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Fun with numbersby Nick FlederFebruary 09, 2012 Nick Fleder has been a die-hard Yankee fan since birth and has played fantasy baseball obsessively since around the age of ten. He can be reached for all inquiries or comments at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). You can ask him any baseball or fantasy baseball related questions on Twitter: @fishfle Comments
Derek Ambrosino said...
I concur. This is an awesome tool, and great for thought experimenting. Bravo, Nick. Very useful info. Posted 02/09 at 02:01 PM
MH said...
I think you put far too much weight on last year’s numbers…. 15, 3.29, 1.16, 199 Those are the James projections for Hudson and Kennedy, respecitively. ZiPs has them both at a 3.42 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, and edges K/9 in favor of Kennedy by a mark of 7.88 to 7.64 (though it docks Kennedy a large number of IP for some reason). Meanwhile Hudson is ADPing about 17 picks later, despite the fact that the projection systems think they’re about the same pitcher. Suffice to say, I’m much more likely to have Hudson on my roster than Kennedy. You can do something similar with David Price and Yovani Gallardo. I don’t think Price is that overpriced (heh), but I do think Kennedy is at least a bit. I don’t see him anywhere near a Top 12 SP (A #1 in a 12-team league should be a top 12 pitcher), and I’d be glad to see an opponent draft him as such. His Whiff rate is ordinary, he’s a fly ball pitcher due for his HR/FB to rise (the difference between his 7.7% and the D’Backs team 9.5% averages is pretty significant for a fly ball guy), his LOB% will fall, and somehow his sub-90mph fastball graded as by far his best pitch last year (by FG pitch type linear weights) at an astonishing +28.7, after previously registering -7.0 over his career and coming in at -2.9 in 2010. I see him as a fringe Top 20, more like a guy in the ~25 range and someone fairly high risk with a lot of volatility in his projection. Yes, his BABIP matched his career rate, which is below the MLB average, but that’s still only in less than 500 IP, still isn’t that great a sample size for BABIP, so as much as a pitcher who matched his career BABIP can look like a regression candidate, IMO, Kennedy does. I’m guessing 14, 3.60, 1.20, 175 for him. That’s basically what I’m expecting from guys like CJ Wilson, Josh Beckett, and Shaun Marcum and less than I’m especting from Matt Garza, making him either a high end #3 or a low end #2. I do essentially agree with you on Kemp and Longo. Posted 02/09 at 02:50 PM
Derek Ambrosino said...
Very interesting and thorough take, MH. I think part of the value in this column is being able to look at a player’s projections in the context of their relative fantasy value. To say that a player’s stat line is going to regress, even offering a specific alternate stat line, is of limited value if we don’t know what a particular line of production is actually worth. We can certainly debate the amount of regression each of us may expect from a player like Kennedy - and I don’t mean to diminish the worthiness of that debate at all - but we also need to know the relative worth of what production we settle on as a projection. This article attempts to put projections in context, which is a step many neglect to take. Once you have your currency conversion down, you can then tweak the values based on your own opinions about the player. Both sides of the equation are important. Posted 02/09 at 03:01 PM
MH said...
Of course, certainly agree Derek, and in that regard I do think its a terrific approach, don’t mean to disparage that at all, more the assertion that Kennedy is an “ace”. I think part of the issue is that a lot of people who do take that type of context into account don’t articulate it (as Nick as done) but rather leave it as an assumption. We touch on it a little bit by throwing categorical assertions such as “Top 20” or “#3 SP” around, but those terms are vague and easily abused. To me, based on my impression of the trend of the run environment, a Top 12 SP should have a projection of roughly a 3.20 ERA and 1.10 WHIP or better. FWIW, by rotochamp (since other projections on fangraphs aren’t yet sortable), the 13th best projected SP ERA is Tim Lincecum’s 3.04 (surprisingly slightly inferior to Madison Bumgarner’s 3.02). My relatively unscientific general rankings have the following as firmly superior to Kennedy (in no particular order): Verlander, Halladay, Kershaw, Lee, Lincecum, Sabathia, Hamels, Weaver, Haren, Price, Greinke, Gallardo, Lester, Cain, Strasburg, Latos, Bumgarner, Garza—despite the fact that Kennedy was superior to many of these pitchers last year and his line from last year was superior to the projections of many of these pitchers. My issue is that simply regressing a few individual aspects of a pitchers line from a season ago can give a pretty incomplete picuture, and in Kennedy’s case, there needs to be more regression than simply his Win total (although its certainly worth understanding that his line would have been elite even if you shaved off 5 wins). Regardless, that’s 18 pitchers I would prefer to Kennedy without hesitation. The following group would also cause me to pause and consider the choice in a bit more detail: Wilson, Hudson, Beckett, Hanson, Moore, Wainwright, Darvish, Anibal Sanchez, Gio Gonzalez, Luebke, and Marcum. Kennedy would be in this group for me, though discretely where I’m not sure is particularly meaningful—the projection I place on him is similar to the projections I place on all of these guys. Kennedy is more like Hudson, Sanchez, and Beckett in terms of volatility while Hanson, Moore, Wainwright, Darvish are riskier but carry significantly greater potential “luck-independent” reward, putting them in a different class, even if I consider their general projections similar. That’s 29 total pitchers. So my guess that I would have Kennedy somewhere in the ~25ish range among pitchers in comparison to the fantasy baseball universe is quantifiably verified. Obviously this is opinion, and again, pretty unscientific, but at least its a more specific quantification of how I value Kennedy within the context of the game. Posted 02/09 at 03:28 PM
Sam said...
MH: Very interesting take on this. Am I missing something or is Shields not in your top 30? Posted 02/09 at 04:46 PM
MH said...
My bad should have included Shields in the same group as Kennedy.. Posted 02/09 at 07:31 PM
Derek Ambrosino said...
MH, Your take is probably more in line with the consensus of the group in the mock. In the mock, Kennedy went after Cain, Wilson, Hanson (my pick), and then the next to go right after him were Garza, Moore, Latos (my pick again). Shields went next. Posted 02/09 at 09:17 PM
Will H. said...
MH: you’re very well-spoken Nick: thanks so much for telling me about this great tool, even though I, too, am never as high on Longo as others and don’t ever think Asdrubal will far that far to me (despite this being an “expert” league). Regardless, nice analysis… Posted 02/09 at 09:18 PM
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Great article. I’d love to see more like this.