ASK ROTOMAN: Shining A Macho Light on Yasiel Puig

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Dear Rotoman:

In a 5×5 12-team mixed-keeper league with five keepers where you can keep a player for up to three years, would you make the following deal:

I trade an extra 5th round pick and release either Manny Machado (2yrs left), Jorge Soler (3 yrs left) or Xander Bogaerts (3 yrs left).

And I get Puig with 2 years remaining.

Is giving up one of my fifth round picks and one of those players worth 2 years of Puig?

“Puigilist”

Dear P:
I have one hand tied behind my back because I have no idea what the value of a fifth round pick is. If all 12 teams keep five players, that’s 60 players gone. Another four rounds gone is 48 players, which would mean the fifth pick would be somewhere between the 108 and 120th best player.

Based on the consensus Average Draft Position at FantasyPros.com, that would be a player like JD Martinez or Mookie Betts, Lance Lynn or Steve Cishek.

Yasiel_Puig_2Puig is ranked 24th in the consensus ADP, while Machado is 138th, Soler is 111th, and Bogaerts is 182nd.

It isn’t clear to me what you get back for that fifth pick, but even if it was the 23rd round pick, I think you would prefer Puig and the 23rd round pick to Bogaerts and JD Martinez or Mark Trumbo.

Remember, the rule of thumb is, you almost always want to be on the side of the trade that gets the best player, especially in a relatively shallow league, as a 12 team mixed is.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature

 

 

I’m Still Wilin

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I can’t say his name without thinking of the Lowell George song made famous by Little Feat, “Willin'”, but I’m partial to the cover by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Here it is, a soundtrack for player analysis.

We published our first pass at 2015 roto prices at pattonandco.com (you’ll need a free registration to see it all and comment) last week, and one of the biggest sore thumbs seems to be my robust price for Wilin Rosario. That price, $21, is the same I had for him in the Fantasy Baseball Guide, and is based on the fact that the Rockies catcher earned $20, $22 and $13 the last three years. Last year he struggled with a wrist injury and a viral infection, which explains some of the power dropoff, but commenters are struggling to see how he’s going to get at bats unless he’s traded. And if he’s traded he’ll lose the Coors Field advantage, which leaves him where?

How is Rosario as a catcher? Nobody thinks he’s a good catcher. In John Dewan’s +/1 rankings he was the fourth worst catcher in baseball last year, though over the last three years he escaped the bottom group. So he’s not the worst. But he’s bad enough that the Rocks say he will platoon with Justin Morneau at first base this year, taking the at bats there versus lefties. Losing catcher eligibility is a long-term concern, but nothing to worry about for 2015. This year he’s a catcher.

Rosario can’t hit righties. Against righties he has a career OPS of .707. That’s not so great compared to his spectacular OPS against lefties of 1.009, but it isn’t helpless. While 27 catchers with 500 or more PA over the past three years have a better overall OPS than .707, only six have a better combined OPS than Rosario’s .795. It would be better if Rosario was better against righties, obviously, but he’s been so productive against lefties that on past performance he ranks as a solid Top 10 catcher. He also has the third-best Slugging Average the last three years among catchers overall.  He’s a productive hitter, even if he only plays against lefties.

Rosario can’t hit on the road.  There are 29 catchers with 500 PA the last three years who have a better OPS overall than Rosario’s .690 road OPS. This is a point of some concern, since part of the worry about Rosario is that he’ll be traded to a team that won’t play its home games a mile high. But until that happens, Rosario is playing half his games at Coors. His overall numbers make him the seventh-best backstop in the game the last three years. You have to worry about a move, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Will Rosario be traded? If the Rockies had a catcher they could go to every day, I would worry about this, but so far Rosario’s competition is Nick Hundley and Mike McKenry. Hundley is a good defensive backstop with a pretty weak bat. McKenry hit last year like he never did before, in a limited number of at bats. At his age, he is an unlikely candidate to repeat. Rosario is a good platoon partner with Morneau and can serve as an alternate to Hundley behind the plate, at least part of the time. That adds up to another 400 AB season this year, I think, with home games in Coors. Which makes $20 or so dollars of earnings a no brainer.

Okay, it’s time for Little Feat’s live version of Willin’ in 1977 on German TV, which is really great.

What’s Rosario’s value? A healthy Rosario has shown $20 and $22 earnings, which dropped last year to $13 when he was sick and hurt. People talk about how he’s declined each of his ML years, but they’re not looking at the offensive context. Rosario earned more in 2013 than in 2012, despite hitting fewer homers. And in 2014 he walked more, if not a lot, improving his approach to the strike zone. It is because of all of this that I expect him to get 400 AB and hit 20 homers. That’s what he does. If he hits .274, that works out to about $17 in earnings, so maybe my $21 bid limit is a little too high.

Every Rosario Has Its Thorn. Wilin Rosario is a flawed hitter. Not so good versus righties, of whom there are way more than lefties, and not so good away from Coors Field, where he may not be a permanent fixture. So it’s easy to see why all the naysayers are dumping him. He’s not perfect, and he’s likely to have some rough times (read: slumps) at times.

Every Thorn Has Its Rosario. But this is a catcher with prodigious home run power, even when he’s not a Mile High. He’s hit 36 homers in 709 AB at Coors. He’s hit 29 homers in 659 AB away from Coors. In a counting game, give me the homers, and the discount of the naysayers.

Conclusion. My bid price in the Guide was based on what I thought Rosario would earn. And the fact is that even at that price, I thought you should want him. The comments, however, suggest I’ve wildly (and willingly) overbid Rosario. Cool! At $21 Rosario was par. At $17 he was safe. The bottom line for me is that 26 year olds with a history of success are good bets not to be terrible. And every dollar I don’t have to pay for them because the common wisdom hates them, is a savings for me. I’m dropping my bid price to $17, because that seems the more likely winning bid price, and better matches his predicted (by me) earnings in 5×5 roto. But his value as a catcher is greater than that, in Tucumcari and Tonapah.

LINK: Making the Most of the LABR Mixed Draft!

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The LABR Mixed Draft was held this week, and Josh A. Barnes makes an excellent point over at FakeTeams about how to make use of it. In a nutshell, ignore the guys who went higher than expected, since those picks may be the ravings of a single lunatic, but look closely at the guys who dropped below expectations. These are the guys the experts are collectively cool on.

While fine tuning my projections, I’m going to take a closer look at some of these guys, like Adam Wainwright, Josh Harrison, Felix Hernandez, Justin Upton and Mark Trumbo, today over at PattonandCo.com. Read Barnes’ story, for sure, and stop by at Pattonandco.com to get another take.

ASK ROTOMAN: Getting Ahead in Head 2 Head

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Dear Rotoman:

I have played in a head to head league on CBS sports for the past five years.  The first year, I followed fantasy advice and skewed heavily towards hitters rather than pitchers.  I got destroyed that year.

Mat_Latos_01In this league, pitchers go first and often.  By the time I started drafting pitchers I was left with Mat Latos, Kyle Lohse, and downwards from there.  The best teams in the league had 12 starts for their pitchers each week because they had so many pitchers, while I had 5-8 starts.

Since then, I have sought the best bat available in the 1st round, two aces in rounds 2-3, and a decent player with position scarcity in round 4.  In the next 18 rounds, I target middling pitching, youth (ages 25-32) and OBP.  I don’t draft relievers until late and usually punt 2nd base and catcher.

Any ideas how I can improve my draft philosophy this year?

“Trying To Get Head 2 Head”

Dear Trying:

I guess after taking the standard fantasy advice, things didn’t go much better the next four years. Am I right? So you’re back.

I will not give you standard head 2 head advice, because you didn’t tell me your scoring system, so I can’t get to much into that. But I do have some suggestions I’m sure are worth taking a look at.

Take A Look At History: If the team that wins every year takes an ace starter early, and teams that don’t take an ace starter struggle, it’s probably worth giving the winning way a try. Not only will you end up with a better pitcher than usual, but your opponents will end up with lower-ranked pitchers in their later slots.

Take A Look At Categories: Different providers have different point values for different stats, so it is dangerous to get too specific about values from provider to provider. But CBSsports has a good stat download service, allowing you to download last year’s stats (I think) and definitely this year’s projections. You can then multiply the category values  by the player’s stats or projections in a spreadsheet, add them up, and see which players have real value across the season. One reason starting pitching often has a extra value is because points are given for a Win and a Quality Start and Strikeouts. That makes an ace on a good team a huge contributor when he pitches. Closers usually get a nice bump for a Save, too, though you can often find guys who get saves in the later rounds.

Take The Best Player Available: In auction leagues, you can concoct different strategies for your team by deciding how to budget your money, but in a draft league you want to focus on the best available player with each pick. Early on this is easy, the only questions will be whether you should take players at the less hitting-rich positions ahead of similarly rated guys at 1B and the OF. The answer is almost always yes, but you should always be looking at your next two picks, trying to find the best available talent for those two spots combined. I’m not sure how you’re dumping 3B and C, but my guess is that at some point you’d be better off taking better guys at those positions and scrambling at the end for your last outfielder.

Take Fun Guys Late: The last few rounds are the time to look for high upside risky players. There will always be boring productive guys on your waiver wire, so use those last spots to take erratic starters with high strikeout rates, and the home run hitting prospect who may not be called up until June, or the overall bum who has amazing splits against lefties or righties (or maybe at home versus the road). These types will vary depending on the size of your league and how aggressively owners chase this sort of talent. Just remember that you don’t have to be the most aggressive to score big here, if you study up before your draft.

The bottom line is that you’re going to win if your accumulate the most talent, so the only trick is knowing who has the most talent so that you make the best pick each time your turn comes. Good luck.

Sincerely,
rotomansignature

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

 

Can Something New Be Said About the Choice Between Running and Passing on Second Down in the Super Bowl?

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As the clock counted down to the end of the Super Bowl Sunday night, the announcers speculated that maybe Bill Belichick should stop the clock, to give his team a chance to march the length of the field after the inevitable TD. But Belichick didn’t.

I would like to say that I assessed the situation and determined what the right thing to do was, for everyone, but mostly riding on the giddy head of Jerome Kearse’s insane catch moments before, all I was thinking was that the Seahawks were going to win in a most improbable manner. No way could they fail, I was thinking.

Iwouldbutidied

After the interception the social media blew up with astonishment that the Seahawks didn’t give the ball to Marshawn Lynch, and let him run for a touchdown. That seemed like the safe thing to do, and it certainly would have covered Pete Carroll’s ass, but Matthew Iglesias explained on Vox yesterday why throwing the ball on second down made good sense. In short, and ignoring the significant third possible outcome, a pass would have led to a Touchdown or a stopped clock, which would have allowed the Seahawks, if they didn’t score, to either run or pass on third down—since they had only one timeout left. In other words, by passing, the Seahawks would have time for three plays. If they ran they would have had time for two (or would be obliged to pass on third down, with everyone knowing the pass was coming).

Now, this is kind of true, but not only didn’t Pete Carroll use this explanation after the game for his decision, but such rational thinking about the situation gets in the way of game theory, and the need to mix it up in order to keep your opponent off balance.

Justin Wolfers explains in today’s New York Times that good and effective strategy depends on randomizing one’s choices. If the best choice is to run, and you always run, your opponent will defense against the run and running will no longer be your best choice.

Which raises the interesting question: If Belichick is so smart, shouldn’t he have realized that the Seahawks better strategy was to pass? And if he realized that, wouldn’t he assume Pete Carroll would also realize that? And, if Pete Carroll thought passing was the better strategy and he assumed that Belichick would also assume so, wouldn’t he be obliged to change up his plans and call for a run?

It’s important to remember that game theory helps us figure out the competing motives, but before time runs out a decision has to be made.

That it was to pass was fine, I think, but I wonder about throwing the ball into the middle of all that stacked defense. Why not throw over the head of a receiver running to the corner after a play action? Or have Russell Wilson roll out and throw if a receiver was open, with at least the option of carrying the ball in if they were defensed?

What we know for sure is that, no matter what the coaches were thinking, Malcolm Butler saw what was happening and stepped up at the right time. Nice play.

ASK ROTOMAN: The Ken Giles File

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Dear Rotoman:

15 team head to head, 6 keeper league. Here’s my roster.

Ken_Giles_comes_setcatcher yadier molina
1b justin morneau
2b dee gordon
3b pablo sandoval
ss xander bogaerts
of starling marte, wil myers, arismendy alcantara
sp cliff lee, cory kluber, jose fernandez, matt cain and 6 other pieces of trash
rp steve cishek, ken giles, and 3 other pieces of trash

pitcher heavy league for points and holds count
keeping (marte, kluber, cishek, ken giles, dee gordon, jose fernandez)

am I making a mistake? Any response welcomed

“Ken Giles Phile”

Dear KGP:

When do you have to turn in your keepers? Ken Giles doesn’t have the closing job yet.

I know it looks smart for the Phillies to deal Jonathan Papelbon, opening up their closing job for Giles, who had an average fastball of 97.2 mph last year and consistently topped 100 mph. Giles improved his control after arriving in the majors last year, so maybe he’s ready. And there was chatter that the Phillies were talking to the Brewers about Papelbon this week, which makes sense since the Milwaukee team has Jonathan Broxton as their putative closer at this point.

Still, right now Papelbon is only crazily expensive ($12.5M, with a $13M vesting option for 2016) for this year. The Phillies would no doubt like to get out from under that contract, but they’re certainly not crippled by it. And if the Brewers (who are on Papelbon’s no trade list) don’t offer much for Papelbon now, it would be an easy call for the Phils to hold onto him and see who needs a top closer as the season progresses. Saving money is good, getting a good prospect is better.

So, it isn’t a slam dunk Giles is going to have the job all year. That makes him a weak freeze at this point. On the other hand, you don’t have a slam dunk alternative, so maybe he’ll end up your best choice. But at this point I would consider keeping a hitter, a choice that depends on the pool of kept players. Molina, Sandoval, Bogaerts and Myers are all less risky than Giles right now, but don’t have the closer’s upside if he wins that job.

What I can’t guess is how badly other owners in your league might vary any of these guys. So while Giles isn’t an obvious mistake, you should look closely and take as much time as you can. There may be a better choice on your roster.

Patiently,
Rotoman

2015 Errata Data and Corrections

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homer-dohThis is the place to find corrections and amplifications about the Fantasy Baseball and Football Guides 2015.

For the mid-March Projection and Big Price Update, visit this page. The password is the last word in Buck Davidson’s Allen Craig profile on page 46 of the 2015 Guide.

THE FANTASY BASEBALL GUIDE 2015

Page 52: The Moyer Pan of Andre Ethier is meant to be a Moyer Pan of Andrelton Simmons on Page 86. The tipoff? Ethier is not valued for his glove, no way no how. Blame Rotoman for bad cutting and pasting.

Page 69: For some reason, J.D. Martinez and Victor Martinez appear alphabetically before Leonys and Russell Martin. This is wrong, but you’ll have to ask Excel how it happened, and Excel isn’t talking.

Page 71: Will Middlebrooks isn’t included in the Guide. I don’t have an explanation for that, except I made a mistake. I’m not high on Middlebrooks at all, I think there’s a fair chance he’s going to fail utterly if he can ever stay healthy enough to get consistent playing time, but he should have been in there.

Will Middlebrooks, $3: Last year’s power outage can be blamed on hand and finger injuries, which popped up throughout the season, but the contact issues that surfaced in 2013 only got worse last year. Now he heads to a park where his power, if it returns as part of his game, isn’t likely to play quite so grandly as it did in Boston. There’s enough uncertainty about his skill set to make him a possible endgame play in NL only leagues, maybe he’ll hit some homers if he proves he isn’t injury prone, that he’s just been unlucky. But the odds are strong he’s going to fail.