Patrick Davitt invited me on to talk about Tout Wars and the Fantasy Baseball Guide and picks and pans (did I really diss Jordan Zimmerman, for no apparent reason except the, um, formula?). You can hear it here. Thanks for having me on Patrick.
The Guide
March 8 Patton $ Updates/Corrections
News of Rafael Furcal’s decision to have elbow surgery last week suggested there was some chance he might be back in July of this year. In the software I cut him down to a projected 235 optimistic at bats. It now seems that he’s going to miss the whole of 2013. I’m cutting his projected AB to 0. Pete Kozma, Daniel Descalso, and Kolten Wong absorb the at bats.
STATLAND is here!
Since the original Fantasy Baseball Guide, in 2000, a section in the back of the book called STATLAND has included Profit and Loss charts and Multiposition Eligibility charts from the preceding year’s play.
This year, when the player profiles were longer than the hole we had to fill them, we decided to move STATLAND online. Here are the charts in a variety of formats.
Rewriting the Guide: Chris Carpenter
When news overtakes the Guide, watch us rewrite.
BIG PRICE: $0
He made three starts last September, with a 3.71 ERA in 17 innings (1.12 WHIP, 3 BB and 12 K), and based on today’s news they are likely to be the last three starts of his illustrious if injury-riddled career. He is just about certain to miss all of 2013, and given his age it’s hard to see him fighting to come back as a 39 year old. Note to self: Scratch from cheat sheet.
Department of Corrections 2013
When we find things that are wrong in The Guide, we list them here.
pg. 7. Wil Myers is spelled Will Myers in great big letters. Wrong. Wil is right.
pg 52. Dexter Fowler gets the same pan from Jeffrey Winick that Winick gave to Jacoby Ellsbury. Wrong! It should read, WINICK PAN: “Top notch power/speed guy, right? Not so fast. Gets picked off way too often and doesn’t hit too well on the road. Don’t overpay.” Tip o’ the cap to Brian in Austin.
Rolen in the Deep: Will he sign?
One of the biggest, most time consuming tasks putting out the Guide is selecting which 1400 players get in.
I wish I could say there was some science to it, but over the years I’ve tried different rules-based approaches and have always ended up with a similar ratio: About 200 hitters and 200 pitchers we profile don’t play in the majors that year, and about 200 hitters and 200 pitchers we don’t profile do play in the majors that year.
Many of the guys we don’t profile who are called up from the minors would be impossible to select, don’t play very much and I’m resigned to missing them. In recent years, however, I’ve been more aggressive about cutting guys. The rule used to be, if you played in the majors last year you were in, unless you had announced your retirement, but now I let the standard be, “can you write a profile about him that really assumes he’ll be active this year?”
It was on those grounds that I cut Scott Rolen from the 2013 list. Always with an affinity for injury, the last two years he has been hurt a lot and failed to produce when he did play. I could not imagine how you could write a profile that didn’t assume his retirement.
I still can’t imagine it, but the reports today that the Dodgers are interested are interesting because the Dodgers don’t have a third baseman. (Apologies to Mrs. Cruz.) If Rolen does end up in camp we’ll profile him here and at pattonandco.com. My bet is he’s going to do the right thing and go fishing, but I’m sure it galls him to contemplate ending it on such a low note. If he thinks he can do better he’s probably wrong, but I wouldn’t blame him for trying.
Reviewing Your Work: Mike’s A Moron Edition
My friends at Roto Think Tank put out a first-rate website full of servicey advice and strategic insight. RTT’s Mike Gianella has been a contributor to the Fantasy Baseball Guide for a number of years now, and today posted his comments about his Picks and Pans in the 2012 edition. How’d they work? Not so hot, which is why he gets to use the funny title. Though he’s way too hard on himself for Bonifacio and a couple others.
What I love about Picks and Pans is that it’s a blank slate. The experts are encouraged to pick and pan whoever they want, which usually means they meant it when they said it. So you get a somewhat objective view of a group of peoples’ subjective judgments about the upcoming season, before the season. And afterwards we get to see just how easy it is to be wrong.
Bravo to Mike for manning up.
Get Your Mid March Fantasy Baseball Guide 2012 Update Here!
Download the spreadsheet by clicking here. Includes fully updated projections and bid prices for 5×5, just like in the Guide.
Questions about a player? Come visit pattonandco.com and join the discussion.
The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2012 is now also available online!
Go to thefantasysportsguide.com for details.
It looks great, is adapted for computer monitor and iPad and other tablets, and can be read on smartphones in a pinch, though it isn’t designed for phones.
Here’s a screenshot. It looks just like the printed magazine, except it’s electrons! 
Corrections: The Guide 2012
Some people are finding the Guide at Barnes and Nobles and Wal Marts and other stores, and some are not. We don’t have any way of knowing which stores will stock it, but a call to the manager of your favorite outlet might save you a trip if they don’t.
There is one major error in the Guide. As I noted, I rejiggered the way I calculated the rates of the different stats, using component information. The results are that the baselines turned out to be much more interesting in and of themselves. That is, I’ve had to make fewer adjustments to take into account what appeared to be good and bad luck on the field. It will take more testing to confirm, but the first round I ran indicated that these baselines are more accurate, meaning they’re closer to a player’s talent before I intervene to tweak them.
The error was the result of a small error in the number of hits projected. For some reason the formula was projecting too many hits. Not too many doubles or homers, but too many singles. The system was also projecting a small decline in AB and IP, which is a pretty standard way to account for time missed due to injuries. The problem is that the two variables moving in opposite directions meant that the projections for batting average and WHIP were too high. I did lots of comparing the projections to last year’s stats and other projection systems and didn’t catch this error. So, in the magazine the projected BA and WHIP are systemically too high. I’m sorry for the mistake, which doesn’t change any of the prices. You can download updated and corrected projections here.
Another mistake: Juan Carlos Linares is found alphabetically in the C section.
I would like to point out that the most excellent mastersball.com writer/analyst and all around St. Louis Cardinals expert, Brian Walton, was left out of the credits for the Picks and Pans. My apologies to Brian.
A note about prices: When we make the Guide I put bid prices on all sorts of players who may not start the year in the majors. My thinking is that these reflect an estimate of what these players will be worth when they are called up, taking into consideration that they might not be called up or could be called up in September. As we move through spring training I start to convert these guys to minor leaguers. For instance, I don’t think Mike Trout will be starting the year in Anaheim unless they make some significant trades, so I’ve downgraded him from $4 in the Guide to an R1, which means that if he does get called up he has star potential.
But I haven’t yet downgraded Bryce Harper, because Davey Johnson is acting like Harper is going to break camp with the big club. I’m doubtful about that, but it still seems well within the range of possibilities. The point is that this process is fluid, and not exacting. Nolan Arenado still has a price, though he’s probably going to start the year in Triple-A, because I think he has a chance of changing minds. But he probably has no more chance of making the big club than Trout. The bid prices in the March 15 update will much better reflect the realities in the camps, though there will still be open questions we’ll be mulling over.