THT Fantasy Focus

Posted by Derek Carty at 10:34pm (0) Comments

Sunday, September 16, 2007

How predictable are steals?

Stolen bases: a topic I haven't talked much about this year. This is partially because of their unpredictability. Stolen bases, unlike any other stat in fantasy baseball, can be controlled by the simple will of the player and/or his manager.

We'll talk more about him later in the article, but last year, Shane Victorino stole just four bases and attempted only seven (in 462 plate appearances). This year, he's stolen 37 and attempted 40 (in 484 plate appearances). That is a huge difference and—despite the fact that he stole 45 bases twice in the minors—one that would have been difficult to predict from stats alone.

Stolen base stats

While stolen bases are largely a function of willingness (which is pretty unpredictable), let's try to find some stats that can help quantify base stealing ability.

To quantify willingness, let's use Stolen Base Attempt Percentage (SBA%). This measures how often a player will attempt a steal once he is on base. To calculate it, we'll use (Stolen Base Attempts)/(1B+BB+HBP).

Willingess doesn't mean anything, though, if a player can't get himself in position to steal in the first place. To quantify opportunity, we'll use Stolen Base Opportunity Average (SBO%). To calculate this, we'll use (1B+BB+HBP)/(TPA). This will resemble batting average or on-base percentage because it's basically on-base percentage without including extra-base hits. It's a measure of how often a player reaches first base. As a side note, I am in no way endorsing a strategy that maximizes steals, but because they are a part of fantasy baseball, we need to see which players do this (either intentionally or by default).

You can get yourself to first in every at-bat and try to steal every single time, but if you have the speed of Jason Phillips, it isn't going to do you any good. To quantify speed, we'll use the Speed Score formula originally proposed by Bill James in 1987. His formula took six elements and put them on a scale of 1-10, then took the average of the six elements. These elements included stolen base percentage, stolen base attempts, triples, runs scored, grounded-into double plays and range factor. We're going to exclude the Range factor element. If you're interested in the exact formulas, here they are:

Stolen base percentage: ((SB+3)/(SB+CS+7)-0.4)*20
Stolen base attempts: SQRT((SB+CS)/((H-2B-3B-HR)+BB+HBP))/0.07
Triples: 3B/(AB-HR-K)/0.0016
Runs scored: ((R-HR)/(H+BB-HR+HBP)-0.1)/0.04
Grounded-into double plays: (0.063-GIDP/(AB-HR-K))/0.007

For those of you curious, Jason Phillips's Speed Score this year was 1.74.

Of course, we can't forget a simple measure of Stolen Base Efficiency (SB%). For this, we'll use stolen base success rate, calculated by (stolen bases)/(stolen base attempts).

Ideas for using these stats

I was playing around with these stats a little and found something interesting. So far this year, 17 players who have attempted at least 10 stolen bases have a stolen base success rate of at least 88%. Here's the list, with all of the stats we talked about before included.

LAST	FIRST	TEAM	TPA	SBO	SBO%	SBA%	SB	CS	SBA	SB%	SPEED SCORE
Granderson	Curtis	Tigers	629	145	0.231	15.86	22	1	23	95.65	8.39
McLouth	Nate	Pirates	358	86	0.240	23.26	19	1	20	95.00	7.89
Victorino	Shane	Phillies	484	133	0.275	30.08	37	3	40	92.50	7.05
Damon	Johnny	Yankees	554	157	0.283	16.56	24	2	26	92.31	6.45
Beltran	Carlos	Mets	569	140	0.246	17.86	23	2	25	92.00	6.06
Renteria	Edgar	Braves	494	153	0.310	7.84	11	1	12	91.67	4.67
Green	Shawn	Mets	457	114	0.249	10.53	11	1	12	91.67	4.49
Matsui	Kaz	Rockies	398	104	0.261	31.73	30	3	33	90.91	9.01
Weeks	Rickie	Brewers	437	128	0.293	17.19	20	2	22	90.91	7.67
Kinsler	Ian M	Rangers	506	135	0.267	16.30	20	2	22	90.91	5.93
Utley	Chase	Phillies	546	160	0.293	6.25	9	1	10	90.00	5.51
Eckstein	David	Cardinals	436	129	0.296	7.75	9	1	10	90.00	4.36
Rodriguez	Alex	Yankees	650	194	0.298	13.92	24	3	27	88.89	4.65
Wright	David A	Mets	638	197	0.309	17.77	31	4	35	88.57	5.24
Roberts	Dave	Giants	404	107	0.265	32.71	31	4	35	88.57	8.42
Byrnes	Eric	Diamondbacks	645	176	0.273	28.98	45	6	51	88.24	7.74
Suzuki	Ichiro	Mariners	668	231	0.346	18.18	37	5	42	88.10	7.41

When I saw this, I was curious just how repeatable this skill is... whether a player who is that successful is doing it as a result of skill or a little luck. So, I looked at how these players did last year. The table is below.

LAST	FIRST	TEAM	TPA	SBO	SBO%	SBA%	SB	CS	SBA	SB%	SPEED SCORE
Matsui	Kazuo	Mets	139	25	0.180	8.00	2	0	2	100.00	3.92
Matsui	Kazuo	Rockies	126	38	0.302	23.68	8	1	9	88.89	7.97
Suzuki	Ichiro	Mariners	752	240	0.319	19.58	45	2	47	95.74	8.13
McLouth	Nathan	Pirates	297	61	0.205	18.03	10	1	11	90.91	6.77
Byrnes	Eric	Diamondbacks	606	123	0.203	22.76	25	3	28	89.29	6.05
Roberts	Dave	Padres	567	168	0.296	32.74	49	6	55	89.09	8.32
Beltran	Carlos	Mets	617	159	0.258	13.21	18	3	21	85.71	5.78
Wright	David	Mets	661	181	0.274	13.81	20	5	25	80.00	5.63
Weeks	Rickie	Brewers	413	123	0.298	19.51	19	5	24	79.17	6.89
Rodriguez	Alex	Yankees	674	202	0.300	9.41	15	4	19	78.95	3.78
Utley	Chase	Phillies	739	204	0.276	9.31	15	4	19	78.95	5.83
Renteria	Edgar	Braves	673	184	0.273	12.50	17	6	23	73.91	4.80
Kinsler	Ian	Rangers	474	122	0.257	12.30	11	4	15	73.33	4.32
Damon	Johnny	Yankees	671	176	0.262	19.89	25	10	35	71.43	6.80
Granderson	Curtis	Tigers	679	166	0.244	7.83	8	5	13	61.54	6.14
Victorino	Shane	Phillies	462	124	0.268	5.65	4	3	7	57.14	6.10
Eckstein	David	Cardinals	552	171	0.310	7.60	7	6	13	53.85	4.06
Green	Shawn	Diamondbacks	462	125	0.271	6.40	4	4	8	50.00	4.23
Green	Shawn	Mets	126	28	0.222	0.00	0	0	0	0.00	0.25

Only two of these guys attempted fewer than 10 stolen bases last year (Victorino!), and just four had success rates above 88%. This is by no means a complex, scientific study, but I think it does provide a good starting point for some research. What is the year-to-year correlation? How much of a player's stolen base success rate is luck-related? Can it be predicted with a reasonable degree of accuracy beforehand?

One thing I will look into is how Speed Score plays into success rate. Perhaps break it down into sections (7.00 to 7.50, 7.50 to 8.00, etc.) and find the success rate for each group. Let's say, for example, that the success rate for players in the 4.00 to 4.50 range is 65% (I made that number up, but bear with me). That would mean Shawn Green and Edgar Renteria are in for a decrease in their success rate and, subsequently, their stolen base totals.

This could also indirectly affect their attempts. Again, it's something we need to look into, but it would make sense that a player who is no longer succeeding at such a high rate would stop trying so much, which would further decrease his total number of steals.

We could also run a study to tell us how much of the difference is skill related. David Wright's Speed Score is 5.24, but his success rate is 88% this year. It was a quite solid 80% last year as well. He has long been said to have great instincts on the base paths to make up for his only slightly above-average speed. It would be interesting to find out just how good those instincts are when we remove speed and luck from the equation. If the regression for guys in the 5.00-5.50 is to, say, 70%, we wouldn't want to regress Wright that far if he has some innate base stealing skill that doesn't involve speed.

Where did he come from?

Hard as we may try to predict things, there will always be cases that come out of nowhere. This year, the biggest example is Victorino. He attempted just seven steals last year and was successful just 57% of the time. Check out his numbers below.

YEAR	LAST	FIRST	TEAM	TPA	SBO	SBO%	SBA%	SB	CS	SBA	SB%	SPEED SCORE
2006	Victorino	Shane	Phillies	462	124	0.268	5.65	4	3	7	57.14	6.10
2007	Victorino	Shane	Phillies	484	133	0.275	30.08	37	3	40	92.50	7.05

Victorino was considered a stolen base sleeper preseason because he worked with first base coach Davey Lopes in spring training on his base stealing, but looking at last year's numbers it would have been very difficult to see this coming. How could we have done it without using this sort of qualitative data? The answer is that we really can't, and that qualitative data like this can't always be relied upon.

We can put an asterisk next to the player on our draft sheets, but it would be nigh impossible to try to quantify how working with Lopes would improve Victorino's numbers this year. I mean, his Speed Score wasn't great, his attempt percentage was very low, and his success rate was very low. I'm not sure anyone could be confident in saying that a guy like this will steal 40 bases.

These types of things will happen with steals, so we need to come to terms with this fact and strive to find guys who are more consistent from year to year.

Concluding thoughts

We'll talk about this more in the future. I wanted to introduce some of these stats throw out some ideas that might help us better use them. As always, if you have ideas or suggestions, feel free to either comment or email me.

Posted by Derek Carty at 1:44pm (0) Comments

Monday, September 17, 2007

Milking your counting stats — and the importance of flexibility

We haven't talked much about strategy lately, mostly because at this point in the year there's not much you can do. With about two weeks left in the season, there is something you could consider doing if your team/league meets a few select criteria:

Decent sized gap between the teams above and below you in batting average.
Close enough to maximum innings limit where you could afford to lose a starter.
Single catcher mixed league, shallow to moderate two-catcher mixed league, or shallow single catcher AL or NL-only league.
Lineup can be changed daily.

In many leagues, even after six months of stat accumulation, many teams are still bunched up in the RBI, run, and home run categories. This is by no means a groundbreaking strategy, but when another 5 or 10 RBIs or runs could mean an extra point, it is certainly worth talking about.

The strategy

First, think about who your catcher is. Now, think about how many days each week he is not in the lineup. Chances are, you're thinking of the number two, three, or maybe four. That means that from now until the end of the season, you could be missing out on over a week's worth of games from your catcher position.

You can probably figure out where I'm going with this. If you can afford to drop a pitcher, you can then pick up another catcher, or another two if you're in a two-catcher league. It might be a good idea to pick up another two anyway.

Then, monitor your team each day. When your usual catcher is getting the day off, play your new catcher. You might find that he sometimes has the day off as well, so if you have room for two extras, it would help prevent not having anyone to man the spot.

If you have the choice between an East Coast catcher and a West Coast catcher, go with the West Coast guy. That way you'll be able to see if your primary catcher is starting before you have to decide whether or not to play your new backup (as long as the backup is playing at home or in an away park out west).

There really is no harm in doing this as long as you don't stand to lose ground in batting average. A lot of these catchers will put up poor averages, but if you can withstand that, the value you're getting in the other categories is entirely positive.

Extreme version of the strategy

To take this a step further, you could drop several starting pitchers and pick up guys at positions other than just catcher. For example, in one league (the "inactive" one I talked about a couple weeks ago) I'm going with just 3 starters and 5 closers. The 5 closers were all acquired via the Waiver Wire throughout the year and all have good ratios. I'm set with with wins and have just 40 innings left before I hit the max, so I'll maximize the impact to my ERA, WHIP, and strikeouts (which I am squarely in first in anyway) and help out my offense.

It may seem difficult to drop certain starters (I had to drop Tim Lincecum, Kelvim Escobar, and Curt Schilling), but if they aren't helping you achieve your goal — which is winning the league — then you need to cut them. Before you do, though, make sure that they won't be picked up by someone who is a threat to overtake you in certain categories. The points gained from milking a few extra games from your offense might not be worth it if three of your opponents each pick up a guy you dropped and all pass you in a category or two.

I picked up Matt Stairs as an extra first baseman/outfielder with Jason Giambi currently my primary corner infielder and Chris Duncan going down to injury. I also picked up Ronnie Paulino as my extra catcher. Pickings were relatively slim, but — again — there is no negative value associated with the pickup as long as it isn't depleting resources (namely, a roster spot) that would best be used elsewhere.

With Manny Ramirez and Barry Bonds hurt, I also picked up Jack Cust to hopefully grab me a few homers and Garret Anderson for some all-around value. They'll man a couple of my outfield spots until Manny and Bonds get back. Of course, this league is pretty shallow for guys like Cust and Anderson to be available, but the principles are still the same.

Flexibility can be critical

This strategy, essentially, depends upon your roster flexibility. Losing Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds, and Chris Duncan might have prevented some teams from gaining ground in September. Luckily for me, I planned for my roster to have that necessary flexibility down the stretch.

I am of the philosophy to let all of my starting pitchers play, regardless of the opponent. This has allowed me to amass a ton of innings throughout the season so that I will reach the maximum innings limit before the end of the year. Once your team has capped out its innings, the value of pitchers to your team is zero. Doesn't matter if it's Johan Santana or Jake Peavy, they have zero (direct) value to your team if their stats don't count anymore.

Because I realized this and maximized pitching early, my roster now has flexibility, namely in the way of roster spots. Even though disaster has struck my team, because I planned ahead, I am able to recover from it. Because I allowed my team to get those innings early, I have freed up several roster spots that are now extremely useful.

I'll talk more about my strategies regarding starting pitchers as we get closer to next season, but I think you see how useful it can be if you plan on combining it with the one this article primarily deals with. Even if, early in the season, you aren't consciously planning on using this article's primary strategy, using my pitching strategy should be a conscious decision. It will allow you greater flexibility at the end of the year, and at this point, with the time for trades and the implementation of most strategies past, flexibility could (and probably should) be considered your most important tool.

Posted by Derek Carty at 9:02pm (0) Comments

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Unorthodox strategies

In preparing for next year, you may be thinking about various strategies and plans. So, this is a good time to address some of the more unorthodox ones.

The use of unorthodox strategies is a key component to conflict and warfare. Sun-Tzu first wrote about the power of the unorthodox, especially mixed with the orthodox. As Sun-Tzu stated in The Art of War, there are really two classes of strategies, the orthodox and unorthodox, yet their flexibility is so great that no one could ever exhaust their possibilities. Many of the earliest great generals were those who defied convention and flouted the traditional modes of war.

One of my favorite historical figures, if he can be so called, is the great samurai warrior Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi was the absolute master of the unorthodox. Two of my favorite examples among the many:

--Musashi arrived late to two prior battles against one rival family, the Yoshiokas. He had previously defeated the father and eldest brother and was now facing his third opponent from that family, the younger brother. In the prior two battles he was hours late. In this battle though, the youngest brother arrived early with a small army hoping to overwhelm Musashi. Expecting Musashi to be late, the army laid down in the grass to rest. Of course, Musashi then jumped out of a tree, having hidden for days, and not only killed the third brother but most of the relaxing soldiers.

--There was an undefeated warrior, Baiken, who used a sickle and a long chain with a steel ball on the end. Musashi wanted to see the weapons in action but Baiken refused, only agreeing to use them in a duel. Baiken used the same strategy in all his duels. He would hurl the ball at his opponent and then charge with the sickle, so that when the opponent was fending off the ball he would kill him with the sickle.

Musashi showed up for the duel with two swords, one long and one short, a tactic that no samurai had tried before. He charged immediately so that Baiken couldn't throw the ball. When Baiken hesitated, since he wasn't sure what to do next, Musashi knocked him off balance with the short sword and then killed him with the long one.

Perhaps the greatest master of the unorthodox was Hannibal and again there are many examples of his prowess. Most people know about his use of elephants. However his greatest stroke was in one of his many battles with the Romans. Hannibal wanted to unnerve Roman sentries guarding a pass. So he tied bundles of kindling to the horns of oxen and lit them on fire! The oxen charged the opposing army aflame and bellowing. Since he did this in the dark of night, the Roman sentries were terrified and ran off, giving Hannibal easy access to the Roman army.

I will admit there are plenty of fantasy opponents that I would love to besiege with flaming oxen. There is no shortage of unorthodox strategies in fantasy baseball, though I don't really see that burning oxen will be to your advantage unless your draft is a barbecue. I have always found it interesting to read about some of these unorthodox fantasy strategies. Here are a few of the superficially plausible ones that I have read about over the years. They were developed by guys in expert leagues to try to get a leg up on other experts.

Sadly I have never seen anyone try them in practice but if you have let me know. Maybe next year I will have to join a low stakes auction league and give one of them a whirl:

1. The Labadini Plan-This is a plan where you spend only $1 per pitcher and spend the rest on offense. If you play in AL or NL only leagues the benefits of this plan may be apparent. By spending all this money on hitting you lock up the hitting categories. You shoot for getting lucky with a few pitchers and trade excess hitting for the rest.

I have never seen anyone execute this strategy. It reflects the fundamental premise that pitching is too variable to spend lots of money on in an auction. If you are in a league where you can get a few cheap pitchers for $1 you may be in luck. This year in my high stakes auction I got Sergio Mitre, Claudio Vargas, Pat Neshek and Edgar Gonzalez for $1. These are good value pitchers in deep leagues. Their value though lies in rounding out a staff, not being your best pitchers.

This plan is really a gimmick strategy. I can envision a team cashing with this strategy, but probably not winning. Your opponents, unless they are fools, will see that you need pitching and you will never be able to make a fair trade. Another issue is the fact that many leagues have innings minimums, and in those leagues this strategy is even more difficult to pull off.

2.The "Bernhard" Plan-Named after Sandra Bernhard because the plan is "so ugly it's beautiful"(!), this plan requires that in each offensive spot you draft a player that will get 300-499 ABs. The thought is that you minimize the effect of the end of your bench, you do very well in offense by leading the league in at-bats, and you can easily replace guys that are hurt since they won't be superstars.

The problem of course is that you have to fend for yourself on pitching. This is another strategy that I can see getting into the money but not winning.

3. The Sweeney Plan-In this plan the owner essentially punts HR and RBI as a category. It is a much better plan in 5x5 leagues, or league like my high stakes league that are 8x8. Many leagues now have at-bat requirements that make this plan much harder to pull off. The benefit is that you save money on the guys who are typically most overvalued (a subject for another column), and can spend on pitching.

There are plenty more where these came from--the Over-30 Plan (only draft players over 30), the $20 Budget Plan (no players over $20), the DL-Plan (get guys who were DL'd last year). All of these plans have a common thread-they seek to minimize the effects of luck or the effects of the players that are typically the most variable.

All of these plans are gimmicks that are designed to take the place of full qualitative and quantitative analysis. In the basic league, fantasy baseball is not a game where these strict rules can defeat any but the weakest opponents. You will do better not using a strict set of rules and instead seeking to exploit your opponents' mistakes. It is much like poker in that regard. You can reach a certain level by relatively strict application of a set of rules, but to really do well you need to go beyond that.

In non-expert leagues any plan is better than no plan. This is why I can envision these plans getting into the money in non-expert leagues. It will often be the case in many leagues that many owners have little idea about strategy and in these cases even these unorthodox strategies will beat no plan at all.

A different scenario is presented by expert leagues, where these plans may have more merit since you generally can expect other experts to accurately value players, not fall for terrible trades, make the right trades at more or less the right time and generally handle their teams with aplomb.

In the expert situation, the only real difference you may be able to exploit is something unknown and untried. These unorthodox strategies are a good example of the attempt to do so. Fantasy Baseball is about exploiting information that others do not have. If you are against other experts then it is a difficult task indeed to find information they don't have. So trying something that is the epitome of the unorthodox can be of value. Expert poker players, for example, can and do use a game theory based bluffing system so that their opponents cannot out think them. Against other experts this has great value. But against non-experts that can be exploited you make less money by a rigid rule than by simply trying to out think them. The same principle applies to these unorthodox fantasy baseball strategies.

For the rest of us though, we are better off learning our craft and trying to become an expert. Using these strategies may work, but they will not be optimal for you if you are better than your opponents. You may be able to beat the majority of owners, but likely won't win if there are some tough opponents in your league.

However, in the vein of becoming an expert the principles behind these strategies are like gold and should always be kept in mind by the Fantasy GM:

1. Pitching is very unpredictable, so don't overpay for it.
2. Players coming off the DL can be undervalued by many owners.
3. Maximizing at-bats is often a very strong strategy. My own corollary to this is that when in doubt draft batting average. The principle is that often you are better getting a solid veteran performer than taking a whirl on a risk. Often in deeper leagues there is a strong correlation between at-bats and total offensive points.
4. HR and RBI guys are usually overvalued in auctions. This is not to say that true 5-category studs are, but it is the power guys in the next tier down that are often overvalued. Think Vinny Castilla or Hideki Matsui, who went for $30 in my high stakes league auction, even though I released him last year from his contract at $19.

Unless you are in a real expert league, if you take a chance on one of these unorthodox strategies you may be following a strict set of rigid rules rather than having an overall strategic plan. While this may be OK to beat some weaker competitors, it is far better to be the guy lighting oxen on fire or jumping down to attack from a tree.

Posted by Patrick DiCaprio at 7:40am (0) Comments

Yahoo’s Keys to Success

I noticed an article today over at Seamless Baseball that talked about Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball's "Keys to Success." Anyone in a Yahoo! league has access to this by clicking on "Tools" on your league home page. The bottom of that page has five names listed under the heading "Keys to Success." Here is the list of the five names:

Ryan Braun - MIL - 3B
Russell Martin - LAD - C
Hanley Ramirez - FLA - SS
Jake Peavy - SD - SP
Álex Rodriguez - NYY - 3B

Yahoo! declares this "the list of players who appear most often on the top 500 Public League teams in Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball." I'm not going to spend tonight talking about these guys, although I've already covered Braun and Rodriguez within the past couple of weeks. You'll hear more about them over the off-season, but my intention tonight is not to talk about individual players.

When you look at the list above, does anything stick out to you? If it doesn't, look a little bit closer. Still nothing? Then check out this next list:

Álex Rodríguez - NYY - 3B
Hanley Ramírez - FLA - SS
Magglio Ordóñez - DET - RF
Matt Holliday - COL - LF
Jimmy Rollins - PHI - SS
David Wright - NYM - 3B
Prince Fielder - MIL - 1B
David Ortiz - BOS - 1B
Brandon Phillips - CIN - 2B
Jose Reyes - NYM - SS

This is a list of the 10 top batters in Yahoo! leagues. Anything sticking out now? Maybe that there are 4 first basemen and outfielders on the second list but none on the first? If we look further, we'll see that there are actually 12 first basemen and outfielders in the Top 20... and this is an off year. Last year, there were 6 in the Top 10 and 14 in the Top 20. Think it's a coincidence that none appear on the first list? It's not.

In fantasy baseball, certain players will always be overvalued. Right now, we're talking about first basemen and outfielders. Take a look at the next list:

Albert Pujols - STL - 1B
Ryan Howard - PHI - 1B
Jose Reyes - NYM - SS
Alfonso Soriano - CHC - LF/CF
Johan Santana - MIN - SP
Álex Rodríguez - NYY - 3B
David Ortiz - BOS - 1B
Carl Crawford - TB - LF
Carlos Beltran - NYM - CF
Vladimir Guerrero - LAA - RF

This is typical pre-draft "cheat sheet" for 2007. Most of you probably saw this one or one very similar in February or March. Summary: 7 first basemen and outfielders.

So what we've established so far is that before the season the top first basemen and outfielders are seen as very valuable, and that once the season is over (or near completion, in our case) a good number of first basemen and outfielders will be ranked among the top production leaders.

So why are none on the first list? How come these guys with such great stats aren't found on as many first place teams as a guy like Russell Martin (who is ranked #50 on Yahoo's list of hitting leaders)? The answer is fairly simple. The first list deals with value, the second deals with raw production, and the third fails at evaluating value.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). While VORP isn't a very effective tool for evaluating fantasy players, it's principles are. Suppose you are going to take a first baseman and a third baseman in the first and sixth round, but you're not sure where you should take which. This will be strictly theoretical, so we won't mention names.

In Round 1, you can get the best player at either position. In Round 6, you can get a first baseman that will give you 80% of the value you could have gotten from a first baseman in the first round. Also in Round 6, the best third baseman available will get you 60% of the value the first round third baseman would get you.

I think it's pretty apparent what the obvious choice is: take the third baseman in the first round and the first baseman in the sixth round. Of course this is an overly simplified example, but I think it illustrates my point pretty well.

Despite how obvious this may seem, most fantasy owners don't think about things this way. The intelligent owner, however, will focus on getting maximum value in each round and not target a guy simply because he has a big name and puts up big numbers. That's not to say a guy like that won't be a good value, it just means that you need to look deeper into it in order to determine this for sure.

Once you decide what replacement level is (it will vary depending on league depth), you can then determine how valuable each player is in regard to the others at his position. The owners who are in first place are generally the ones who realized this and didn't spend their first couple of picks on (or spend big money at auction on) slugging outfielders and first basemen.

This year, they instead waited for guys like Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Barry Bonds, and Eric Byrnes. You might end up with a clunker like Lyle Overbay or Rocco Baldelli, but a clunker at first base or outfield is much easier to replace than a shortstop or catcher. Guys like Chris Duncan, Jack Cust, Jonny Gomes, Kevin Youkilis, B.J. Upton, and David DeJesus went undrafted in a lot of leagues and could have provided solid value if you missed on a middle-to-late round first baseman or outfielder.

Concluding thoughts

We'll talk more about player valuation in the future, but when I saw that article today, I thought it might be a good idea to touch on it now. As always, questions or comments are welcome.

Posted by Derek Carty at 5:50pm (0) Comments

Friday, September 21, 2007

Waiver Wire: American League

With the regular season (and fantasy season!) ending after next weekend, this will be the last set of Waiver Wires for the year. I hope they helped you throughout the year, and I hope you look to them next year for some insight.

Orioles Closer | BAL | CL - Well, Danys Baez is done for the year, meaning that the O's will have someone else pitching the ninth. Who it is, is not as clear. The three candidates appear to be Jamie Walker, Chad Bradford, and Fernando Cabrera. When Baez was oringinally inserted into the role, manager Dave Trembley said that he liked Bradford and Walker in pre-9th inning roles, but that might change with a little over a week left in the season.

Walker got a save a week ago, and Cabrera got one in an extra innings game the other day, but it was after Walker and Bradford had already been used and blew the game. Difficult situation to read, but I'd go Walker, Bradford, Cabrera in terms of save potential. It might depend on the match-up whether Walker or Bradford pitches.
Recommendations -
Jamie Walker - Should be owned in all leagues.
Chad Bradford - Should be owned in deep mixed leagues. Should be owned in all but shallow AL-only leagues.
Fernando Cabrera - Should be avoided in mixed leagues. Should be owned in deep 12 and 14-team AL-only leagues.

C.J. Wilson | TEX | RP - Joaquin Benoit looks like the firm option in Texas now. Wilson can be dropped by those hoping for saves and held onto in deeper leagues where middle relievers have value.
Recommendation - Can be dropped in mixed leagues. Should be owned in 14-team AL-only leagues.

Zack Greinke | KC | SP - In his 6 starts since rejoining the rotation, Greinke has a 7.75 K/9 and 2.48 BB/9. That's pretty good, and given that he has the White Sox the next time out he makes a pretty good pickup in any league.
Recommendation - Should be owned in all leagues.

Clay Buchholz | BOS | RP - Buchholz got a spot start this week to accommodate Daisuke Matsuzaka, but I don't think he'll get another this season. He's only been used out of the bullpen once so far, but he might get more action soon as the Sox will likely have him in the bullpen for the playoffs. Probably not a risk worth taking on though. There are likely talented relievers with more stable playing time available in your league.
Recommendation - Should be avoided in all but the deepest leagues.

Jose Contreras | CHW | SP - I've had a couple people ask if he's worth starting against the Twins, but I just can't recommend a guy with a 1.80 K/BB in mixed leagues, or even shallow AL-only leagues.
Recommendation - Should be avoided in mixed leagues. Should be owned in 14-team AL-only leagues.

Juan Rivera | LAA | OF - I would have liked him coming into the season had he not been injured. Nice looking HitTracker chart last year. Has hit two homers since he's been back, and one went 428 true feet. Might be worth a pickup if he was getting more playing time. Without it, he's nothing more than a deep league guy. If you're really desperate for power in a mixed league, there are worse options.
Recommendation - Should be avoided in mixed leagues. Should be considered in deep 12 and owned in 14-team AL-only leagues.

Vernon Wells | TOR | OF - Done for the year.
Recommendation - Can safely be dropped in all redraft leagues.

Adam Lind | TOR | OF - With Vernon Wells done for the year, Lind should pick up some at-bats. Has shown deceptive power in the majors this year with 6 of 8 homers HitTracker has data on going further than 400 true feet, the furthest going 453. 19% line drive rate indicates his .259 BABIP is too low, but he still probably won't be a very good batting average contributor. Batted sixth and seventh (twice) the past three games, so his RBI and run production likely won't be great. Probably a better power bet than Juan Rivera.
Recommendation - Should be considered in 14-team mixed leagues. Should be strongly considered in 10 and owned in 12 and 14-team AL-only leagues.

Posted by Derek Carty at 8:39pm (0) Comments

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Waiver Wire: National League

Philip Humber | NYM | SP - Humber has, rather quietly, put up a nice season at Triple A with an 8.08 K/9 and 2.96 BB/9. He dominated hitters in July and August with an 8.94 K/9, but his BB/9 rose to 4.46 over this time. Somewhat encouraging though is his May, during which he put up a 9.19 K/9 and kept his BB/9 at 2.51. He hasn't pitched much this month (just 3 innings) and is a somewhat risky option on Wednesday. He gets the Nats, though, so he might be worth using in some leagues.
Recommendation - Should be owned in deep mixed leagues. Should be considered in 10 and owned in 12 and 14-team NL-only leagues.

Peter Moylan | ATL | RP/CL - Rafael Soriano will likely be sitting out four games next week. When he does, Moylan will probably be the favorite for saves. Worth a pickup during those fours days if you need saves.
Recommendation - Should be owned in all leagues.

Tim Lincecum | SF | SP - Those of you who drafted or picked this guy up got a great year at very little cost. The Giants are shutting him down, though, and he can now be dropped.
Recommendation - Can be safely dropped in all redraft leagues.

Patrick Misch | SF | SP - Will take Lincecum's place. His numbers in Triple A this year were amazing (10.57 K/9, 2.79 BB/9), but in 36 major league innings (most in relief) he wasn't nearly as good (6.25 K/9, 2.50 BB/9). It'll be interesting to see how he does against a Griffey-and-Hamilton-less Reds team. I'd probably take Humber over him.
Recommendation - Should be considered in deep mixed leagues. Should be strongly considered in 12 and owned in 14-team NL-only leagues.

Brett Tomko | SD | SP - As a starter for LA this year, Tomko had a 5.90 K/9 and 4.08 BB/9. If you throw in his two recent dominant starts as a Padre, it improves to 6.21 and 3.55. That's alright, but I don't see Tomko continuing to dominate like he has over his past two starts. I'd leave him alone unless you're really desperate.
Recommendation - Should be avoided in all but the deepest leagues.

Jeff Keppinger | CIN | 3B/SS - Has the skills to post a pretty good batting average. 95% contact rate, 9% walk rate, and a 23% line drive rate are all great. Doesn't have great power, but he should still be helpful with batting average because his contact rate is so high, even when his .352 BABIP comes down. Will also help with runs with that walk rate and because he's been batting second recently.
Recommendation - Should be owned in deep mixed leagues. Should be strongly considered in 10 and owned in 12 and 14-team NL-only leagues.

Carlos Delgado | NYM | 1B - Some are saying that Delgado is losing power as he ages, but his HitTracker chart says differently. Just 6 of his 23 homers have gone less than 400 true feet, and Delgado might be a decent sleeper next year. He could help with homers and RBIs over the next week. Contact rate isn't very good and his line drive rate is dropping, so Delgado shouldn't be expected to rebound with his batting average over the next week. Still, over such a small sample size, anything can happen really.
Recommendation - Should be owned in deep mixed leagues. Should be owned in deep 10, 12, and 14-team NL-only leagues.

Chad Tracy | ARZ | 1B/3B - Done for the year. Mark Reynolds, who we've talked about before, will get the starts at third.
Recommendation - Can be safely dropped in all redraft leagues.

Posted by Derek Carty at 1:29pm (0) Comments

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Using a “defense first” strategy

My penultimate trade for Rafael Furcal in my high stakes league worked out like a charm. For my opponents that is. As the league stood after that trade, I was at approximately 150 points in the AL and about 130 in the NL. I still had a 30 point lead at the time, but strongly felt my position was weak. After that trade I dropped about ten points but still held the lead.

After the failure of the Furcal trade, and David Ortiz' power outage (as of late July) I thought my house was built on sand. I had gotten lucky so far with a few players that couldn't be expected to continue; Jeremy Guthrie and Brendan Harris for example. My NL offense was floundering a bit and my NL pitching was smoke and mirrors after Jake Peavy and Tom Gorzelanny (Claudio Vargas and Sergio Mitre were my next best starters). My NL team had dropped to fourth overall, while my AL team was still in first (both leagues are totalled and added together to determine the standings).

While in a very deep league these guys can be serviceable, I felt I needed to make a big move somewhere. As it turned out I was approached about my interest in A-Rod, and of course I was interested.

There are two ways you can go about handling your weaknesses. One is to try to shore them up, and this is what most players will do. Often it is the right strategy. But after Furcal flopped I could not risk making another trade for an NL hitter. Two failures would spell disaster for my chances. There simply weren't any available NL hitters that could make a big difference and the opportunity cost of another bad trade was exorbitant.

The second alternative is to simply make your strengths unassailable. Rather than shoring up weaknesses, you make your strengths even stronger by trading from weakness. When to choose one over the other is a matter of context and judgment and great care is needed if you plan to make your weaknesses even weaker, but it may often be correct. In my experience it is rare for a co-owner to trade from weakness. Most owners automatically dismiss such trades out of hand, reasoning that they can't make themselves weaker.

In this instance I completely mortgaged my future, trading Troy Glaus at $23, Felix Hernandez at $10 and Tom Gorzelanny at $12, all of whom were solid keepers. In return I got A-Rod and Carlos Villanueva, who has turned out to be a good keeper in a deep league at $6.

Readers of my blog know I am a huge fan of Carl von Clausewitz, who touted the power of defensive strategies. He opined that defensive strategies are often to be preferred to attacking strategies:

It is easier to hold ground than to take it. It follows that defense is easier than attack, assuming both sides have equal means. What makes protection and preservation easier? It is the fact that time which is allowed to pass accumulates to the credit of the defender. He reaps what he did not sow.

A failure to recognize the innate advantage of a defensive strategy was clearly seen in the Civil War. Jefferson Davis, near the end of the Civil War, demanded that the North be brought to battle despite that fact that the South's lead general, Joe Johnston, was a defensive master. If the South could hold out until the elections Lincoln might be defeated, and the South could then have won by politics what it could not on the battlefield. Davis instead removed Johnston from command and gave it to the aggressive General John Hood who promptly took the North to battle and lost Atlanta to Sherman.

Back to Fantasy Baseball: the assets I gave up for A-Rod were all keepable. Felix is still a good pitcher and an excellent price for next year. Gorzelanny, about whom I wrote in my very first column here, was a hidden gem that two experts tangled over at the auction and he is also at a very good price for next year. Generally, when you have a chance to win you simply must do everything you can to win with no eye to the future at all. Trading future value to improve your chances of winning this year must be done in all cases, no exceptions.

At the time, I calculated the potential AL standings. There are a total of 176 points for the team that can sweep first in all categories. I thought there was a good chance I could get 160 or more (from my 145 points at the time) by obtaining A-Rod. In our league we have BA+OBP/2 as a category, and it counts double, so that each spot is worth two points. At the time of the trade I was in sixth in that category but well within striking distance of first. Plus, as an ancillary benefit I could convert my second place position in HR, Runs RBI and Total Bases to first place, netting a very valuable three extra points.

So, my calculations were that A-Rod could net me 10-15 points in the AL, essentially making my AL position unassailable. If buttressed by a turnaround from David Ortiz so much the better.

The trade off is having to hold on for dear life in the NL and pray that my underperforming NL team in July, which followed up with a terrible August, would turn it around in September. You simply can't control everything. The NL teams were all relatively close in talent so I thought there was no reason to think that I would finish the worst of the four or five teams in the hunt. Trading from weakness is not a strategy for worrier.

So my thinking was that getting A-Rod even at the cost of my second best NL pitcher and two other good keepers was worth it. To be fair, Gorzelanny had been a bit lucky at the time. But the risk was that the NL ERA and WHIP categories were close, as was NL Wins. But you simply can't ever predict everything. I took what I believed were "sure" points in the AL and would roll the dice in the NL.

As insurance, I demanded Carlos Villanueva. Not only was he pitching well but given that I had Claudio Vargas and Dave Bush, both of whom were on the rocks, I thought there was a good chance he would get some starts. This was a great bit of fortune. Not only has he gotten starts he has pitched well. At a minimum he was a great vulture win candidate at the time of the trade.

So far it has turned out well though I am still hanging on and as of this writing my lead is down to single digits. I have gained points since the days of my 30 point lead, and yet the lead has shrunk due to a tremendous rush by a guy who I also consider to be a very tough owner (and who bid me up on Gorzelanny).

I have gained most of those AL points and now sit at 155, with 137 in the NL. In the NL I reserved all starting pitchers except for Peavy, Villanueva and Chad Billingsley (who has since surged). This allowed me to hold my ground in NL ERA and WHIP and even to gain a few precious points in these two hotly contested categories at the possible cost of wins. But it is a fool's errand to chase wins anyway. My second place opponent, delighted at seeing Sergio Mitre get shellacked in early September, was dismayed to see that he was on my bench!

It is still very close and there are no guarantees. But all you can do is get as many points as you can. I felt that if I lost to a legit team (the colluders have all somehow fallen out of the race thankfully) with a point total 15-20 points higher than the typical winner so be it. Right now I am still in first, having been there since April, and am simply holding on. As Clausewitz pointed out, with every day that passes I gain and my opponent loses.

Of course, if you are not in first you may think that defensive strategies may not be correct. But you may still find that they often are at least in terms of hitting the money. You may not be able to win purely on defense if you are not in first, but you certainly can cash. And if the prize is a four figure payout it may be well worth it. Sometimes you need to honestly assess whether you can win and it may be better to take what is there and do the best you can. Better to be Joe Johnston than John Hood and Jefferson Davis.

In determining whether to go on the offensive or not depends upon your points gained calculations, risk factors and projections for the remainder of the year by the players involved and some hard thinking about the various possibilities presented. Few fantasy GMs I have met think about the fact that they may do better by rolling the dice on their weaknesses and should trade not from their strengths but to their strengths. Yet if the context is right it may be clearly correct to do so.

Posted by Patrick DiCaprio at 6:54am (0) Comments

Thursday, September 27, 2007

The homestretch

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I've been meaning to give you guys a reason. I've been hoping to have something noteworthy to write about and add this as a side-note, but nothing has really come up.

The reality is that the regular season (and the fantasy baseball season) is nearly over. Right now, there's very little you can do, strategically to improve your chances of winning your league. At this point, you simply need to wait it out and see what happens. You can make waiver wire additions, carefully manage how you approach your innings limit, and maximize at-bats, but aside from that, the game is really out of your hands. In many leagues, the winner has already been decided (barring some incredible twist of fate).

As such, there hasn't been much to write about lately. I could do player profiles, but I'd rather wait until the season is over and we have the final stats to work with.

That being said, I don't see myself writing another column until next Monday, the day after the final game of the season. If something huge comes up, of course I'll have something to say, but it's likely you won't hear from me again until Monday. I'm really anxious to get back to writing, though, so if someone has an idea for what I could talk about to fill in this week's lull, please let me know!

Thank you for your support throughout the season, good luck in your fantasy leagues down the homestretch, and I look forward to helping you prepare for 2008!

Posted by Derek Carty at 1:18pm (0) Comments

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Saturday, September 15, 2007

Waiver Wire: National League

Sunday, September 16, 2007

How predictable are steals?

Stolen base stats

Ideas for using these stats

Where did he come from?

Concluding thoughts

Monday, September 17, 2007

Milking your counting stats — and the importance of flexibility

The strategy

Extreme version of the strategy

Flexibility can be critical

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Unorthodox strategies

Yahoo’s Keys to Success

Concluding thoughts

Friday, September 21, 2007

Waiver Wire: American League

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Waiver Wire: National League

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Using a “defense first” strategy

Thursday, September 27, 2007

The homestretch