ASK ROTOMAN: Kris Bryant is Coming! Kris Bryant is Coming!

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Hey Rotoman,

I am in a 12 team H2H Points league which is very competitive between the guys I work with.

My question pertains to Kris Bryant…I am not going to ask you when is he going to get the call. I am sure you are tired of that.

I have him sitting on my bench and it looks like he is going to (once he gets called up) take one of my two Utility spots. They are right now filled with Stephen Vogt and Brandon Belt. I was wondering which of the two to keep knowing that most likely somebody else would put in a waiver claim on either.

“Get Out The Vogt or Tighten the Belt?”

Dear GOTVoTTB:

The only reason I can imagine you would consider dumping Belt in favor of Vogt is if it’s a good strategy to have a backup catcher available. I wouldn’t do that, so my answer is that Vogt is the guy to dump when Bryant is called up.

Screenshot 2015-04-15 13.26.15When will Bryant be called up? 

This coming Friday is deadline number one. If he’s called up after April 17th, the Cubs will gain an additional year of control before he becomes a free agent.

The next deadline is sometime in June. If he’s called up after that, he will avoid super two status in 2017, and thus won’t go into arbitration until after the 2018 season.

Waiting until June would save the Cubs millions of dollars over the next six years, which is why they might waid.

On the other hand, they’re off to a good start, one game over .500 at this point. Bryant is again crushing Triple-A pitching, to an OPS tune of 1.089. There is clearly little for him to learn in the minors.

Plus, the Cubs are playing Mike Olt and Tommy La Stella at third base. Even if Bryant struggles with big league pitchers, he’s better than either of those two. Which is why I think we’ll see him sooner rather than later.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature

ASK ROTOMAN: Boring or Flashy?

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Dear Rotoman:

Do you think it would be wise to cut Tyler Clippard and pick up Miguel Castro of Toronto?

It is a 10-team mixed league roto league. I look forward to your reply,

“Bedazzled”

Dear B:

Tyler Clippard is the closer on the Oakland Athletics, but has not yet had a save opportunity in this young season. It’s expected that Clippard will return to his usual role as a setup guy once Sean Doolittle comes off the DL, which is expected to be in late May.

castro3Miguel Castro is a hard-throwing youngster who has surprisingly ended up as the Blue Jays closer just a week into the season. He’s a lively performer who already ranks fourth on the list of 20 and younger pitchers with the most saves since MLB went to Divisional play in 1968.

And that’s the rub. We’re in mostly uncharted territory here. Terry Forster had 26 saves in 1972 as a 20 year old, Victor Cruz had nine in 1978, and Don Gullett had six in 1970, all before the era of fantasy baseball. Is a 20 year old with just 15 starts in Single-A last year able to hold onto the closing job all season long?

And what are the chances that Doolittle doesn’t make it back in five weeks, or he cedes the closer job even if he does make it back?

There are no hard and fast answers to any of these questions. What I think we know is that Castro probably has a slightly higher save ceiling than Clippard, but Clippard might be a little more reliable. That is, Castro is the greater unknown here, and thus comes with greater risk, but also has a better chance to get a lot of saves this year.

For me, this seems to be a bit of a sideways move for you. Probably worth doing if Castro is cheap, certainly worth doing if you don’t have to throw Clippard back, but in all likelihood, not a reason to bet the farm.

Edge to Castro.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature

ASK ROTOMAN: Should I WeaR A Dickey?

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Dear Rotoman:

I am in a 12 man league in yahoo.  I saw on the waiver wire that R.A Dickey is out there and I was wondering if I should pick him up as my back end starter over Henderson Alvarez or Jason Hammel or even  Ken Giles?

“Fashion Hound”

Dear Hound:

I love RA Dickey much more than I love dickies.

radickeywgripRA Dickey was born without a UCL, for one. For another, he recharged a stalled out career as a pitcher to become, for one season anyway, one of the best pitchers in the game. He also managed to write his autobiography before that career season, and spent much of his time on top of the world doing things like climbing big mountains to raise money for charity.

He also starred in a fun baseball movie called Knuckleball!

dickeycompare1Dickies, on the other hand, were something I wore for some reason when I was a kid, maybe because we were so poor we couldn’t afford an entire turtleneck. What a dweeb!

But that’s the easy question. The question you ask is a little tougher.

Do you want RA Dickey over Henderson Alvarez and Jason Hammel?

I project Dickey to earn $14 this year. He earned $11 last year and $10 the year before. Fantasy experts are paying him about $9 this year.

I project Henderson Alvarez to earn $4 this year, though last year he earned $16. Fantasy experts are paying him about $6 this year.

I project Jason Hammel to earn $7 this year, though last year he earned $14. Fantasy experts are paying him about $5 this year.

So yes, I think you want Dickey, even though he’s old. He’s also a knuckleballer, which reduces the stress on his arm. That said, part of his success was that he was a hard-throwing knuckleballer, and he’s not throwing as hard now as he was during his glorious season. But he’s still effective and probably a better bet than Alvarez and Hammel?

But what about Ken Giles?

He’s not a starter, but he is the closer in waiting behind the Phillies’ most marketable player, Jonathan Papelbon. As a hard-throwing setup guy he can earn $10, but if the Phils are able to move Papelbon he becomes so much more valuable.

I think I would take Dickey for Hammels and hold onto Giles.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature

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ASK ROTOMAN: Keeper Question

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Rotoman:

12 team AL only legacy league.  9  keepers.  Approximately 15 percent inflation.  Should I keep:

Alexei Ramirez at $20
Shane Green at $5
JA Happ at $5
Robbie Grossman at $2
Masahiro Tanaka at $23 (likely not but I’m a Yankee fan)

Can keep all or none?
“Edgy”

Dear E:

Yes on Alexei Ramirez (a $21 player without inflation) and Shane Greene (a $6 player w/o inflation), and maybe on Robbie Grossman (he’ll earn $2 if he holds onto a job, but things are tight in the Houston OF).

No on JA Happ, who should cost less than $5 in your auction, and Masahiro Tanaka, who should cost $18 to $20 in your auction and will be an injury risk every time he pitches. If Tanaka pitches all season he’ll way outearn his price, which makes him a high risk/high return arm this year.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature

TOUT WARS NL: How I See Things

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This was my view across the draft table.

cockcroftacceptstheprize2It’s nice to see Tristan Cockcroft (with trophy) enjoying himself.

I had one plan going into this year’s auction. If I was to land either Aroldis Chapman or Craig Kimbrel, I would eschew an ace, buy one aspiring ace and then fill in with all the attractive young NL starters available near the end.

On the hitting side, I ticked all the OBP guys up a buck and the anti-OBP guys down a buck, rather than fully price in the OBP difference. The reason was my observation last year that buying OBP won me the category, but cost me a bit in countables. My goal was to be cognizant of OBP, but to buy homers and RBI foremost and scramble later.

The auction opened with four straight pitcher nominations, and then—with just a few exceptions—a heavy stream of the game’s best players. The pace was brisk and I bought the players who came in well under my bid prices. This landed me Andrew McCutchen and Ryan Braun in the early part of the game, as well as Craig Kimbrel.

Shortly thereafter, Troy Tulowitzki and Buster Posey joined Team Rotoman, and when the bidding stalled at $26 later on Anthony Rendon, I had to bid, and once again I was playing Stars and Scrubs style, as I did last year to disastrous second-half results.

The thing about last year’s first half was it showed the power of Stars and Scrubs. My guys were in second place late in June, even though I’d lost Joey Votto for a month. The second half, when six of my seven 20+ guys did DL time, was the flip side. Once I started sliding the only thing that stopped me was the end of the season.

The problem is that prices in this league at the top end are usually a touch soft. Not a lot soft, but a buck or two on each of the Top 50 hitters adds up to $75 or $100 that later gets redistributed to the attractive players later on. If you don’t spend early, you spend late.

The problem is that if you spend your money early on the chalk, and add all those big players, the teams with a little more scratch pick off the attractive endgame buys. On the pitching side, the guys I wanted for four were going for five, the guys I wanted for three went for four, and so on. Which is how one ends up with perhaps the least appealing pitching staff of all time.

And I’m not bummed out about that. But it surely didn’t go the way I hoped. Here’s a chart to see the problem:

Pitchers who cost $20 or more whose draft price differed by $2 or more from my expected price:

Pitcher Bid Cost
Bumgarner $27 $25
Cueto $24 $21
Greinke $23 $25
Chapman $23 $25
Zimmerman $23 $21
Hamels $21 $19
Wainwright $20 $18

There were 11 pitchers priced $20 or above. Five were more or less dead on. Five were off by two bucks, and one was off by $3. Nobody got a great deal here, but as a group the 11 cost $8 less than expected.

In the $15-$19 group:

Teheran $18 $16
Arrieta $17 $19
Lester $17 $19
Cole $17 $20
Shields $16 $18
Papelbon $15 $13
Melancon $15 $18

There were 12 pitchers in this group. Five were more or less dead on. Five were off by $2, Two were off by $3.  This group cost $8 more than expected. This is where I hoped to pick off Arrieta or Cole.

After two groups, the bid prices equal the sale prices.

From $10-$14, the two dollar (or more) differences:

Rosenthal $14 $16
Cashner $14 $11
Fiers $13 $10
Benoit $13 $17
Rondon $12 $15
G Gonzalez $11 $16
Cain $12 $9
Lynn $11 $16
Latos $11 $15
Ross $11 $14
Casilla $11 $7

There are 19 in this group. Eight were more or less dead on. Only one was within $2. Only five were within $3. As a group, bidding exceeded my bid prices by $12.

Alas, this was the group from which I hoped to walk away with Matt Cain and either Mike Fiers or Lance Lynn and, I hoped Shelby Miller. Lynn blew up, but I guess I blew it on Fiers. He had the biggest discount other than Cain in the group and I can only think my bankroll was so depleted at that point that I simply couldn’t buy him. But from this side of the ledger I absolutely had to. Too late.

I should point out that there is operator error here. In the next group, of $5-$9 pitchers, I had Homer Bailey at $7 even though he went for $11 in LABR. His $12 on Sunday was aggressive, but not crazy.

In that same group, I wanted Jenry Mejia ($9 $8), Kyle Lohse ($8 $7–I got beat to $7 and couldn’t real afford it, much less $8), Kyle Hendricks ($7 $6), Wily Peralta ($7 $9), Jimmy Nelson ($6 $6) and Carlos Martinez ($5 $8).

I know this recitation is dry as toast, but the point here is sweet as salty butter. This group doesn’t spend on the big pitchers, but only by a little, and uses their savings  to pay for the cheaper guys with upside. Not outrageously, but just enough for a small bankrolled guy (like me) to lose out on every one.

This was my decision, based on my evaluation that it would be better to have Martin Prado rather than one of those mid-level pitchers. That’s not a sure thing, but it is a fairly sure thing that I will have more opportunities to find pitching help during the season than hitting help.

So, I stuck to my values, wherever they might take me, and I’ll try to fix the team composition in season. That is always part of the process. The game is rarely won in the auction. What I have now is a nice group of hitters, one and a half comeback pitchers, a fair amount of saves and closer strikeouts, and a budding closer in waiting behind two injured relievers.

There is work to be done.

Here’s my team with Bid Price and Cost:

Buster Posey $27 $27
Yasmani Grandal $12 $13 (paid extra because he’s a 1B, too)

Sean Rodriguez $1 $1
C. Johnson $12 $7
Martin Prado $15 $15

Anthony Rendon $29 $27
Troy Tulowitzki $31 $29
Alberto Callaspo $4 $3

Andrew McCutchen $43 $39
Ryan Braun $34 $30
Gerardo Parra $5 $3
Melvin Upton $8 $4
Will Venable  $4 $3

Nate McLouth $3 $1

Matt Cain $12 $8
Jose Fernandez $10 $9
Tom Kohler $1 $2
Mike Minor $4 $2
Tsuyoshi Wada $3 $1
Evan Marshall $1 $2
Bobby Parnell $3 $5 (thought he was worth more to pair with Mejia)
Jenry Mejia $9 $8
Craig Kimbrel $22 $21

That’s a net positive of $33, if anyone’s counting. It may not be pretty, but there are pieces here to work with.

 

 

 

 

Ask Rotoman: Zack Greinke or Mark Melancon?

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Rotoman:

Only 4 pitching categories in my keeper league. Wins+Saves is one category…Greinke or Melancon?

“Volatile”

Dear V:

My 5×5 projections for both Greinke and Melancon are worth $17 this year, so I thought this would be an easy one to answer. Combine the value of the Wins and Saves for the pitchers, divide in half, and replace the values of Wins and Saves with that number and bingo. Or voila! Or eureka!

Instead, I’m not sure. I used the Razzball, FanGraphs and Patton $ Online value calculators on whatever projections they used (Grey Albright, Steamer, Rotoman) and found that though the numbers they spit out were different, all favored Greinke. In order: $10.4/$8.2, $7.6/$1.9, $10.1/$7.55.

Fangraphs clearly punishes relievers more for their lack of strikeouts, but I’m sure a closer look would show they’re rewarded more for their low ERA and Ratio. Razzball and Patton were close enough to declare a winner, but I was nagged by the question of population. You see, pricing systems are based on the performance of some group of players. In the regular 5×5 world this means one thing, but when you make guys who get saves more valuable, as you do when you combine saves and wins, the population changes. That changes the value of an earned run, it alters WHIP, it means a strikeout is worth something different.

Mark Melancon, off field
Mark Melancon, off field

So, I ran the numbers on last year’s stats using my own pricing calculator.

Last year, in 5×5, my pricer says Greinke earned $21 and Melancon earned $19, Combine Wins and Saves into one category for all ML pitchers, re-sort, and their prices change to $21 and $20.

Which means, if you agree with me that they’re each worth $17 this year, that Melancon gains a little edge in value over Greinke using your rules.  But prices didn’t change as much at the high end as I expected they would.

Of course, value is only part of the equation. Keeper questions start there, but always come back to what the guy is going to go for in your league. You want to keep the one you think is going to cost more. That’s a question only you can figure out.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature

ASK ROTOMAN: Should I trade my No. 1 pick? For a lot.

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Rotoman!

I have the third overall pick in a 12 team league. Twofold question, I have a trade offer of my First Rounder for a 2nd, 4th and Sonny Gray. Is this good? The guy offering the trade is in the 7th slot. Second, if I keep the pick, Kershaw or Stanton? Assuming Trout and McCutchen go No. 1 & No. 2.

“Two Shades of Gray”

Dear Two Shades:

I have a simple chart to show you why you don’t want to trade your third pick for a 17th, 41st and Sony Gray.

Screenshot 2015-03-09 22.37.39

Those are the prices, in descending order, for players in last year’s Tout Wars Mixed Auction. The things to notice here are the elegant curve of the line. On the left are the most expensive players, and on the right are the least expensive.

The 20 cheapest players cost $1. They’re that flat line to the far right. After that, the line moves pretty much straight up until you get to the 75th or so most expensive player, and then it starts getting steeper. By the time you get to the first 10 or so players, moving cheapest to most expensive, you’re clawing your way up a cliff.

This is the nature of the shallow mixed auction.

A shallow mixed draft is different. Each player taken in order is the best player available. So the price paid is one step down for each player taken. The line is a straight descending line, not unlike the auction values from about 75-336. But compare it to the auction line and you can see that the first 70 or 75 players are a draft’s bargains. And the earlier in the draft, the bigger the difference between the red line and the blue, which means the bigger the bargain.

 Screenshot 2015-03-09 23.41.53

I have to admit, Two Shades, from your description, I’m not sure what you’re ending up in this deal you’re talking about. But if I read it literally, you’re trading your first pick and ending up with two second picks and two fourth picks plus Sonny Gray. I hope that’s the deal, because then it is kind of close.

The marginal value of your five picks after the trade is $31, while you traded away $33 of marginal value. Plus you got Sonny Gray! To make up the diff!

But Sonny Gray’s ADP is 78 right now. That’s the magic point where the blue line crosses the red line. Ergo, Sonny Gray has no marginal value above his draft position. Getting him in trade doesn’t really help you at all.

So, not only are you trading more value to get less value, but you’re using up two more roster slots to do it. There is a recipe for such advice. Don’t do it.

Which takes us to part two of your question:

Kershaw or Stanton?

There is a good argument to be made for saying that Clayton Kershaw has the most value this year of any baseball player in the fantasy game. He’s coming off one of the best pitching seasons of all time, at a young age, during which he missed 15 percent of his starts because of injury. And now he’s healthy. Amazing.

So I think it makes sense to take Kershaw if he’s there.

But I also think you should hope that one of the guys ahead of you takes him and leaves you Trout or McCutchen or Goldschmidt.

If you take Kershaw early you’re going to have a heckuva time adding enough hitting to your mix. It can be done, but you’re going to be sacrificing your big hammer, that is the hitter people are willing to bid up. Whether that’s Trout, McCutchen, Goldschmidt or the other big name first round hitter who has special status because he plays middle infield, these are the guys who make up a big part of that value cliff on the auction chart.

Kershaw is in there, for sure, but somewhere there is another chart that shows that more pitchers will come out of the blue and earn $30 than hitters will. And not a few great pitchers fail at some point.

Which is why, with a Top 4 pick I’ll take a hitter. But Kershaw gets very viable after that.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature