The Hardball Times -- Patrick DiCaprio http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2012 2012-05-26T10:48:15+00:00 Moving On http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/moving-on/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/moving-on/#When:13:38:15 my blog for more details. I hope you will all continue to look me up.

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At the top of the auction pyramid where the top talent lies the concept of value has to basically go out the window in keeper leagues where inflation is often rampant. If you are hoping to get a Jose Reyes or Jimmy Rollins type player for under $30 so that they have value then you have little chance of getting the top talent necessary to win in tough leagues.

Anyone who has been in an auction has experienced this common scenario: you have a guy projected at $20. Bidding starts and reaches $20. You drop out and someone gets him for $24. That player goes on to produce a $35 season. Every year there are a few of these guys. Often owners who don't think about such things consider that the successfully bidding owner was just lucky. Perhaps he was but perhaps he knows a lot more than he is given credit for. Evaluation of your adversary is always to be considered.

Question: (and I apologize for channeling Dwight Schrute for a second) why did you drop out of the bidding? Invariably the answer is that the player wasn't a good value at that price. Most times that may be true and in the long run it will be true; namely if I take a group of 100 players all of whom are valued at $20 and pay $24 I will probably show a loss, assuming my projections are good.

But every so often you feel like you have inside information or see something that others do not. Often this might be using a regression to the mean approach for BABIP or hit rate or some other solid information that you have. In this regard you may be a "learned minority." I have discussed at length my trade of Stephen Drew or the fact that two expert owners went head-to-head in a bidding war for Tom Gorzelanny this year, with the other owners denouncing them as crazy (and these two owners finished one-two this year).

Every year there are a whole host of such players that I target at the auction, maybe 5-7 each year. Every year I invariably get almost all of them. Why? Because value is not the proper way to acquire players in every instance and I am willing to go beyond it for these players when other owners are not. I am happy to acquire players I love and feel like I have great info on if they go for anywhere close to my projections.

A few examples aside from Gorzelanny: two years ago I acquired Brian McCann in my high stakes league for $12. I had him projected at $10, and would have gone to $15 (he produced $25). Last year I had Jake Peavy projected at $23. I bought him for $30. I also had Jimmy Rollins at $30 and got him for $33. I got James Shields at $9 but would have gone to at least $13 for him. All outproduced their projections and my purchase price. If I considered value for these guys I would have gotten none of them.

As Wittgenstein might have said if he played fantasy baseball, value is just a symbol. Our goal is not to maximize value but to maximize production and statistics. Value is a shorthand symbolic way to maximize your teams production but it is no substitute for actual evaluation of points to be gained and statistics to be accrued and dollars to be earned.

I am not saying that you should not chase value. What I am saying is that the pursuit of value is a mirage that can cloud your view of the overall goal to be achieved, the maximizing of production. My personal view is that a "go get them" approach with regard to the players you really want will often do better than a value based approach, especially if you are particularly astute and have excellent judgment about players. This advice is not license to go overboard however! We are talking here about non-fungible players at or near the top of the auction pyramid.

The fact is that a value based approach is correct when you are dealing with fungible commodities. But at the top where the big money is spent you will usually do better to target specific players that you desire if (and that is a big if) you really do see aspects of that player that others in your league do not. That means not only must you consider your own values but you must consider what your opponents know and what they will do with that knowledge.

One final anecdote that is somewhat reflective of the same principle: in my days as a horseplayer, I found a particular public handicapper who was very astute at picking longshots. I considered him to be a "learned minority." What I would do is look for situations where he picked a horse to win that no other public handicapper even put in the top three. This yielded tremendous profits. It was a good lesson in thinking outside the box and in realizing that sometimes you must act on knowledge that you have that others don't regardless of other factors.

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In a vacuum this is an easy concept to understand. Yet, in practice it is as elusive as my continuing search for those Lost pillow fight pictures I frequently mention (sad I know, shouldn't I have better pursuits?). There is a fundamental flaw in the overall concept of value.

Can we assume that there is an objective measure of what a player is worth? I don't think we can. There are far too many variables to consider. For example in keeper leagues, do you take into account inflation when defining value? How about positional scarcity, and positional inflation? What about the needs of your team versus the rest of the league? Does everyone agree that a forecast is worth x dollars?

The mirage arises in that in every projection system you have a dollar value that represents the supposed worth of a players forecasted projection. That worth has some nebulous relation to value, but in practical terms you can only have subjective value. There is simply no such thing as objective value. An example: lets say that Miguel Cabrera should be worth $30. So at what price does he have "value?" I think that there is no objective answer to this question. In the absence of an objective answer then the concept of value only has a subjective definition.

The problem lies with the nature of a forecast. What we are saying with a forecast is that a certain statline is worth a certain number of dollars. But the dollar value is simply a shorthand symbol; it merely reflects or "shows" the worth of the stats but it does not define it (a concept drawn from Wittgenstein, and I am sure that you are all sick and tired of hearing about Wittgenstein and his relation to fantasy baseball but bear with me on this). When we say Cabrera's statline is "worth" $30 what we are really saying is that his production is expected to be worth somewhere between $25 to $35 or some other reasonable range. The dollar value of $30 only shows or reflects what the statline represents but that is not the same thing as saying the statline is worth $30. There is too much noise and variation for us to attach any objective reality to that $30 forecast.

So the subjective nature of the concept of "value" is seen by the fact that everyone's projection may differ, and hence the amount of "value" derived will differ. But in the absence of an objective, concrete worth of a projected statline we cannot at the time of the auction say with any certainty at all whether we have achieved value or not in a given instance.

Going back to Cabrera, let's say that at the auction we get him for $32, and have him projected for $35. By most definitions we have achieved $3 of value or profit. But if his $35 projection really means that he will produce somewhere in the range of $27-$40 we may not have gotten any value! At the time of the auction we only have some various probabilities of a $27 season, a $30 season or a $40 season. So we may even take a loss on his season, a loss that should be fully within the realm of expectation for his forecasted statline.

The problem is worse when we are dealing with the middle of the auction and later. These players will have much wider ranges of production on the low end than a guy like Cabrera (obviously). So on these players it is more likely that you will take a loss even though you may think you have gotten value. As an example, I auctioned James Shields last year in my high stakes league for $9. Given his history I thought he could be worth $10-$15. But if he flopped there was a good chance he would be worth zero or less.

Could I have said at the time of the auction that I got "value" out of that $9? I don't see how. What is more is that there were no projected dollar values in anything I saw that had him worth double digits. So based on traditional concepts of "value" in no way could I have said that I thought he was a good value. In fact, if you look at the traditional method of acquiring players my bid was probably the worst possible! In the range of $9 or $10 I have a chance at some small profit but also an equal or better chance at a large loss. So how did he end up on my team if he had no projected value or profit? The answer will be forthcoming.

Am I saying the concept of value is worthless? Of course not. I am saying that the inexorable pursuit of "value" is a concept that will unnecessarily hamstring an owner, especially if you are facing tougher competition that is experienced at auctions. More on this in the next column.

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Typically many owners consider it to be accurate projections. The problem with projections is that there are not great differences between good sets of projections. Ron Shandler has written that even the simplest systems will be accurate around 65% of the time, and no system will be accurate for another 20-25% of the player population. So what is at issue among various systems is the relatively small remainder.

That is not to say that projections are unimportant, far from it. A good projection set is a necessity. But the fact is that against better competition almost every owner will have good projections. This gives them limited value. My first time in a high stakes league I thought I was in great shape with my Baseball Prospectus book and its projections until I showed up and nine other guys had the same ones.

Another is a good plan in terms of which players to bring up and when. This tactic is of great value in certain particular instances especially late in the auction when dollars are low and small bids can go unchallenged. But overall it will not make a huge difference in your overall results unless you snag that one player you covet late in the day. The effort should always be there, but the end result may or may not happen.

In my view the most important skill to cultivate is one that has an effect in virtually every aspect of auction planning and strategy. In auctions that is the skill of unpredictability. Not only will it bear fruit in every auction its utility is seen in virtually every aspect of an auction.

An auction against tough competition is one of the great joys of fantasy baseball. But success requires a combination of many different skills. As an example of how things can go awry, in my high stakes league there was a team last year that had the best keeper roster (by acclaim) coming into the auction. Not only did the owner have a strong keeper roster with lots of profit already in hand, he had a lot of money available.

What should have been a strong auction and a strong chance at first place rapidly went south almost from the get go. His team eked out a fourth place finish, barely cashing. His auction was a disaster and set the stage for a disappointing season. The cost to him was very high in real dollars as well as in his team's results.

There are many facets to an auction where you must be unpredictable. The list below is not exhaustive, but I wanted to address a few illustrative scenarios:

1. With regard to bringing up players you often read hoary advice such as "don't bring up players you want." While often good advice the flaw should be fairly obvious. If you never bring up a player you want then when you bring up a player your opponents will be confident you will not go the extra dollar. This is especially important in the middle and late rounds.

2. I am often guilty of this one: there are situations where other owners know that I will not typically go for $30 for any starting pitcher and rarely for any player. So when the bidding gets hot and heavy players can often know where I stand. I changed this last year, and went to $30 on a few players, ending up with a $30 Jake Peavy, a $32 Jimmy Rollins and a $35 Carl Crawford. In the future my opponents can not have any certainty as to what I will do, yielding additional profit (I hope).

3. You must make a point to get involved in almost every bid. Even if it is a player you do not want, get in there! Occasionally you will get stuck with a $15 Nick Punto (as I did last year!) but with all of this activity comes the fact that your opponents will have no idea about your overall strategy. If they do not know it they will not be able to stop it.

If you think that owners do not actively try to scuttle the plans of others then you should be involved in tougher leagues to get a flavor for what goes on. In the leagues I am in this is a common occurrence, and some owners make it a badge of honor to disrupt others' plans. Being involved in lots of bids makes you unpredictable by definition unless your opponents are mind readers. Sam Walker's wonderful book Fantasyland had some good anecdotes about owner's trying to disrupt opponents' plans, by psychology as well as auction bidding.

4. Make sure you are not beholden to your dollar values. If you show up with a certain projection set every year, your more astute opponents will not only notice but will try to use that against you. If you have the Baseball Prospectus book in your possession every year then others will know that you are likely using their projections and will have a good idea of your values (and your strategies). Of course, getting involved in lots of bids as mentioned above will make it very difficult for others to pin you down.

In no way is this list exhaustive. Cultivating unpredictability in all facets of auctions is of great vitality against better opponents. This is simply because the better your opponents the less value the common and typical strategies have. Keeping opponents from knowing your plans is step one to accomplishing them. These examples may not seem significant at first, but if you are in a league with a few tough owners, making sure they cannot scuttle your plans may well be the difference between cashing and failing.

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With nothing else to do and with nothing to interest me aside from watching ladies pole dance in the New York City Subway, this is a good time to do some more reflection on not just my team but on myself.

"Those who excel at defense bury themselves away below the lowest depths of the Earth. Those who excel at offense move from above the greatest heights of Heaven. Thus they are able to preserve themselves and attain victory." This is one of my favorite Sun-Tzu quotes and has surprisingly profound applications. But since we are fantasy players we must look at how this applies to fantasy baseball.

The import of the quote is clear; the road to success lies in knowing yourself and then taking advantage of your strengths in the best possible way. As Sun-Tzu points out, one who excels at defense will bury themselves below the earth (metaphorically speaking of course), which would make it impossible for them to be attacked. From what better position can such a person defend themselves? You avoid defeat and disaster by taking advantage of your peculiar skills. One who excels at offense moves from the heights of Heaven. The army that moves like this will be like a ton against an ounce.

How to take advantage? As a Fantasy GM you must of course know your strengths and weaknesses. Yet when it comes to self-analysis we can often be our own worst enemy, attributing successes and failures to the vagaries of chance and not to our own faults or skills. It is easy when riding high to believe you are just the second coming of Ron Shandler or John Benson, and when you are riding low it is easy to curse one's fortune. Avoiding this trap is paramount.

In fantasy baseball a critical evaluation must be done if there are pretensions at winning serious money or winning against tough competition. What must be done? You must assiduously examine your past performance. Examine your team at the end of the year and see what went right and what went wrong. If you have played this game for a number of years you have no doubt figured out some of your strengths. Some may be astute at discerning value in young developing pitchers. Some may be good at Minor League evaluations and some may be great at auctions but terrible negotiators. This is all useful information.

Knowing what your strengths are allows you to figure out with better precision whether a failure or success was built on luck or was the result of astute judgment. This takes a lot of effort. It is not easy to do and you may not be motivated. But even slight effort here can have tremendous gains. Winning isn't easy unless the competition is easy. You must be willing to look at yourself and your decisions critically.

Process must be valued over results but that doesn't imply that poor results are merely the result of bad luck, though it is very easy to convince yourself otherwise. If you routinely spend $30 in auction leagues on 33 year old power hitters or 34 year old speedsters with no other skills and never finish in the money you should be able to use this information to evaluate your decisions. Bad luck will always occur but that does not imply that poor results are the result of bad luck.

The second item here is that you must realistically assess your opponents. Does your opponent excel at offense or defense? Did an opponent who won have a lucky year or was his judgment just better? In order to figure this out you must know your opponents well. There is an owner I know in my high-stakes league that excels at taking the offensive in the auctions. He is routinely bidding players up, jumping out at the right time, forcing fair value on most players and generally is willing to bully anyone and everyone on any player. Occasionally he gets hurt but more often than not he doesn't. But he doesn't handle his team well during the year and rarely finishes in the money. Some critical analysis here would do wonders.

This is a tough one but another item to think about is that often people in all walks of life confuse information with judgment. There are plenty of owners who know all sorts of advanced metrics, can manage spreadsheets like an accountant and can recite fly ball information for any player. Yet this information alone will not make one a winner without being able to use it in a clear logical fashion and in conjunction with a well developed strategy. Against tougher competition everyone will have access to this information and many will also have almost the same degree of knowledge. Where these owners fail is in thinking that because they can differentiate between a $20 player and a $17 player with better accuracy they are in a better position to win. That is usually not the case against tougher competition. Judgment and planning will win out over information in most instances, but it takes both to win.

From my own experience, in 2006 in a 12-team mixed league I had a disappointing season. My team was beset with injuries and finished seventh, my worst finish in any of my leagues. Looking back it was easy to see why I failed. I drafted Randy Johnson in the first round and a few other pitchers in the early rounds hoping to capitalize and fully exploit the two start benefit. When these pitchers got hurt and/or didn't perform to expectations my team floundered. This lead me to the exact opposite strategy in 2007, drafting no pitchers in the first six rounds and generally filling out my staff in the later rounds. This led to a division title and a second place finish overall in points.

I haven't yet gone through the exercise of reviewing my 2007 finish in great detail, but what I can see and what I know about my past results is that I generally do better when speculating on young pitchers, but do worse when trying for veterans. In 2006 it would be easy to say I was unlucky with injuries, but when you go for older pitchers it isn't exactly unexpected so it is a failure of planning not a bad luck result. The failure in 2006 and the success of 2007 were in line with my strengths and weaknesses and planning successes and failures. Though one might easily see bad luck and good luck, one may also see good thought processes and bad thought processes.

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A reader posed the following question to me: he is in a 12-team mixed league, with two keeper slots. Each team can keep two players generally with their first two draft picks and can also keep two 2007 rookie qualifying players by replacing their ninth and tenth round picks with the kept rookie players. Among others he has Ryan Braun, Dustin Pedroia and Tim Lincecum. Not a bad choice to make! He asked which I preferred.

To me clearly the answer is Braun and Lincecum but with a strategical proviso and goal. Braun is an obvious choice even though I am down on him for next year and think he will be overrated. Even if I am right about him being overrated he is still clearly keepable under this scenario.

Both Braun and Pedroia exceeded their expected batting averages by 30 points or more (Pedroia exceeded his by 40). Pedroia's value is strongly correlated with his batting average and if it plunges next year so does his value. Braun will still have power and speed even with a big drop in batting average. Keeping him as a ninth or tenth round pick would be quite a coup.

My advice is to keep Braun and Lincecum and try to trade Pedroia at all costs. It would be a tough pill to swallow to have to cut the reigning rookie of the year and get nothing for him. So this is a situation that calls for tough negotiating tactics but with the understanding that you will take what you can get.

I would represent to trading partners that I would keep Braun as a putative first or second round pick and would keep Pedroia and Lincecum with the ninth and tenth rounders. The rationale should be fairly obvious; if you devise a scenario that is feasible and believeable to others yet is not your true tactic then you have a much stronger negotiating position. He can then would push hard to trade Pedroia. The representation that Pedroia will be kept is necessary. Once Pedroia is gone, then I would keep Braun as a ninth rounder and keep a better player with the first or second rounder or just keep the picks open.

Why? Because I think Braun is overrated. If he isn't a second round value next year then you take a loss with that pick. In mixed leagues flubbing a second round pick that clearly has risk attached to it (because of the difference between his expected and actual performance) is a situation to be assiduously avoided, and all efforts must be made. It is not about Braun per se, it is about managing the risk associated with the player versus the value of an important draft pick. Process vs. Results. It doesn't matter that Ryan Braun is the player, what matters is that the asset involved has mostly downside risk and you profit more by letting someone else take that risk. If you are wrong in this specific instance so be it, it is irrelevant. This is what focusing on the thought process is all about.

If Braun is kept as a ninth rounder then even if I am right about him being overrated he will still overproduce for that slot. So you are virtually assured of a significant profit for that spot. If I am wrong and you get a true second round value in the second round and get Braun's production in the ninth round then you have a good chance of winning the league. Getting second round value in the ninth round and fair value in the first two rounds is a significant leg up on the competition.

What you are doing is pursuing a dominant strategy (in a game theory sense). It isn't quite a 100% dominant strategy, however it is close enough that the pursuit is required and though it may not be a perfectly dominant strategy the principle is perfectly applicable. In almost every scenario aside from injury you profit if he is your ninth round keeper. So you always profit in both rounds assuming you get fair value in the second round. If you keep him as a second rounder you could take a loss in some situations, namely those in which he underperforms and regresses to the mean.

So by trading him you get: True second round value + either Braun's MVP caliber production or Braun's still good production but not MVP production. All of these variables should be solidly in the credit column.

If you keep him as a second rounder you may turn a small profit in the second round depending on whether I am right. But you may get a loss of small to large proportions in both the second round and ninth round and will likely never have a large profit in either case no matter what happens. Almost all of the downside risk in terms of value lies with keeping Braun as a second rounder and almost all of the large upside involves keeping Braun in the ninth round.

This means that Pedroia has to go and if you have to cut him so be it. Pedroia is a marginal keeper as a ninth rounder anyway. Cutting him is far better than keeping him and Braun, since you then lose out on Lincecum.

As far as Lincecum is concerned, by any calculation he will be a top 100 player next year and should improve off of 2007. The Giants may stink again next year, but aside from W-L record Lincecum will be a top 15 or 20 pitcher next year, assuming strikeouts count. His expected ERA of 3.63 would have been top 20 this year, and of the top 20 only four had more strikeouts than innings.

If played right, this keeper scenario could be a windfall if you can get a taker for Braun who is willing to give up someone like Miguel Cabrera.

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In my high stakes league it is very difficult to win in consecutive years. The reason is that every year at least two or three teams are completely loaded for bear, having planned for this season for at least a year or possibly two. This year I planned for the 2007 championship when I joined the league in 2005. Every decision was made with the intent of following a specific plan. That was:

1. Completely rebuild in year one.
2. Continue to build in year two, but transition to a cashing position with the focus still on year three.
3. Year three is win at all costs.

This plan has worked for me. I have played in three different tough high stakes leagues and in all three I was able to successfully execute by cashing in year two and winning in year three.

The key impact this has is that every decision must be considered with an eye to whether it fits in that strategy. Generally this means in terms of a pitching staff that you will bottom feed with all cheap pitchers. To do this necessarily implies that you have no chance at cashing against tougher competition in year one.

It also means that if your league has penalties for finishing in the bottom of the league, or has monetary penalties for missing minimums, you must be prepared to pay that price. In fact in year one of this league one of my first trades, for which I was roundly lambasted, was to trade a $33 Ichiro (essentially at that time a zero profit player) for a few speculative keepers, which included a $1 Zack Greinke and a $1 BJ Upton. Sadly that trade didn't work out, but nevertheless the focus was on the long term only. We paid quite a hefty penalty in 2005, having missed every minimum by almost historic and sad margins.

Currently, I am left with the following potential keeper list for 2008:

Manny Parra 7s2
Carlos Villanueva 3s2
Chad Billingsley 3O (I must renew him for one year at $3 or sign him long term)
Sergio Mitre 1s2
Juan Cruz 2s2
Claudio Vargas 1s2
Jake Peavy 30s2

The execution of my plan is evident from these pitchers. All of them were purchased at the auction (except for Villanueva and Parra), all had strong underlying indicators, all were cheap. Spending money on the anchor of Peavy allowed me to speculate on every other pitching position. Of course, had my judgment been off this staff could have been a disaster. The goal is to stockpile a number of cheap arms with talent so that one or more of them turn a tidy profit, and the rest are all shuttled back and forth with free agents.

The principle behind this strategy is that the player himself is not the entire asset with which to work. The asset is the roster spot and the goal is to use the number of roster spots available to maximize profit, not just using the players.

To the problem at hand: who should be kept next year? No question that Vargas and Mitre are kept. At that salary and with their relatively good peripherals they are no-brainers and almost certainly will show a profit. However, my expectation is that one of them will be poor next year.

That sounds counter-intuitive, but it is true. When looking at keepers it is not enough to just say "I think player X will be profitable." In fact, I have no idea which of these guys is more likely to fall off a cliff. Well, I have some idea but I am not about to bet on either. If I keep them both I am expecting that the one who doesn't fall off will more than make up for the one that does, thereby turning enough profit to make this tactic worthwhile. If they both are solid then all the better and I may be able to repeat or at least cash. If they both stink I see a fifth place finish or worse in the offing.

The tough cases:

Jake Peavy-Can he be worth $30 again? It was at least ten years since I spent $30 on a pitcher, so you can be sure that I thought he would be the best pitcher in the NL this year. But $30 is a lot of money. Peavy had a very fortunate 78% strand rate, so it is likely that even if everything else is equal his ERA will rise next year. Looking at his past history one can see that his ERA has essentially fluctuated with his strand rate while all else has pretty much remained equal:

Year ERA Str. BB/9 K/9
2004 2.28 84% 2.9 9.4
2005 2.88 76% 2.2 9.6
2006 4.09 69% 2.8 9.6
2007 2.54 78% 2.7 9.7
Carlos Villaneuva-With a cheap $3 salary and the fact that he might be a starter next year he will likely be kept. Even if he only has a 25% chance at being a successful starter it is worth speculating. The mere fact that he stays in a rotation all year (if he does it) will make him worth $10 or so, so any success above that will make him a valuable player and may net me a $10 profit. With an expected ERA in 2007 of 4.46 and a good K rate of 7.8/9IP he can easily be a league average starter or better next year.

Keeping in mind the goal here to stockpile cheap arms and hope that one or two blossom, it should be noted that no one, and I mean not even the foremost experts, can predict with certainty among a group of cheap arms which one will succeed. Just the injury factor alone and the fact that they are cheap (and therefore not perceived as valuable) makes it difficult to be right on a specific pitcher. Villanueva and his ilk fit perfectly into my strategy of "stockpiling and hoping."

Chad Billingsley-The question here is whether to sign him long term. This has nothing to do with his value for 2008, and everything to do with his value in 2009. Assuming I decide that I cannot compete then he is worth a loss in 2008 if I expect a bigger profit in 2009. If I thought I could win in 2008 then the decision is easy; he is renewed at $3 and that is the end of the analysis.

Billingsley, like Peavy, benefitted from an abnormally high strand rate. His expected ERA was 3.90, far higher than his actual ERA. One's analysis must at least consider and recognize that by throwing him back one can almost guarantee that an opponent will make an error. Why? Because Billingsley would likely go for a mid-teens salary in the auction. There is a good chance that he will underproduce that salary. That said, if he can shave a walk or two off of his peripherals he can also be a stud. Paying $15 to find out, as someone certainly would, will have one bobsledding to the bottom half of the league.

Given all of the above, the best idea seems to be to sign him to a one year extension, keeping him for 2008 and 2009 at a salary of $8.

Juan Cruz-An unsung hero of my staff (since we have wins and wins minus losses as categories), Cruz was an excellent pickup in the auction. I expected a long stint in the rotation when I purchased him in the auction, so it shows that you are sometimes better off being lucky than good.

I still believe that Cruz is an unsung star in the making if given a chance and he is good enough to succeed as a closer or as a starter. Assuming health, he will likely still be on my team in 2010. He is far too talented to stay in his current role. A bit more control makes him a star in any role. You probably won't find too many owners that value Cruz over Billingsley, but I am one.

Overall there was a fair bit of luck involved with these cheaper picks. Almost all of them turned a profit, and that won't happen too often when you are bottom feeding. However, focusing not on all fancy metrics and insanely detailed analysis but on the fundamental peripherals such as K rate and BB rate will lead you to these unsung profitable pitchers.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Patrick DiCaprio 2007-11-20T12:15:15+00:00 Who to keep among NL hitters? http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/who-to-keep-among-nl-hitters/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/who-to-keep-among-nl-hitters/#When:12:10:15 We are getting close to the beginning of winter trading season in my high stakes league, so it is time to start dusting off the rosters and figuring out who should be kept and what my goals should be for next year. The fantasy offseason can be a forlorn time, barren and bare of interest. Fortunately, I can keep my mind occupied by ramping up my search for the much-rumored Evangeline Lilly and Yunjin Kim lingerie pillow fight video. If anyone ever finds it please let me know.

As a refresher here are contract notations and what they mean, and I previously discussed the "Z" rule here:

s2=can be kept next year.
s1=after a player is an s2 he becomes an s1 if he is not signed to a long term contract.
Ln=n is the number of years and L means he was signed to a long term contract.
X=a guy whose long term contract expired. He can be "Z"d and signed for one year at a cost of $10 added to his salary.

As an example, lets take Justin Morneau. He was auctioned for $2 five years ago. He was then a 2s3. Year two he is a 2s2. Then he was signed to a long term contract, so he became a 12L2. The next year he is a 12L1. After that he is a 12X, which means he either goes back into the pool or he becomes $22 after he is "Z"d.

I have a quite a few players that are marginal keepers. Generally, when I think I have a chance to win the title, every decision is made with the proviso that I will always err on the side of having more money in the auction. That means no extensions unless they are super valuable, and no "Z" players. I am not sure whether I will have a chance at repeating, so right now it is an open question. This is a fundamental tenet of fantasy roster management in tough auction leagues.

The reason is that against better owners you can be sure that in a given year there are two or three guys that have been planning to compete that year and are loaded for bear. If you are one of them, you will have a hot contest in the auction, and every dollar is important. As an example, some of the guys I got this year for less than $5 (the cost of a one year extension) were Sergio Mitre, Claudio Vargas and Ryan Church. Not great players in mixed leagues, but in deep leagues getting these guys at the end of the auction can easily make or break the season.

It is worth pointing out that one can easily make decisions on who to keep based upon whether the player is anticipated to be profitable or not. That is an easy calculation in most cases, and won't lead one that far astray. But thinking only about this factor is far from optimal. Most times against better competition there are much more important factors. The players below all illustrate some of these other factors, and by no means is this an exclusive list. But merely considering whether a player will be "worth it" next year is the path to fourth place against better fantasy players in deep keeper leagues.

Anyway here are my marginal keepers:

Miguel Montero 5s2-Despite a terrible season that was only worth $1 or $2 this is actually a tough decision. If he is an every day starter he will be worth $5 as long as he holds the job. This is because he has some pop and if he hits enough to be an every day player then he could be a $10 player. We have a relatively tough at-bat minimum, and having an every day catcher in two positions can be a big head start.

Another factor is Chris Snyder of course, and the fact that if I throw Montero back into the auction he will probably not go for too much more than $5. There is a good chance I can get him back at a lower cost. So it really comes down to evaluating the market and what happens in March. On a strict value calculation he should be an easy toss.

I should point out that even if he went for more than $5 in the auction he may still be worth throwing back. One might think that if I liked him at $5 and he goes for $7 I should have kept him, saving $2. But the trade off of extra money may be worth an extra year without having to give him a long term contract. I might be better off if I am rebuilding to have a player like this for three years at $7 than 2 years at $5. If I keep him he is a 5s2 which means that I must make a contract decision this year. If I get him in the auction he is an s3 which means I have an extra year to decide. That can easily be worth $2.

Todd Helton 22s2-Another very close one, he produced $22 in value this year. However, most of it was driven by batting average, which was powered by a 35% hit rate. He still has a great batting eye and hits lots of line drives. This decision will depend on what other owners do and who they keep. If the first base crop is deep then Helton will likely go back. If it is shallow then he might be kept. This is probably the toughest decision of all since I am averse to spending $30 on first basemen generally and I often end up with players like Helton.

What happens generally in auctions with first basemen is that the great ones are all kept, the marginal ones are all tossed and what you have to bid on are more risky players. This usually means that these guys are in the low $20s value wise. So it is rare that I will spend $30 on a first basemen since not only are there usually not many that are worth it there is an opportunity cost associated with them. I usually end up with the Heltons and Adam LaRoches, and not the Pujolses, unless I am keeping them like I did with Justin Morneau.

I will never be 100% sure what to do here since I will have to review everyone's roster and try to divine what they will do with their first basemen. But right now it looks like it will be the typical situation described above. There will be no great NL first baseman in the auction.

Jimmy Rollins 32s2-Rollins was a great player and I probably would not have won the league without him. His peripherals such as contact rate, hit rate, line drive and fly ball rates all say his power is sustainable, which means he could be a $40 player again. My decision here is about whether I think I can win again or not. If I cannot then I may be better off trading him. Taking $32 out of my budget for a player can be a big problem for a rebuilding team. A rebuilding team should almost never keep a guy like this. He should be traded before final pre-auction rosters are due and if he is on the roster of a rebuilding team then it has to be considered a planning failure.

On the other hand one fact in favor of keeping him is that he will undoubtedly go for at least $32 if he is back in the auction.

Ryan Zimmerman 19s2-Two years ago when I paid $15 for Jeremy Hermida and $19 for Zimmerman my goal was that one of them would be a $30 player in 2007 leading me to a championship. As it turned out neither was even profitable. Though I love Zimmerman he only produced about $17 this year. His disappointing season in the BA and OBP departments appears to be fully justified, with a 30% hit rate, and a 9% walk rate.

Of course, he is just 23 and has two full years of above average major league success under his belt. This implies that he could be a big bargain next year if he blossoms. If I keep him it will be for two reasons. I will be gambling on a big breakout season and, since he will be an everyday young player, there is at least a reasonable chance that he will at least improve a bit and perhaps turn a marginal profit even if he doesn't turn into a $30 player.

Dave Roberts 15s2-How badly do I need 30 steals? That is always the pertinent question with Roberts. His production aside from the steals is essentially non-existent. The issue here is that if Roberts has any leg injuries he is worthless and if he doesn't he is still only a marginal keeper. He is 35 years old and 2007 represented a big drop off in steals from 2006.

Calculating an expected value suggests that I should toss him back. Let's assume there is a 25% chance of a leg injury or other circumstances that render him essentially worthless (we will call it a $5 season). The other 75% of the time I turn a small profit of $2. So 25% of the time I lose 10, and the other 75%of the time I gain $2.

Overall then, I expect to be in the negative by keeping him. Taking 100 seasons, 25% of the time I lose 10 (-250) and the other 75% I gain 2 (+150). So this is a -100 over 100 seasons, or a $1 loss.

But, that isn't all that matters. If I keep him and others value him more then I may be able to trade him to someone who wants to gamble that he will have one last 40 steal season. So then I may gain more than that marginal profit in 75% of the cases if I can trade him some percentage of the time. Since the above calculation renders an expected loss of $1 it is not hard to envision scenarios where I may be able to turn that $1 loss into a solid profit. For example, if I can trade him for a player that will produce a profit of $5 half of the times that I keep him then I completely wipe out the expected loss, and anything better than that is a victory.

Overall these are all tough cases. The only keepers I have for sure on offense are Garrett Atkins (who I will Z and make $16), Michael Bourn 7s2 (I am counting on him being a starter after his trade), Rickie Weeks 7L1 and Kelly Johnson 10s2. That by itself may be a good argument for thinking I can't win, though I would have a ton of money to spend in the auction.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Patrick DiCaprio 2007-11-13T12:10:15+00:00 Why the league-wide trade solicitation is bad strategy http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/why-the-league-wide-trade-solicitation-is-bad-strategy/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/why-the-league-wide-trade-solicitation-is-bad-strategy/#When:10:40:15
In one league I am in, a keeper dynasty draft league, I am a background adviser with a co-owner. He is my partner in my high stakes league, and since I run that team, he essentially does the day-to-day management of this other team. So I essentially act as a consultant for this team, and get all of the league wide e-mails.

A few days ago I received the following:

Willing to deal the following if anyone is interested…

Alex Gonzalez
Zack Duke
Ruben Gotay
Jeff Kent
Nomar Garciaparra
Armando Benitez
Brett Tomko
Salomon Torres


Any problems here? Well, just a few. The first is that virtually none of these players has any significant value that is worth acquiring in a trade, aside from Kent. Even in an NL-only league I doubt anyone will be rushing to acquire Nomar Garciaparra or Brett Tomko.

But what is worse is that the owner who sends this email is telling the entire league that he doesn't value these players. He is saying he will deal them to anyone for whatever he can get. Does that sound like good strategy? I hope not.

So, even if he values Kent, he signals to the league that he doesn't. It is guilt by association. If he includes Kent in a list of flotsam like this, he is lumping them together. So anyone who is interested in Kent knows that there is a possibility that he needn't give up great value for Kent. At a minimum the owner interested in Kent will at least think that he can be acquired for less than fair value.

Two more problems: the first is that your motives are transparent and lazy. Everyone in the league knows what you are up to. Since everyone knows it you have far less negotiating power than you might think. Generally the league wide e-mail is an attempt to get as many trading partners as you can, a laudable goal. But rarely does this happen. The more likely scenario is that no one responds or very few. Since everyone knows what you are trying to do, no one wants to be the patsy in a scheme to get as many trading partners to drive up the price.

The second is that no one has any obligation to respond. You aren't telling an owner how you can help him, or how he can better his team. You are asking him to help you out. Why should he respond to this? He won't unless he is desperate, and if he does you won't get fair value for any reasonably good players.

Taking a list of your worst players and saying "someone give me anything for one of these" is never good strategy. Laziness and sloth are not characteristics of a winning fantasy owner. Put in the time to make a few phone calls and to look at people's rosters.

In this particular instance it may not make a difference since the players being offered have very little value. That does not change the fact that there is no reason to go the league-wide e-mail route. Certainly in the case of good players (like Kent) this is never correct. As I write this there has been no interest in any of these players, including Kent, and this is not surprising.

This e-mail was followed by the following:

Dan Johnson (ON BASE!):
I offered Dan Johnson for a 3rd-round pick. I'd accept a supplemental 3rd-round pick now, or a pick (or picks) in subsequent seasons, or something like that. I will consider offers of less if you want to try me.

So far, the highest offer is something like a 5th-round pick. There won't be anyone this good available in the 3rd round of the draft. On-base percentage is a category in this league, after all!

Josh Barfield (STEALS!):
I offered Barfield for a 2nd, but I'd take less than that... make me an offer, please! He will get drafted in the 2nd round by someone, but I'd take a lesser pick obviously. Someone has to have roster space to take a chance on a guy with this sort of speed (35 SB in 959 career AB).

I cannot paint a pretty picture of his 2007 season, but he was only 24 years old. Casey Blake looked awful at 3b in the playoffs, and Peralta really should be at 3b instead of SS. So, it's not unreasonable to expect Cabrera to play SS with Barfield getting another try at 2b. And he's stolen 35 bases in 959 career AB, which is a lot in the slow AL. :>>

Updates on available players:

2nd-round:
Josh Barfield (make me an offer!)
Sean Casey (I would give something back, but he's a good BA/OBP guy)

3rd-round:
Kyle Davies
Miguel Batista
Dan Johnson (make me an offer!)

4th-round:
Chad Gaudin
Chris Lubanski

6th-round:
Jensen Lewis (you saw what he did to the Yankees in the playoffs)
Shane Costa (needs a chance, he keeps destroying AAA pitching)

7th-round:
Rich Thomson (9 K in 6.2 IP after similarly crazy AAA numbers, 22 years old)
Odalis Perez
Chris Snelling

8th-round:
Mackay McBride
Mitch Talbot
Craig Wilson
J.R. House
Shawn Riggans
Brendan Donnelly (won't take up a roster spot in 2008)


This is as lazy as it gets. While there are some reasonable targets here, the owner is going the wrong way about it. Suffice it to say that sending around a list of all available players and draft picks you would accept is not a strategy I endorse. Entreating your fellow owners to "make me an offer!" is hardly the way one should start negotiations. I considered sending an e-mail saying I would give up a low round pick for Barfield or Johnson, but decided against it. I am sure that had I done so this owner would have lambasted me for "insulting" him with a low-ball offer. Yet, isn't this what he asked of the league?

One of my co-owners in my high stakes league called me yesterday to talk deal. We are not allowed to make deals until after Thanksgiving. But he was laying the groundwork. We discussed what I thought of my team, whether I would be rebuilding after my victory, what players I liked etc. So when he is looking to do a deal he will know how he can try to help me and help himself. That is the smart way to do it, laying the groundwork ahead of time, thinking about how he can help me and understanding what my goals are for the coming season.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Patrick DiCaprio 2007-11-06T10:40:15+00:00 A fantasy ethics issue http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/a-fantasy-ethics-issue/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/a-fantasy-ethics-issue/#When:11:01:15
Team A was in second place in a head to head league, in its final week of the regular season. He wanted to play the sixth place team at the time in the first week of the playoffs. But since he is in second place, he would have to play the seventh place team, who he incidentally also happened to be playing in the last week of the regular season.

He wanted to know if it was "unethical" to rest his entire team and take a zero for the week. This would guarantee a victory for the seventh place team, who might be able to overtake the current sixth place team. If this happened then he would get his matchup against the current sixth place team in week one of the playoffs.

There was apparently nothing in the league rules against this. His argument was that it wasn't really that much different than teams playing out the string with minor leaguers or resting guys for the playoffs in football in week 16 etc.

There must be some pretty shady characters out there. It should be obvious that no justification other than "win at all costs" could be a legitimate basis for doing these shenanigans.

Only short-sightedness and a complete lack of regard for anything other than one's own fortunes can justify this tactic. Yet, as can plainly be seen, there is no shortage of players trying to "out-lawyer" their league mates, outright collude and baldly cheat if given the chance. Moreover, many players believe that this is OK. In response to my column on the collusive trading in my high stakes league someone emailed me to say that anything that is not against the rules is OK, end of discussion.

This attitude is appalling in my opinion. Fantasy baseball should be a fun game, and moves like this take all of the fun out of it. Plus, if you will be in a league with the same owners it will easily end up to your detriment. Owners will not trade with you, will conspire against you, will actively seek to screw you over should the opportunity arise. It has all happened in my high stakes league this year and likely in many other leagues as well. Personally, I make it a point to avoid any allegations of ethical laxity since I think it will be to my disadvantage in the long run, and I never know what may be coming down the pike next year or the year after. If you are in a league for the long term you should think in the long term.

The player who posed this question clearly hadn't given much thought to what he was proposing. Firstly, it is hard to imagine that the advantage to be gained is significant if any. If you are the second best team in your league and have to choose between the sixth and seventh place teams it is almost certain that the marginal difference between the two is minimal. Secondly, there is no guarantee it will work. He still needed the sixth place team to lose. On the other side of the calculation are the whole host of factors that augur against this tactic.

Much like Faust, you are only cheating yourself when you make a deal with the devil. If the owner above went ahead with this stunt and won the league, it would only matter to him. No one in his league would give him full credit and it would be tainted. Self-satisfaction would have to be its own reward, unless you think that winning a few hundred dollars is worth the enmity and scorn of your league mates.

There is no reason to take a "win at all costs" attitude in fantasy baseball. It is a fun game generally played for small stakes and bragging rights. What good is it to win by cheating or by unethical means? Like the golfer whose best wood is his pencil, you are only deluding and cheating yourself.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Patrick DiCaprio 2007-10-30T11:01:15+00:00