Tout Wars NL FAAB Success

Last night I bid $5 on Houston second baseman Jose Altuve, a youngster who is playing now and should continue to play for the Astros regardless of how he hits. And he might not hit much. I was blown out of the water. My bid beat Steve Gardner’s ($0), but trailed Mike Gianella ($6), Scott Pianowski ($18), Nate Ravitz ($22), Chris Liss ($25), and ultimate winner Cory Schwartz ($37). I bid $5 because Altuve is very young (he started this year in Hi-A), and not really a power or speed guy. He’s had a high BA this year at all levels, but he’s jumping from Double-A (where he had just 150 AB) to the bigs. I think there’s a really good chance he’ll hit .240 with little power, and wasn’t interested in paying for that.

But Cory told me that he’s “not a big fan of saving the money for a better option to come along. If there’s a guy who fits the needs, go out and get him.” I agree with that, yet this year the pickings have seemed thin despite my having needs from Day 1. It seems like a good reason to go back and see what opportunities were missed:

March 31:

The big bidding was on Jose Contreras, who went to Lenny Melnick and Paul Greco for $17 (I’m including the bid here, not the reduced Vickrey bid, which in this case was $11). Contreras has saved five games, with so so quality.

Chris Liss beat out Cory Schwartz, $9 to $8, for Stephen Strasburg.

The big winner was Brian Walton, who bid $4 on the Cubs’ regular second baseman for the year, Darwin Barney. There were no other money bids on Barney.

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My Tout Wars NL Team 2011

We drafted in Tout Wars NL yesterday. You’ll find a link to the spreadsheet and live blog Jason Collette ran at toutwars.com. You’ll also find his live blog for Tout Mixed and my live blog of Tout AL further down the page, as well as links to the various spreadsheets.

You’ll find more about the event at Toutwars.com, on the Tout Wars page on Facebook, and following #toutwars on Twitter.

Historically, this draft is pretty tight. The best hitters go for a few dollars below my general assessment of their bid price, and the best pitchers the same. You would think this was an exploitable mistake, and maybe it is (Mike Lombardo from Wise Guy Baseball won three times buying good pitchers and catchers), but in my experience if you get a good price for a $35 pitcher (say $30) and then all the other pitchers go cheaper still, the price advantage disappears. The key thing is to stay away from the mid-range hitters, at least the sexy ones, because there will be more money for them than there “should” be. Evidence, Jay Bruce went for $29 yesterday.

In recent years I’ve mapped out my draft sheet with target prices for each slot, and a few players who I would be happy to roster at that price. This aren’t hard guidelines, but serve rather as a structure to help me gauge where I am versus my budget. I feel free to shift resources around if I see a bargain, but it also reminds me that there are available players I “like” who fit into my plan. Until there aren’t, of course.

The ability to adjust is the key thing during a competitive closely fought auction. That’s because the prices that are paid at auction are variable. My $28 player is someone else’s $32, at least at that moment, and certain types of players tend to clump at non-linear prices. So while I may have hoped to buy Pedro Alvarez (16-my bid prices in parens), Pablo Sandoval (16), or Chase Headley (15) at $16, these guys went for 19, 23, and 16. I didn’t pop for Headley because of when he came out and because Casey McGehee, Scott Rolen and Ian Stewart were still out there, as was Aramis Ramirez, at a higher price point. But their prices all blew past my bid limits, and when I didn’t chase them I had to scramble, because there really aren’t enough third basemen.

And that’s the point. While I don’t really believe in position scarcity, the room is smart enough to know it doesn’t want to get stuck with Juan Franscisco, so they borrow money from elsewhere, and the prices of third basemen clump around $20 rather than $16. And they all did. The only cheap corners were Francisco, Mark Kotsay, Brad Emaus, Daniel Murphy, Russell Branyan, Eric Hinske, and that’s it. The next tier of nearly cheap included Melvin Mora 7, Todd Helton 8 and Casey Blake 8.

That elsewhere, where the money comes from, is pitching.

My discipline is to take the shortfall when I have to, and try to load up on the resources that are cheaper. There isn’t a ton of trading in this league, but there is some, and there is the FAAB wire. So I’m the guy who ended up with Melvin Mora (7) and Juan Francisco (1) for $7 and $1. I certainly hope I don’t have to play them all year, but the extra money allowed me to stock up elsewhere. In my case I have four solid outfielders. Some teams only have two or three. I hope that helps.

Here’s the 2011 Ask Rotoman squad:

CATCHERS: Yadier Molina $12–The prices for Posey and McCann were reasonable, but I was hoping for Soto, who blew up to $19, making Posey’s $22 seem cheap. A fair price for a regular catcher is fine by me. Yadier has that.

Ivan Rodriguez $1–By the time we got to second catcher I was trying to save money, and didn’t want to push Ryan Doumit, Chris Snyder or Nick Hundley, each of whom went for a buck more than I wanted pay. I didn’t want to pay +$2. Thus, I-Rod, a Hall of Famer.

CORNERS: James Loney $19–I was trying to put together a squad of ugly hitters, guys who would play and perhaps not reach their bid prices, but it wasn’t to be. Loney was the centerpiece here, and he didn’t stop until he reached my bid price for him, which is on par with his earnings the last four years. Only growth in his game will bring a big profit. Only bad luck will bring a loss.

Melvin Mora $7–Supposedly in good shape and ready to play following a minor car accident, he should get a few hundred at bats if his body holds up. If I could do it again I would have bought Headley for $17, though there’s no guarantee he would have stopped there. There are reasons to hold your nose and go with cheap guys, rather than pay up for the more expensive guys. Cheap guys can earn profits. Cheap guys are fungible, easily dumpable if someone better comes along. Cheap guys at a scarce position don’t inflate as much as pricey guys, which leaves you more money for better priced and equally productive resources, like outfielders.

Juan Francisco $1–A ton of power, but no guarantee that he’ll play even if Scott Rolen gets hurt. Still, a ton of power could do some nice damage if he gets a chance, and when hasn’t Rolen gotten hurt?

MIDDLE: Orlando Hudson $10–Another year another new team for him, but he’s got an important role in the Padres’ lineup. He’s not a roto star but rather a solid guy with plenty of AB at his price. Sometimes you want profits, sometimes you’re happy to take solidity.

Jason Bartlett $14–I don’t like this price at all. He’s a $10 player in SD, but the thin ranks left me with no place else to go here. Stubbornness and discipline sometimes have to give way. Should get plenty of AB, but now I have to hope that he’ll bounce back toward 2009 levels. That’s not likely in that ballpark and at his age. On the other hand, should get plenty of AB, which helps even if he ends up losing a few bucks.

Luis Castillo $2–This is how thin the middle is. I was going to nominate him and, I assume, buy him for a buck, but when someone else tossed him out I bumped. My rationale is that he stunk with the Mets. Many a ballplayer is reborn with a change of scene, and why not in Philly for Castillo? A little modest one. Okay, I know I’m going to be looking for a middle. Probably. But it’s worth a shot.

OUTFIELDERS: Carlos Gonzalez $36-You worry about regression, he can’t be as good again, but will he be near as great? He earned $52 or so last year, so this price factors in 30 percent regression. I like that.

Colby Rasmus $26–He’s the right age with the right skill set to blow up in the good way, but he’s immature and ticks La Russa off. Or did. He earned $24 last year and seems to have proved himself as far as talent goes. I expect better than that, possibly much better, but have to admit that expectation comes with a dose of risk.

Marlon Byrd $15–Right at his price. The good thing is he’s in the middle of the Cubs lineup and should get plenty of chances to do everything he does.

Nate McLouth $17–Power and speed here, and proof that no matter how ugly a season a guy has (and McLouth’s 2010 is as ugly as they get) our perception of his potential doesn’t dim. I hope we’re right.

Gerardo Parra $3–He can hit and may actually get a chance to put up some AB in Arizona. He has to in order to help much, because he’s not a power or speed guy at this point. At this price, he works even as a part time player.

Jordan Schafer $3–Last player, I spent my remaining money, nobody bid $2. A handcuff for McLouth. Last I checked he wasn’t burning up Spring Training, but was in the running for a backup spot in the Braves outfield, or more likely, the guy to call up from Triple-A if someone goes down.

PITCHERS: Chris Carpenter $19–I had him on my list of guys to take for $20, but didn’t think that would happen. He seems to be past the hamstring problem, knock on wood. Another guy I wanted for $20 was Marmol, but I didn’t get to the price point first, and after that I found the closers to be pricey.

Roy Halladay $32–The original plan was to buy Halladay or Lincecum for $30 and Marmol for $20. When I failed to get Marmol and Halladay stalled at $31, I bid one more rationalizing that it was only $1 above budget (and a few dollars less than my bid prices for those two guys). This is where it gets tricky however, because when the whole market shifts down five bucks for top pitchers a bargain becomes a player for par. That’s what Halladay represents here, but pitchers at par include a hedge against injury in the best. If he stays healthy Halladay will earn $40+. The discount is for injury risk.

Roy Oswalt $19–Cockcroft and Gianella had loaded up with three top starters, and it was clear that the money we were saving on pitchers was going to hitters. I judged that with a third ace I could compete and would still have a shot at a couple more starters I liked financially. Not of the Gallardo/Billingsley sort, but guys with real upside.

Sergio Romo $4–He should earn this even if he doesn’t start the year as the Giants’ closer. And he might.

Tyler Clippard $3–Same here, with Storen struggling. Any saves you can get early help when it’s time to sort out the closer situation later. Being within striking distance can make one either a buyer or a seller at the deadline.

Carlos Zambrano $8–Awesome finish last year after he came back. I had him with a bid price of $12.

Jair Jurjens $5–He seems to be healthy, which means this is a low risk high reward pitching pick. He’s not as good as he was in 2009, but I’ll love 2008 numbers.

Jarrod Parker $1–More of a reserve pick in the end game. He’s coming back from surgery and is doing fine. Will start the year in the minors and has the maturity to get the call as soon as they’re confident in his health. But as a future No. 1 or 2 he’s on a short leash inningswise.

Barry Enright $3–One of those guys who doesn’t blow people away, but can just plain pitch. When things go wrong they can get ugly in a hurry for this type. but they can work out if you keep him on a short leash.

RESERVES

Wade LeBlanc–Depth, like Enright, in a good ballpark to pitch.

Kyle Kendrick–Another one of those sorts, though his role is less clear and less potentially helpful.

Jesus Flores–Handcuff for Ivan Rodriguez.

Luis Durango–I’ve always liked this guy’s speed. Chris Liss said, “What, are you over the team weight limit?” It was close.

This is a weak set of reserves, though no list stands out particularly. I think we’re seeing the increasing effects of teams going with a shorter list of hitters and more pitchers, and a greater fluidity between the majors and the minors. These trends are playing havoc with our deep AL and NL only leagues (the way the owner’s move to 24 man ML rosters did in the 80s), but in general we’re being very slow to adjust, maybe because there aren’t any obvious fixes.

This team will need to scramble for saves and it will work better if the Francisco, Castillo and Schafer holes are filled quickly and substantially. More analysis is needed to figure out what everyone else did. I look forward to their write ups.

I love this line…

“Spring training battles won’t solve anything; they’ll just raise draft prices.” Nick Minnix

Identifying (or lucking into) the cheap closers is a major key to winning fantasy leagues, which is why I continually advocate going cheap and counter intuitive. If it doesn’t work out, you have to dig out of a hole for sure, but if you score the free 35 saves guy, you likely got crowned king.

FYI: Many fantasy winners think locking up saves is a good way to win. And they’re right, so long as your hitters come through. That happens sometimes.

I don’t think we know enough about what actually works to make small distinctions. It makes sense to me to bet on known quantities and let the chips fall where they may with what we don’t know.

Look at this

More Cardrunners Debate, at THTFantasy.com

In a previous post I wrote about the Cardrunners League I’m playing on, pitting quants vs. so-called fantasy experts. This has become a rather unwieldy mess, in part because the central issues keep erupting into flashes of debate about whether analysis or intuition matters more. The funny thing is that even when there is too much blather in this pissing match, there are interesting issues that come up about what we know and what we don’t know about the game of fantasy baseball itself.

Now, some THTFantasy writers are weighing in at their own site. Derek Carty is also a Cardrunners League competitor, but I like Derek Ambrosino’s take, which makes many of the points I’ve been trying to make, often with more wit. Derek also quotes a Mike Podhorzer piece about what makes an expert, which is a must read. Paul Singman also talks about the problem of identifying which players and which fantasy strategies actually work, which is certainly a huge issue. How do you decide what works if there’s no definitive way to test it?

For my part, I would love a tool that let me test different strategies in thousands of runs, to see what range of possibilities there really are. But I think the Derek defines the nature of the game in a most instructive way when he compares it to chess (a head to head game) and the stock market (a one against many game with many winners and many losers). Roto is a game of one against many with only one winner, which is different. Setting yourself apart would seem to be essential to win, but how is this done? The quants seems to think incrementally, by buying value. I think the so-called experts see more need for radical action, though it is certainly open to debate whether these are genius picks or zagging while others zig. All in all, a fascinating discussion if you have the time.

Ode to Chris Liss

Many years ago, a lifetime perhaps, I got into a pissing match with Chris Liss about the serial comma (or, as Vampire Weekend calls it, the Oxford comma). But who really cares about that?

Back then, Chris Liss also wrote a story for the Fantasy Football Guide about how our brains are way more adaptable than formulas and other pedantic bs we create for fantasy sports. We think better than we compute, was Chris’s point, and we would be smart to rely more on our brains than any formulas. I said then and I say now, I think he’s right.

Tonight I read something else from Chris: http://www.rotowire.com/baseball/features/2010_LissStrategy.htm

The story linked here, about how Chris won Tout Wars Mixed and the Yahoo Friends and Family League that Rotowire (Chris’s domain) runs, is excellent.

Chris also wrote a story for the Fantasy Baseball Guide 2010 (on newstands now!), the magazine I edit, about the same stuff.

My point is that Chris is pretty much right. Our brains are quicker and more fluid than any formula we could create. You still need to know your league, and know the players (all the players) and how rostering them will change your team—which is what my earning and cost values and other objective measures provide—but once you’ve internalized that data, you can do better on your own than poring over some cheat sheet.

Good stuff.

BPs Kevin Goldstein on Stephen Strasburg

FakeTeams

Take a deep breath. Strasburg has thrown in four professional games in the AFL. Scouts love finding the new guy, and Strasburg is talented enough to be the new guy. But new guys are often blowing out the radar gun because they’re doing stuff that isn’t sustainable.

The beauty of Sidd Finch is that he found a way to do it that was sustainable, because of his zen discipline. But Finch was fiction.

It isn’t a mistake to attach to phenoms and roster them, if they are cheap or go in the late rounds. But bidding these guys up puts you at a huge disadvantage. You want to roster risk cheaply. That’s the way to a better team.

Save $25 on First Pitch Arizona!

For what I think is the seventh time I’m heading out this November for Ron Shandler’s First Pitch Arizona symposium. This year’s dates are November 6-8, though I’m flying the fourth so I can get in a game on Thursday afternoon.

You cannot imagine how great it is to watch some of the best young talent around (this year we have Stephen Strasburg) in a near empty park, allowing you to sit just about anywhere you want (including behind home plate, where you can sometimes spy the radar readings of the ML scouts who are always in attendance.

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