Roto

Panic? Or Don’t Panic? Which Is It?

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by Peter O’Neil

Many fantasy baseball experts admonish those who express nervousness over a high-priced superstar’s slow start. “Don’t panic!” they say. “Players always revert to their norm.” Others chirp in on public forums: “It’s only April, the stats are meaningless.”

And the most obnoxious will annoyingly declare:  “Gee, I wish you were in my league. I’d take you to the cleaners, offering you my red-hot Chris Duncan for your slow-starting Carlos Lee.”

It is of course true that you should never trade a slumping elite player for a hot-starting unknown.  But given all the available information and expertise out there these days, are there really players in remotely serious leagues who make those kinds of deals?  Even if they did the scorn heaped down on them assures they will too petrified to do it  again, and the beneficiary would earn a “shark” reputation that could make future trading difficult.

To me the real question is this: Should we really be so quick to dismiss April stats? Is a star’s slow start, or an unheralded player’s heroics, really meaningless?

I have always felt that April stats are fairly significant.  And I’d like to cite some research I’ve been looking over, produced by one of fantasy’s top gurus, to back up my views.

Ron Shandler’s 2009 edition of the Forecaster reproduced his study of the 2005 season that looked at players who had surprisingly good, or bad, years, and sought to determine if these breakouts and breakdowns were identifiable by the end of April.

The study concluded that a little over 40 per cent of hitters and pitchers who earned $10 more than projected for the whole season were red-hot in April.

More than half of hitters (56 per cent) and 3/4 of pitchers (74 per cent) who earned $10 less than projected were also identifiable in April.

Shandler’s conclusion was that, for other than pitchers about to have lousy years, “April was not a strong leading indicator.”

The study also looked at major breakouts — players earning $20-$25 more than predicted — and found these were identifiable in 45 per cent of the cases. His conclusion: “April surgers are less than a 50-50 proposition to maintain that level all season.”

I love the research, so once again the fantasy baseball community has benefited from Shandler’s great work. But I have a different perspective on the conclusion.

If everyone in fantasy agreed that 100 per cent of players off to amazing, or miserable, starts in April were going to maintain that level, then this study would poke a pin in that balloon. But we know that’s not the case.

The fact is that the vast majority of fantasy participants are inherently skeptical of players who come out of nowhere to start strongly.   They might find it interesting that Chris Duncan is hitting more than .350 right now, but how many would pay a price to have him on their teams?

Similarly, while owners might be a little worried right now that David Ortiz is well under the Mendoza line, it’s going to be a while before they give up on the idea that their star asset will come back with a vengeance. Of course, experts constantly urging them to be patient and assuring them that players revert to the mean reinforces this view.

So I doubt very much if fantasy players realize there is at least a 40 per cent chance the player performing well above expectations will remain that way, and that more than half of the league’s slumping hitters, and three-quarters of struggling pitchers, won’t recover.

A second study, also by Shandler, reinforced my view.

Last May he proposed a theoretical trade of hot April starters (including Fred Lewis, Ryan Doumit, Kyle Lohse, Chipper Jones, Cliff Lee among them) for strugglers (like Robinson Cano, Justin Verlander, Kenji Johjima, Austin Kearns, Adam Laroche, and Roy Oswalt). He suggested tongue somewhat in cheek that the buyer of the slow starters would have to be nuts to accept such a group of struggling bums as Oswalt and Cano.

Of course, his point was that the former group of overachievers were obvious sell-high candidates, while the underachievers were ideal buy-low opportunities. He said the goal of this column was to “prove that early season mass hysteria” about hot or cold starters “is really tiresome.” He stated as fact that his underachievers would out-earn the overachievers, and made a joking reference to the absurdity of anyone who would rather have Lohse over Verlander.

But the result was a shocker, to me and I assume to Shandler. The 10 so-called overachievers actually performed better the rest of the way, with Lohse playing a key role by clearly pitching better than Verlander.

I think these results open our eyes to changing realities. Shandler deliberately chose the overachieving Doumit among the group of players he wanted to trade away, and cited the underachieving Johjima as an ideal target. The message here was obvious: the smart money should be betting on Johjima, since he had a longer track record and the projected stats were so much better.

Yet here we are a year later and Doumit is an elite catching option and Johjima is unrosterable in numerous formats.

Things change, and sometimes the signs are obvious in April.

So what can we do as fantasy players with this information? Well, that’s a tough one. Ideally, fantasy experts should be doing a version of the 2005 study every year to give us more information on the springtime genesis of breakouts and breakdowns.

But until then? I’m not advocating panic trades, of course. It’s still going to be tough figuring out which of your hot starters is headed for a career year. And it will always be hard to try to sell struggling players, particularly if you have a reputation of being one of the smarter cookies in your league. People will assume you know there’s an underlying problem.

But if there’s a shark in your league trolling for slow-starters, and offering some flash-in-the-pan who’s leading the league in RBIs, don’t necessarily assume you’re about to be duped.  There’s a not-unreasonable chance that you could be getting a stud for a dud.

(Peter O’Neil is the Paris-based Europe correspondent for a Canadian news agency. He writes for www.canada.com/fantasybaseball)

Top Earning Pitchers with No Bid Price

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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.

BP NL LABR Team

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 FakeTeams

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

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BlogTalkRadio

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!

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Roto Think Tank

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.)

This Year, Patton $ in Cheaper Data Only Format, Available Now!

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The Patton $ 2009 page

The link takes you to the information and ordering page for Patton $ Software and this year’s new product: The Data Only for Less!

For the many who use the software to prepare their own projections and prices, make their bid lists, and run their auction or draft, the price remains the same: $30. Click the buttons on the left side of the page, if you want to buy.

For the others, who have paid the $30 for the data only, in text and Excel formats, this year we’re offering the projections and bid prices for $15. Click the buttons on the right side of the page, if you want to buy.

Software owners will be able to access the data files from the software download page.

For those unfamiliar with the product, a visit to the Patton $ Software and Data information and ordering page, will answer many questions. Or ask a question here in the comments.

The Myth of Buy Low, Sell High by Peter O’Neil

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(Peter O’Neil will be contributing fantasy baseball columns from time to time.)

In early May fantasy guru Ron Shandler published a list of 10 hot starters, among them Fred Lewis and Kyle Lohse, and proposed trading them for another 10 out-of-the-gate stumblers. That list included fantasy favorites Robinson Cano and Roy Oswalt.

“I am trading away 28 HRs and a .355 batting average for 8 HRs and a .172 batting average. Heading out is a 1.94 ERA; coming in is a 5.61 ERA. I’d have to be completely out of my mind, right?” Shandler wrote on his baseballhq.com site.

“We’ll check back in October.”

The point of this column was to wisely and usefully stress the importance of being patient with slow starters. He was also urging subscribers to follow the old stock market adage: Buy low, sell high, which he said is not something “that fantasy leaguers do easily.”

Really? As an owner of red-hot Fred Lewis at the time, I began a thread on his website¹s forum under the title of this column ­ The Myth of Buy Low, Sell High.

“I can’t count how many times in the last two weeks I’ve floated Lewis’s name in trade talks. Zero interest. If anyone took him it would be as a throw-in,” I wrote.

“You regularly see on this and other sites a reference to a player: Sell high; to another, Buy low.
But where are all the guys doing these deals? It reminds me of a saying from high school I once heard: Everyone is getting laid except the girls. In my experience these trades almost never happen. And when they do, and the results are as predicted, that newby has learned his lesson and never does it again. The shark who pulled off the heist gets a bad reputation and it
becomes harder and harder for him to make deals.

“So in fact I suspect that at minimum nine owners out of 10 would take the team of established stars, like Oswalt and Cano, over the other list.”

The debate began with someone helpfully explaining that curious imbalance I noted involving high school boys and girls: “Guys were getting sex hand over fist.”

As the debate turned more serious, several agreed with my point. The classic buy-low, sell-high trade “still doesn’t happen in my league. Ever,” one poster wrote.

“Candidates you think you can ‘sell high’ are perceived by everyone else as players that will revert to their original projections. Candidates you think you can ‘buy low’ are held by their owners because they’re just slumping.”

Another poster was one of several who argued that my basic “myth” argument was flawed.
“Nearly every day, I read of a lopsided trade completed by a poster on these forums that provides a counter-example to the notion that buy low, sell high trades are only a myth. Some of us say it isn’t happening in our leagues, but clearly it happens in many leagues.”

The last post I’ll cite came from someone who also challenged my argument, but also made the point that is fundamental in this debate. “With the internet making all sorts of secondary stats easily available as well as tons of expert analyses, owners are smarter than they have been in
the past. And most of us are hardcore-type rotogeeks who choose not to play in leagues with unsophisticated owners, anyway.”

So I considered these responses in early May as I started crafting an earlier draft of this column which led to the final product you¹re reading now. I made the point that one might have to start being counter-intuitive and contemplate taking advantage of the fact that hot starters’ values are
discounted, while the slow-starting superstars like Miguel Cabrera are always assumed to be on the verge of a huge breakout.

“If your player has started slowly, and you see a valid reason to question whether touts were right to hand him such lofty projections, it might not hurt to put feelers out that you’re ready to trade,” I wrote.

“You should have absolute faith that with quality players, the sharks will smell blood when think they have a shot at getting these players at 50 cents on the dollar. You shouldn’t sell them that low, but it may indeed be a wise move to trade at a slight discount or even no discount at all ­ particularly if it means getting back break-out player who might not turn out to be a
flop after all.”

Early in the 2007 season, when Michael Young was off to a miserable start and I was desperate for a shortstop, I offered to the owner my recently-acquired free agents who had started strong ­ Josh Hamilton and closer Al Reyes. I also gave him Juan Uribe, but he could have easily
received my struggling Troy Tulowitzki had he just asked. I was going to waive Tulo but instead, after the Young trade, dealt him for a useless middle reliever.

This was a classic buy-low (Young’s price presumably being deflated) and sell-high (I paid next to nothing for these three players). In fact, it turned out that I gave away a closer and an emerging stud OF in exchange for a modest downgrade at SS. Even then I had to twist the guy’s arm to give up Young, his third-round pick.

My point here is that even when you get someone to agree to a deal like this, you always have to discount severely the current value and future potential of your hot starters in order to overcome the overwhelming skepticism about April surprises. Everyone recognizes a buy-low, sell-high
deal and the last thing anyone wants is to be fingered by leaguemates as the Nervous Nellie who panicked and sold a costly pick to the league shark.

So you have to seriously wonder if it’s better to be on the sell-low side of the ledger sometimes. More recently I read of a sell low trade in which someone dealt slow-starting Corey Hart in early May for Casey Kotchman and George Sherrill. But did he really sell low? Hart started slowly in the power department, raising doubts about pre-season projections of a 25-25 or 30-30
season, though has recently picked up the pace. Still, I think the Hart owner got close to full value: ­ a closer and a solid emerging first baseman. Hart has only had one great season in the bigs, and the 2007 year was powered by two huge months.

Then in mid-May baseballhq.com managing editor Ray Murphy produced a column titled: Buy High, Sell Low.

“The advice is ubiquitous at this time of year, both here and at other sites: ‘He’s a good buy-low candidate.’ ‘Sell high while you can,’ Murphy wrote.

“Some would say the words have lost all meaning, as executing this strategy is now impossible in all but the most elementary of leagues,” he said, citing the thread I started.

Murphy, who had never been exposed to my unpublished argument about the potential wisdom of selling low, suggested that owners consider turning the strategy “on its ear” and went on to identify “buy high” candidates whose fast starts were indeed legitimate, including Kerry Wood. (Potentially, and this is my point rather than his, these buy-high candidates could come at a
slight discount because owners might have their own doubts about the players’ ability to sustain their current performance level.)

Murphy’s readers were also advised to consider “selling low” on some slow starters that he didn’t think have either the skills or opportunity to turn it around, like HQ spring training favorite Jason Kubel.

So is buy low, sell high really a myth? Not completely. We¹re all human, so many of us are prone to eventually getting impatient with an underperformer, making us more inclined to sell. And it’s natural to become euphoric when a sleeper pick emerges as an April-May all-star. These emotions remain dynamics in any trade considerations, just as fear and greed will always be
factors in the stock market.

But I think it’s important not to beat yourself up because a fantasy expert declares smugly that it’s too late, you¹ve missed a golden opportunity to sell high on or buy low on a particular player. Because increasingly that opportunity isn’t really there, or isn’t particularly golden if it is.

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(Peter O¹Neil, who covers Europe from Paris for a Canadian news agency, is a
former stock market columnist for the Financial Times of Canada. He won the
2007 Rotoman¹s Regulars non-keeper title and is multiple winner of the Brian
Baskin¹s Fantasy Baseball Pool based in Ottawa.)

Walt Jocketty and the Search for Golden Arms

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Squawking Baseball

This somewhat rambling analysis of how to stock your pitching staff (if you’re a major league GM) strikes me as very smart. Don’t pay a lot because you need a lot. Pay a little because if you take enough small chances you can find a lot in the pool.

I think we need some real studies of what happens (namely, where the good pitchers on good teams came from) to buy into this fully, but given Rany’s survey of drafts it makes total sense to me that the best investment is in hitters.

And certainly major league teams are going this way now.