

Seismically,
Rotoman

Updated Projections Now Updated

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Projections have been updated and posted to the Top Secret Projections and Rotoman’s 5×5 Prices Download page, which requires a password.

Look at Rick Wilton’s injury report after the Albert Pujols profile in the Fantasy Baseball Guide.. The first word of his comment is the password.

If you can’t find the printed Guide, the online edition is available at thefantasysportsguide.com. Use the promocode rotoman2014 and save a buck.

I will include 4×4 prices in the last update, which will be posted on the 15th. These are the same ones I’ll be working on for the American Dream League auction, a 4×4 Roto league since 1981.

If you want more numbers, CBS, LABR and Tout draft prices, Alex Patton’s 4×4 bid prices, notes on batting order and rotation role, and MLB and BA prospect lists, you should check out software.askrotoman.com.

The software is surprisingly useful, but we also offer Excel and text versions if you prefer. All are useful.