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 Saturday, November 03, 2007First Pitch ArizonaHey guys. I forgot to explain that I'd be missing for a few days. I'm currently in Arizona for Baseball HQ's 13th Annual Fantasy Baseball Symposium at the Arizona Fall League. I've been pretty busy over the last few days, but I do have some interesting things to talk about from the conference, so look for a couple of posts at the beginning of next week. Until then... EDIT: One more quick note. If any of you happen to be at the conference and would like to talk to me in-person, feel free to shoot me an email or find me tomorrow morning. Posted by Derek Carty at 9:27pm (0) Comments Tuesday, November 06, 2007Why the league-wide trade solicitation is bad strategyLet me just start by saying how jealous I am of Derek, who is at First Pitch Arizona. Why he didn't take me along just for a big Hardball Times fantasy presence is unknown, so feel free to chide him for this (just kidding)! I am sure Derek will have some great posts on it, so keep checking back upon his return. In one league I am in, a keeper dynasty draft league, I am a background adviser with a co-owner. He is my partner in my high stakes league, and since I run that team, he essentially does the day-to-day management of this other team. So I essentially act as a consultant for this team, and get all of the league wide e-mails. A few days ago I received the following: Willing to deal the following if anyone is interested… Any problems here? Well, just a few. The first is that virtually none of these players has any significant value that is worth acquiring in a trade, aside from Kent. Even in an NL-only league I doubt anyone will be rushing to acquire Nomar Garciaparra or Brett Tomko. But what is worse is that the owner who sends this email is telling the entire league that he doesn't value these players. He is saying he will deal them to anyone for whatever he can get. Does that sound like good strategy? I hope not. So, even if he values Kent, he signals to the league that he doesn't. It is guilt by association. If he includes Kent in a list of flotsam like this, he is lumping them together. So anyone who is interested in Kent knows that there is a possibility that he needn't give up great value for Kent. At a minimum the owner interested in Kent will at least think that he can be acquired for less than fair value. Two more problems: the first is that your motives are transparent and lazy. Everyone in the league knows what you are up to. Since everyone knows it you have far less negotiating power than you might think. Generally the league wide e-mail is an attempt to get as many trading partners as you can, a laudable goal. But rarely does this happen. The more likely scenario is that no one responds or very few. Since everyone knows what you are trying to do, no one wants to be the patsy in a scheme to get as many trading partners to drive up the price. The second is that no one has any obligation to respond. You aren't telling an owner how you can help him, or how he can better his team. You are asking him to help you out. Why should he respond to this? He won't unless he is desperate, and if he does you won't get fair value for any reasonably good players. Taking a list of your worst players and saying "someone give me anything for one of these" is never good strategy. Laziness and sloth are not characteristics of a winning fantasy owner. Put in the time to make a few phone calls and to look at people's rosters. In this particular instance it may not make a difference since the players being offered have very little value. That does not change the fact that there is no reason to go the league-wide e-mail route. Certainly in the case of good players (like Kent) this is never correct. As I write this there has been no interest in any of these players, including Kent, and this is not surprising. This e-mail was followed by the following: Dan Johnson (ON BASE!): This is as lazy as it gets. While there are some reasonable targets here, the owner is going the wrong way about it. Suffice it to say that sending around a list of all available players and draft picks you would accept is not a strategy I endorse. Entreating your fellow owners to "make me an offer!" is hardly the way one should start negotiations. I considered sending an e-mail saying I would give up a low round pick for Barfield or Johnson, but decided against it. I am sure that had I done so this owner would have lambasted me for "insulting" him with a low-ball offer. Yet, isn't this what he asked of the league? One of my co-owners in my high stakes league called me yesterday to talk deal. We are not allowed to make deals until after Thanksgiving. But he was laying the groundwork. We discussed what I thought of my team, whether I would be rebuilding after my victory, what players I liked etc. So when he is looking to do a deal he will know how he can try to help me and help himself. That is the smart way to do it, laying the groundwork ahead of time, thinking about how he can help me and understanding what my goals are for the coming season. Posted by Patrick DiCaprio at 6:40am Friday, November 09, 2007First Pitch Arizona: Part 1For those of you unaware, this past weekend I attended Baseball HQ's 13th Annual Fantasy Baseball Symposium at the Arizona Fall League (also known as First Pitch Arizona). In Sam Walker's book Fantasyland, he said that First Pitch Arizona, "to the Rotisserie elite, is sort of like Davos, Renaissance Weekend and Mardi Gras condensed into three days." It's, essentially, the biggest fantasy baseball conference of the year. Baseball HQ says that "nowhere else will you find this many fantasy baseball analysts in one place at one time!" The first thing I'd like to say is how much fun this conference was. If you ever have the opportunity to go, it's a great time. The presentations are very interesting and you get the opportunity to meet a lot of intelligent baseball fans. In the first part of this two-part series, I'll be talking about some of the presentations.
Concluding thoughtsThat wraps up Part 1 of my discussion on the First Pitch Arizona conference. Look for Part 2 in a short while, in which I'll discuss some of the interesting conversations I had and things I noticed. Posted by Derek Carty at 5:00pm (0) Comments First Pitch Arizona: Part 2I spoke earlier about some of the different seminar sessions they had at First Pitch Arizona, but now I'd like to relay some other interesting things I either noticed or heard during the conference. Some of these will be relevant to fantasy baseball, others I just found to be enjoyable. Miscellaneous musings
Concluding thoughtsWhile it was a very fulfilling weekend and while I met a lot of great guys, there were many that I just didn't get the time to talk to. I won't list names because I don't want to leave anyone out, but I think this is an enormous credit to the First Pitch conference. There is just so much going on and so many knowledgeable people that it is impossible to talk to everyone. It could be extended for a week, and you might not get your fill. As I said at the beginning of the first part of this series, if you ever get the chance to go, you should absolutely do it. Aside from the terrible toll the time change took on my body, having never been west of Pennsylvania before, it was a fantastic experience. Anyway, that's it for now. We'll be resuming our regular fantasy content over the next few days. We'll probably be taking another look at BABIP tomorrow and then we'll do a few more player profiles. I'm hoping to begin testing the HitTracker home run system by the middle-to-end of next week, so hopefully everything goes smoothly there and we can begin looking at some hitters. If you have any questions about the conference, or any suggestions for player profiles, feel free to shoot me an e-mail. Posted by Derek Carty at 5:01pm (0) Comments Tuesday, November 13, 2007Who to keep among NL hitters?We are getting close to the beginning of winter trading season in my high stakes league, so it is time to start dusting off the rosters and figuring out who should be kept and what my goals should be for next year. The fantasy offseason can be a forlorn time, barren and bare of interest. Fortunately, I can keep my mind occupied by ramping up my search for the much-rumored Evangeline Lilly and Yunjin Kim lingerie pillow fight video. If anyone ever finds it please let me know. As a refresher here are contract notations and what they mean, and I previously discussed the "Z" rule here: s2=can be kept next year. s1=after a player is an s2 he becomes an s1 if he is not signed to a long term contract. Ln=n is the number of years and L means he was signed to a long term contract. X=a guy whose long term contract expired. He can be "Z"d and signed for one year at a cost of $10 added to his salary. As an example, lets take Justin Morneau. He was auctioned for $2 five years ago. He was then a 2s3. Year two he is a 2s2. Then he was signed to a long term contract, so he became a 12L2. The next year he is a 12L1. After that he is a 12X, which means he either goes back into the pool or he becomes $22 after he is "Z"d. I have a quite a few players that are marginal keepers. Generally, when I think I have a chance to win the title, every decision is made with the proviso that I will always err on the side of having more money in the auction. That means no extensions unless they are super valuable, and no "Z" players. I am not sure whether I will have a chance at repeating, so right now it is an open question. This is a fundamental tenet of fantasy roster management in tough auction leagues. The reason is that against better owners you can be sure that in a given year there are two or three guys that have been planning to compete that year and are loaded for bear. If you are one of them, you will have a hot contest in the auction, and every dollar is important. As an example, some of the guys I got this year for less than $5 (the cost of a one year extension) were Sergio Mitre, Claudio Vargas and Ryan Church. Not great players in mixed leagues, but in deep leagues getting these guys at the end of the auction can easily make or break the season. It is worth pointing out that one can easily make decisions on who to keep based upon whether the player is anticipated to be profitable or not. That is an easy calculation in most cases, and won't lead one that far astray. But thinking only about this factor is far from optimal. Most times against better competition there are much more important factors. The players below all illustrate some of these other factors, and by no means is this an exclusive list. But merely considering whether a player will be "worth it" next year is the path to fourth place against better fantasy players in deep keeper leagues. Anyway here are my marginal keepers: Miguel Montero 5s2-Despite a terrible season that was only worth $1 or $2 this is actually a tough decision. If he is an every day starter he will be worth $5 as long as he holds the job. This is because he has some pop and if he hits enough to be an every day player then he could be a $10 player. We have a relatively tough at-bat minimum, and having an every day catcher in two positions can be a big head start. Another factor is Chris Snyder of course, and the fact that if I throw Montero back into the auction he will probably not go for too much more than $5. There is a good chance I can get him back at a lower cost. So it really comes down to evaluating the market and what happens in March. On a strict value calculation he should be an easy toss. I should point out that even if he went for more than $5 in the auction he may still be worth throwing back. One might think that if I liked him at $5 and he goes for $7 I should have kept him, saving $2. But the trade off of extra money may be worth an extra year without having to give him a long term contract. I might be better off if I am rebuilding to have a player like this for three years at $7 than 2 years at $5. If I keep him he is a 5s2 which means that I must make a contract decision this year. If I get him in the auction he is an s3 which means I have an extra year to decide. That can easily be worth $2. Todd Helton 22s2-Another very close one, he produced $22 in value this year. However, most of it was driven by batting average, which was powered by a 35% hit rate. He still has a great batting eye and hits lots of line drives. This decision will depend on what other owners do and who they keep. If the first base crop is deep then Helton will likely go back. If it is shallow then he might be kept. This is probably the toughest decision of all since I am averse to spending $30 on first basemen generally and I often end up with players like Helton. What happens generally in auctions with first basemen is that the great ones are all kept, the marginal ones are all tossed and what you have to bid on are more risky players. This usually means that these guys are in the low $20s value wise. So it is rare that I will spend $30 on a first basemen since not only are there usually not many that are worth it there is an opportunity cost associated with them. I usually end up with the Heltons and Adam LaRoches, and not the Pujolses, unless I am keeping them like I did with Justin Morneau. I will never be 100% sure what to do here since I will have to review everyone's roster and try to divine what they will do with their first basemen. But right now it looks like it will be the typical situation described above. There will be no great NL first baseman in the auction. Jimmy Rollins 32s2-Rollins was a great player and I probably would not have won the league without him. His peripherals such as contact rate, hit rate, line drive and fly ball rates all say his power is sustainable, which means he could be a $40 player again. My decision here is about whether I think I can win again or not. If I cannot then I may be better off trading him. Taking $32 out of my budget for a player can be a big problem for a rebuilding team. A rebuilding team should almost never keep a guy like this. He should be traded before final pre-auction rosters are due and if he is on the roster of a rebuilding team then it has to be considered a planning failure. On the other hand one fact in favor of keeping him is that he will undoubtedly go for at least $32 if he is back in the auction. Ryan Zimmerman 19s2-Two years ago when I paid $15 for Jeremy Hermida and $19 for Zimmerman my goal was that one of them would be a $30 player in 2007 leading me to a championship. As it turned out neither was even profitable. Though I love Zimmerman he only produced about $17 this year. His disappointing season in the BA and OBP departments appears to be fully justified, with a 30% hit rate, and a 9% walk rate. Of course, he is just 23 and has two full years of above average major league success under his belt. This implies that he could be a big bargain next year if he blossoms. If I keep him it will be for two reasons. I will be gambling on a big breakout season and, since he will be an everyday young player, there is at least a reasonable chance that he will at least improve a bit and perhaps turn a marginal profit even if he doesn't turn into a $30 player. Dave Roberts 15s2-How badly do I need 30 steals? That is always the pertinent question with Roberts. His production aside from the steals is essentially non-existent. The issue here is that if Roberts has any leg injuries he is worthless and if he doesn't he is still only a marginal keeper. He is 35 years old and 2007 represented a big drop off in steals from 2006. Calculating an expected value suggests that I should toss him back. Let's assume there is a 25% chance of a leg injury or other circumstances that render him essentially worthless (we will call it a $5 season). The other 75% of the time I turn a small profit of $2. So 25% of the time I lose 10, and the other 75%of the time I gain $2. Overall then, I expect to be in the negative by keeping him. Taking 100 seasons, 25% of the time I lose 10 (-250) and the other 75% I gain 2 (+150). So this is a -100 over 100 seasons, or a $1 loss. But, that isn't all that matters. If I keep him and others value him more then I may be able to trade him to someone who wants to gamble that he will have one last 40 steal season. So then I may gain more than that marginal profit in 75% of the cases if I can trade him some percentage of the time. Since the above calculation renders an expected loss of $1 it is not hard to envision scenarios where I may be able to turn that $1 loss into a solid profit. For example, if I can trade him for a player that will produce a profit of $5 half of the times that I keep him then I completely wipe out the expected loss, and anything better than that is a victory. Overall these are all tough cases. The only keepers I have for sure on offense are Garrett Atkins (who I will Z and make $16), Michael Bourn 7s2 (I am counting on him being a starter after his trade), Rickie Weeks 7L1 and Kelly Johnson 10s2. That by itself may be a good argument for thinking I can't win, though I would have a ton of money to spend in the auction. Posted by Patrick DiCaprio at 8:10am (0) Comments Player highlight: Geovany SotoWell, I realized that we actually can do some hitter profiles if we are a bit selective. Since we don't have HitTracker data on minor league players anyway, we can evaluate them right now. To kick things off, let's take a look at Cubs catcher Geovany Soto. Let's first check out his minor league numbers for the past three years. Numbers
PowerWow. Where did that power come from in 2007? He went from hitting one home run every 57 at-bats in 2006 to hitting one every 13 at-bats in 2007 while seeing a rather large decrease in his contact rate. His HR/FB increased from 8% to 24%, and his fly ball rate significantly increased as well. Where did that all power come from? One might first think that it was there all along, and that it simply took Soto some time to translate it into home runs. If we look at his at-bats per extra base hit (AB/XBH), we see another jump from 2006 to 2007. It looks like it might have been pretty decent to begin with when we look at it in comparison to AB/HR, but it really isn't. In the majors in 2007, the average HR/FB was 6% and the average AB/HR was 66 among players with an AB/XBH between 13 and 16 and at least 250 plate appearances. If we look at players with an AB/XBH between 4 and 8, we see the AB/HR jump to 17 and the HR/FB jump to 19%. With that knowledge, I have a hard time believing he had all this power lying just below the surface. So that begs the question: where did it come from? Well, it should be mentioned that it was Soto's third year at Triple-A, but let's not forget that he was 22 in his first go-around, which is pretty young for Triple A. He was still just 24 this past year, so a power spike shouldn't be incredibly hard to believe. In addition, a sudden increase in power for a minor-leaguer is a little more believable than one for a major league veteran. It shouldn't, however, be taken at face value, so let's see what else we have to work with. At First Pitch Arizona, John Sickels of Minor League Ball had some interesting things to say about Soto. The first was that he added strength this year. I haven't been able to find this anywhere else on the internet (if you guys have, please let me know), but I think Sickels is a pretty reliable source for this type of thing. He also said that Soto tweaked his swing to add more loft to the balls he hits. If we look at his batted ball breakdown, we see that this statement is right in line with his numbers.
We see that in 2007 his ground ball rate took a significant dive, and his three types of balls that are hit in the air all increased. This seems to lend credence to what Sickels said about him altering his swing. Putting all of this together, I have to believe that Soto's power is, for the most part, for real. We are only looking at a one-year sample size, but the evidence looks to be in favor of Soto's ability. It helps that his new-found power seemed to show up in his doubles and triples and not just his home runs. Contact hittingWhile Soto's power increased exponentially in 2007, his contact rate fell to the lowest point of his 7-year minor league career. My first thought was that his new approach had something to do with it, but this table makes me skeptical. It shows the major league contact rates among players whose ground ball rates decreased by at least 5 points from one year to the next (at least 200 plate appearances in each year).
Note: Conclusions were the same even if we increase the margin between the ground ball rates. As you see, the large decrease in contact rate that Soto experienced doesn't appear in a larger sample size. EDIT: Thanks to Dave Studeman for the following idea. Not sure why I didn't think to check this along with ground ball rate. — D.C. 11/16/07 If we run a similar test using players who increased their HR/FB rates, we do see a trend emerge. The following table shows the change in contact rate from year-to-year among players who increased their HR/FB percentages by at least 5.
If we alter the table to show the change when HR/FB percentages increase by at least 8, we see the difference get even larger. Be aware, though, that we are in small sample size territory here.
So maybe the drop in Soto's contact rate isn't unsubstantiated after all. His HR/FB percentage increased by 16 from 2006 to 2007, so a 6% drop in his contact rate isn't unreasonable. If he plays in the majors next year (which we'll talk about in a little bit), I think a contact rate around 73% would seem about right, assuming the adjustment to the next level. It could be higher, but I think that is a good guess. END OF EDIT: The final stats have also been adjusted to reflect the changed contact rate prediction. The final component of batting average is BABIP. His .407 BABIP this year was ridiculous (in both a good and lucky way), and will certainly regress, but it is still an excellent sign. While we've already established that line drive rate isn't a very stable statistic, it was 18% last year and 20% this year, and his new swing should only help keep it around this area. As we know, BABIP is incredibly difficult to predict because of the high variability of it, but Soto looks well-equipped to put up some pretty good ones. 2008 Outlook - Playing timeAs of now, there are only two catchers on the Cubs' 40-man roster. Those two catchers are Henry Blanco and our new friend, Geovany Soto. 24-year old Jake Fox is also on the roster, but he played mostly first base and outfield this year. Jason Kendall is a free-agent, and it doesn't appear that the Cubs will look to re-sign him. I have a hard time seeing the Cubs starting Henry Blanco, especially after Soto's breakout year. They could look to bring in a more established veteran catcher, and having Lou Piniella as a manager probably isn't the ideal situation for a young guy looking for consistent PT. Still, I don't see a whole lot of better options for the Cubs. Even if they brought in a guy like Yorvit Torrealba or Ramon Castro, would they really expect him to be a huge upgrade over what Soto could do? I just think the Cubs will decide that the money is better spent elsewhere, leaving Soto the winner by default (even though he certainly deserves the opportunity). All this being said, I'd put my money on Geovany Soto as the Opening Day catcher for the Chicago Cubs. 2008 Outlook - StatsSo, assuming Soto gets the job catching for the Cubs, where does that leave his likely stat output? As I say everytime I project a minor leaguer, there is a good deal of uncertainty with this. Still, I think the measures we're using are pretty darn good, so let's give it a go. First, let's put him at a 73% contact rate and a .320 BABIP. I think they both seem reasonable, although the BABIP could easily be a higher or lower. It was great in the minors, but how good will it really be as a rookie in the majors? The power is a bit more difficult to predict. He managed 3 homers in 54 major league at-bats this year (20% HR/FB) and — as we've discussed — did quite well in Triple A. Let's give him a 15% HR/FB for 2008. The easiest projection is the steals. He's attempted two over the past three seasons and was caught both times. I think 0 steals is a good guess, don't you? With that information, where do we see him hitting in the Cubs lineup? Well, the #1, #3, and #4 spots seem pretty set with Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee, and Aramis Ramirez. I don't see Soto hitting second, either, where Ryan Theriot will probably hit (unless they sign Kaz Matsui, in which case he could hit second and Theriot could be #8). That leaves #5-8 for Soto and a few other guys. Right now it looks like Felix Pie, Matt Murton, and Mark DeRosa are the most likely to fill those spots. A 5-8 of DeRosa, Soto, Murton, Pie might be a decent guess. Of course, the Cubs could easily add another big bat, which would certainly change this up. In 2007, Michael Barrett spent most of his time batting 6th, while Jason Kendall was primarily used in the 8th spot. Soto is much more comparable to Barrett, so I think 6th is a reasonable place to put him. Let's put him down for 500 plate appearances. Let's also assign him an 8% walk rate. He has shown a good ability to walk in the minors, but it is likely to decrease a little at the next level. 8% is still good, and that would put him at 460 at-bats. When we run the calculations on the all the above numbers, we get a .260 batting average and 18 home runs over 460 at-bats. For curiosity's sake, if we bump the BABIP up to .350, Soto's batting average would be .280. If it were .290, though, the batting average would be .239. Not a lot of room for error... or bad luck. As far as the two remaining categories go, I think he should fare pretty well with RBIs. As long as the power is there, batting sixth should give him enough RBI opportunities to have positive value in that category. He's pretty slow and won't have many power bats behind him, so his runs probably won't be as good. Really, though, how many catchers score a lot of runs? His walk rate should help, so I don't think he'll really hurt you with runs. We'll be able to get more precise as the season nears and we have a more certain lineup in place. Market valueI've decided to make "market value" its own section given how important it is. In here, we'll simply list the player's rankings from different lists as they begin to come out and what we should make of them. For now, we have lists from CBS Sportsline, FOX Sports (thanks, John Halpin, for the e-mail!), and a few others I've run across. Once the NFBC starts listing Average Draft positions for 2008 (which should begin next month), we'll add that to the list as well. If you guys have come across any more lists, please shoot me an e-mail. The more information we can gather about the market, the better! CBS Sportsline: 25th Catcher FOX Sports: 10th Catcher MLB 411: Not in Top 10 Catchers FantasyScope: Not in Top 10 Catchers Looks like CBS isn't too high on Soto, but it seems that John Halpin at FOX Sports is really high on him. Halpin said, "Soto's been installed by Vegas oddsmakers as the early favorite to be the player that's on all my fantasy teams in 2008." Let's hope this doesn't become a trend, as Soto would be a fantastic pick if you could get him for the market value CBS has set. It'll be interesting to see where Soto ranks as more sites start to chime in. Concluding thoughtsWell, that concludes THT Fantasy Focus's first hitter profile of the off-season. Overall, I think Soto could be a great fantasy pick in 2008, but his value is a bit limited. It would take an abnormally high BABIP, a home run rate that doesn't drop off from its AAA level, or a career-best contact rate for him to raise that batting average to a more acceptable level. His homers and RBIs should be good, though, and we can't forget that he is a catcher. A .260 batting average for a catcher isn't nearly as bad as it would be for, say, an outfielder. We'll have to wait until I run the projections on all the catchers, but I think Soto could be set up as an excellent value pick in 2008. As the 10th catcher, the return on him would be severely diminished, if existent. If you can grab him as your second catcher after 15 or so other have come off the board, though, I think Soto could be considered a bona-fide sleeper. This is a situation to watch very carefully as the season nears, preparing to pounce if more people don't realize what Soto is capable of. Posted by Derek Carty at 11:01pm (1) Comments Thursday, November 15, 2007Player highlight: Francisco LirianoI got a lot of positive feedback on the Geovany Soto profile, so thanks to everyone who e-mailed me. I promised a few of you over the past couple of months that I would profile Twins starter Francisco Liriano once I learned a little more about his injury and recovery. I have, so, as promised, here is my take on Liriano for 2008. As always, we'll check out his numbers first. Numbers
Note: Minor league stats came from Jeff Sackmann's excellent website MinorLeagueSplits.com. *For minor league numbers, straight ground ball rate is given instead of expected ground ball rate. In case you didn't realize looking at the above table, Francisco Liriano is good. Really good. Or at least he was in the minors in 2005 and for the Twins in 2006. Before we dig too deep into the numbers, though, let's check out his injury situation. Injury concernsFirst, an enormous thanks to Rick Wilton of Baseball Injury Report for this information. I spent a lot of time talking to Rick in Arizona. On top of being a great guy, he has an immense knowledge of injuries and how they affect baseball players. If you are going to subscribe to one fantasy baseball service this year, make it Baseball Injury Report. Now let's talk about Liriano. Lirano underwent Tommy John surgery on November 6, 2006. In Rick's presentation in Arizona, he cited a study conducted by Dr. James R. Andrews and Dr. Laura A. Timmerman that found 82% of pitchers who undergo Tommy John surgery return to their previous form at a mean return time of 18.5 months. I searched for the study online but had difficulty finding it, although I am certain it is out there. I found this study that came to the exact same conclusions. So, where will Liriano be at the 18.5 month mark? Well, that would be the middle of May 2008. Rick said that everything he's heard about his recovery has been great, and that he is right on track for a full recovery. It would seem that Liriano might have a somewhat rocky start to the season, but should cruise through the final four months. I'd next like to take minute to talk about a few myths related to Tommy John surgery and how the savvy fantasy owner can take advantage of them. I've commonly heard people say that pitchers who undergo Tommy John surgery don't bounce back to their previous form until their second season back (meaning 2009, for Liriano). The studies mentioned above show that this doesn't seem to be the case. I also think that Tommy John surgery sounds like a much scarier procedure than it actually is. People hear it and know that the pitcher will be out for a long time. Subconsciously, they think that such a major procedure must have consequences for the pitcher, either with a decrease in stats or with a large chance of a relapse. Again, this isn't really the case. I think this can be explained simply by looking at what Tommy John surgery actually is. When a pitcher undergoes Tommy John surgery, a ligament in the elbow is replaced by a tendon that is taken out of the back of the knee. After the surgery, the pitcher is, for all intents and purposes, brand new. Because of the nature of the surgery, it seems as though the pitcher doesn't really have any greater of a chance of re-injury as he had of sustaining the injury in the first place. There are certainly pitchers who have undergone two of these procedures, but it doesn't seem that this is because they had a relapse. When you take these things into account, I think a lot of fantasy players tend to stay away from guys coming off Tommy John surgery, or at least push them down on their boards. You should do the opposite. Liriano figures to be fine, and we should value him accordingly. 2007 Twins defenseWhile Liriano didn't pitch in 2007, we can still look at the Twins defense to try and figure out the help he'll have behind him in 2008.
The Twins were decidedly average in 2007 in all aspects except outfield range, where they topped the league. Let's look at the individual players, now color-coded to easily see the strengths and weaknesses.
Not a whole lot to cheer about. The good news is that most of these guys are young and have room to improve. It'll be interesting to see what they do with third base and centerfield, but overall the Twins defense looks to be pretty neutral. Liriano is good enough, though, to not be reliant upon it. 2008 outlookFrancisco Liriano could very easily be the first pitcher drafted in 2009. He was fantastic in 2006, and — as we said — should be in top form in the second-half of the season. Before we start drawing conclusions, though, there's one more thing I want to check out. The table in the "Numbers" section is a little misleading, because Liriano split time in 2006 as a starter and a reliever. Let's see how his peripherals break down, to make sure that his numbers as a starter were actually as good as that LIPS ERA indicates.
While he was absolutely amazing as a reliever, he was still excellent as a starter. That 2.77 LIPS ERA doesn't look like it was simply a product of the relief innings. So where does this leave him for 2008? Well, he only threw 121 innings in 2006, and I'm sure the Twins will be careful not to ride him too hard, so I think maybe 160 innings is a good guess for him. As far as the strikeout rate goes, I don't know if it will be above 10 if he's not 100% for the first two months. A 9.50 strikeout rate on the year seems like a reasonable guess. For walks, let's put him down for a 2.70 BB/9. The ground ball rate will be great, likely above 55%. This is one of the reasons I love Liriano so much. How many players can strike out 10 batters per game, walk under 3, and have a nearly elite ground ball rate? Umm... one. Francisco Liriano. Put all of this together, and you get an LIPS ERA around 3.15 and a DIPS WHIP around 1.10. The Twins defense figures to be at least neutral, if not better, so there should serve as a pretty good guide for his actual ERA and WHIP. The low innings count takes away some of this value, but those are still some amazing raw stats. While his strikeout rate is elite, with 160 innings he would only get 169 strikeouts. It's good, but not elite fantasy production. As far as wins go, Liriano will be pitching for a team that was 12th in the league in runs scored. They will be losing Torii Hunter, but Joe Mauer only played 109 games last year and the young guys like Jason Bartlett, Jason Kubel, and Alexi Casilla could improve. With 160 innings, Liriano should grab himself 13 or so wins. If Liriano does somehow manage to approach 200 innings, he could easily be the top fantasy starter next year. Even with only 160 innings, though, Francisco Liriano could still find his way into my top 10 starters on draft day. Market ValueCBS Sportsline: 28th Starting Pitcher CBS Sportsline Draft: 29th Starting Pitcher (Round 10) FOX Sports: 43rd Starting Pitcher MLB 411: Not in Top 20 Starting Pitchers So far, it looks like Liriano is set up to be a great bargain on draft day. Everyone seems to be a little wary because he's been out for a year, but the truth of the matter is that had he not gotten injured in the first place, he would have been #1 on every single board in 2007 and quite likely again in 2008. I would feel comfortable taking Liriano higher than any of these slots, and I'd feel like I was getting an absolute steal if I took him as the 20th starting pitcher. As Spring Training approaches, though, and more positive news comes out about his recovery, we could see him shoot up some boards. Concluding thoughtsEssentially, Liriano is a fantastic pitcher coming off an injury that really shouldn't be an issue for the majority of the 2008 season, yet because of the perception of the injury he is being undervalued. I really wouldn't have any problem taking Liriano as the first pitcher in a keeper league. For two sub-par months (by his standards), you could get years of the most dominating pitcher in baseball for a small price in comparison to his talent. I'm sure he'll be valued much more highly in keeper league than in redraft leagues, but I'd still bid aggressively for him. I have a feeling that by this time next year Liriano will be the consensus first pitcher off the board and might even be talked about by some people as a Top 3 pick in mixed leagues. If you can get him for a reasonable price, you should absolutely do it. Posted by Derek Carty at 3:25pm (0) Comments Tuesday, November 20, 2007Bottom feeding for NL pitchersAs usual, I pursued a "stars and scrubs" strategy when dealing with my NL pitching staff. There are legions of articles dealing with this the stars and scrubs model, so I won't delve too deeply into it here. But the aspect that bears discussion is the tactical execution of the strategy. In my high stakes league it is very difficult to win in consecutive years. The reason is that every year at least two or three teams are completely loaded for bear, having planned for this season for at least a year or possibly two. This year I planned for the 2007 championship when I joined the league in 2005. Every decision was made with the intent of following a specific plan. That was: 1. Completely rebuild in year one. 2. Continue to build in year two, but transition to a cashing position with the focus still on year three. 3. Year three is win at all costs. This plan has worked for me. I have played in three different tough high stakes leagues and in all three I was able to successfully execute by cashing in year two and winning in year three. The key impact this has is that every decision must be considered with an eye to whether it fits in that strategy. Generally this means in terms of a pitching staff that you will bottom feed with all cheap pitchers. To do this necessarily implies that you have no chance at cashing against tougher competition in year one. It also means that if your league has penalties for finishing in the bottom of the league, or has monetary penalties for missing minimums, you must be prepared to pay that price. In fact in year one of this league one of my first trades, for which I was roundly lambasted, was to trade a $33 Ichiro (essentially at that time a zero profit player) for a few speculative keepers, which included a $1 Zack Greinke and a $1 BJ Upton. Sadly that trade didn't work out, but nevertheless the focus was on the long term only. We paid quite a hefty penalty in 2005, having missed every minimum by almost historic and sad margins. Currently, I am left with the following potential keeper list for 2008: Manny Parra 7s2 Carlos Villanueva 3s2 Chad Billingsley 3O (I must renew him for one year at $3 or sign him long term) Sergio Mitre 1s2 Juan Cruz 2s2 Claudio Vargas 1s2 Jake Peavy 30s2 The execution of my plan is evident from these pitchers. All of them were purchased at the auction (except for Villanueva and Parra), all had strong underlying indicators, all were cheap. Spending money on the anchor of Peavy allowed me to speculate on every other pitching position. Of course, had my judgment been off this staff could have been a disaster. The goal is to stockpile a number of cheap arms with talent so that one or more of them turn a tidy profit, and the rest are all shuttled back and forth with free agents. The principle behind this strategy is that the player himself is not the entire asset with which to work. The asset is the roster spot and the goal is to use the number of roster spots available to maximize profit, not just using the players. To the problem at hand: who should be kept next year? No question that Vargas and Mitre are kept. At that salary and with their relatively good peripherals they are no-brainers and almost certainly will show a profit. However, my expectation is that one of them will be poor next year. That sounds counter-intuitive, but it is true. When looking at keepers it is not enough to just say "I think player X will be profitable." In fact, I have no idea which of these guys is more likely to fall off a cliff. Well, I have some idea but I am not about to bet on either. If I keep them both I am expecting that the one who doesn't fall off will more than make up for the one that does, thereby turning enough profit to make this tactic worthwhile. If they both are solid then all the better and I may be able to repeat or at least cash. If they both stink I see a fifth place finish or worse in the offing. The tough cases: Jake Peavy-Can he be worth $30 again? It was at least ten years since I spent $30 on a pitcher, so you can be sure that I thought he would be the best pitcher in the NL this year. But $30 is a lot of money. Peavy had a very fortunate 78% strand rate, so it is likely that even if everything else is equal his ERA will rise next year. Looking at his past history one can see that his ERA has essentially fluctuated with his strand rate while all else has pretty much remained equal: Year ERA Str. BB/9 K/9 2004 2.28 84% 2.9 9.4 2005 2.88 76% 2.2 9.6 2006 4.09 69% 2.8 9.6 2007 2.54 78% 2.7 9.7Carlos Villaneuva-With a cheap $3 salary and the fact that he might be a starter next year he will likely be kept. Even if he only has a 25% chance at being a successful starter it is worth speculating. The mere fact that he stays in a rotation all year (if he does it) will make him worth $10 or so, so any success above that will make him a valuable player and may net me a $10 profit. With an expected ERA in 2007 of 4.46 and a good K rate of 7.8/9IP he can easily be a league average starter or better next year. Keeping in mind the goal here to stockpile cheap arms and hope that one or two blossom, it should be noted that no one, and I mean not even the foremost experts, can predict with certainty among a group of cheap arms which one will succeed. Just the injury factor alone and the fact that they are cheap (and therefore not perceived as valuable) makes it difficult to be right on a specific pitcher. Villanueva and his ilk fit perfectly into my strategy of "stockpiling and hoping." Chad Billingsley-The question here is whether to sign him long term. This has nothing to do with his value for 2008, and everything to do with his value in 2009. Assuming I decide that I cannot compete then he is worth a loss in 2008 if I expect a bigger profit in 2009. If I thought I could win in 2008 then the decision is easy; he is renewed at $3 and that is the end of the analysis. Billingsley, like Peavy, benefitted from an abnormally high strand rate. His expected ERA was 3.90, far higher than his actual ERA. One's analysis must at least consider and recognize that by throwing him back one can almost guarantee that an opponent will make an error. Why? Because Billingsley would likely go for a mid-teens salary in the auction. There is a good chance that he will underproduce that salary. That said, if he can shave a walk or two off of his peripherals he can also be a stud. Paying $15 to find out, as someone certainly would, will have one bobsledding to the bottom half of the league. Given all of the above, the best idea seems to be to sign him to a one year extension, keeping him for 2008 and 2009 at a salary of $8. Juan Cruz-An unsung hero of my staff (since we have wins and wins minus losses as categories), Cruz was an excellent pickup in the auction. I expected a long stint in the rotation when I purchased him in the auction, so it shows that you are sometimes better off being lucky than good. I still believe that Cruz is an unsung star in the making if given a chance and he is good enough to succeed as a closer or as a starter. Assuming health, he will likely still be on my team in 2010. He is far too talented to stay in his current role. A bit more control makes him a star in any role. You probably won't find too many owners that value Cruz over Billingsley, but I am one. Overall there was a fair bit of luck involved with these cheaper picks. Almost all of them turned a profit, and that won't happen too often when you are bottom feeding. However, focusing not on all fancy metrics and insanely detailed analysis but on the fundamental peripherals such as K rate and BB rate will lead you to these unsung profitable pitchers. Posted by Patrick DiCaprio at 8:15am (0) Comments Wednesday, November 21, 2007Projections and a new projectI've gotten a few questions lately regarding my projections, so I'd like to clear some things up now. Plans for projectionsThe first is that, as of now, I have no plans to charge for my projections, at least not for 2008. However, because of the way player valuation works (which we'll discuss more of as the season draws nearer), the rankings will change from league to league. For example, position scarcity isn't as important in shallower leagues as it is for deeper leagues. I am only planning on doing traditional 5x5 rankings, although I'll most likely do them for mixed, AL-only, and NL-only. THT's official projections will also be available in the THT Preseason Book, which I am getting pretty excited about. Definitely something you guys should consider checking out. New projectNext, I'd like to briefly discuss a new project I'm working on. I am currently developing a draft and auction program that I believe will be the best available. Of all the draft and auction programs I've seen, I haven't seen any that will do the things this one will do. It will incorporate all the facets of player valuation and will automatically update each player's value whenever a player gets auctioned. I know we haven't talked too much about player valuation and how it plays into draft and auction strategy, but we will, and this program will incorporate all the different methods we'll talk about. It will analyze each team, the value each team is getting, and how each team is spending its money. I am also planning on having it identify different trends throughout the auction that you will be able to exploit. Maybe teams aren't spending enough money, and there will be some teams with lots of money leftover, leading to inflation in the end-game. Maybe teams are only spending 20% of their money on pitching as opposed to the traditional 30% (which I don't really support, but that's a discussion for another time), meaning there will be some bargains to be had. There are a few other cool things that I'm planning that I'll keep a secret for now, but if all goes accordingly, this program should knock your socks off. And yes, I just said 'knock your socks off.' While the projections should be free, I will need to charge for the auction program. My projections will be built-in and everything will work off of them. I might be able to set it up so that, if you have another set of projections you prefer (although I can't see why that would be the case  ), I could include them as well for a small maintenance fee, assuming it is okay with whoever created them (I'm not sure how that works, legally).Concluding thoughtsThe projections will absolutely be done by February (hopefully sooner, I just don't want to give you false information), and the auction program should be as well. There is a learning curve for creating it, though, so if I run into any major problems it might be delayed. I don't expect that to be the case, but you never know. If you have any questions about my projections or the auction program (or, as usual, anything fantasy baseball related), feel free to send me an e-mail. I'm really behind on them now, so if you haven't gotten a response yet, I didn't forget about you; I've just been really busy lately. I'll try and pound through them all this weekend. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everybody, and if you're traveling, be safe! Posted by Derek Carty at 5:58pm (0) Comments More on BABIP for battersIn case you missed it, I talked a lot about Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) a few weeks ago, going over certain things that do and don't affect it, and to what extent. What we found, though, really wasn't very conclusive (especially when you consider the mistake I made, which is explained in the "Errata" section of this post). To satisfy my curiosity, I really wanted to get a complete look at the batted ball components of BABIP, so I thought I'd share my results. Year-to-YearLet's first see which of these batted ball components can predict themselves: which are consistent, which ones players have a good deal of control over. To do this, we'll run some simple correlations to check how well each type of batted ball and its corresponding hit percentage correlates from year-to-year. For each correlation, a batter needs to have at least 250 plate appearances in both the first and second year in order to be eligible. Data from 2004-2007 was used.
So, it looks as though hitters have a lot of control over ground balls and fly balls, but little control over everything else, at least on a year-to-year basis. Let's look a little deeper to see if we can find some better results. 3-Year correlationsLet's see, if we expand the sample size of these numbers, if more hitter control over some of these components can be found. For each correlation, a batter needs to have at least 650 combined plate appearances among the first three seasons and at least 250 in the fourth. The three-year figure comes from 2004-2006 stats, and year four is 2007. In the weighting tables, a 5/4/3 weighting is used.
When we do this, we get some really nice results. It becomes even easier to predict ground balls and fly balls when we look at three year data. There is some definite potential there. We also see a nice little spike in line drive percentage. It isn't as high as we'd like to see it, but we might be able to do something there, depending on how other options work out. Groundball BABIP also produces a decent result. Perhaps ground balls are the key to BABIP? Concluding thoughtsI won't draw any conclusions today. The purpose of this article was simply to present this data to you and let you know where I'm thinking of going with this stuff. There is still so much to learn about BABIP, and hopefully we'll be able to uncover some new things here. Next time, we'll do some regression analysis to see if there is indeed anything that could be a legitimate option for predicting BABIP. ErrataIn my previous post on BABIP, I made some mistakes. I had incorrectly calculated BABIP2. This had little affect on most of the correlation coefficients, but a few had significant changes. All of the new correlation coefficients are listed below. 2) Walk rate correlation with BABIP2 — 0.05 3) (Called Strikes + Balls)/(Total Pitches) with BABIP2 — 0.03 4) Walks/Strikeouts (BB/K) correlation with BABIP2 — -0.02 5) Line drive rate correlation with BABIP2 — 0.45 6) Outfield fly ball BABIP correlation with BABIP2 — 0.52 9) 3 year, unweighted BABIP2 correlation with Year 4 BABIP2 — 0.39 10) 2 year, unweighted BABIP2 correlation with Year 3 BABIP2 — 0.37 11) 3 year, weighted BABIP2 correlation with Year 4 BABIP2 — 0.38 Outfield fly ball BABIP gets a big boost, enough to become the top predictor of BABIP2 that we looked at. Unfortunately, as we explained above, it isn't a very stable event. Line drive rate also got a tick higher, and — as we discussed — it is somewhat predictable using a three-year figure. 9, 10, and 11 — obviously — are significantly lower than where we had them before. They are still decent, but not great. More work certainly needs to be done in this field. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||