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 Wednesday, April 08, 2009Are you smarter than a Sabermetric spreadsheet?I wrote a short post on my blog a few days ago about the drawbacks of relying on intuition or instinct when making picks in daily fantasy baseball leagues. I think it’s a topic that’s worthy of some elaboration. After all, if you’re knowledgeable about baseball and have a solid understanding of statistics in general and Sabermetrics in particular, shouldn’t you be able to come up with roughly the same result by looking things over carefully as you would if you actually did the calculations to take all the relevant factors into account? The answer is a resounding "no." Using a spreadsheet or computer program is going to provide you with at least three big advantages. The first is that once a player or a factor is incorporated into your statistical model, you’ll never overlook it. You won’t forget about the existence of a player or forget to check whether one of your hitters is facing a lefty or righty starter. The second is that you’ll be able to work faster. Assuming all my supporting data is up to date, I can turn a schedule from MLB.com into ratings for the day and pick a lineup for almost any contest in 5-10 minutes. If I had to research the park, opponent, and other factors for each potential member of my lineup, it would likely take an hour or more. But by far, the most important factor is that the human mind (at least most of them) simply isn’t well-equipped to evaluate a large number of contextual factor simultaneously, and is particularly badly suited to assigning the proper weight to various factors based on subtle differences of degree. As an example, are you really able to judge which is worth more in your format: a .300 hitter with 30 HR, and 5 SB, playing in a park that inflates runs and home runs by 5 percent against Johan Santana, or a .280 hitter with 35 HR and 0 SB, playing in a park that deflates runs and home runs by 5 percent against Brett Myers? Then consider all the factors I didn’t even mention—platoon advantages, bullpens, home-field advantage, and many others. It seems unlikely that anyone is capable of assessing the importance of each of them, and arriving at a reasonably accurate evaluation or projection of each player’s value for the day. As a kind of thought experiment or game, I’m asking of each of you who reads this to take a look at the games scheduled for Friday and rank the top five outfielders. We’ll use the following points scoring system: Single: 1 point Double: 2 points Triple: 3 points Home Run: 4 points Run: 1 point RBI: 1 point Walk: 1 point Stolen Base: 2 points Strikeout: -1 points Post your picks in the comments section here. My own picks just based on intuition are Beltran, Rios, Sizemore, Hamilton, and Guerrero. I’m primarily looking at who the opposing pitcher is and what park the game is being played in. Sometime before Friday, I’ll put the results of my spreadsheet calculations in the comments section, and next week I’ll discuss some of the factors that influenced the calculations. It should be interesting to see how many of our picks differ from what my formulas indicate, and what factors cause the differences. While the results of one day’s games are too small a sample size to know which set of predictions are "better," hopefully we’ll still be able to learn something interesting from the exercise. Posted by Alex Zelvin at 2:41am (15) Comments Thursday, April 09, 2009When to use the waiver wireWith draft season over and many owners not looking to trade yet, the waiver wire currently dominates the attention of most fantasy owners. However, there are different, conflicting philosophies regarding proper use of the waiver wire, even among intelligent fantasy players and experts. Today, I thought I'd give you my thoughts on the matter. Different philosophiesSome feel that it is best to be aggressive on the waiver wire throughout April, taking a "shoot first, ask questions later" approach. If a player gets off to a hot start with the peripheral skills to back it up, pick him up and see if he continues. If he doesn't, drop him later. The problem with this line of thought is that in April (and through much of the first half of the year, honestly), sample sizes are far too small to make any kind of reasonable judgment based off of them. Surely we'd be better off judging a player by the hundreds of previous at-bats he's taken as opposed to a handful in April, no? Still, every year at least a couple of these April surgers outperform projections and turn in great fantasy seasons. Just one year ago, guys like Carlos Quentin, Ryan Ludwick, Cliff Lee, and Edinson Volquez led many owners to a fantasy championship. Had we waited until their numbers stabilized, they would be long gone from the wire and leading the charge for someone else's team. In a recent conversation I had with an esteemed fantasy analyst, this analyst expressed the idea that many fantasy players get too caught up in small sample sizes and anecdotal evidence, stating that it is the job of the good fantasy analyst to "drive perceptions back to long-term trends." He said that he didn't understand people who claim "if he regresses, I'll drop him later," because at that point you've eaten three rotten weeks. You would never listen to a financial adviser who says, "If the stock falls after you buy it, you can sell!" Put that way, it seems a little silly that we would even consider such a notion. My take for 'first-come-first-served' leaguesHere's why I feel differently, though. Baseball players, as much as we may treat them like stocks, are not stocks. They are different and follow a separate set of rules. The primary cost of a stock is the acquisition cost. You pay a certain amount of money, you acquire the stock, and your return or loss is fully dependent upon its future performance. In fantasy, however, you can hedge against (or eliminate) the risk of uncertain future performance in your waiver wire pickups. In fantasy, the primary cost is not the acquisition cost (unless you're in a FAAB league or must use a high waiver claim—these are leagues I'll discuss next time) but, rather, the activation cost. In fantasy, the only acquisition cost is the worth of a single roster spot (most often the last spot on your bench). You can bench your pickup for three weeks to see how he does without incurring a single additional cost. Only once you activate him do you start to incur additional risk and additional costs (should he fail). In the stock market, you can't pick a stock and say that you're going to watch it for three weeks before deciding whether or not you wanted to buy it at the original price. In fantasy, however, we can do just this by sitting the player on our bench. In addition, the last player on your bench will often be an unspectacular veteran player worth only a couple dollars. The cost of losing this player is small because 1) there are likely similar, interchangeable players available on the wire to grab in case your high-upside pickup flops and 2) the high-upside pickup's value might not be much worse than this player's value anyway. Potential scenarioWhile picking up a player for your bench sounds like a great idea, in some leagues you don't have a bench or simply don't have room on it. If, for whatever reason, you must start the pickup, it still might be worth it to take the gamble. Take a look at the following scenario. Let's say we pick up Cameron Maybin, who THT has projected for -$7 in value over the entire season. We decide to keep him for three weeks and then drop him if he isn't tearing it up. If the player he will be replacing is valued at $3 over the entire season (a reasonable estimate for the last player on your roster), that amounts to a $1.20 net loss in value. Now let's set up a hypothetical scenario in which Maybin has just two distinct possibilities: playing to his -$7 projection or becoming a $25 player (value dispersed evenly throughout the season). In this case, Maybin would need to play up to his $25 value five times out of 100 in order to break even on the pickup. So the question then becomes, do 5 percent of April pickups post $25 seasons? This question would take a more in-depth study than I have time for now, but I would imagine the answer is a resounding "yes" if we only include players who are showing marked skill increases (after all, if a player isn't doing this, he's just getting lucky and shouldn't even be considered). CaveatsThe scenario I depicted above is just one possible scenario that was simplified a great deal. For your fantasy team, it isn't enough to simply use that 5 percent figure and make pickups based off of it. There are a number of factors that really need to be considered:
To help you decide the necessary probability for your own pickup, I've put together a (very) simplified calculator that will run you through my scenario above and give you a rough estimate of the necessary odds needed to make a pickup worthwhile. You can download it by clicking here. Keep in mind this is for leagues that would require the pickup to be active from day one. In leagues where the player can be benched, the needed odds would be much lower. Concluding thoughtsOverall, I think it is wise to make frequent use of the waiver wire in the early portions of the year. Of course, every league is different and every team is different, and in some situations this will not be the best strategy. You should examine your own specific situation and then decide upon the best course of action. In leagues that allow you to bench your pickups, however, it is almost always a good idea to be aggressive early if you have an easily replaceable player that can be dropped. The cost is very small and the reward is huge. Next time, I'll talk a little about handling the waiver wire in leagues with FAAB bidding. Posted by Derek Carty at 1:22am (4) Comments My Razzball teamRudy Gamble over at razzball.com was kind enough to invite me to participate in his annual Razzball fantasy league. For those of you who haven't heard of the Razzball leagues, it is a points based fantasy league where the goal is to try and assemble the worst possible team. The scoring is: Batting: At Bats (AB) 2 Hits (H) -3 Home Runs (HR) -10 Runs Scored (R) -4 Runs Batted In (RBI) -4 Strikeouts (K) 2 Pitching: Innings Pitched (IP) -1 Hits Allowed (H) 1 Walks Issued (BB) 1 Earned Runs (ER) 1.5 Home Runs Allowed (HR) 4 Strikeouts (K) -1 Losses (L) 8 Obviously, you can't just go for bad players - you have to go for bad players that get good amounts of playing time. Clearly, the point system encourages you to draft speedy players with little power. Players like Willy Taveras have a lot of value in this league. The positional requirements are fairly hefty; the five outfield slots and the three corner infield slots are tough to fill. Picking pitchers is a bit more nuanced. Obviously, innings eaters like Livan Hernandez are great. But there aren't many of those. Flyball pitchers tend to get more strikeouts than ground ball pitchers but they also give up more home runs. I had a ton of fun researching and drafting for this league. Going forward, it'll be a nice change of pace to keep an eye out for when journeymen like Freddy Garcia might get a spot start for a team struggling with injuries. My roster for the first fantasy week is: C Jason Kendall 1B Billy Butler 2B Emmanuel Burriss 3B Bill Hall SS Jeff Keppinger 2B/SS Khalil Greene 1B/3B Jed Lowrie OF Cameron Maybin OF Fred Lewis OF Randy Winn OF Travis Snider OF Kosuke Fukudome UTIL Miguel Olivo Bench Kelly Johnson Pablo Sandoval Pitchers Kevin Millwood Vicente Padilla Tim Wakefield Matt Harrison Jorge De La Rosa Adam Eaton David Purcey Anthony Reyes R.A. Dickey Bench Fausto Carmona Trevor Cahill Josh Outman Jeremy Bonderman Though Millwood burned me with his first start of the year, I am hoping for good (bad) things out of the Texas pitching staff this year. Purcey is one of my gambles and he also fried me a bit with his first start. Still, he's a fly ball pitcher on a mediocre to bad team with little depth to replace him if he goes through a rough patch. Some people have high hopes for Matt Harrison. I do too, only in the bad kind of way. Last year his ERA was 5.49, which his FIP of 5.20 and an xFIP of 5.12. His K/BB and K/9 are 1.35 and 4.51, his ground ball rate is only around 40 percent and he'll be pitching in Arlington. My strengths in the field are my catchers. Even though catchers are often Razzball all-stars for most teams, I'm especially high on my catchers. Kendall has zero offensive capability but, with Mike Rivera backing him up, he should get a lot of playing time. Olivo has a bit of power unfortunately, but I love his 7.05 K/BB ratio. Billy Butler hasn't yet found the power stroke that scouts were projecting years ago. I plan on riding him until he does. I actually have Burriss and Lowrie on one of my regular fantasy teams. Burriss' speed doesn't hurt me here though. Lowrie is eligible at third base in ESPN leagues, which is the system Razzball uses, so while I have Lowrie at short in my other league, I think he'll do well for me at the shallower corner infield spot here. Maybin and, in particular, Snider could hurt me in short run as teams challenge them with fastballs. I am banking that teams will figure out how to pitch to them and I'll get to enjoy the ensuing mid-year slump. Posted by Jonathan Halket at 1:28am (7) Comments Friday, April 10, 2009Roster Doctor - 4/10/09Welcome to THT Fantasy's Roster Doctor. If you'd like your team to be analyzed by one of our fantasy baseball experts, please send your full roster to this address. Also be sure to include your league's player pool (mixed, AL-only, NL-only), number of teams, scoring format (roto, head-to-head, points, etc.), categories, whether or not it's a keeper league, and any other pertinent information. If your roster is selected it will be analyzed in a future Roster Doctor column. Player pool: Mixed No. of teams: 10 Categories: Traditional 5x5 Scoring Type: Roto Roster: C - Victor Martinez C - Ramon Hernandez 1B - Carlos Pena 2B - Alexei Ramirez SS - Jimmy Rollins 3B - David Wright CI - Adrian Beltre MI - Robinson Cano OF - Manny Ramirez OF - Nick Markakis OF - Alex Rios OF - Adam Dunn OF - Lastings Milledge UT - Adam LaRoche P - Javier Vazquez P - Yovani Gallardo P - Joba Chamberlain P - Zack Greinke P - Aaron Harang P - Ted Lilly P - Chad Qualls P - Joel Hanrahan P - Matt Lindstrom BN - Kevin Slowey BN - Scott Baker BN - Jason Motte BN - George Sherrill BN - J.J. Putz BN - Hong-Chih Kuo This is a team that I like a lot. The pitching is very strong with eight very good starting pitchers and a mix of risks and safer players. The team has five closers and the two best setup men in the game. The only real move I would recommend here would be to offer Matt Lindstrom around. If he pitches like he did last year, he's not a good bet to finish the year closing games. Heath Bell would be a great return, but I'd also trade him for Frank Francisco, Brandon Morrow, Mike Gonzalez, Huston Street, probably Brad Ziegler, and maybe even Kevin Gregg. Sherrill could be traded for any of them as well, but you'd be unlikely to get any bites. Carlos Marmol might be a good target for him, depending upon the savvyness of his owner. On offense, you have some good players, but I definitely think you could upgrade. Wright and Rollins are a terrific foundation for your team, and you have a very good outfield. I am big on guys like Carlos Lee, Matt Kemp, and Nate McLouth, however, and I think it would be worth offering Manny, Markakis, and Dunn around. Dunn for Curtis Granderson would also be an upgrade. I could also stand trading Dunn for Raul Ibanez if it means getting a good upgrade elsewhere. I'd also consider trading Alexei Ramirez. He's a good player, but Kelly Johnson is a very underrated second baseman this year, and you would only take a small hit at 2B while likely picking up a significant upgrade elsewhere. I like Robinson Cano a lot. Beltre is a guy who may be in for a power decline this year, although it's possible his peripheral drop last year was injury-related. If this is the case and he is healthy this year he could be fine, but he's a little too risky for my taste when there are safer guys who are similarly valued. James Loney would be a good choice. Nelson Cruz would be nice if you moved LaRoche to CI. I'd also offer Victor Martinez around. I'm not as big on him as some, and I'd rather have guys like Ryan Doumit, Chris Iannetta, or even Mike Napoli or Matt Wieters. Wieters would actually make a good target as he's likely undervalued, and then you could pick up someone like Kenji Johjima to start until he is called up. As Victor generally goes higher than all of these guys, you could also leverage an upgrade elsewhere. Something like Victor/Pena for catcher/Kevin Youkilis might be a solid deal. Or Victor/Milledge for catcher/Nelson Cruz. Just a few random ideas. Adam Lind might be gone by now, but if not, I'd probably pick him up to play over LaRoche. Posted by Derek Carty at 3:59am (0) Comments Hit Rate ObserverWelcome to Hit Rate Observer! Each week, HRO will try to find unexplored avenues for success in fantasy. I thank Dave, David, and Derek for the opportunity. A perennial quest in fantasy baseball is to boil players down to one number—some easily understood figure that permits quick comparisons between players. The idea has drawbacks, but it also can serve to focus the mind. The modern sabermetric toolkit contains a wealth of candidates for our “one number”—OPS, Runs Created, BaseRuns, wOBA. Colin Wyers covered a lot of them in his column yesterday. I’m thinking of something simpler, though. If you are in the market for one number, a case can be made for good old lineup position. Here you have a number (and single-digit at that!) that is strongly suggestive not just of a player’s overall offense but also of the split in his character between being a baserunner (OBP) and driving home other baserunners (SLG). For fantasy leaguers, lineup position also instantly insinuates the player’s contributions not only in Runs and RBI but also in HR, BA, and SB. Again, all on a 1-9 scale. However, there’s a second aspect to lineup position of importance to fantasy players, which is that players who are higher in the order get more chances to show off their bats. Here is the average number of plate appearances per game, ordered by the position in the starting lineup (all data in this article are for 2008): .  (We include data for both the AL and NL but excluding all pitchers. Also, we are considering only players who started in the lineup; consequently, the downward trend reflects not only the slighter PA from batting lower in the order but also the greater potential for lesser hitters to be pulled for a pinch-hitter later in the game. Both are hazards of the hinterlands.) The graph is pretty linear from 1 and 7, and then it falls off more sharply. All in all, a starting hitter in the #1 slot averages 750 appearances in 162 games, whereas a starter in the #9 slot garners only 535 PA. Apart from their difference in make-up (which is, to be sure, large), a #1 hitter has a profound edge in plate trips. There is a weakness in this analysis, however. In the above graph, we looked at opportunities for the majors overall. But teams don’t generate the same number of opportunities. If we truly want our “one number” to be useful, we’ll have to do better. Consider these two AL teams in 2008:  Texas scored 210 more Runs than did Kansas City and carried 34 more points of OBP. It stands to reason, then, that the Rangers got more work from their starting nine—and they did, about 1.75 more PA per game. The starting #1 hitter on Texas logged 8% more appearances (57 more PA) than his counterpart on KC. For a typical #1 batter last year, that equates to 8 more Runs, 2.25 more SB, and 51 more at-bats of a .276 BA. (If you’re wondering why Texas got more PA from the starting #5 slot than from the starting #4, it’s because their #4 batter was more often replaced—20 more times, in fact.) The upshot is that lineup position is relative. What we really want is effective lineup position (ELP)—a number that captures not only the batter’s position within the order but also his team’s position on the offensive spectrum. We can derive Effective Lineup Position if, instead of using a batter’s lineup position to estimate his PA/G, we use his PA/G to estimate his lineup position. We can consult our first graph to build a suitable table:
Wrap your head around that: an effective lineup position of 0. The #0 spot represents a batter who, through a combination of breathless team play and personal indispensability, gets so many plate appearances that it’s as if he's batting ahead of the typical lead-off man! Does such an animal exist? Sure. We’ve already mentioned Texas’s #1 hitter (in truth, he was halfway to a lineup spot of -1). The Rangers actually had competition in this department from the Mets, whose #1 hitter had an identical 4.79 PA/G. The lead-off men for Boston, Cleveland, and Chicago (NL) also batted like #0. Here the top 10 hitters in PA/G last year, among batters with sizable PA:
Note that Dustin Pedroia ranks ahead of teammate Jacoby Ellsbury even though Pedroia tended to bat #2. The reason is that Pedroia never batted lower than #4, whereas Ellsbury, on those occasions when he didn’t bat #1, never batted above #6. Drafting Pedroia—a #2 hitter—gave you more chances than from most other teams’ lead-off men. And the upheaval isn’t limited to the top of the order. Tampa Bay’s starting #9 hitter last year averaged 3.81 PA/G; with the same rate, he could have slipped unnoticed into Seattle’s #7 spot. Why talk of ELP rather than PA/G? Two reasons: First, ELP turns an obscure rate (PA/G) into a familiar one—most people wouldn’t know that 4.51 PA/G and 4.39 PA/G were sharply different, much less where those numbers fell in the order. Second, lineup position introduces more color to the picture; even with a fictitious spot like #0, we know the sort of skills that the hitter brings to the park (good OBP, good speed, little power). This year, Heater is predicting big things from the offenses of Cleveland, Colorado, both Chicago teams, and (of course) Texas. Pursuing the lead-off man (or even the #2 hitter) on one of those clubs could spell the difference in a tight fantasy contest. Lineup position—both straight and effective—will appear in Heater Magazine this year. You can subscribe to Heater, as well as Dave Studeman's Batted Ball Report, at this link. Posted by John Burnson at 4:00am (5) Comments Tuesday, April 14, 2009Decision Making Based On Small Statistical SamplesIf your team isn’t doing so well in the standing so far, don’t fret. The season isn’t four percent up yet. Emilio Bonifacio will not finish the season as the game’s most valuable player. Take that to the bank. Conversely, Jimmy Rollins won’t finish the season with no steals and an average that would make Mario Mendoza blush. As any statistics guru will tell you, small sample sets are the enemy of accuracy. In pursuing trades and hitting the waiver wire, fantasy baseball managers may think they are making rational decisions based on available data and recycled scouting reports, but rationality is often applied on a rather arbitrary basis. Here’s a couple of examples: After hitting three home runs, knocking in 12 RBIs and stroking 12 hits in his first 30 at-bats of the season, Adam Lind’s ownership has risen from 26 percent to 81 percent in the course of a week in CBS Sportsline leagues. Adam Lind has all the makings of a “post-hype sleeper,” that term given to touted prospects who will only live up to their potential after we’ve forgotten about them — but so too does Kosuke Fukudome, who came into the league with just as much hype and is neck-and-neck with Lind as one of the most valuable players of the first week. Fukudome’s early success has only netted him a modest 41% ownership (up from 23), begging the question why fantasy baseball managers seem to strongly prefer Lind over Fukudome at the moment. Anybody who owns Jason Motte is unlikely to be doing well in the category of ERA at the moment. Fantasy owners cursed Motte’s name after blowing a three-run lead in his first save opportunity of the year. Many have already dropped him, and even some intelligent fantasy gurus have proclaimed Motte’s era as closer a disaster and all but finished on the basis of one week of play! Call me a Motte apologist, but three strikeouts-to-no-walks in 2.1 innings following a fantastic spring training still makes him the best candidate to be the Cardinals closer. (Yes, this includes Chris Perez, who has a lot of hype but also has his fair share of control problems.) Looking back at average draft position before the 2008 season, there were certainly high draft choices such as Carl Crawford, David Ortiz, and Erik Bedard who each turned from fantasy prince to fantasy frog last year. But the number of busts is modest compared to the number of players who came close to delivering their draft investment. Right now is the time to be zigging while others are zagging, to take advantage of any big changes in market value. A week of baseball shouldn’t change the values we put on players. Making decisions on the basis of small sample sets is foolish. Making decisions that take advantage of the shifting perception of others can pay off. Most teams in a fantasy league are destined to finish outside of first place. That’s a statistical fact. Transactions can certainly give teams a better chance at winning, but in the early going, the art of player assessment is overrated. Instead, focus on honestly evaluating your roster and leveraging the rash decision-making of others. Posted by Eriq Gardner at 9:03am (2) Comments Player profile: Adam Lind
Off topic note: As I am writing this, Nick Swisher has just pitched an inning for the Yankees. He got a strikeout and did not give up a run. I am now overjoyed. Several players have gotten off to hot starts this year, few hotter than Blue Jays left fielder/designated hitter Adam Lind. Through his first eight games, he is batting .400 with three home runs and twelve RBI. When a relatively unknown like Lind does get off on one of those starts, the question on most people minds is: "Is he going to be good throughout the season, or is this a one week fling?" Fortunately, we can tell you which players to buy and which to sell by examining them with our arsenal of stats. For Lind, his past three years in the majors looked like this: +------+-----+-----------+-----+-------+----+-----+----+----+ | YEAR | AGE | TEAM | AB | BA | HR | RBI | R | SB | +------+-----+-----------+-----+-------+----+-----+----+----+ | 2006 | 22 | Blue Jays | 60 | 0.367 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 0 | | 2007 | 23 | Blue Jays | 290 | 0.238 | 11 | 46 | 34 | 1 | | 2008 | 24 | Blue Jays | 326 | 0.282 | 9 | 40 | 48 | 2 | +------+-----+-----------+-----+-------+----+-----+----+----+ Looking at the half-a-season he played in the majors last year, it appears Lind had decent plate discipline and power skills, but let's look closer at his skill set, starting with his power. PowerIf you're new to THT Fantasy Focus and are unfamiliar with True Home Runs (tHR) or any of the other stats I'm using, check out our quick reference guide. These stats provide a much clearer picture of a player's talent, so it's well worth taking a couple of minutes to learn them. +------+-----+-----------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+--------+ | YEAR | AGE | TEAM | AB | HR | tHR | HR/FB | tHR/FB | nHR/FB | OF FB% | +------+-----+-----------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+--------+ | 2006 | 22 | Blue Jays | 60 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 44 | | 2007 | 23 | Blue Jays | 290 | 11 | 16 | 15 | 22 | 23 | 33 | | 2008 | 24 | Blue Jays | 326 | 9 | 13 | 12 | 17 | 18 | 29 | +------+-----+-----------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+--------+ Lind's unluckiness with home runs in 2007 was noted in the original article introducing True Home Runs (tHR) and it appears he was unlucky again in 2008. The point of looking at these stats, however, is not to determine whether Lind was unlucky in the past; it is to know his true skill set so we can predict what he will do in the future. By taking a rough average of his 2007 and 2008 power numbers and also including his minor league numbers in the mix, we can expect Lind to hit outfield flyballs (OF FB%) at about a thirty percent rate, and have about eighteen percent of those flyballs go for home runs. Over a season's worth of at bats, hitting at those ratios Lind would knock about thirty home runs. We cannot be sure exactly what his OF FB percentage and HR/FB percentage will be (especially considering that we're dealing with the equivalent of a single season of at-bats for most players), but a range of anywhere between 25 to 35 home runs really wouldn't be unexpected of Lind (it helps that he has three already). That is certainly impressive for someone who went undrafted in many leagues. ContactAs someone who will not get stolen bases, Lind's value hinges on his ability to maintain a high average. +------+-----+-----------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+ | YEAR | AGE | TEAM | AB | BA | tBA | CT% | BABIP | xBABIP | LD% | BIP/HR | BIP/tHR | +------+-----+-----------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+ | 2007 | 23 | Blue Jays | 290 | 0.238 | 0.287 | 78 | 0.271 | 0.314 | 18 | 20 | 14 | | 2008 | 24 | Blue Jays | 326 | 0.282 | 0.295 | 82 | 0.322 | 0.322 | 19 | 30 | 21 | +------+-----+-----------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+ On the surface, based on his True Batting Average (tBA), Lind seems capable of posting a batting average around .290. Before that number is set in stone though, lets peer over at his plate discipline stats to see what is going on over there. +------+-----+-----------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+ | YEAR | AGE | TEAM | AB | CT% | JUDGMENT X | A/P | BAT CONTROL | BAD BALL | +------+-----+-----------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+ | 2007 | 23 | Blue Jays | 290 | 78 | 94 | 0.37 | 84 | 63 | | 2008 | 24 | Blue Jays | 326 | 82 | 95 | 0.41 | 92 | 69 | +------+-----+-----------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+ Lind has below-average judgment of what pitches to swing at (Judgment X) but does a good job of making contact on the ones he does swing at (Bat Control, Bad Ball). I'd say the best thing Lind has going for him is that he will turn 26 years old this year and is playing in what looks like will be his first full major league season. Therefore, maturation—instead of deterioration—of these skills is the more likely path. Overall Lind does not have the best plate discipline but with his tendencies to hit lots of grounders and line drives, and flyballs that go over the fence, Lind is able to keep his BABIP relatively high, inflating his batting average. A batting average in the high .280s seems reasonable given his skill set, although he has the potential to push a .300 average. Concluding thoughtsThe Blue Jays do not have the greatest of lineups but Lind, batting mostly fifth, figures to come up to the plate often enough with runners on base to rack up the RBIs. Lind probably will not break 75 runs and definitely won't get more than a stolen base or two, but he figures to be a solid three-category threat nonetheless. With his burst out of the gate, the secret is already out on Lind. If you own him (as I do in all three leagues I am in this year) good for you; I would hold onto him. If you missed out on him, talk to whoever does own him. Maybe they think he is a one-hit wonder and are looking to "sell high" on him. Given my expectations for Lind in 2009, he is someone worth owning in what has the looking of a breakout year. Posted by Paul Singman at 9:05am (0) Comments Fantasy Baseball Roundtable: Next Ludwick and LeeThis week's Fantasy Baseball Roundtable was hosted by FantasyPhenoms. The question was: Name one pitcher and one hitter that is on the waiver wire in most leagues, that is worth picking up and could become the next Cliff Lee or Ryan Ludwick. Why them? THT Fantasy's response this week was a team effort as we all threw some names around. If you're interested, you can find all of the responses here. Also note that we took a loose interpretation of the question, mostly just looking for guys who will provide good value but who aren't necessarily anything like Ludwick or Lee. Posted by Derek Carty at 7:35pm (2) Comments Wednesday, April 15, 2009Roster DoctorWelcome to THT Fantasy's Roster Doctor. If you'd like your team to be analyzed by one of our fantasy baseball experts, please send your full roster to this address. Also be sure to include your league's player pool (mixed, AL-only, NL-only), number of teams, scoring format (roto, head-to-head, points, etc.), categories, whether or not it's a keeper league, and any other pertinent information. If your roster is selected it will be analyzed in a future Roster Doctor column. League Roster Details: 12 team keeper league, keep 10 players from year to year. It's a points league; each team ranked 1-12 and scoring = ranking totals. DEEP league: 38 roster spots + 2 DL slots, no position limits. Start 1 at C-3B, 3 OF's, and 2 Util spots. Pitching is limited to 180 total starts/season. Scoring is 8x8: R, HR, RBI, KO, SBN, AVG, OBP and OPS. Pitching stats: IP, K, CG, W, L, SV, ERA and WHIP. C: Russell Martin, Chris Iannetta 1B: Mark Teixeira, Billy Butler, Casey Kotchman 2B: Ian Kinsler, Aaron Hill 3B: Chone Figgins, Marco Scutaro (2B/SS), Jed Lowrie (SS), Kevin Kouzmanoff SS: Stephen Drew, Ryan Theriot, Jeff Keppinger OF: Grady Sizemore, Ryan Braun, Carlos Lee, Justin Upton, Dexter Fowler, Wladimir Balentien, Marlon Byrd SP: Johan Santana, JohnJohn Lackey (DL), Felix Hernandez, Rich Harden, Ted Lilly, Jamie Moyer, David Purcey, Edwin Jackson, Kelvim Escobar (DL) RP: Johnathan Broxton, Fernando Rodney, George Sherrill, JJ Putz, Juan Cruz, Damaso Marte, Manny Corpas, Cory Wade, Ryan Perry, Aaron Heilman First of all, your league counts AVG, OBP and OPS, which means OBP counts explicitly twice (once in OBP and again in OPS=OBP+SLG) and hits count a lot (they count in all three stats, never mind the counting stats). So a guy like Keppinger isn't a bad idea in such a deep league. I imagine Butler is killing you right now though; I have him in my Razzball league and he's been "on fire" for me. Lowrie's hurt now, but he wasn't helping much while he was playing either. You might be better off replacing him with guy like Matt Diaz. Platooning players are actually good options in this league, since they're likely to have decent percentage stats. As for Butler, Kotchman, Upton and Teixeira's slow starts—you're just going to have to hold your nose for a while and wait until these guys get their OBPs back up to their historic standards. Starters average about 30 starts per season. So with only 180 starts to use over the season, you only really need six starters at any given time. Lackey and Escobar should probably make it into your "rotation" when they're ready. I would think about dumping Moyer and keeping a very close eye on Purcey and Jackson. Moyer's probably only going to help with wins and is going to eat up precious starts. Perry's a good move, but I'm not sure about Wade. You should probably replace the aforementioned starters with either some more potential future closers, like Perry, or some potential starters who are now in the minors (getting no productivity from them until they come up might be better than having a below-replacement level relief pitcher actually pitching). Posted by Jonathan Halket at 1:01am (0) Comments When to use your FAAB budget and waiver priorityLast week, I discussed my philosophy regarding the use of the waiver wire in "first-come-first-served" type leagues. For leagues that use waiver priorities or FAAB, however, things can get a little bit trickier. Today, I'd like to give a few of my thoughts on these kinds of leagues. Waiver prioritiesThe exact setup of these kinds of leagues can vary greatly, but many leagues that use waiver priorities combine it with a "first-come-first-served" approach (such as Yahoo! leagues). After the first few days of the season, all players are fair game and waiver priorities are used for players who get released or are newly added to the database. In leagues like this, I still generally recommend the approach I outlined last week. I really wouldn't worry about using up a high waiver priority quickly, with a few exceptions. If you are playing in the kind of league where Jimmy Rollins or Prince Fielder gets dropped after a poor first week and a half, then saving the waiver priority can be important. As long as owners aren't dropping players who should be owned, though, who are you really saving it for? The answer, in Yahoo! leagues, used to be "prospects" for many owners, but the Yahoo! database is much more complete this year. And even if you're in a league where recalled prospects automatically hit waivers, there are very few worth saving your priority for. Matt Wieters is honestly the only one this year I would save it for. David Price? Tommy Hanson? Gaby Sanchez? Mat Gamel? Nope. None of them. Use your waiver priority aggressively as per my suggestions last week. Other leagues put every free agent on waivers each week and resets the waiver priorities based on standings. In these kinds of leagues, again, be aggressive. You'll be getting a new priority every week, so if you wind up with a good one, use it up. FAABFAAB bidding adds an extra element of strategy to leagues that I, personally, love, but they also add an extra layer of complexity. The arguments There are three common arguments for the use of FAAB: 1) FAAB should be hoarded 2) FAAB should be used aggressively 3) FAAB should be spent cautiously and frugally Proponents of the first strategy are generally in AL- or NL-only leagues where they plan on saving FAAB cash in case of a midseason trade of, say, Manny Ramirez or CC Sabathia. These owners are swinging for the fences. Proponents of the second strategy can be in any type of league but generally hold the philosophy that FAAB gives you no value if you leave it on the table and that you should acquire good players as they become available without worrying too much about budgeting. Proponents of the third strategy are somewhere in between, not overbidding on players but not necessarily hoarding cash either. My stance Personally, I fall more into the second camp. In AL- or NL-only leagues, I don't bother to wait on superstars switching leagues. First, there is no guarantee that a star will actually be traded, much less to the right league. Second, you'll have a tough decision to make on what to eventually bid for him. Your whole budget? If not, you're risking losing him to someone else. Even if a star is traded to the right league and you win him, we don't know what caliber that star will be. Is he a $25 player? $30? $35? Let's say $30 on average, but we must consider that we'll only be getting about two months worth of time. That $30 player, as good as he is, will only be worth $10 to your team—and that's if we are absolutely certain he will become available and that you'll actually win the bidding for him. In an NL-only league, that's about as valuable as Luis Castillo or Pedro Feliz. If we discount for the uncertainty, maybe this player will only be as valuable as Jack Wilson or David Eckstein (on average), though we would need to factor in the value of whomever he'll be replacing. For me, I'm comfortable enough where I think I can attain "Pedro Feliz" value in bits and pieces throughout the year using my FAAB budget. In LABR, I spent $5 FAAB on Ross Gload, and I imagine he would have gone for at least $4 or $5 at auction. One week and five percent of my budget used, and I'm already halfway there. Sample budget There was a great article posted last offseason at Fantasy Baseball Cafe by Scott Swanay about the use of FAAB. To quote the important part: The following is a sample FAAB spending plan for a $1,000 budget that allocates weekly dollars in proportion to the amount of time left in the season. If your league uses a $100 budget instead, divide the amounts shown here by 10 and round to the nearest dollar: I haven't checked the math on it, but it looks pretty sound and, if nothing else, the logic is spot on. The longer you wait to acquire a player, the less impact he is going to have on your team. As obvious as that sounds, many fantasy owners don't put it together. The players you get in April are going to count more than players who you acquire in June, making it wise to spend more on them (holding all else constant). Swanay's budget doesn't necessarily need to be followed to the letter, though, because various league conditions will undoubtedly come into play. If Rollins does get dropped this week, you can be sure I'll bid a good chunk of my budget on him. Or if there really isn't anyone appealing out there in week three, I'll sit on my money for a week or two. The underlying premise is what's important, and that is to use your FAAB budget aggressively but intelligently. Concluding thoughtsAs I've said a couple times throughout this article, rules can be vary for these kinds of leagues, so if your league doesn't fit anything I mentioned, feel free to comment or e-mail and I'd be happy to give you my take. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
