THT Fantasy Focus

Posted by Rob McQuown at 5:00am (0) Comments

Monday, December 21, 2009

Festivus time: the airing of grievances

Sometimes I allow myself to indulge in the delusion that there exists a substantial amount of readers who eagerly anticipate my columns each week. In this delusion, such readers are drawn to my columns because I provide useful information. Unfortunately for those readers, this column will not offer such information. Fortunately for me, this theoretical group may not even exist, so I likely won’t be disappointing anybody.

In the spirit of Festivus, I’d like to take some time this week to engage in some airing of grievances. The topic? Trades, and more specifically the ridiculous types of trade offers we are bombarded with every season. There are several distinct types of idiotic trade offers and I plan to complain about a few of them.

Now, before unleashing the vitriol, I will readily acknowledge that making trades in fantasy baseball is often rather difficult. As Jonathan Halket describes in his “Drafting to Trade” column:

To make a trade, there must be what economists call a "double coincidence of wants." Your team must not only have something the other owner wants, but you must be willing to give up a player that the other owner values more highly than the player he is giving up.

It is often difficult to find a trade partner. An ideal trade partner would have some sort of deficiency in a category or position in which you have excess, while you must have an excess of something in which the other team has a deficiency. This confluence of circumstances is more rare than it sounds. The reality of an “imperfect market” makes even the simplest of trade strategies, “buy low/sell high,” somewhat challenging to actually execute. I understand that often times initial trade offers are intended to be a jumping off point for negotiations, but the whole trading process would be a lot less frustrating if owners avoided proposing the following types of non-starters in the first place.

The sports-talk radio proposal: I won’t presume to speak for anybody else. But for me, listening to sports talk radio is something approximating what I imagine being torture..., um, experiencing enhanced interrogation at the hands of the CIA would feel like. Occasionally, I will listen for a short period of time in order to confirm that I do have some masochist tendencies. The most inane of the inane calls into these radio stations must be the ones in which fans propose trades that their franchises should make. The underlying philosophy of these trade proposals seems to be that five 1978 Dodge Dusters equal one 2010 Maybach. No, I do not want a No. 3 starter and bench players for Ryan Braun, thank you. And, no throwing in a third and fourth bench player does not help make the proposal any more attractive.

The barely legal proposal: Sometimes, you’ll hear guys speak creepily about eagerly awaiting the moment when some attractive young teenage girl turns 18 so they can pounce. Yeah, I know it’s disgusting, but it happens. What does this have to do with fantasy baseball, you ask... Did you ever draft an injured stud on draft day at a large discount? Or, have you ever had one of your best players go down with an injury which keeps him out for a month or longer? Of course you have. And, of course you know what happens in this situation. As soon as that player regains health, the trade offers flood in. I did not draft an injured A-Rod at the 23rd overall pick so that I can trade him for the 25th overall pick after waiting for a month to get him into my lineup. If I wanted that player, I would have drafted him when I drafted the injured A-Rod.

The pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey proposal: Most trade offers are unattractive due to being poorly thought out, more so than being lopsided value-wise. Other owners just often, seemingly randomly, offer up some mass of semi-equal value for their targeted player without taking into account any practical context.

There are many forms the oblivious trade proposal can take, such as asking for my best source of stats for a single category while offering no contribution in that category in return, or offering me a position or category I already have an abundance of while asking for a position or category I’m fighting to remain competitive in.

I really wish people would go about proposing trades more intelligently and think about whether they are attempting to offer something that the other team might see as valuable. Identify the skill set/positional upgrade you are looking for and make a list of the players who fit that bill. Give some thought to what level of player you want to ask for and what players/categories you are most willing to give up. Look at the standings and rosters and see which teams are in need of what you are willing to give up and see if the any of the players on your list are on any of those teams. This is not rocket science, people!

I’m sure you readers out there have trade proposal horror stories and other awful trade proposal archetypes to share. So, let’s hear them. In addition to the trade proposal archetypes, there are also difficult owner archetypes. There’s the owner who overvalues all of his players and always wants something for nothing. There’s the overzealous owner who constantly hounds you to make trades, despite the fact that you’ve made it clear you aren’t interested. There’s the owner who stalks a player of yours and sends you offer after offer for that player (although this case can be advantageous because it’s basically an invitation to propose a lopsided offer to that owner that includes the player he wants). Feel free to chime in with your thoughts about owner types as well.

Before signing off, I will attempt to impart a piece of useful information (I feel a little guilty). I’ve touched on this point before, but I’d like to make it explicit here, in practicality, there is no such thing as a two-for-one trade in most forms of fantasy baseball. There is always a fourth player involved in these trades. Fantasy teams are not major league franchises; we don’t have several levels of minor league teams plus baseball academies in foreign countries to stash a virtually infinite amount of players. When you make a two-for-one trade, you must drop somebody on your team to accommodate the new player. In most two-for-one trades, the team getting the two players plans to play both of those players in their starting lineup. This also means that the trade pushes that team’s worst producing regular (or positional overstock) to the bench along with pushing a bench player to the waiver wire.

Therefore, a team does not reap the full value of the second player. The true value-add of that second player is the difference between that player and the player he will replace in your starting lineup.

In one sense, you can view the value as being the difference between the new player and the old starter, plus the difference between the old starter and the team’s least valuable bench player. These trades can strengthen your bench, but it is somewhat ambiguous as to how we can quantify that value, as that value is largely non-contributive to your bottom line. This secondary affect on team depth is worth noting, though.

This isn’t really an incredibly advanced concept, but I’ve noticed that people all too often neglect to keep it in mind when proposed with a two-for-one. For this reason, two-for-ones often look to be more appealing on paper than they are prudent in practice.

Posted by Derek Ambrosino at 2:08am (11) Comments

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The ‘optimistic’ Bill James projections

Bill James has A-Rod down for 37 HRs while CHONE has him down for 34. Does that mean the James system is higher on A-Rod than CHONE? The answer may surprise you. (Icon/SMI)

It's that time of year when projection systems are starting to be released. CHONE was released about a month ago, ZiPS is in the process of being released one team at a time, and Marcels will probably make an appearance sometime in the next few weeks. For hardcore fantasy baseball enthusiasts, it can be a lot of fun to go through the various systems and see how they are viewing players and how they stack up against each other. While I enjoy this time of year as much as anyone else, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people start talking about how optimistic the Bill James projection system is. Some examples of this sentiment:

Pending Pinstripes (Yankees blog):

I've always thought that the Bill James projections were wildly optimistic, but they're still interesting to look at.

The McCovey Chronicles (Giants blog) comments section:

Considering how crazy-optimistic Bill James projections usually are, that seems awfully pessimistic for Affeldt.

The Crawfish Boxes (Astros blog):

Surprisingly, James has an offensive prediction for Chris Johnson, and even more surprisingly, James is somewhat more optimistic about Johnson than most of us on this board (including me). Obviously, James' system believes that Johnson's minor league numbers indicate decent enough power to offset, at least in part, a paltry OBP. I have my doubts on that.

South Side Sox (White Sox blog):

James tends to have the most optimistic projections of any of the major forecasters, specifically for young players.

Driveline Mechanics:

The James projections often seem optimistic...

I think you get the idea.

Flawed logic

Inevitably, each year, the James system seems to be higher on the vast majority of players than are other systems such as CHONE, ZiPS, or Oliver. And inevitably, each year, baseball analysts see nothing wrong with making straight comparisons between systems. A couple weeks ago, I saw one article about Jake Fox that read:

For 2010, Bill James projects a whopping .284/.339/.546 line for Fox in limited playing time. That strikes me as wildly optimistic. CHONE’s forecast appears much more reasonable, with a projected .257/.316/.452 performance.

Other times, we'll see straight comparisons to previous years:

Bill James is super-optimistic - when I looked at the projections they came up with a few years ago, he had the majority of starters being better than average at every single position.

Still other times, sites will refer to the James projections while completely ignoring the context under which they were created:

James also projects Jose Reyes will return from injury to hit .285 with 57 stolen bases, 14 home runs, 67 RBI and 113 runs created.

…man, i hope so… it looks to me like James essentially took Jose’s brief 36 games in 2009 and extended them out over 162 games, which is totally fine by me.

Or:

The projections here are extremely pleasing. I believe that they’re too optimistic, though, especially for the bullpen.

This isn't a shot at these articles or writers in the slightest, but I believe this line of reasoning—which is common across many sites and blogs—is a bit flawed, so today I'd like to help correct some of the common errors and misconceptions that many seem to have about projections.

Relativity and context

The most important concept I'd like to stress is that of relativity. The kinds of articles I just mentioned operate under the assumption that the James projection for a player should be looked at relative to another system's projection for him or relative to last year. This is incorrect, though. What we should be doing is examining the James projection for a player relative to all of the other players the James system projects.

As I've stressed many times before, context is of the utmost importance when it comes to almost anything fantasy baseball related. In this case, most people ignore the run environment that the James projection system assumes. To illustrate my point, I'll use a very extreme example. Let's say that we transport Albert Pujols and his 44 HR projection into a league where it is common for the worst players to hit 80 HRs per year and the best to top 200 HRs. While Pujols and his 44 HRs look terrific in our reality, in this new one it looks kind of pathetic. That's context.

"What does this have to do with the James projections, though," you ask? Well, while the James projections don't assume a run environment where people are routinely hitting 200 HRs, it usually does assume that hitters perform a little bit better, on the whole (when compared to previous seasons or other projection systems). So if everyone is being projected to hit a few extra HRs, it does not necessarily make Alex Rodriguez's 37 HR projection any more optimistic than CHONE's 34 HR projection.

After all, when we're drafting players in fantasy leagues, it doesn't matter if the first pick has 200 HRs and the second pick has 190 or if the first pick has 40 and the second has 38. We don't care about the actual numbers; we care about the relative rankings. It doesn't matter if James has Albert Pujols at 44 HRs and CHONE only has him at 39. If James is inflating numbers across the board, Pujols will still be considered the No. 1 pick and everyone else will fall in line behind him, regardless of the system used or whether or not its numbers are inflated relative to other systems—we just can't mix-and-match.

Comparing systems

So how can we compare systems if we can't do it directly? Ideally, we'd find the league average for all systems for all of our relevant stats (or even more ideally, the average for all players that will be drafted in a particular fantasy league, though that obviously works better in theory than in practice) and create a set of conversion factors so direct comparisons can be made between systems.

I didn't buy the Bill James Handbook or the projections this year, so I don't know what its league average is (and thus am not 100% certain that the James system is actually inflating stats this year, but they have been inflated in the past and anecdotally seem to be this year). If anyone wants to share what the league average is for James (or other systems that require payment), I'd be happy to whip up some quick conversion factors and post them for everyone to make use of.

Outliers

"But what about players whom the James system is extremely high on? Should they be disregarded?" Of course not. Like any other system, James will like certain players more than those other systems. They're just a little tougher to pick out without applying the conversion factors since we have to guess at how much we should discount their stats. One guy who might fit this criteria this year, though, is Mark Reynolds. James has him down for 40 HRs while CHONE is at just 30. Marcels will likely be closer to 30 as well when it comes out. That's a big difference, even considering inflation. We just need to remember that all systems will favor certain players and show a distribution of players they like (relative to other systems), dislike, and are neutral on.

Fan Projections

One last point is that the fan projections FanGraphs is running will likely be sitting in the same boat with the James projections. I'd guess that fans will be more apt to project players they like, which means league average will probably be a bit higher for these projections as well. Just something to keep in mind.

Concluding thoughts

Hopefully this has cleared up some confusion regarding projections, specifically regarding the Bill James system. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me or post in the comments.

Posted by Derek Carty at 3:00am (20) Comments

The A’s get Crisp-ier

Crisp fighting a ball off his hands for a single.

A couple of days ago it was announced that the A's have come to an agreement with free agent outfielder Coco Crisp on a one-year contract worth around 4.5 million. The deal is pending an important physical considering Crisp is coming off surgeries to both of his shoulders that caused him to miss the last 100 games of 2009.

Fallout: Crisp

The A's are not the type of team that goes around handing out multi-million dollar contracts like free Chinese food samples at the mall and then decides to not play the guy, so most likely Crisp will see plenty of at-bats as the Athletics' new leadoff hitter in 2010. Assuming a year of good health from Crisp, let's see what we can predict his upcoming season will look like.

+------+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+-------+
| Year | Age | AB  | R  | HR | RBI | SB | AVG   |
+------+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+-------+
| 2005 |  25 | 594 | 86 | 16 |  69 | 15 | 0.300 |
| 2006 |  26 | 413 | 58 |  8 |  36 | 22 | 0.264 |
| 2007 |  27 | 526 | 85 |  6 |  60 | 28 | 0.268 |
| 2008 |  28 | 361 | 55 |  7 |  41 | 20 | 0.283 |
| 2009 |  29 | 180 | 30 |  3 |  14 | 13 | 0.228 |
+------+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+-------+

Crisp experienced his breakout season in 2004 as a 24-year-old on the Indians, and followed that campaign up with another gem in 2005 that led to him being the favorite of ESPN analysts everywhere. In those two seasons he displayed a rare three-tool combination of average, power, and speed ability that looked attractive to MLB teams and fantasy owners alike.

Crisp's prime career years, however, have not smelled as sweet. Ever since his participation in the suspicious Andy Marte trade that sent him to Boston, Crisp has played a full season only once, and has not hit above .285 nor reached double-digit home runs in a season. After an injury-ruined 2009, Crisp hit the free agency market this offseason and surprisingly netted this 4.5 million contract from, of all teams, the Athletics.

Crisp has the potential to be an impact player in 2010, with a .290 average, 10 home run, and 25 steal season not out of the question. RBIs will most likely come sparsely for Crisp, but batting leadoff for any team, even the A's, will net him decent runs totals in the 80s or perhaps 90s.

That, of course, is assuming good health and is a "best-scenario" prediction. A more reasonable projection would look something like a .270 average, six home runs, and a similar 20 steals. That line does have value in deeper mixed leagues and AL-only leagues, and if the Athletics live up to the credence of their name and send the fleet-footed Crisp stealing often, then he could even become worthy of ownership in shallower mixed leagues because of steals totals alone.

Fallout: A's outfielders

This signing does impact players beyond just Crisp, as the way playing time is distributed to the rest of the Oakland outfield is altered. The other two outfielders expected to keep their starting roles are fellow speedster Rajai Davis and possible breakout player Ryan Sweeney. This leaves the recently acquired Scott Hairston without a defined role in the A's offense and reaffirms the organization's abandonment of Travis Buck. Also, two players who might have reached the majors in 2010, Aaron Cunningham and the even more recently acquired Michael Taylor, now have their chances of seeing significant MLB playing time slashed dramatically.

Obviously it is still early in the offseason and what's been a busy offseason will continue to be, so future moves can completely change what the 2010 landscape will look like. As for the A's, either Hairston or perhaps Davis will be shipped out to alleviate the logjam in the outfield. And since we are talking about the A's, once the season starts injuries will probably resolve any playing time conflicts that arise between players.

Summary

To recap, this signing is good for Crisp since he signed with a team that is dedicated to giving him playing time, but also negative since the A's play in a poor hitters' park and also have one of the worst offenses in the majors. The upcoming season appears to be a chance for the 30-year-old to redeem himself for the letdowns of past years, and playing in the relaxed Oakland atmosphere may provide him with the right scenery to post decent fantasy numbers reminiscent of his 2005 season.

Sweeney and Davis are not affected by the signing; however, that slew of A's outfielders mentioned before—Hairston, Buck, Cunningham, and Taylor—all figure to lose playing time one way or another because of Crisp's arrival to the Bay Area.

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Friday, December 18, 2009

Waiver Wire Offseason: AL

Monday, December 21, 2009

Festivus time: the airing of grievances

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The ‘optimistic’ Bill James projections

Flawed logic

Relativity and context

Comparing systems

Outliers

Fan Projections

Concluding thoughts

The A’s get Crisp-ier

Fallout: Crisp

Fallout: A's outfielders

Summary

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Player Profile: Troy Tulowitzki

Friday, December 25, 2009

Waiver Wire Offseason: NL

Monday, December 28, 2009

Clone Wars: Justin Verlander and Ricky Nolasco

Team defense

Regression to the mean

Draft values

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

A decade of fantasy sports

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Player Profile: Nolan Reimold

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Top 10 Prospects for 2010: Florida Marlins and New York Mets

Florida Marlins

New York Mets