THT Fantasy Focus

Posted by Derek Carty at 4:59am (12) Comments

Thursday, April 23, 2009

It is good to get away

On average, teams play better at home than away. Home teams won 54.26 percent of the time in 2007 (all stats here will be from 2007). Teams play better at home because their players play better at home (duh). But does playing better at home translate into better fantasy performance at home? When it comes to hitters, the answer is a (rather) unqualified yes. However, for pitchers, things are not as clear.

Home batters score 5 percent more runs and hit 5 percent more home runs. I'll assume that means that typical fantasy hitters score more at home than away.

Of course, away pitchers get scored on more too. So, why might away pitcher fare better in your fantasy league than they do in real baseball? There are two crucial reasons. First, fantasy pitchers are mostly comprised of starters and closers, and wins and saves are scoring stats. Second, batting first in any inning gives away starters and closers a better chance to score in those stats.

When I am at a Mets game, I could care less who gets the win or whether there was a save opportunity as long as the Mets win the game. When I am watching a game for fantasy purposes, once my starter can't get a decision, I couldn't care less which team wins the game.

It is easy to see why being away gives a starting pitcher a better shot at winning (everything else equal - which I will come back to in a bit). Let's say that the your starter is going to pitch only six innings. Being away gives his team seven turns at bat to take the lead while he can still figure in the decision.

Similar reasoning works for closers and saves. The home team gets "last licks"—the away team cannot win with the last at-bat. So, if the home team is trailing going into the ninth inning, then there is no save opportunity that day for the home team; home teams cannot get saves in extra innings. The home team only has eight chances to take a lead in order to give the closer an opportunity for a save, while the away team has at least nine (of course, the away team also has more chances to take a lead so large that there is no save opportunity).

What do the numbers say?

Home SP win%: 35.28
Home SP lose%: 33.61%
Away SP win%: 33.36%
Away SP lose%: 37.60%
Away SP win/decision: .4701
Home SP win/decision: .5160
Home save%: 24.31%
Away save%: 24.93%
Home save% (as % of home team wins): 44.80%
Away save% (as % of away team wins): 54.50%

The numbers tell us that starting pitchers are more likely to win at home than away and have a higher winning percentage (wins/(wins+losses)) at home. However, the difference isn't nearly as big as difference in the teams' probabilities of winning. A home team is about 19 percent more likely to win than an away team ((.5426-.4574)/.4574 = .186), but a home starting pitcher is only about 6 percent more likely to win ((.3528-.3336)/.3336 = .0575). So the extra offensive chance helps the away starting pitcher quite a bit.

For closers, the effect is much stronger: away closers are slightly more likely to get a save than home closers. (One note: I've counted any game where a team gets a save as a save for the "closer." Data-wise, this simplified things a lot).

To summarize: the home-away advantage for starting pitchers is smaller than the advantage for the home team, but still positive. When it comes to closers, though, don't bother worrying about on which side of the infield the closer's dugout lies.

Posted by Jonathan Halket at 1:06am (1) Comments

Friday, April 24, 2009

There’s Something in the Water

Hi. My name is Matt Hagen, and I am a fantasy baseball addict.

(A pause so all the other fantasy baseball addicts in the room can join in unison for a halfhearted “Hi Matt.”)

Much to my girlfriend’s chagrin, the innocent-yet-painstaking science of analyzing minor league baseball is in my blood, and The Hardball Times took notice. Thank you to Derek and everyone at the Times for giving me a chance.

Before I expose you dear readers to a taste of my twisted version of minor league baseball, I thought I would inform everyone about a magical little town in central Wisconsin.

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Auburndale, Wisconsin. Population: 738.

To many central Wisconsin residents, Auburndale is best known for forcing Highway 10 motorists to slow down when traveling between Marshfield and Stevens Point. Worse reputations exist, and something tells me that the hard-working people of Auburndale love their quaint “reduced-speed” town.

It’s hard not to be a blue collar type when living in such a small town. The people are friendly, the families are caring, and the children are born with a strong backbone and a bottle of fresh Wisconsin milk in their mouths.

The Auburndale High School basketball team is a perennial powerhouse at the Division 3 level. There’s just something magical about putting five passionate, fundamentally sound Auburndale players on the floor at the same time. Neillsville, Greenwood, Spencer, Pittsville, Granton, and Stratford, among others, have a hard time competing.

At the local level, basketball is the proud sport of choice. But, on a larger stage, the basketball program doesn’t even register a blip on the radar.

That’s because Auburndale’s football and baseball bloodlines get all the attention.

Former Green Bay Packer right tackle, and current NFL free agent, Mark Tauscher grew up living and breathing sports in Auburndale. He has had an underrated career anchoring the right side of the offensive line for the green and gold for the last decade. A torn ligament in his knee may end his career, but what a career it was. Mark got to block for Brett Favre and his home-state Packers for a decade. It was grunt work, but oh so fitting for a man who grew up in Auburndale, Wisconsin. It’s just a shame that Mark never received a trip to the NFL’s annual Pro Bowl. As overrated as the Pro Bowl is, Mark deserved the recognition.

And as one Auburndale native’s sports career is drawing to a close, another is just beginning.

I grew up in Neillsville, Wisconsin, a 45-minute drive from Auburndale, and I graduated college from the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. I attended UWSP at the same time as a kid from Auburndale named Jordan Zimmermann. Jordan is the best pitcher the state of Wisconsin has seen in a long time.

He wasn’t anything special in high school. His mid-80s fastball was good enough to fool the overmatched kids of the Marawood League, but not good enough to earn him a college scholarship. So, Jordan stayed close to home for college, and attended UWSP. That’s where Jordan truly got serious about the game of baseball.

After a few years of hard work in the weight room and some radical refinement of his pitches, Jordan became the best pitcher that the WIAC has ever seen. After his sophomore season at UWSP, his 1.01 ERA during a stint with the Eau Claire Express of the Northwoods League secured his prospect status.

Many major league scouts didn’t know what to make of a kid who came from such a humble background. But the Washington Nationals believed in the blue collar kid from Auburndale. They took Jordan in the second round of the 2007 MLB amateur draft, and they haven’t looked back.

After a tremendous year and a half of minor league dominance, Zimmermann made his major league debut on April 20, 2009. It was anything but ordinary.

The Nationals and Braves withstood a two-hour rain delay from the outset, and by the time Zimmermann took the mound only an estimated 1,000 people were left in the stands. Seeing the strange sight of 1,000 people in a professional baseball stadium will always alleviate some pressure, and it’s safe to say that Zimmermann enjoyed the relief.

With a crowd approximately the same size as his hometown, Zimmermann dazzled the patient spectators by pitching six efficient innings and allowing only two runs, both resulting from a no-no pitch he threw to Matt Diaz in the fourth inning. Zimmermann is very young, and those mistake pitches will happen less and less. Another indication that Zimmermann is still young; he only threw 72 pitches. Washington wants to protect their prized investment.

After another rain delay in the eighth inning, and Zimmermann watching from the dugout, an estimated 70 people were left in the crowd. It was like an Auburndale High School game all over again.

The game ended with a rare sight; a win for the Washington Nationals. Zimmermann collected the first “W” of his career. Due to the comical appearance of the crowd, the pressure wasn’t as enormous as it usually is for a pitcher making his major league debut. But the pressure will be ratcheted up as Zimmermann tries to turn the Washington Nationals franchise around. He is a promising young pitcher that any organization would love to have. With continued development he could turn into a true ace. He throws a good mix of pitches highlighted by his developed low- to mid-90s fastball. He may be the team’s very best asset. Not bad for a kid from Auburndale, Wisconsin. The cheeseheads are proud.

So, is there a lesson to be learned from Zimmermann’s journey? Maybe it’s no matter where you come from, if you work hard enough, you too can live the American dream.

Or maybe there’s just something in the water in Auburndale, Wisconsin.

Posted by Matt Hagen at 12:30am (1) Comments

Hit Rate Observer

This column is about an idea that didn’t pan out.

The imminent debut of THTF’s “Trading Post” column got me thinking. We talk a lot about a player’s “value.” And we do our best to put a dollar figure on that value, both in generating the underlying stats and in setting players against their brethren.

That’s a very artificial process, though, even apart from the vagaries of projecting human beings. One monkey wrench is the value of replacement players. We can make a good guess of replacement value from looking at recent history, but if there’s an unusually high or low number of productive call-ups, our baselines are junked. We’re also seeing early shifts in value this season from the lively baseball and from the Yankees’ new park; temporary, possibly, but unforeseen all the same.

Any property tied to reality will fluctuate unpredictably. In the real world, most investments don’t have a price that’s fixed from above. At heart, a good is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it. (This notion will be familiar to anyone trying to sell a house.)

For the “truest” player prices, then, rather than imposing a value on a player, we would deduce the player’s value by looking at the sorts of things he was exchanged for. This method would be both more elegant and more accurate. And we could generate updated values whenever we felt like it, at any point in the season.

If only we had a market for fantasy players... if only....

But, of course, we do have fantasy markets. Most online leagues permit trades between owners. And many of those leagues advertise recent trades for the player. For example, I can head to CBSSportsline right now and get a list of deals involving Jayson Werth.

There are a lot of names there. Mathematically speaking, though, a trade is just an equality: The sum of the things on the left equals the sum of the things on the right. So the idea was to record many, many of these trades. What we would end up with is a (big) set of simultaneous equations, in which each player represents a different variable. If Alfredo Amezaga, Burke Badenhop, and Chris Carter were represented by A, B, and C, then a trade of Amezaga for Badenhop would be A=B, and a trade of both for Carter would be A +B=C.

If you have many more equations than you do variables, you can run a solver to pin a value on each player that best fits the observed trades. Voila! Instant player valuation.

Sounds cool in theory. Unfortunately, reality didn’t cooperate. The main problem is that the bulk of fantasy trades are of equal numbers of players. This is a problem because, if every trade is of the form A+B=C+D, then the simplest solution is:

(1) All players have the same value; and
(2) That value is 0.

This constraint is a consequence of the structure of fantasy, where every owner must field a team of the same number and types of players and purchased for the same sum. It’s like a stock market where everybody has to be in for exactly $10,000.

One way to make trading more flexible is to allow teams to accumulate differing numbers of players. If one team wants to trade a mega-star for three B-level prospects, why must they jettison two other guys? Go on, let somebody corner the market on Double-A third basemen.

Also, in most other markets, you don’t have to buy a good with the same kind of good—you needn’t pay for a car with a car, or a house with a house. In particular, we use currency. Currency is ultra-flexible—you can dispense it in virtually any fraction.

It would be easier to equate players to dollars if we actually traded players for dollars. Maybe leagues should let owners purchase some, or even all, of a traded player with cash (the same currency, after all, with which they pay entry and transaction fees). Admittedly, this would make fantasy baseball more about trading (where you are always on the make for the good deal) and less about investing (where you’re pretty much saddled with the team that you have). But there's always a fine line between the two. And a league with more trading could be more competitive.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty with our plan, though, was the enormous variation in needs. Consider these players who have recently been dealt one-on-one for Jayson Werth:

Cristian Guzman

Aaron Hill

Trevor Hoffman

Edwin Jackson

Clayton Kershaw

Adam LaRoche

Geovany Soto

Ryan Theriot

Jose Valverde

Brandon Wood

And this is a list just from non-keeper leagues. Record enough trades, and you’ll probably find an example in which each player was traded for each other player! Forget about solving for X there.

Trying to impose some sense on this madness will be one of the aims of Trading Post. Still, there is a lesson here. Player valuation is a spongy business. It’s only a small stretch to say that no owner actually gets “sticker price” from a player—if you have too little of the resource in question, then the player is more dear to you; if you have too much, he’s less dear. The flip side is that probably every owner in your league has a player who would fit much better in your lineup than theirs.

Posted by John Burnson at 12:39am (5) Comments

Roster Doctor - 4/24/09

Welcome 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.

In my last few "Roster Doctor" articles I chose relatively standard leagues so I could better establish a context for the team and also so more people could relate to the discussion. Today, however, I decided to veer from that path and have chosen a more quirky team to doctor. Check out these settings:

Player Pool: Mixed
No. of Teams: 10
Categories: 9x9 - R, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, BB, E, AVG, W, L, CG, SHO, SV, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP
Scoring Type: Head-to-Head
Roster:

C: Geovany Soto
1B: Albert Pujols
2B: Brandon Phillips
SS: Troy Tulowitzki
3B: Ryan Zimmerman
LF: Andre Ethier
CF: B.J. Upton
RF: Jason Bay
UTIL: Hunter Pence
UTIL: Shane Victorino
Bench:
Travis Hafner
Felipe Lopez
Vladimir Guerrero (Hurt)

SP: Zack Greinke
SP: John Danks
SP: Erik Bedard
SP: James Shields
SP: Scott Baker
RP: Heath Bell
RP: Francisco Cordero
RP: Matt Capps
Bench:
Brad Ziegler
Grant Balfour
Octavio Dotel

First thing to notice is the roster positions. With only three outfield spots and no middle or corner infield spots, the hitting on every team should be very deep, especially considering this is a 10-team mixed league. I like your hitting—how could one not?—but my feeling is that many other teams have a lineup equally as impressive as yours.

I can see your team hitting for a high average, getting a decent amount of home runs, and racking up the doubles so it should do well in most weeks, as I am sure it did in the first two. Even the two hitters you took fliers on—Hafner and Lopez—are performing well, so you have depth to complement the talent.

If you are willing to invest the time, check to see who is pitching against some of your weaker starting hitters. For example, if Victorino is playing against Johan Santana, I would probably bench him in favor of Hafner. Victorino will of course hit a home run off Santana that night, but little things like that accumulate over the season and make a difference.

In head-to-head leagues I cannot stress enough how important it is to be aware of your matchup. Again, most people will not do this because of the time, but know how many starts the opposing and your team's pitchers will make at the beginning of each week. Know if they are playing mostly strong or weak teams. And know beforehand how many of your starters you will start that week, although glancing at your pitching now it seems all of your pitchers are startable.

One thing to not pay attention to—and I am sure you already know this—is batter to pitcher or pitcher vs. team histories. Ignore them. They are almost always so small they are insignificant. Knowing that Victorino has a .231 lifetime batting average against Josh Johnson in 13 at-bats means nothing.

There is no reason to try to make a move to alter your hitting. Look at your hitters: Soto, Pujols, Phillips, Tulo ... who are you actually going to upgrade? Be open to trading, but it is not imperative that you make a move.

Transitioning to your pitching, it is surprisingly good despite its lack of a brand-name ace. Obviously some of your pitchers—Greinke in particular—are pitching like aces, but the level of dominance you got from all of your starters except Baker should not be expected to continue. Shields, Greinke, Bedard, and Baker I like for the long run and Danks is someone whose value is probably at a peak right now. See what he can haul in a trade. Not necessarily a trade with just Danks, but he makes a great add-in to any trade with the power to sway the decision.

Your closers are particularly solid, all secure and racking up the saves early on. The problem is, besides maybe posting slightly better ratios, there is not much more value in having three great closers who generate saves than starting three great setup men who earn holds. I know it is hard to bench one of them, but starting two closers and one setup man such as Dotel might lead to taking both holds and saves.

My feeling is this is a weekly roster update league (as opposed to every day) so using the cheat of starting SP-eligible relievers at SP would not work. If it is a daily update league, however, then target Brandon Morrow, and consider adding Hong-Chih Kuo or even somebody like Dan Meyer. These guys can give you holds—or saves in Morrow's case—from an SP spot, which is extremely valuable.

Overall, though, your pitching seems above-average and is off to a great start, as is your whole team in fact. I would bet you are near the top of the standings right now and figure to remain near the top all season. Good work.

Posted by Paul Singman at 1:33am (3) Comments

Monday, April 27, 2009

Confessions of fantasy baseball addict: Who is really the back-up closer in Kansas City

Single league format fantasy baseball leagues, henceforth known as AL-only and NL-only leagues, have proven to be less popular than their younger, more prolific mixed league cousins. Whether this is good or bad is a question of personal taste, as each has its pluses and minuses.

When playing in an AL- or NL-only leagues, one is compelled to know more about every team than one does playing in a mixed league. Exactly who cares about Darin Erstad (anymore) or the necessity of rostering Angel Berroa? How you answer that question is a good predictor of whether you prefer mixed leagues or AL- and NL-only ones.

I want to know about both players and make roster decisions based on each. That is why I prefer AL- and NL-only leagues. The rationale behind adding, reserving, waiving and keeping players of Erstad’s and Berroa’s ilk will be the weekly focus of Confessions of a Fantasy Baseball Expert.

For what it's worth, Erstad’s value derives from the possibility of Michael Bourn repeating as the hitting version of Shawn Chacon (a one-category player whose additional category contributions are complete negatives) and the Astros proclivity for veteran players regardless of on-the-field production.

2004 Shawn Chacon: 35 Saves, 7.11 ERA, 1.87 WHIP, 1 W, 52 K
2008 Michael Bourn: 41 SBs, .229 AVG, 5 HR, 29 RBI, 57 Runs

Friday afternoon brought the announcement, signalled by the previous eight day’s of non-use, that Kansas City Royals’ closer Joakim Soria will miss at the next three to five days to rest shoulder discomfort. While this sent mixed leaguers looking to add Juan Cruz, the AL-only player had to dig deeper as Cruz was taken at the draft as was everyother likely back-up closer.

The challenge presented to the AL-only player is finding the next next in-line closer. This is difficult because most peripheral statistical analysis has already identified the reliever most likely to succeed and become the closer at the first opportunity. Hence, Juan Cruz and his 12.8 K/9 is typically enough. Missed by most fantasy leaguers was Cruz’ declining GB%. The complement, in the geometric sense, of a declining GB% is an increasing LD%/FB%, neither of which are positives for any pitcher much less one who is supposed to preserve wins in the 9th inning.

As one can see, 2009 has continued the trend with early concerns in an increased HR/G and HR/F.

   Year     Tm     LD%     GB%     IF/F    K/G     BB/G    HR/G   *HR/F    P/PA    LOB%
  2004    ATL    20.20%  44.60%  10.30%    9      3.9     0.9    11.60%    4     82.50%
  2005    OAK    19.20%  45.50%  17.10%   8.2     5.3     1.2    17.20%   3.8    54.40%
  2006    ARI    22.90%  39.90%  9.40%    8.3     4.4     0.66   7.90%     4     72.50%
  2007    ARI    18.50%  34.80%  7.90%    12.9    4.8     1.04   11.30%   4.3    74.80%
  2008    ARI    15.70%  26.90%  6.50%    12.8    5.6     0.9    8.10%    4.6    83.60%
  2009     KC    28.60%  28.60%  22.20%   6.5     5.2     1.3    15.40%   4.4    89.30%

So the question is who is next in line? I know this is unanalytical, but Kyle Farnsworth is dismissed out of hand. As a Yankees fan, I know he is reliable for just one thing: a home run at the wrong time. As a matter of fact, the two taters Farnsworth has served this season both resulted in Royals losses.

There exist two additional options that playing in an AL-only league would force one to explore. Both are failed starting pitchers who arrived in Kansas City via horrible environments for starting pitchers. RHP Jamey Wright arrived via free agency after being converted to relief pitching by the Rangers last season, while Robinson Tejada came to Kansas City after Texas gave-up on the then-26 year-old when couldn’t strikeout enough batters to overcome some atrocious control (5.9 K/9 versus 5.1 BB/9).

Tejeda offers the the one peripheral skill most fantasy leaguers desire in a potential closing find: a high K/9. For Tejeda, the move from the rotation to the bullpen had a gamma rays exposure-like effect on his strikeout rate. As a starter, he struck out a fewer than six per nine innings. Once he went to the bullpen, that rate skyrocketed to more than 10 per nine innings with the early 2009 results showing an astronomical 16.3 per nine innings!

That would typically be enough to tilt the typical owner into deciding to add Robinson Tejeda from the free agent pool in a saves gamble. But hold on! Tejeda has not managed to get any control of his walk rate in his move to the bullpen. Apparently, that gamma rays exposure had the same effect on Tejeda as it did on Bruce Banner: incredible strength with minimal control! Nevermind the distressing GB%.

  Year     Tm      Lg     LD%     GB%     IF/F    K/G     BB/G    HR/G   *HR/F    P/PA    LOB%
  2005    PHI      NL    20.90%  35.70%  13.70%   7.4     5.3     0.52   5.10%     4     75.60%
  2006    TEX      AL    17.50%  37.10%  10.50%   4.7     3.7     1.17   9.10%    3.8    75.00%
  2007    TEX      AL    14.30%  35.00%  13.80%   5.9     5.1     1.45   12.30%   3.9    64.40%
  2008    TEX      AL    30.00%  25.00%  11.10%   5.3     6.6     1.33   12.00%   4.7    46.50%
  2008     KC      AL    17.70%  34.40%  19.60%   10.1    4.7     0.74   8.70%    4.1    66.10%
  2009     KC      AL    0.00%   16.70%   N/A     16.3    9.8      0     0.00%    4.4    88.90%

This leaves Jamey Wright as the logical free agent saves gamble from the Kansas City bullpen. Jamey Wright has one particular skill that makes him the attractive option to close in the event Joakim Soria’s shoulder is more serious than the team is currently letting on. Wright has a GB% in excess of 60 percent.

In addition, his K/9 was an acceptable 6.1 in 2007. So far in 2009, Wright has upped that to 7.1 and decreased his BB/9 from last season’s 3.6 to 1.2. This is the kind of statistical discovery that makes fantasy owners’ days!

  Year     Tm     LD%     GB%     IF/F    K/G     BB/G    HR/G   *HR/F    P/PA    LOB%
  2004    COL    22.30%  49.80%  17.60%   4.4     4.8     0.86   11.40%   3.8    77.20%
  2005    COL    20.30%  52.70%  7.10%     5       4      1.08   13.30%   3.5    66.90%
  2006     SF    18.40%  58.10%  8.30%    4.5     3.7     0.92   15.30%   3.5    66.80%
  2007    TEX    17.20%  54.80%  11.90%   4.6     4.8     0.7    10.00%   3.8    75.70%
  2008    TEX    19.60%  61.90%   N/A     6.1     3.6     0.51   9.60%    3.8    61.20%
  2009     KC    13.00%  65.20%  20.00%   7.3     1.2     1.22   26.90%   3.2   107.10%

Right now, you’ve got one of two reactions depending on your fantasy format preference. Either you feel you have lost 10 minutes of your life that you can never recover or you are readying to click over to your fantasy league website(s) to add Jamey Wright.

Posted by Eric Hinz at 1:05am (6) Comments

Roster Doctor: 4/27/09

Posted by Eriq Gardner at 1:43am (5) Comments

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Big-name closers dealing with injuries

Carlos Marmol suffered a mild left knee sprain last Friday night after delivering a pitch to Albert Pujols. He then felt more pronounced pain on a 1-1 offering to Ryan Ludwick, coming up limping after apparently twisting awkwardly on his follow-through on the planting leg. The Cubs training staff did a great job here by not allowing Marmol to continue, as this is the type of injury that could easily go from a mild, grade I strain to a more serious injury in no time.

The MRI came back showing only a grade I sprain, and nothing more. More importantly, Marmol is feeling fine now, and he was able to throw a pain-free bullpen session today. He is going to be available to pitch on Tuesday. This is nothing for fantasy owners to worry about going forward. With Kevin Gregg currently in the doghouse, Marmol seems to be entrenched as the closer for the Cubs. It was ridiculous for Lou Piniella to tab Gregg as the closer at the beginning of the season, when Marmol was clearly the better pitcher. Place Marmol back in your lineup with confidence.

Trevor Hoffman was activated on Sunday, after spending time on the DL since March 30 with an oblique strain. When I think of Hoffman, I can't help but think of Troy Percival. Other than their proximity in age, these are two guys who are going to be injury prone for the rest of their careers. With Hoffman back in the closer's seat, Carlos Villanueva shifts back to a setup role, and makes for a fine addition in leagues that count holds. In Yahoo leagues, Villanueva has dual eligibility (SP/RP). Hoffman owners may want to keep him on speed dial, if not on their roster.

Jose Valverde's strained right calf is going to keep him out at least through mid-week, as he aggravated the injury on Sunday after pushing off to run towards first base on a grounder. He had already been out of action from last Wednesday through Friday. The fact that his injury was aggravated without much activity, and that he has what is called "pitting edema" in his lower leg (i.e. moderate swelling that leaves an indentation in the skin when pressed) indicates that it was probably a grade 2 strain. He is still limping quite noticeably, so the prospects of having him ready by Friday are poor. The Astros are trying to avoid placing him on the DL, but I wouldn't bet on a return this week, so I would say he is probably 70 percent likely to hit the DL. Latroy Hakwins is the de facto closer in his absence. You've got to be pretty desperate for saves if you want to add Hawkins.

Joakim Soria is going to be treated with kid gloves, so if there is any hint that he isn't right by the end of the week, he probably will be sent to the DL. He is clearly the most valuable pitcher in their bullpen, if not their entire staff, so don't be surprised if he doesn't return this week. He has been dealing with a sore, stiff right shoulder. As we have learned, this type of nomenclature can be misleading. This phrase has been used in situations where the injury ended up being a rotator cuff tear, labrum tear, tendonitis, and more, so you never know.

An encouraging sign was that Soria threw 30-35 easy throws yesterday in a bullpen session on flat ground, without pain, but it was well under maximal effort. If the Royals were overly concerned, or if there was something more serious going on, he would not have been allowed to even pick up a ball. This tells me that there is probably no rotator cuff or labral tear to worry about here. This could be a situation similar to what Matt Lindstrom dealt with earlier this spring. With Soria likely to be out until the weekend at the earliest, Juan Cruz and Kyle Farnsworth are the options to close out games. Cruz is the one I would target, and the better pitcher overall for the job.

Posted by Chris Neault at 12:42am (3) Comments

When the wisdom of crowds is wrong

Philosophers have been debating free will vs. predetermination for centuries. Many who subscribe to the latter point of view believe that the actions of an individual are the natural outcome of a series of fixed, historical events. In other words, free will is merely an illusion.

Anyone who participated in a fantasy baseball draft or auction before the season started may find that viewpoint surprising. After all, don’t we exercise choice when determining things like whether to ignore Alex Rodriguez’ injury and take him anyway in drafts or whether to take Nick Markakis or Matt Kemp in the 3rd round?

Maybe so.

But consider everything that seemed almost conventional thinking by the time we all showed up to draft. For example, Chris Davis was drafted anywhere between the 54th pick and the 80th pick in almost every draft, according to average draft data. Exactly who determined that Davis was this kind of value — and how?

Understanding the answer to this question helps us make decisions when subsequent, unexpected things happen.

Last October, the 2008 baseball season ended. At the time, most people who participated in fantasy baseball turned their attention to other things — like remembering their girlfriend’s name. Or football.

Meanwhile, a group of hard-core enthusiasts started to assess the previous season. Many began conducting mock drafts. Pretty soon, people like Sean Smith and Bill James and organizations like Baseball Prospectus and BaseballHQ began considering things like a player’s past performance, a player’s age, and peripheral similarities to others who have played the game in the past century, releasing projections for what we might expect in the 2009 season. (Methods vary.) More mock drafts. Soon, the big fantasy service providers like ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS Sports introduced their own rankings and projections. More mock drafts.

By the time the average person who plays fantasy baseball got into a draft or auction room, they were looking at guidebooks and rankings based on collected intelligence gathering and making “choices.”

Perhaps one individual may have decided to dismiss the hype on a certain sleeper. Perhaps another individual may have fixed himself to a player who was largely dismissed. But by and large, the fantasy baseball community arrived at a consensus valuation of every ballplayer in professional baseball.

As James Surowiecki pointed out in his book, “The Wisdom of Crowds,” group decision-making, based on an aggregation of available data, tends to be surprisingly accurate compared to the decisions of a lone individual.

For this reason, it’s very, very unwise to panic and make rash decisions on slumping or surging ballplayers based on what’s happened to date in the 2009 season. Three weeks of baseball represents a small statistical sampling of less than 10 percent of the 2009 season. In most cases, the collected preseason wisdom of millions, who based their decisions on data collected and produced by a handful of experts, will still be the best oracle to what will happen in the final five months of the season.

However, there are some flaws in this group-sourced valuation process.

The first flaw concerns players without a great deal of experience in major league baseball. With a smaller body of work, young prospects are tough to project. Expert forecasters have tried to solve this by making use of “minor league equivalencies,” but these numbers are still not as reliable as actual major league. In mock drafts, deviation on young, inexperienced players tends to be high. In other words, the consensus is less tight.

The second flaw concerns injuries. Nobody can predict them. Of course, some players are injury-prone (and the fantasy world adjusts valuations based on the tag), but any player dealing with a new, unexpected injury becomes less likely to hit a projection target.

The third and last flaw —at least that we can think of at the moment — concerns opportunity. Unfortunately, the fantasy baseball world holds no sway over the decisions of a real-life major league baseball manager. We may see a player as a good bet to reach 100 runs based on a high ability to get on base, but if a fickle manager disagrees and puts the batter last in his lineup, he’ll also become more likely to disappoint. Conversely, a pitcher or batter who we’ve figured had little opportunity and then figures into a promotion, will surpass our expectations.

Consider these three things when deciding to veer off from the masses and make decisions based on a new "reality."

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