• Hot Hitters:  This has hitting stats for the past 20 days of all hitters with 1+ AB.  Besides your typical 5×5 stats, it includes BABIP, OBP, OPS, SLG, and K%.  Players are ranked in descending order of their ‘Heat Index’ which is calculated using a mix of Hits, Runs, HRs, RBI, SBs, and ABs.  Each player is indexed against the 156th most valuable hitter for the period (156 hitters are active on a given day in a 12-team league).  While it isn’t possible for us to know if he’s available or not in your league, we provide pre-season and in-season $ estimates (based on 12 team 5×5 ESPN rosters) – the higher those values, the more likely a player is already owned.
• Hot Pitchers:  This has pitching stats for the past 20 days of all pitchers with 0.3 IP.  Besides your typical 5×5 stats, this includes FIP, Blown Saves, Holds, K/BB, K/9, and Quality Starts.  Players are ranked in descending order of their ‘Heat Index’ which is calculated using a mix of Wins, Saves, Earned Runs, Hits, Walks, Innings, and Holds.  Each pitcher is indexed against the 108th most valuable pitcher for the period (108 pitchers are active on a given day in a 12-team league).  Pre-season and in-season $ estimates (based on 12 team 5×5 ESPN rosters) are provided for each player to help identify players more likely to be free agents in your league.

The inaugural #1 hot hitters/pitchers are Carlos Gonzalez (edging out Josh Hamilton) and Johnny Cueto (edging out CC Sabathia).

As with our other Player Raters, the grids are sortable and you can filter based on position (including SP vs. RP).  The data should update every weekday by around 10AM EST – the last column will indicate the last day’s worth of games that are included.

If you see a player missing or set at the wrong position, please mention it in the comments section of the latest post.  Please note that players just called up may take a week or so to be added.

The player rater work is an adaptation of the Point Shares methodology I’ve used the last couple of years for pre-season and post-season player estimates.  Here is a link to a favorable test I did earlier this year vs. ESPN’s player rater methodology.  After some trial and error plus assistance from a variety of folks (Eric K at my favorite fantasy baseball escort service – EliteFantasyPlayers.com - and Doug at Dougstats.com among others), we now have a fairly automated system for updating in-season player rankings on a daily basis.

The Razzball Player rater is at –> Fantasy Baseball Player Rater and covers the following 5×5 league formats:

• ESPN Roster format (C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/9 P) – 10 Team / 12 Team / 14 Team / 15 Team / 16 Team MLB
• Yahoo! Roster format (C/1B/2B/SS/3B/3 OF/2 UTIL/2 SP/2 RP/4 P) – 10 Team / 12 Team / 14 Team / 15 Team / 16 Team MLB
• AL-Only (2 C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/9 P) – 10 Team / 12 Team
• NL-Only (2 C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/9 P) – 10 Team / 12 Team

The table is ranked based on a players’ projected Point Shares (a player’s value in standings points vs. the average player with some factoring in of position).  Dollar estimates are provided both for in-season as well as comparisons vs. pre-season estimates.  Take the dollar estimates with a grain of salt for now – they should become more stable as the season goes on.  You can filter by position (P for all pitchers, -P for all hitters) and sort by any of the columns (1 click ascending, two clicks descending).

There are two pages focused on popular hitter/pitcher stats outside of 5×5 (popularity based on our pre-season poll results).  These tables are filterable/sortable as well.

• Hitting – OBP, SLG, OPS, Hits, Total Bases
• Pitching – Quality Starts, Holds, Losses

Lastly, there are two tables that highlight differences between pitcher FIP vs. ERA and hitter BABIP vs AVG.

• The pitcher table is sorted based on the ‘luckiest’ pitchers – i.e. pitchers ranked in descending order based on the difference between their FIP and their ERA.  For those wondering why I chose FIP vs. xFIP, I do not have access to the league-average fly ball to home run ratio nor pitcher HR:FB ratio.  You may also find that my FIP estimates are slightly off from other sources – this is mainly because I cannot currently separate out intentional from non-intentional walks but it can also be due to how the ‘constant’ is applied to bring the league average FIP in the 3.20 range.
• The hitter table is sorted based on the ‘luckiest’ hitters - i.e. hitters ranked in descending order based on the difference between their current AVG and their expected AVG.  A hitter’s expected AVG is calculated by applying a hitter’s 3-year BABIP to their in-season performance.  3-year BABIP was used as this stat does vary per hitter based on various factors (line drive rate, their speed, GB to FB ratio, etc.) but a hitter’s BABIP tends to be steady in the long run.  Hitters with less than 100 AB in the previous 3 years are given the league average BABIP of .300.

I’ll do my best to keep these tables updated daily (generally by 10 AM EST).  The last column of each chart reflects the last games included so it will be transparent when it has not been updated for a couple days.  While I will do my best to keep on top of the moving pieces, please do not hesitate to provide the following information in the comments section of Grey and/or my posts:

• Any missing players from the tables (for now, I’m including any hitter/pitcher with 1+ AB or 0.1+ IP.  That minimum threshold will likely increase as the year goes on.
• Any position eligibility changes based on 10 game in-season eligibility (I know Yahoo! is 5 games but prefer to make one change across both).  For hitters where position eligibility seems imminent (e.g., Jesus Montero at catcher), I include the additional position and add an asterisk at the end of it.
• Any wonky data or functionality

Other potential FAQ:

• Will you ever have a ‘rest of season’ player rater?
• Maybe.  Would be dependent on a respected projection source providing an uploadable file that is 1) updated on a regular basis, 2) accounts for expected playing time, and 3) is free.
• Will you create a dynamic player rater to reflect any conceivable league format?
• Not planning on it.
• Was your wife turned on by this accomplishment?
• Nope.  She prefers it when I go Don Draper and fix shit around the house in a white t-shirt.

We decided to take the plunge this year with a league consisting mainly of poker degenerates (Derek Carty of BaseballProspectus is the only other ‘pert).  The league is sponsored by daily fantasy sports site DraftDay (“Where every day is draft day!” exclaims Rudy Gamble) with the fantasy baseball league’s blog hosted at http://www.ddfantasybaseball.com.

This was the first time that Grey and I have been in a 10-team AL auction.  I’ve been doing an expert 12-team AL auction the past 2 years and Grey popped his AL-only cherry in a 12-team CBSSports AL league we are co-managing (FWIW, that CBS team is my least favorite team going into the season).

There were two quirks to the draft:

1. The $260 could be used to fill bench spots as well.  Once every team with $ has filled all their starting + 5 reserve spots, the remaining teams fill out the rest of their rosters via a snake draft.
2. The draft was done via an AIM chat room + Skype

The first quirk plays to one of our strengths as we tend to have a little money left over at the end of the draft.  So this could allow us to stock up on some reserves with assured playing time or high-end prospects.  The second quirk made it impossible for Grey to bid so he listened in via Skype while I did Razzball’s bidding (cue evil laugh).

Below is our team.  Here are the full draft results (along with Point Share $ per player at a straight 154/96 Hitter/Pitcher split):

One constant throughout our drafts this year has been a concern for value at 1B/3B.  We’ve gotten a 1B every time in the first round and snagged Longoria in the 2nd when available and punted for someone like Moustakas in late rounds.  Thus, it should come as no surprise that we budgeted $35 for A-Gonz (assuming M-Cab and Pujols would go for more) and $33 for Bautista or Longoria.  We were psyched to nab A-Gonz and Longoria for $2 less than budgeted (and bumped Bautista up to $34 in the process for a competitor).

Our third offensive pillar was an OF in the $25-$30 range.  We got Granderson at $29 but don’t love the pick given that OFs went for less than I expected – e.g., Hamilton for $25, Cruz for $23, Choo for $22.  The prices were discounted enough that we nabbed a 2nd strong OF in Adam Jones.

I overpaid on Bourjos but we needed speed – Grey was pissed that I didn’t bid more aggressively on Gardner who went for a fair price at $22.  I think I’d be a bigger fan of Gardner if he had either HR or AVG upside but I don’t think he has either.  I addressed speed as well by only going $1 over the budgeted $20 on the 2B/SS pair of Jemile Weeks and Cliff Pennington.  The best thing I can say for the rest of the hitters is that they’ll have solid playing time and we may have some upside in June with Mike Trout, Ryan Kalish, and Salvador Perez.  I’m not thrilled about getting stuck with Abreu after no one topped my $1 bid but hopefully he’ll get 300+ AB with the Angels or another team.  Also, while I’m glad I didn’t get caught overbidding on Valencia or Betemit, it’s TBD whether Lillibridge gets enough playing time to be an adequate CI.  I had Parmelee on my ‘late round’ checklist and wished I got him for $1 during the later rounds.

As for pitching, I really wanted an ace that wouldn’t cost more than $24.  I went last year in an AL 12 team with Hellickson and Phil Hughes as my aces.  Our 2012 CBSSports AL team has Justin Masterson as the ace.  Thus, I was happy (Grey less so) that we were able to nab Lester for only $22.  Colby Lewis is a solid #2, Sale/Peavy make for higher risk/upside #3/#4, and we got an Athletic (Milone) and three Marginers on the cheap in Millwood, Beavan, and Hultzen (rookie who could get called up in May/June).   Real happy to get such SP depth in a league like this as it can cost a lot of FAAB to acquire it once the season starts.  We only needed one closer and Walden is fine at $12.  K-Rob seems like a bargain at $2 given his K-rate and that he’s next in line for saves in New York in the spare chance that Mariano Rivera ever ages.  F-Cord was our last pick who’ll generally be on the bench (it’s a weekly league) but might deliver some cheap saves if Santos gets hurt.

Overall, I think we have a contending team.  I don’t think we have any weak spots, we have decent depth, and have a good mix of reliable and high upside players.  Our luck, the shitty CBSSports AL team will catch all the breaks (1st prize – you can mention you won on your own blog!) and this team will implode.

There are three main components to developing pre-season fantasy baseball rankings:

1. Playing Time Estimates (PA/AB and IP)
2. Statistical Projections (HRs per AB, K/9, etc.)
3. Methodology For Converting #1 and #2 Into Player Rankings/Value

Most player rankings are published as ‘Top 200′ or ‘Top 300′ with no stat projections.  I call these ‘curated’ lists.  Each curator creates their list differently but I’d gather that they probably all use some source for Playing Time and Stat Projections and then use their fantasy experience to determine each player’s value (vs. an actual formula).  For testing purposes, you have to test the composite effectiveness of these three variables since they aren’t explicitly listed in the rankings.

It would seem straightforward to just test each Player Ranking (or isolated component) against the end of year results.  Matt Swartz of FanGraphs did a great test of Projection systems isolating wOBA and ERA.  But here are the challenges that I see for such a test to have fantasy baseball relevance:

For those that care about this sort of thing, here is a link that tests the Point Shares (Late March) against the other sources.  Other that Grey’s rankings, Point Shares performed better at a 99.9+% statistical confidence level.  This means that – based on these results – it would have lost to one of the other sources in less than 1 in 1000 instances.

General takeaways (all specific to the 12-team MLB 5×5 format although I imagine much of it would apply to other formats):

• The vast majority of pre-season rankings have a slight negative correlation with projected team performance.  Even the few that were positive aren’t very positive (8% being the high) when you consider the previous test showed that 64% of a team’s success is correlated to the actual performance of their draft picks.  It’s likely there are high-stakes fantasy baseball players or subscription sites who could exceeded this 8% but, for now, it’s the ceiling.  So I surmise that…
• Somewhere around 55% of fantasy baseball team performance is driven by drafted players performing above/below consensus expectations (including injuries) – or, in other words, luck.  (Note: This isn’t the sum of all luck as I would think there is also luck involved around in-season pickups performing above/below consensus expectations)
• The delta between the best performing rankings and worst performing rankings (~20%) is perhaps a rough estimate of the true difference between the best and worst drafted teams prior to the season (assuming the worst drafter didn’t veer too far from ADP).
• Further proof can be seen in the nominal difference (-5.0% vs. -6.1%) between the ADP of the top 100 finishing RCL teams vs. all 456 teams.  The Top 100 teams clearly drafted  better judged on final season performance but it couldn’t have been predicted to any significant degree before the season started by any of these sources (and, I’d surmise, anyone)
• Pre-season standings calculations are – by and large – a waste of time and energy unless it can be shown that the source’s stat + playing time expectations greatly exceeds the 8% ceiling found in this study (i.e., Having the most Point Shares $ value after the draft would increase one’s chances of winning by a negligible amount vs. 1/12th of a percent in a 12-team league) 
• RCL ADP’s correlation for the Top 100 and All Teams is further from 0% than I expected.  I have a theory later in the post on why.
• The small delta (0.2-0.3%)  between the $-converted and non-$ converted Point Shares calculations (March 8th and Late March) is a positive sign that no ranking source was significantly helped/hurt by the $ conversion process.
• Aside from major injury news (Wainwright, Utley, K. Morales), the learnings from early March until opening day are fairly minor.  Point Shares improved from 6.8% to 8.0% in correlation.  This difference is statistically confident at an 81.3% level – so it’s meaningful but not overwhelming so.  So for you multi-league drafters who have a late March draft, don’t feel too much pressure to update your rankings (I would scan for injuries/playing time shifts though).
• Combining/averaging rankings (like FantasyPros.com does) pays some dividends but is no panacea.  I use multiple sources for both my stat projections and playing time estimates based on the belief that my rankings are more likely to suffer from an outlier than benefit (case in point, if you used just Oliver like THT, you’d have Juan Francisco as a top 10 player in 2011).  But if you are just combining a bunch of ‘safe’ rankings (the next section will define this further), you are not removing any risk.  You are just creating one big vanilla-flavored rankings porridge.  I’d rather identify a base rankings source (I’d recommend Point Shares) and then average it with a 2nd source as a sanity check
• I averaged my Late March Point Shares with Grey’s rankings and got 8.1% (vs. 8.0% for Point Shares alone).  So no major gain but it didn’t hurt either.
• I averaged my Late March Point Shares with FPro’s rankings and got 2.76%.  So adding in the safer rankings just dragged Point Shares down towards mediocrity.

Personal takeaways:

• I’m obviously quite happy to see how (relatively) well my Point Shares did – although it’s humbling how small a percentage it explains in team performance.  Here’s the humbling math – if one team in a 12-team league used +8% correlated rankings (Point Shares) and the others used -8% correlated rankings, that would increase the +8% team’s chances of winning from 8.33% (1/12th) to 9%.  Perhaps that explains why Grey and I didn’t have a ton of fantasy baseball success last year despite doing so well in this test.  (That and Mornoooooooooooo!)
• I can’t believe Grey did so well.  Given that he published them in February and his percentages beats my March 8th estimates, I’d say he’s the real (if not statistically significant) winner.  It’s quite annoying because it makes this study seem rigged – all I can say is that I did not make any changes to all the sources’ rankings (other than the 3 players noted ab0ve),  RCL Draft results, or final standings.

I ran two correlations to better understand the similarity (or lack thereof) between the various rankings.  The first chart (Chart #2) shows how each source’s player rankings correlates against Point Shares, Grey’s Rankings, and FantasyPro’s aggregated rankings (average of 18 separate rankings).  The second chart (Chart #3) shows how each source’s projected team values correlate vs those three sources.

Chart #2:  Correlations of Each Source’s Player Rankings vs. Point Shares, Grey’s Rankings, and Industry Average (Sorted by Uniqueness to FPRo Aggregated Rankings)

Chart #3 Correlation of Team Projected Values By Each Rankings Sources (Sorted by Uniqueness to FPro Aggregated Rankings)

Here are the participants in the first annual Razzball ‘Expert’ League (links if they posted a draft review):

Razzball – Grey Albright
Razzball – Rudy Gamble
Yahoo! – Brandon Funston
Yahoo! – Scott Pianowski
Yahoo! – Andy Behrens
FanGraphs – Eno Sarris
Hardball Times – Jonathan Halket
MLBTradeRumors.com/RotoAuthority – Tim Dierkes
Mastersball – Ryan Carey
Rotowire – Dalton Del Don
SI.com – Eric Mack
Steamer Projections – Dash Davidson

Here’s a link to the entire Draft Recap:

Grey:

As mentioned in our 2nd podcast, ESPN screwed me for messing with them for the last five years.  Right before my 1st pick, my computer crashed.  Here’s me during the draft.  “Hey, I have the 7th pick.  Awesome.  I’m gonna have a 1st baseman.  I might even get Votto.  I wonder who that lady is watering her lawn across the street.  Maybe I’ll stand up carefully to make sure I don’t knock over my coffee and get a better look–NOOOOOO!  Crap, mother-effin’, son-of-a-motherless-goat!  Reboot!  Reboot!  Reboot!  Okay, it’s rebooting… I have a minute and thirty seconds… Reboot!  DAH!  I drafted Robinson Cano!”  And then that dictated just about all my other hitter picks.  Since I had Cano, I couldn’t grab Kinsler, didn’t want a shortstop and the only 1st baseman or 3rd baseman within the vicinity was Tex and I wasn’t drafting him with my 18th pick.  So I took Giancarlo.  Then I really felt like I needed to make sure I had some sorta corner man so I reached for Zimmerman.  Not feeling totally comfortable with Zimmerman as my 3rd baseman, I reached for Hosmer for my other corner.  Then I felt like if Zimmerman got hurt again, I should have another 3rd baseman, so I grabbed Aramis, then I realized later on that Aramis wasn’t a clean bill of health either so I grabbed Chisenhall.  Then I dropped Chisenhall when he was demoted and grabbed Smoak for the two game Japaning Day, then, when those games ended, I grabbed Eric Thames.

I may have 5 aces when it’s all said and done.  I wouldn’t even need Gio on this staff, but he fell so far down that I wasn’t going to let him go.  I’m not worried about saves, even if my closers are little iffy.  SAGNOF!  Since I had Cano and Hosmer, I took some guys that may be average drains, but should give steals and power.  Though, I do think average will be one of my biggest concerns.  In true Grey fashion (I love to pick up and drop players and talk about myself in third person), I’ve already made a few moves on pitching too.  Dropped Fuentes (right after Balfour became the closer) and grabbed Bourgeois.  Bourgeois is the kinda of guy that if he sneaks into a large playing role or if I switch him in only when he plays, he could get me 30 cheap steals.  SAGNOF!  I dropped Stauffer and grabbed Lidge when Storen was hurting (Clippard was drafted) and dropped Crain for Henry Rodriguez.  It’s a bit of a shizzshow, but, in some ways, I like to be able to juggle my last roster spots so I don’t care I wasted a pick on Chisenhall, Fuentes, etc.  Rudy gets a lot more tied to his drafts than I do.  In the end, I think I still have a solid team.  By the time you read this, I may have made three more pick-ups and drops.

Rudy:

At this point in the draft season, I’m starting to get predictable in my early round draft behavior.  I was really happy picking 10th with the confidence that either Joey Votto or (more likely) Adrian Gonzalez would fall to me and I wouldn’t have to worry about overpaying for a 1B later in the draft.  As luck should have it, Grey’s computer crashed and he auto-picked Robinson Cano vs. his preferred Joey Votto pick who came gift-wrapped to me at #10.   Longoria was an easy choice at #15 as I figured there would still be top SPs on the board by the time I picked next at #34.  The experts were more aggressive than I figured at drafting SPs however as Halladay, Kershaw, Verlander, Lee, F-Her, and Lincecum were all off the board.  Luckily, I liked Greinke slightly more than F-Her and Lincecum.  But I also liked Jay Bruce for this pick and, in retrospect, probably should’ve gamed Greinke was the more likely of the two to make it me at pick #39.  Hunter Pence was the consolation prize.

I spread out my SP selections and seemed to have a lot of success nabbing K-friendly pitchers (Lester, Beachy, Morrow).  I specifically drafted Lewis and Nolasco in later rounds because of their solid WHIPs (which help balance out Morrow).  For the first time in years, I drafted the first closer off the board (Kimbrel – 6th round/63rd pick) as the value was too great given his obscene K-rate.  Marmol and Putz came at decent values at Rounds 11/12 and I was glad to be done with closers before a closer run occurred (10 closers went in the next 33 picks after Putz).

As for offense, I just drafted for value and was able to avoid inadvertently punting AVG or SBs.  I reached for Jose Altuve whom I think has 30 SB upside with solid AVG and, like several of my teams this year, got solid R/RBI value out of my other MI spots (Alexei Ramirez, Neil Walker).

All in all, this was about as good of a draft as I could’ve hoped for.  I don’t think my team has any major weaknesses and hopefully my team has good injury karma.  It’ll be interesting to see how well I do in this type of format (12 team, daily changes) – especially without Grey as co-manager

When we started Razzball a couple years back, I decided to leverage whatever limited math and Excel skills to come up with the best source of player ranking/valuation.  This eventually led me to create Point Shares which estimate the difference in an average team’s points if they were to substitute a given player for the average player at his position.  This differs from the Standings Gain Point (SGP) concept which is more akin to VORP/WAR-methodology and uses something close to the replacement player for valuing players.  I prefer using the ‘average player’ as a benchmark vs. a ‘replacement player’ but I am not going to delve into methodology in this post (You can reference this post if this topic tickles your curiosity).

There are three major components when it comes to developing preseason rankings:

1. Playing Time Estimates (PA/AB and IP)
2. Statistical Projections (HRs per AB, K/9, etc.)
3. Methodology For Converting #1 and #2 Into Player Rankings/Value

I assume the majority of ‘expert’ rankings (Grey’s included) do not split out each of these three components.  Instead, they leverage their past fantasy baseball experience plus playing time/statistical expectations (likely based on third-party projections and, increasingly, component stats like BABIP and FIP) and create what I would call a ‘curated’ rankings list and/or auction $ values.  The initial reaction of mathy types might dismiss this for being non-scientific but, in my eyes, a well-curated player rankings beats a poorly-architected quantitative system every day of the week.

Testing curated rankings, though, is a challenge.  Unlike with projection systems where each statistic can be broken out and measured (here is a recent test done on FanGraphs), one would need to design a test that used only the order in which the players were ranked (note: $ estimates are easier).  A test design based on simulating draft results creates both logistical and methodological challenges .  For the past three years, I have taken part in a ‘Forecaster’s Challenge‘ run by Tom Tango (co-author of  The Book, creator of the Marcel projection system, and prolific blogger on InsideTheBook.com) which simulated drafts based on submitted rankings and credited victories based on total points (like in a ‘points’ league, each statistic is worth a certain amount of points).  I think Tom did a great job at creating an impartial test but the conceits with any test of this type are difficult to overcome (e.g., simulated snake draft vs. actual, reducing 2B/SS/3B to one position, 20 teams vs. the standard 12 teams, inability to factor how well a team could overcome certain draft disappointments vs. others (say, Dunn vs. Hanley) through FA replacements, etc.).

Note:  I believe I finished around the middle of the pack in each challenge.  My dissatisfaction with some of the test conceits is unrelated to my performance.

When my brain awoke this February/March from my annual winter hibernation from baseball, I hit upon the construct for a test that I believe can remove many of the conceits of past tests.  It could be used to test all of the following:

1. Player Ranking/Value Methodologies – aka ‘Player Raters’ (component #3)
2. Pre-Season Rankings (baking in components #1, #2, #3)
3. Statistical Projections (component #2 – specifically, how well do projection systems project stats relevant for fantasy baseball)
4. Playing Time Estimates (component #1)

In the process, it could also determine how much the final standings are impacted by one’s draft selections as well as the reliability (or lack thereof) of pre-season standings (as in using projections to determine who looks best in the pre-season).

Here is the test:

1. Take the draft results by team from the 38 Razzball Commenter Leagues in 2011 (hosted on ESPN, 12 team, MLB, 5×5, C/1B/2B/SS/3B/CI/MI/UTIL/9P/3 Bench/1 DL, 180 Games Started, Daily Roster Changes, Unlimited FA/Waiver pickups).  This amounts to 456 teams’ worth of draft data.
2. Create a team total based on ‘expert’ rankings/$ totals/other arbitrary metric (like ESPN Player Rater Total Points)
3. See how these team totals correlate with each team’s final Total Standings Points

Notes:

1. For testing individual components, the other two components must be kept constant (e.g., to test Playing Time Estimates, use the same Statistical Projections and Player Ranking/Value Methodology).
2. Rankings need to be converted into $ because the difference in value between picks progressively gets smaller as the draft progresses.

The key benefits of such a test vs. a simulated test are:

• These are ACTUAL draft results based on real fantasy baseball manager behavior.
• The team standings points reflect ACTUAL in-season fantasy baseball manager behavior such as replacing poor-performing draft picks, using replacement players when players are injured, etc.

I’m going to focus my first test on Player Ranking/Value Methodologies (aka Player Raters) because it is the easiest one to do.  Why?  Because there is a sure-fire, uncontroversial source for Playing Time Estimates and Statistical Projections to act as the ‘constant’ – 2011 Final Season Statistics.

I tested the following free public sources as part of the test:

1. Razzball Point Shares - 12 Team ESPN
2. ESPN Player Rater (It’s one player rater so no way to customize for league format.  Note:  This link will likely be overwritten with 2012 data once the season starts.  I have archived the results.)
3. Last Player Picked - 12 Team League, $260, ‘Optimal Hitter/Pitcher Mix’, using same roster format as listed above with 6 SP/3 RP (most representative split of pitchers based on league behavior)

In addition, I tested a total points formula that’s primarily based on the one that Tom Tango created for the Forecaster Challenge:  HR+SB+(R+RBI)/3 + (H-(0.27*AB)) + 2*W + 1.5*SV + K/5 + (IP-(H+BB+ER)/2).  The one difference was to multiply Saves by 1.5 vs. 1 to better reflect RP value.

Since these leagues are ostensibly populated by Razzball readers, I first wanted to test to see if there might be any bias in draft behavior.  Below are the correlation percentages between the Average Draft Positions (ADP) for players in the Razzball Commenter Leagues (RCL) vs. Grey’s pre-season 2011 rankings, the pre-season 2011 Point Share rankings, and the ESPN Top 300 for 12-Team leagues.   I included all players drafted in at least 30 of the 38 leagues.  I broke out the ADP for the top 100 teams vs. all 456 teams to see if there might be a ‘Razzball’ bias amongst only the top teams.

I assume the extremely high correlation with ESPN’s Top 300 for 2011 (96.7%)  is driven by the default ADP used in the draft software.  Interestingly, Grey’s rankings and my Point Share rankings differ from ESPN’s (78-85% correlation) but differ more from each other (~73% correlation).  Given these correlations, I think it’s fair to assume that the Razzball Commenter League (RCL) draft results are fairly indicative of standard ESPN drafts.

Here are the correlation % results for the Player Ranking/Value Methodologies (links to each were provided above, here is an aggregated view).  I tested both my actual Point Shares as well as my conversion to dollars.  ESPN Player Rater is based on their Total Points in their Player Rater.  Last Player Picked is based on their $ estimates.

Other notes:

• Players not found in a player rater (usually based on injuries/missed playing time) are set at $0 for Point Shares/LPP and zero for ESPN Player Rater.
• Any player with < $0 in Point Shares/LPP is capped at $0 as players that bad (or missed that much time) were likely excised from a team roster before they could do a full season’s worth of damage (and, remember, that ‘replacement value’ is at $0).  For instance, Brian Matusz was drafted in every league.  His $ estimate in Point Shares was -$31 in Point Shares, -$25 in LPP, and -7.08 in ESPN Player Rater points.  All are now set to zero.  For Point Shares, I capped it at -2.64 which is the equivalent of $0.

Based on the above results, I would answer the question of “How much are the final standings impacted by one’s draft selections?” as probably somewhere in the 60-65% range.  I can’t say for sure since it’s unclear what the actual ceiling for player rater accuracy.  Please note that this is a wholly different question than “How much are the final standings impacted by one’s draft selections as valued by preseason rankings/projections?”  That will be answered in my next test.

With assistance from Jared Cross (co-creator of Steamer Projections), I tested to see whether these differences vs. Point Shares are statistically relevant at a 95% confidence interval (this is the typical standard confidence interval used in research).  Here were the findings (worksheet found here):

The minute difference between Point Shares and my $ values isn’t that surprising since my dollar conversion formula is just a calculation from the Point Shares.  If it resulted in significantly different results, it would be a sign that my calculation was flawed.

I cannot say for sure why Point Shares beats ESPN and Last Player Picked as I do not know all the details behind their methodology.  They correlate at 93.5% which isn’t markedly higher than their correlation vs. Point Shares (89.9% for ESPN, 92.4% for LPP).  Last Player Picked is the more transparent of the two in terms of methodology and it’s clear that Mays @ LPP uses ‘replacement level’ as the foundation of his analysis (vs. me using ‘average player level’).  No idea if that really plays a role here.  If I had to guess what drives ESPN’s Player Rater, I’d venture some application of Z-Scores per category.

I also really don’t care to spend too much energy researching why my Point Shares methodology appears to be superior.  One variable I can say for sure is that my position factors (e.g. a catcher w/ same stats as an OF is worth more) have no measurable impact.  I ran Point Shares with no positional adjustments and got a 63.73% correlation instead of 63.78% (z-score 0f -0.1).

If you compare each of the three rankings/$ estimates, you could potentially deduce some of the methodology differences.  For instance, it probably comes as no shock to anyone familiar with the ESPN Player Rater that – when comparing it to Point Shares – some of the largest differences come into play with players whose primary value comes from stolen bases.  Here are some examples (Point Share Rank / ESPN Rank):  Michael Bourn (47/14), Elvis Andrus (77/51), Coco Crisp (109/60), and Brett Gardner (118/66).

If Bourn was really the 14th most valuable player, you’d think that teams who drafted him received great value (ESPN had him ranked 89th in the pre-season) and performed disproportionately better vs. teams that did not draft him in the Razzball Commenter Leagues.  As you can see in this spreadsheet, teams who drafted Bourn finished almost exactly in the middle of the pack.  While this test isn’t perfectly conclusive of player value (e.g., Granderson only ranked #89), the results seem to correlate fairly well with expectations.  The following are in the top 10%:  Kemp, Ellsbury, Weaver, Verlander, and Bautista.  The following are in the bottom 10%: Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford, Jayson Werth, Joe Nathan, Kendrys Morales, Chase Utley.  I wonder if this potential issue with the ESPN Player Rater is driving Matthew Berry’s 2012 love for Michael Bourn (note:  even at Point Shares #47 rank, you could make an argument if you felt confident that Bourn could repeat his 2011 stats that he warrants a 3rd round pick.  I’d consider him a 5th round pick at best.)

It also should be noted that both Last Player Picked and ESPN Player Rater have significant usability advantages vs. my Point Shares.  Last Player Picked can customize $ estimates based on just about any league permutation imaginable.  While ESPN Player Rater doesn’t allow for league customization, it is updated throughout the season which is a huge advantage vs. Point Shares/LPP.

I tried to be as transparent and unbiased as possible with this analysis.  The one piece of information that I didn’t link to is the actual draft selections per team.  I will provide that once I’ve completed my next analysis.  Please feel free to comment with questions and/or to point out ways I may have screwed up the analysis.

My next test will be testing 2011 Player Rankings against team results.  I will only use free, publicly available rankings unless authorized by someone at the company behind the subscription-based rankings.  All player rankings must have a date stamp prior to the beginning of the 2011 season.   If you see a notable omission below, please provide me with a link to the rankings.  Thanks to FantasyPros.com who helped me gather some of the below rankings:

• Razzball – Point Shares (1 version on March 8th, one done around end of March)
• Razzball – Grey’s Rankings
• ESPN – Matthew Berry’s Top 200
• ESPN – Pre-Season Top 300
• FantasyPros.com Aggregated Top 300
• FoxSports Top 300
• Hardball Times (Jeffrey Gross) – not public but permission-provided
• KFFL Top 200
• Last Player Picked – using 2011 Composite Stats
• RotoChamp Top 300
• RotoExperts Top 300
• SI.com Top 300
• USAToday.com Top 200

Note:  CBSSports.com uses a static link for its free pre-season guide so the link now points to 2012 rankings (if someone has a saved download of the 2011 PDF, please e-mail it to me at rudy@razzball.com).  Our pals at Yahoo! (perhaps wisely) do not publish pre-season rankings. 

Over the past 7 years, about 24% of pitchers coming off seasons with 2,700+ pitches fit one of the two dropoff criteria (< 2,000 pitchers or, roughly, missing 1/3 of the season or more) or have a significant drop in their skills (measured as xFIP increased by .75+).

I figured that if I could identify some commonalities among the injured pitchers in past years that it would help me predict which pitchers were more risky in upcoming years.  After 3 years of hitting the yearly average in my predictions, I’m resigned to the fact that the findings in my initial analysis were either fluky or I’m really bad at applying the findings.  (Or I need Tom Verducci’s assistance at being less self-critical.)

Below are my results from last year.  About 20% of pitchers had a dropoff season – my most notable misses are Josh Johnson (had predicted him the previous year), Jonathan Sanchez, Dallas Braden, Clayton Richard, Brian Matusz, and Brett Cecil.  (Wow, that list falls off fast, doesn’t it?).  My most impressive accomplishment was predicting Gio Gonzalez gets traded to the Nationals and being the first on record to nickname him Nat Gio.  Hopefully he keeps getting as much drop on his curveball as the breasts typically found in Nat Geo.

Despite my lack of success, I still shy away from drafting more than one pitcher with two of the following three criteria:   1) Throws a lot of sliders, 2) 700+ MLB pitch differential from previous year, and 3) Coming off first season with a full workload (2,500+ pitches).  See below for the dropoff statistics of pitchers that fall under these categories.

Here are ten otherwise solid pitchers that I’d prefer to have no more than 1 on my team if I could avoid it.  Consider my tepid performance to date before taking it too much to heart

(notes: pitch increase totals only include MLB, only includes pitchers who had close to a full season last year – obviously players who were injured most/all of last year like Santana and Peavy are risky.  Also shied away from known injury concerns like Marcum and Carpenter)

Michael Pineda (31.5% sliders, 2,688 pitches) – I’ve liked this guy the moment I first heard his name – probably because it made me think of empanadas which are delicious.  It seems like his poor 2nd half + velocity drop is scaring off a lot of drafters.  He went 136th in my 12-team ‘expert’ Razzball Commenter League.  Can’t argue with selecting him there but I had the 135th pick, planned to take Cory Luebke, and when he was gone, took a closer instead.

Madison Bumgarner (32.4% sliders, 1,500 pitch increase) – I love the Mad-Bum.   We drafted him in the 6th round of our 15 Team LABR mixed league.  Might’ve had him in a couple more leagues but the bidding got too high.  But last year was his first full year in the bigs and he throws a whopping 32% sliders – 4th highest among SPs – and it’s his most effective pitch (3rd best slider among starting pitchers with a wSL of 17.7 – i.e., his slider saved 17 runs above the average pitch).  His fastball came in about league average for effectiveness.  There are pitchers who can manage this type of pitch mix (Clayton Kershaw, CC Sabathia) but it’s a little more risky until they’ve proven they can do it in back-to-back seasons.  (NOTE: Commenters have noted that there is disagreement about Pitch F/X’s classification of Bumgarner’s cutter as a slider and that his true slider rate might be closer to 20%.  That doesn’t remove his risk but definitely a more sustainable usage rate.  I can’t think of another recent lefty who managed a 30+% slider rate and had a productive career except for Randy Johnson – I imagine Carlton had similar usage rates too.).

Jhoulys Chacin (18.9% sliders, +834 pitch increase) – Chacin was on my 2011 list but lived up to his draft value – delivering 11 wins and a 3.64 ERA.  But his K/rate dropped from 9.1 K/9 in 2010 to 6.96 in 2011.  The part that scares me most (and I mentioned this in 2010) is that he is highly dependent on breaking pitches for success and he’s in the worst home stadium for breaking pitches.  His fastball was the 7th worst in baseball amongst starters last year on a per-pitch basis (wFB/C) while his slider, curveball, and changeup were all above average.  His changeup might be his saving grace in 2012 as it was the only pitch of the four that improved in effectiveness between 2010 and 2011.  (Note:  We have him on our LABR team too….getting a little concerned.)

Brandon McCarthy (2% sliders, 2,499 pitch increase) – The formula for getting onto the cover of ESPN Magazine seems to be this:  one marginally successful season + good sense of humor + hot wife.  McCarthy was a prized prospect that White Sox GM Kenny Williams was able to swap for the Rangers’ John Danks (one of the few marks against otherwise awesome GM Jon Daniels).  He couldn’t manage more than 120 IP in a year (majors + minors) between 2005-2010.  When he did pitch, he had bad K and BB rates.  Then, after maybe spending a week at Dave Duncan sleepaway camp, he emerges in 2011 as a ground ball pitcher with great control (1.32 BB/9) to balance against a mediocre 6.5 K/9.  He’s a fine late round pick but I see little upside with a higher than average chance of missing significant time.  (Note:  For AL-only drafters, stock up on A’s SPs.  McCarthy and Colon will both likely miss time.  I like Tom Milone and Tyson Ross at the right price).

Tim Stauffer (0% sliders, 1,774 pitch increase) – Similar to McCarthy.  Prized prospect derailed by injuries.  Throws a lot of pitches that turn into ground balls once hit (I wanted to write ‘throws a lot of ground balls’ but that could be confusing and our blog is incomprehensible enough.).  His wife’s not bad to look at.  Maybe it’s his previous ‘prospect’ status that hides the fact he’s not particularly good.  He’s had a lot of success with his fastball the past two years but it’s hard to put much faith in a 90 MPH fastball that clearly doesn’t lead to a lot of swing-and-misses (6.2 K/9) or comes with pinpoint control (2.6 BB/9).  He’s a Hodgepadre so he’s got some value for home starts but I wouldn’t consider him any better than, say, Clayton Richard.

Jordan Zimmermann (24% sliders, 2,464 pitch increase) – The other Jay-Z came back from Tommy John surgery to post solid if not spectacular numbers in 2011.  His ERA and WHIP (1.15) were helped by low HR and BABIP rates.  His control was very good (1.73 BB/9) so he still projects to be solid at WHIP.  I’m wary of the fact he threw 24% sliders (his most effective pitch) and still had a mediocre K-rate (6.9 K/9).  He’s probably going to go higher in drafts than I like.

Ervin Santana (38.4% sliders, 108 pitch decrease) – I think I put Ervin Santana on the list every other year.  From 2006-2010, Ervin Santana was the bizarro-Saberhagen – good in the even years, bad in the odd years.  He broke the streak in 2011.  I just can’t sign up for a pitcher that is so dependent on the slider.

Dan Haren (0% sliders, 25 pitch increase) – Might as well go out on a limb for my 10th choice.  There aren’t many pitchers as consistently great as Dan Haren – 7 years straight of 215+ IP, 4 straight years of a sub-3.50 xFIP, a sub 2 BB/9 rate in 4 of the past 6 years.  So why the concern?  Much like Roy Halladay, Dan Haren has morphed from throwing a standard pitch mix (Fastball/Slider/Curve/Split-Finger) to relying heavily on a cut fastball.  After ditching the slider for a cutter in 2009, his cutter rate has gone from 23% to 27% to 48%.  In 2011, his cutter was the 3rd most effective on a per-pitch basis and by far the most valuable in aggregate (wCT of 30.5 runs above average was double everyone except for Halladay’s 19.5 and Gavin Floyd’s 15.5).  In fact, Haren’s cutter was the most valuable pitch in aggregate of ANY pitch in 2011.  Unlike Roy Halladay, though, Haren doesn’t have velocity to spare.  His fastball velocity has slowly decreased from 91.9 MPH in 2005 to 90.0 MPH in 2011.  His cutter was at 85 MPH (Halladay’s at 90 MPH), making it one of the slowest amongst starting pitchers.  He had great success with it in 2011 at this velocity – but the pitch really has nowhere to go but down in 2012 and the rest of his stuff isn’t good enough to warrant his ADP if the cutter fails him.

Thus, we are going forward with the 5th annual installment of Fantasy Razzball  - where the goal is to manage the  worst fantasy baseball team possible.  If you have a weak stomach or a big heart, stay away.  If you have a big stomach and a weak heart, you should see a doctor and make some changes in your diet.  If neither of those conditional statements apply, you can forget about tears in your beer.  It’ll be more like tears in your coffee and saving money on sugar.

The rules are basically the same as the past 2 years but we have a few logistical changes:

• Just as we have with our Razzball Commenter Leagues, we need volunteer commissioners to manage each league/draft time.  We’ve already recruited a commissioner for the full league (Higgins) to update standings and make sure all the leagues abide by the same rules.  So if you’re interested in being the commissioner, add your name/e-mail address in the comments.
• We used to create four ‘dummy’ teams that merely served to draft the top players and try to minimize the damage for anyone who missed the draft and forgot to update their rankings.  It didn’t work as well as hoped so instead we’re going to adjust the competitive index so it removes the last 3 teams in each league.

League Rules

• 10 Team Leagues, MLB universe, uses Yahoo! position eligibility
• All leagues must be in Yahoo! (to maintain consistent position eligibility rules and IP caps)
• Weekly Roster Changes (leaves you time to lavish on your Daily Leagues)
• C / 1B / 2B / SS / 3B / CI / MI / 5 OF / 9 P / 5 bench
• 1,250 innings cap.  No minimum IP.  No AB mins/maxes
• Leagues will be filled on a first come, first serve basis.  If you want to play in the same league with a couple friends, no problem.  Just submit the e-mail addresses at the same time.
• Each league will have four ‘dummy’ teams that merely serve to draft the top players.  This helps minimize the damage for anyone who misses the draft and forgot to update their draft list.
• 1 team per person.
• Collusion between teams is grounds for disqualification from winning the grand prize.
• Blogs/sports sites may have multiple participants but one team per writer.  These blogs will be noted in the standings and during periodic standings posts.  It is expected – but not required – for some quid pro quo mention of Razzball on your site.

• Hitter Stats
  • AB = +2
  • H = -3
  • R = -4
  • HR = -6
  • RBI =  -4
  • K = +2

• Pitcher Stats
  • IP =  -1
  • HR = +4
  • L = +8
  • K = -1
  • ER = +1.5
  • H+BB = +1

The point structure makes it so that about 2/3 of the league’s hitters as well as just about every pitcher has positive value.  So leaving a roster spot open or filled by a guy who plays once a week will hurt your team.

Grand Prize

An autographed baseball by Grey Albright, myself (Rudy Gamble), and a TBD Fantasy Razzball All-Star (last year was Neifi Perez).

Note For Sports Bloggers

We have discontinued the ‘Blogger” league but you are more than welcome to join a commenter league.  Once all the leagues are drafted, we’ll have a sign-up sheet to add blog affiliations to the master standings.

How To Sign Up

Find an open league below and e-mail the commissioner for an invite.

Commissioner:

1. VinWins — vinreich [at] zoho.com

In addition, I’ve added the following:

• 10-team and 12-team NL Point Shares.  Congrats Joey Votto on being #1.  Thank Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder for that honor (NL 1B is so bad.   I have Freddie Freeman ranked as the 2nd best 1B!  He shouldn’t be in the top 2 of anything except maybe active Reggie Cleveland All-Stars.
• OBP/OPS/SLG Guidance – It was clear from our recent poll that many of you are playing with categories besides 5×5.  It’s impossible without some serious development to deliver all the possible league permutations but this page provides the following guidance (based on 12-team values):
• Point Share/$ value change per hitter if your league uses OBP instead of AVG
• The Point Shares/$ value change if your league uses OBP/OPS/SLG as a 6th category

Why is this the case?  Here are some theories…

1. Hitters have more perceived (and maybe actual) reliability than starting pitchers.
2. The possibility that a hitter could provide value across 5 categories increases their perceived value vs. starting pitchers who could only contribute in 4 categories.  (Note:  Only 11 hitters were at least average in all 5 categories according to 12-team 2011 Point Shares (which factors position) - Kemp, Ellsbury, Braun, Bautista, Pujols, Pedroia, Upton, Votto, CarGo, Gordon, Francoeur)
3. Most fantasy baseball writers/experts primarily play deeper league formats like AL/NL-only where playing time becomes an additional variable favoring hitters.  (e.g., worst case, you can always fill a pitching spot with a middle reliever whereas there are a finite amount of hitters who get 3+ games a week).  This influenced early adopters of 12-team mixed leagues and had a snowball effect on ADPs.
4. A perception that starting pitchers are easier to a) pick up via free agency and/or b) draft in bulk or stream pitchers and play the match-ups.
5. It’s a clear preference of fantasy baseball participants who feel more confident in their ability to successfully draft late-round pitchers and pitchers off waivers.

For this post, I’m going to focus on point #1 but I might do a follow-up post to focus on #4 (which I think has some merit – PARTICULARLY the ‘b’ point).

I am also going to focus on the ESPN default roster format (C/1B/2B/SS/3B/MI/CI/UTIL/9 P) for this post but it should translate very well to two catcher leagues as well.  This is the first year I’ve estimated Point Shares for the standard Yahoo! format so I can only theorize what the best mix would be for that format.

Lastly, it is a lot easier describing this hitter/pitcher mix for auction leagues vs. snake drafts.  By converting draft picks into auction dollars, however, we can handle both draft formats at once.

So here’s the question I’m trying to solve:

For 12-team MLB leagues, do hitters provide more reliability than pitchers and, if so, what would be the optimal hitter/pitcher investment during the draft to exploit any opponent draft bias?

The most well-known hitter/pitcher ratio is $180 hitter /$80 pitcher which – in the ESPN format – represents about $26 shifted from pitchers to hitters (13/22*260=$153.63).  This tends to be the average in expert AL/NL-only leagues – for instance, the 2012 AL LABR ended up with a $182.50 average and $181.50 median hitter investment (note: that’s a 2 catcher league where the average 2nd catcher got $4).  FWIW, our 2011 NL-only LABR draft was a $179/$81 mix.

The closest ‘expert league’ format to the 12-team MLB format is the 15-team MLB format.  The 2011 Tout Wars mixed league averaged $178 for hitters so the $180/$80 ratio seems to hold true.

Interestingly, when I converted the current ADP for ESPN and Yahoo to auction dollars, both ended up with a 167/93 hitter/pitcher mix.  The 2011 Razzball Commenter League ADP came out to 178/82.  So, consciously or not, the average ESPN/Yahoo snake drafter invests more in pitchers than the average auction drafter.

To test the  optimal hitter/pitcher mix, I did the following:

• Took my preseason projected Point Shares for 2010 and 2011.
• Adjusted the auction dollar estimates based on the following mixes:  153/106 (even), 160/100, 165/95, 170/90, 175/85, 180/80, and 2011 Razzball Commenter League ADP.  Re-ranked based on those adjusted $ figures.
• Created a weight for every draft pick based on the $ estimates observed in preseason data (to avoid over-crediting top picks because no one could predict a season like 2011 Matt Kemp)
• Multiplied each weight against the estimated $ value for each player based on 2010/2011 end of year Point Shares.  Any player with negative value for the year – either because of injury or incompetence – was credited with a zero.  I tried two different weights – one proportional to the ranking (20.0 for #1, 19.9 for #2….0.1 for #200) and one that mirrors auction $ proportions ($40 for #1…$5 for #200)
• Added up these weighted $ values for the top 200 players.

For instance, let’s say Albert Pujols was the #1 pick, was worth $35 based on end of year Point Shares, and the 1st pick receives a weight of 20.0.  Player ‘Barely Rosterable’ was worth $2 and was the 200th pick in the draft which receives a 0.1 weight.  Pujols would be worth $700 ($35*20) to the end sum whereas ‘Barely Rosterable’ would only contribute 20 cents ($2*0.1).  This might seem extreme but it ensures that rankings that projects a valuable player earlier in the draft should be credited more and vice versa when non-valuable players are ranked earlier.

This test does not factor in real-world drafting – just testing how successful each of the hitter/pitcher-weighted rankings perform based on league parameters.

Here are the summarized results:

*ADP is based on Mock Draft Central for 2010 and Razzball Commenter Leagues for 2011.

While I’m not sure these results are statistically significant, the success of the even hitter/pitcher split (154/106) vs. the extreme hitter/pitcher splits (175-180 hitter/85-90 pitcher) at least directionally refutes the theory that hitters provide more reliability.

It is more difficult to determine the optimal draft strategy for a real-like 12-team MLB draft given draft room dynamics.  The biggest challenge with 154/106 is that you constantly have SPs at the top of your draft board.  Even if Justin Verlander warrants a 1st round pick, you will get less value than if you can get him in the 2nd round or a comparable pitcher in the 3rd round.  (Here’s a recent post I read that goes into more detail on the topic of market vs. performance value in fantasy baseball.).

I have found that for 12-14 team MLB leagues, a 165/95 split provides the best balance of market and performance value.  This works best in auction leagues as it delivers not only a strong pitching staff but the fairly conservative hitter $ values help provide discipline in early rounds when some drafters pay premiums for top hitters, resulting in strong hitter bargains later in drafts.  The above would also hold true for snake drafts where drafters skew heavily towards hitters.

For typical snake drafts – where ADP seems to be indicating a more moderate skew towards hitters – I think you can succeed with just about any hitter/pitcher mix – as long as you are getting value with each draft pick.  (I still prefer 165/95.)  If you’re going 180/80, you can’t then exceed your already inflated hitter auction values/rankings and you have to be really disciplined in your pitcher selections.  I’ve also found that some fantasy baseball players feel more confident in finding waiver wire value in certain positions.  I think this is fine to factor into how you weight your hitter/pitcher mix but realize that the positions that seem to have the most depth on the waiver wire (OF, SP, RP) are also the ones where you will face the most competition (since there are more roster spots for these players).  My preference is to find positions where there will be little waiver competition – 2B/SS/3B and C in one-catcher leagues seem to be the best.

Unlike many expert fantasy baseball leagues, this was a snake draft vs. an auction draft.  Standard 5×5 with 2 C/1B/2B/SS/3B/CI/MI/5 OF/UTIL/9 P/6 bench.  No IP cap.  The biggest differences vs. your standard friend league is 1) weekly roster changes and 2) a limited free agent budget of $100 with a minimum bid of $1.  These rules changed our typical draft strategy in the following ways:

1. Downgrade middle relievers as you can’t rotate them in on SP off days.  MRs are only a last resort if you have several bad SP matchups.
2. Similar to H2H, you want to have an extra SP or two on the bench to take advantage of matchups and 2 start weeks.
3. Because there is a cap on in-season pickups, we wanted to draft bench players with upside and have a roster with some flexibility to handle injuries across multiple positions.

Here is the team we drafted.

* Rosario will start at C and Montero at UTIL until Montero gets C-eligibility.

Draft notes:

• There were definitely a few surprises at the draft.  One owner drafted catchers with their 3rd and 4th round picks.  Starlin Castro was a top 30 pick (I had him as #69 – ESPN ADP of #57).  But one of these surprises helped us out a lot more than others…
• Evan Longoria fell to us at pick #20.  There have been over 500 drafts in the last two weeks on MockDraftCentral and #20 is the farthest he fell.  Even more surprising, Jonah “The Extra 2%” Keri of Grantland.com didn’t care to take him with either the 15th or 16th pick.  We debated taking him at #11 instead of Adrian Gonzalez but decided not to out of concern for 1B depth as Pujols/Miggy/Votto were already off the board, we knew A-Gonz and Fielder (taken #17 #16) wouldn’t make it back, and didn’t feel comfortable banking on Teixeira.  But to get Adrian Gonzalez and Longoria who were both in my top 13 position players was sweet.
• We had planned to take an OF with the 2nd pick and ended up waiting until our 4th pick to take Nelson Cruz.  His injuries concern us but he was definitely the best OF left on the board and came at solid value at pick #40.  To give you an idea, Desmond Jennings, Carl Crawford, and Drew Stubbs were the next three OFs taken.
• After 10 years and countless drafts, this was the first time Grey or myself drafted Ichiro.  He’s always gone about 5 rounds earlier than I think he should go.  But he was the best OF on the board by the time we had to select our 2nd OF and we needed speed.  If he bounces back to .300, steals 30 SB, and gets a respectable # of RBIs out of the 3 hole, he’s going to be a solid value.
• We planned to punt both our catcher positions but Jesus Montero available at pick #91 #131 in a 2-catcher/15 team league?  Santana, Mauer, Napoli, Wieters, and Posey were all taken in the first 66 picks.  I think he came at a discount because our league has strict position eligibility rules for the draft and he was at DH.  But it’s only 5 games in-season for C eligibility so hopefully it’s just 2 weeks or so before we can shift him to Catcher.  All this meant was that we couldn’t fill UTIL during the draft but – aside from whomever drafts Ortiz – the UTIL position is near replacement-level in a 15-team league.
• I’m happy with our pitching staff.  I’m a little warier than Grey on Brad Peacock but getting Iwakuma from the Mariners as a 7th SP makes me feel better.  Getting three closers in a 15-team league puts us in great position for top 3 in saves (or survive an injury/demotion).
• I’m pretty happy with our hitter depth/flexibility.  Carp has 1B/OF eligibility which helps if we have OF injuries/underperformance.  Ian Stewart seemed like a good gamble for bench and he could take CI in case we need to move Carp to OF.  We will dump the 3rd catcher once Montero gets C-eligibility so we can consider whether we want to roster an MI backup or another pitcher.
• Based on my projections, we ended up with a team that is average or better in all 10 categories.  We’ve ‘won’ drafts before and lost the league but this definitely gives us some confidence going into the season (FWIW, I predicted we’d finish 6th last year in LABR and we finished tied for 7th.  But I projected the team that finished in first at 11th and the team I projected would finish in 1st finished in 9th.)

For those of you unfamiliar with Point Shares, they represent the estimated difference in an average team’s points if they were to substitute a given player for the average player at his position. For more information, see here.

Here are some additions vs. last year:

• Included three $ estimates to broadly reflect drafting styles from even weighting to hitters and pitchers to a slight skew towards hitters to a heavy skew towards hitters.  For instance, the ESPN roster versions have $156/$104, $165/$95, and $180/$80 dollar splits.  The rankings are based on even weighting of hitters and pitchers but you can cut/paste the rankings into an Excel spreadsheet or Google doc to sort by one of the other two figures (to cut/paste, right click within the Point Shares spreadsheet, choose ‘Select All’, copy, then paste.
• Color-coded the category point shares so it’s easier to tell who are great/bad in each category.
• Added the ADP from ESPN/Yahoo then showed the difference vs. the Point Share ranking.  Color-coded the difference so you can see which players are 5 or more picks different in ADP vs. Point Share ranking.
• Added Steamer as a 2nd projection source (here’s one of the reasons why) and Rotochamp as a second playing time source.

Many thanks to:

• Dan Szymborski (the man behind ZiPs projections) and Jared Cross (the man behind Steamer projections) for all the work that goes into providing free, high quality projections.
• The folks at Fantistics and Rotochamp for contributing playing time estimates.
• Everyone who responded to our recent polls and shared their fantasy baseball league info.

Things I’m still mulling over:

• How to provide guidance for popular categories like OBP, OPS, and Quality Starts

Potential answers to questions asked in the comments:

• “Yes, these apply for both Roto and H2H but make sure to load up your bench with SPs for matchups.”
• “Yes, I’ll try to update the Point Shares again before the beginning of the season.”
• “Yes, balance these rankings against your gut vs. treat them like gospel.  I created these Point Shares and spent countless hours cobbling them together and even I balance this against my gut.  Jeff Francouer was at the top of the available OFs in an early draft and I still couldn’t pull the trigger on Frenchy.”
• “Yes, you could win a league using any of the three hitter/pitcher splits.  For mixed leagues, I prefer using the unweighted version (hitters + pitchers valued equally) or a slight hitter skew.  I’ll have a post up soon showing why that’s my preference.”
• “Yes, I know the Point Shares spreadsheet looks wonkier in Firefox (random gridlines missing).  Not sure why.  Looks better in IE and Chrome.”
• “Well, it matters your criteria.  If you go by sheer size and impressiveness, you have to choose my afro.  But if you go strictly by softness or ease of combing, Grey’s moustache is your choice.

Note:  About 8.5% plan to play both ESPN and Yahoo formats.

There are many different permutations in ‘Other’ but the similarities across them tend to be:

• Requiring a certain # of SP and RP (about 50%)
• Lineups with less than 13 hitting spots and less than 9 pitching spots (about 50%)
• Dividing OF into RF / CF / LF (about 15%)
• Other 2 Catcher variations (about 10%)

In this post, I’m going to tackle what I think is the biggest outstanding question:  How do player rankings vary based on ESPN and Yahoo! roster formats?

Background

Before I dig in, I think it is worth noting that I believe the vast majority of mixed player rankings (i.e., ranking all hitters and pitchers together) outside of the Yahoo! bloggers are based on the ESPN format as that is closer to the standard in most expert leagues.  (Most expert leagues use 2 C but I think most experts greatly discount the increased position scarcity this creates and just draft a 2nd catcher for $1 or at the end of the draft).  So this would mean that it’s possible that Yahoo! ADPs might be unduly biased by Yahoo! fantasy leaguers using off-site rankings.  Seems like an opportunity!

For the sake of the analysis, I’m going to focus on the most popular format – 12 Team MLB.

Hitters

The differences between the Yahoo! and ESPN default roster formats are:

-2 less OF
- No CI
- No MI
- 1 extra UTIL

In all, there are three less hitters in Yahoo! vs. ESPN which increases both the quality of rostered hitters as well as the players on waivers.

The biggest wildcard in understanding how this impacts the value at each position is how each team fills its 2 UTIL positions.  The best assumption for how teams will fill those UTIL position is using the best available hitters.  To estimate hitter value, I am using a formula that I got from Tom Tango of InsideTheBook.com – HR+SB+R/3+RBI/3+(H-0.27*AB).  The below chart shows the curve for hitter value based on each fantasy baseball position (for players with multiple position eligibility, I order the most valuable to least valuable for positions as: C, SS, 2B, 3B, OF, 1B, DH.  So a 1B/OF is placed at OF.)

Here is the OF value curve:

In the ESPN format, the cutoff for roster-worthy hitters is at about 50 points.  For Middle Infielders, this is typically at about the 18th 2B/SS which are used to fill in the last MI spots.  The same would go for 3B as it fills out some of the CI spots.  1B typically has enough depth to help contribute to the UTIL position but it’s mostly carried by the OF position (Ortiz was the only DH worthy of being rostered in 2011).

In the Yahoo! format, the fewer roster spots raise the floor for roster-worthy hitters to about 60.  If we look at the 13th most valuable 1B/2B/SS/3B, we can see that 1B still has greater value than 2B/SS/3B.  For 2011, I estimated that 4 of the 24 UTIL spots would be filled by 1B.  The 37th OF is still close to 80 points and about 20 OFs can be drafted before their value dips below 60.

The net impact is that the lack of mandatory CI/MI spots and a 2nd UTIL spot results into deeper rostering of OF in proportion to 1B/2B/SS/3B (catcher was never a threat for a team to take more than necessary).  Thus, the average OF becomes relatively more valuable in Yahoo whereas the average 1B/2B/SS/3B becomes relatively less valuable (with catchers staying at the same relative value).

* Note:  One thing I didn’t test but can theorize is the impact of Yahoo’s 10 game position eligibility policy vs. ESPN’s 20 game policy.  My guess is that it has little to no impact for those who gain additional 1B/2B/SS/3B/OF eligibility as those positions have little scarcity (and any infielder displaced by an OF with IF eligibility will likely be drafted as a UTIL in place of an OF so it balances out).  The only case where I think it has notable impact is at Catcher where the likely 11th/12th catchers wouldn’t have UTIL appeal.  In that case, it likely would reduce the scarcity at catcher with minor (if any) impact to the other positions (notably b/c it’s unlikely anyone with partial C eligibility would be drafted otherwise).  On quick review, I don’t see any notable catchers who would have Yahoo but not ESPN eligibility except for maybe Jesus Montero (who only had 3 games at C in 2011 but could be a judgment call) and he’ll likely earn C-eligibility anyway.

Pitchers

The enforcement of at least 2 SP and 2 RP eliminates the chances that someone employs an all-SP or all-RP rotation.  This is a rare tactic and one which I think IP min/max limits already address.  So I would say, in general, that 2 SP / 2 RP/ 4 P is really no different than 8 pitchers.

One key difference between hitters and Starting Pitchers is that it is more effective rotating SPs (or SP/RP) because of the days off between starts.  Even in weekly leagues, managers can rotate ’2-start’ pitchers in place of ’1-start’ pitchers.  The net impact is that fantasy league managers tend to get the equivalent of 9 pitchers out of the 8 roster spots.  I tested this hypothesis in one Yahoo! expert league we’re in and found the average team had about 1,340 IP which is about where the average team in the Razzball Commenter League (with 9 pitchers) averaged 1,341 IP.

Since there is little to no difference in terms of pitcher usage between the ESPN and Yahoo! formats while shallower hitting lineups are used, there is greater scarcity among pitchers than hitters (also could be phrased that replacement value for pitchers is relatively lower).  Thus, pitchers increase in value vs. hitters.

Conclusion

At the end of the post are charts with the top 50 ranked hitters (based on Point Shares) in the Yahoo! vs. ESPN default roster formats .  As you’ll see, pitchers generally creep up the ranking at the expense of hitters with C and OF values benefiting vs. 1B/2B/SS/3B.

After going through the full results, there isn’t a clear-cut formula I can provide on how to convert ESPN-based rankings to Yahoo.  I’ll be producing Point Shares in both formats for 2012 so you’ll be able to see the differences.

My general guidance for Yahoo! snake drafts would be (same for roto and H2H):

1) In the first 5 rounds, try to only draft 1B/2B/SS/3B if they are close to the best hitter available (position-agnostic).

2) I would aim to take an SP in the first 3 rounds and two in the first 5 rounds.  After that, you can draft SPs every 4-5 rounds with the goal of drafting at least 6 SPs.

3) I would keep the same general strategy for OF – draft one every 4-5 rounds.

4) I would keep the same general strategy for Catchers – don’t draft a catcher until they at least come at a 2 round bargain.  There will always be decent catchers available at the end of the draft and on waivers.

5) I wouldn’t draft a closer in the first 10 rounds unless they have 80+ K potential and almost no threat of being dethroned.  I would draft closers in volume in the latter half of the draft to stockpile saves and minimize risk (since they are more likely to lose their closer role).

The net result should be a team that’s stronger on pitching and OF with a likely need to dig for free agents at one or more of the 1B/2B/SS/3B positions.  With the available depth and shrewd managing, you should be able to put together a good offense and be in better position to snag breakout players vs. your competitors (who’ll be focused on SP/RP/OF on waivers).

The volume of the response wasn’t the only surprise.  Other surprises include:

• Only about 15% of Razzpondents plan on playing in a MLB league with 15, 16, 18, or 20 teams.  We expected more.  It must be that the people in those league formats disproportionately comment.
• More Razzballers use Yahoo (and its default roster format) vs. ESPN and CBSSports.com is a very close 3rd.  We like and use all three services (and have used a few of the smaller ones too) but assumed a higher percentage were using the classic roster standard used by ESPN (C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/9 P).  I’ll have a post this pre-season on how ESPN vs. Yahoo roster formats impact player rankings/values and will produce Point Shares for both the ESPN and Yahoo format.  (I’ll also note the impact of 1 catcher vs. 2 catchers).
• The biggest surprise was how many Razzpondents play non-5×5 formats.  Only 47% play 5×5 and several stats (OPS, OBP, Holds, Quality Starts) are used in at least one league for over 20% of you.  We’re thinking about how we can tailor our content to better reflect this breadth in categories.  (FWIW, I prefer 5×5.  I know the sabermetric flaws in just about every hitting stat but I don’t find using additional or alternate stats are any more fun.  And I haven’t found a 6th pitching stat that I like…)
• We knew Head-to-Head was popular (and we play in a Yahoo!-sponsored expert H2H) but we were surprised that H2H edges Roto as the most popular format amongst Razzballers for their fantasy baseball leagues.

See below for all the survey results:

I’ll be sharing the results of that poll soon but really psyched to get that much feedback. It helps us tailor the content as well as provide relevant projections/player values (like Point Shares).

I should’ve asked the below questions as part of the initial poll but brainfarted. Oh well. Thanks in advance for the feedback! We’ll share the results of this poll as well.

The poll is only 4 questions. Thanks in advance for filling it out! I’ll share the results in the Comments.

Below is a quick position-by-position review based on the 12-team Best Value comparison.

Catchers – Only 5 catchers were taken in the top 100 ADP (Mauer – #37, V-Mart – #49, Posey – #53, McCann – #57, and Santana – #97).  V-Mart and Santana provided slightly above-average value (+$4), McCann was slightly below value (-$6), and Mauer + Posey were disasters.  The big values after the top 5 were Napoli (+$17.5) and Avila (+$18) with Soto (-$10) and  Posada (-$8) the worst values.  Point Shares and Grey’s Rankings generally agreed with the RCL participants with Point Shares (correctly) less bullish on Mauer and Soto, more bullish on Napoli and Santana, but not bullish enough on Wieters and M. Montero.  Grey was best on Weiters and Montero, was less all-in on Posey, and was hurt a bit more by Posada.

Rudy’s POV:  Solid C drafting by RCL but, if you’re not getting any bargains by drafting a C in the first 10 rounds, might as well pick one up later in the draft.  Rule of thumb – figure out value of Catcher and then add 2 rounds (or -$2) before drafting.

First Basemen – The RCL, Point Shares, and Grey were in general agreement on 1B rankings.  Elite 1Bs remains one of the safest sources of value as the top 7 1Bs were worth $23+.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that Adam Dunn, Justin Morneau, and Kendrys Morales were the next 1Bs taken.  Several 1B bargains were available at the end of drafts or waivers including Mark Trumbo, Eric Hosmer, and Freddie Freeman but were best-suited for CI vs. 1B.

Rudy’s POV:  Hard to fault the RCL drafting here.  I would just beware overpaying in late 1st round through 3rd round for 2nd-tier 1Bs.  At this point, the top tier = Pujols/M-Cab/Votto/A-Gonz/Fielder in some order.  After that, there’s a notable dropoff (Teixeira is closest but his AVG woes dip into this value)

Second Basemen – Cano, Pedroia, Kinsler, and Phillips were all picked (on average) in the first 4 rounds and exceeded their pick value by an average of over $7.  Even Uggla came in relatively close to his ADP.  It was the next tier of 2Bs (Utley, Weeks, Prado) where it went downhill with only Grey (on Prado) being able to dodge the wreckage.  Point Shares were the most bullish of the three in predicting Zobrist’s sneaky good year (99/20/91/19/.269).  There weren’t a ton of waiver wire bargains to be had with Danny Espinosa ($11) and Ryan Roberts ($15) turning out best.

Rudy’s POV:  In the past, I felt 2Bs were drafted too high because drafters overrated position scarcity.  It doesn’t seem to be the case anymore – partly because there are several 2Bs that are great hitters regardless of position.  Just don’t panic if there’s an initial 2B run – better to bet on upside in the late round and play the waiver game if they don’t pan out vs. overpay for a Kelly Johnson/Aaron Hill type.

Shortstop - Aside from the Hanley Ramirez debacle, the RCL drafting of top SS was pretty solid.  Tulo didn’t quite deliver on his 8th pick but was close (25th overall ranking).  Jose Reyes, Elvis Andrus, and Jimmy Rollins were all picked near their value by both RCL and Grey’s rankings (Point Shares was less bearish on Andrus and Rollins).  The next tier of SS all slightly underperformed their draft status (Jeter, Al-Ram, Drew, Desmond, Furcal) with the horrifically injured Drew the biggest disappointment.  2011 was definitely the year to pick high or punt as there were several bargains (that none of us saw) at the end of the draft or on waivers:  Asdrubal Cabrera, Jhonny Peralta, Erick Aybar, and J.J. Hardy.

Rudy’s POV:  It’s hard to get a SS bargain except with a late round flier.  If you’re going to pay market rate, at least get someone with upside like Tulo or Andrus.  Otherwise, there are enough starting SS around by the end of the draft that I’d focus on other positions instead.

3rd Basemen – Wow, what a brutal year for top 3Bs.  Longoria, Wright, A-Rod, Zimmerman, and Youkilis came in far less than their draft status – only Longoria even made the top 150 players based on Point Shares.  They were disappointments by all three sources though I will say that Point Shares was more bearish on all five of them.  The next tier (Bautista, Beltre, Young, A-Ram) all overperformed ADPs/rankings with ADP/Grey being a lot closer than Point Shares except on Bautista which Point Shares liked the best of the three (and ahead of Youkilis and Zimmerman).    Not many bargains at all in this category with Pablo Sandoval and Mark Reynolds being slight values based on ADP (with Grey nailing both their values).

Rudy’s POV:  Avoid any 3B north of 30 with an injury history (A-Rod, Youk) or that play in a cavernous stadium.  Otherwise, go for it.

Outfielder – It would be great if I could credit RCL ADP, Point Shares, or Grey with predicting Granderson or Ellsbury but we all missed.  Most of the OF rankings are pretty close – I’ll give Grey for some credit of rating Berkman higher than most.  Several nice bargains to be had with Michael Morse, Alex Gordon, Carlos Beltran, and Melky Cabrera.

Rudy’s POV:  Solid drafting by RCL.  I remain a fan of drafting an OF every 5 rounds but it doesn’t spare you the pain when you draft a Shin-Soo Choo or Jason Heyward with your first OF.

Starting Pitchers - The top 4 pitchers overall (Verlander, Kershaw, Lee, Halladay) were the top 8 pitchers picked in RCL.  While the other 4 (F-Her, Lincecum, Lester, and Sabathia) had solid years, the impact an ace has on a fantasy team is huge.  Based on analysis by VinWins, teams that drafted Verlander and Kershaw had the 17th and 35th highest average finish for all drafted players while Lincecum and F-Her drafters finished in 254th and 259th, respectively.  The teams that drafted Jered Weaver actually had the highest average finish of all drafted players.  Bargains could be found throughout the draft including James Shields (210 ADP), Ian Kennedy (198 ADP), and Doug Fister (undrafted).

Rudy’s POV:  Starting pitchers are the hardest category on which to advise drafting strategy.  If I feel really confident that an SP will put up elite stats (200+ IP, 200+ Ks, < 1.05 WHIP, solid shot at 17+ wins), I’m willing to take them in the first 2 rounds.  But I get less confident by the year on this happening (got burnt by F-Her in one league).  Much like OFs, I’d stick with a general strategy of drafting one SP every 5 rounds.  And I echo Grey’s opinions on trying to balance risk across the pitching staff – including not falling exclusively in love with K guys (with bad WHIP) or younger upside pitchers (more likely to get injured or underperform).

Relief Pitchers  - It was a very underwhelming year for top closers – the first 5 off the board (Marmol, Bell, Wilson, Feliz, Soria) all underperformed.  The three most valuable closers (Kimbrel – $21, Storen – $17, Axford – $16) were all drafted outside the first 140 picks.  As always, there are several non-drafted relievers who became valuable pickups including Fernando Salas ($13), Sergio Santos ($11), Kyle Farnsworth ($10), and Jordan Walden ($10).

Rudy’s POV – When you invest in a top 10 closer, you aren’t necessarily buying better performance, you’re buying less risk.  I like to stock up on relievers knowing 1-2 will likely flame out and, if they don’t, you could always trade them.  Best to keep in mind how committed the team is to the closer (a pitcher on the first year of a multi-year contract will get more rope than someone in the last year of  a deal).

Last but not least, below are the official ‘Best Value 2012′ and ‘Worst Value 2012′ squads.  $580 worth of value for $153 worth of draft picks for the ‘Best Values’.  The ‘Worst Value’ team came in at -$40 worth of value for $502 draft dollars (or $55 worth of value if you don’t believe players should receive negative $ amounts – fair in cases where you have DL room and get replacement stats…unfair for those that had to keep Adam Dunn in their lineups last year).

Rudy:  Not sure.  I’d like to know what is Jayson Werth’s brawn in 2012?!

Silence.

Silence.

Rudy:  Oh, right, this is the time of year where you need me to be mathy vs. contribute sarcastic titles and player notes.

Grey:  Yup.

Rudy:  Okay, I’ll write it up a post.

————-

Assuming Ryan Braun and his bubbe can’t argue away his 50-game suspension, determining his proper draft position is conceptually hard (in reality, it is easy as ESPN/Yahoo!/CBSSports.com drafters will have an ADP as a starting point).  While crowdsourced data like ADP can be quite good, this is such a unique instance that it might be a greater opportunity or bigger sucker bet than the usual draft pick.

Here is the basic formula I’d use to determine Ryan Braun’s value for 2012 in a 12-team mixed league with 5 OF / 1 UTIL / 3 bench spots / 1250 IP cap / daily roster changes:

Braun’s Projected Stats (over roughly 70% of a season) + Replacement OF Stats for (over roughly 30% of a season) – Opportunity Cost of Giving Up a 3rd Bench spot For 50 Games.

Let’s start with the easy part – prorating Braun’s stats to a 112 game season.  ZiPs estimates Braun’s full season would have been .296/97/30/107/22 over 608 ABs.  I multiplied each of these numbers by 112/162 and got:  420 AB/67/21/74/15.

Here are the OFs that ranked from 57th to 63rd in the end of year Player Rater (will be up later this week):  Dexter Fowler, Bobby Abreu, Jason Bay, Will Venable, Juan Rivera, Delmon Young, Nyjer Morgan.  Average this motley crew’s stats together and you get:  .264/60/8/51/14 over 442 ABs.  Multiply that by 50/162 and you get:   136 AB/19/3/16/4.

Combine these projections together (weighting the Batting Average based on AB) and you get:  .288/556 ABs/86/24/90/19.  I plugged that stat line into last year’s rankings and then weighted hitters and pitchers to reflect typical drafting behavior (i.e., a $180 hitter/$80 pitcher mix).  Net result:  Composi-Braun’s stats would’ve ranked as the 47th best player at $22 (e.g., Andrew McCutchen, Jay Bruce).

That leaves us with the most abstract of the three calculations – what is the value of giving up your 3rd bench spot for roughly 30% of a season?  This value is going to vary based on your drafting ability, luck, and whether you choose a hitter vs. pitcher.  But we can still break it into three components:

1. Playing Stats During the 50 Games – Since this player is worse than your starting players, it’s assumed you’d only start them when your hitter/pitcher has an off-day (or bad matchup).
2.  Value in Adding to a Trade – While benched players don’t have a chance to contribute much in the stat line, they could bring value as trade filler.
3.  Lottery Ticket – The player you had stashed on your bench ends up being a very good player and ends up replacing a weak link in your roster.

For #1, the greatest value comes from relievers who can be slotted in during your starting pitcher’s off days.  Let’s assume you pick a solid middle reliever with a full year line of 60 IP / 3 wins / 3 saves / 50 K / 3.00 ERA / 1.10 WHIP and you can use him 80% of the time.  That would net out to:    14 IP / 0.7 W / 0.7 SV / 12 Ks.  Throw in a little credit for ERA/WHIP, and you’re maybe at about 0.8 of a standings point.  That doesn’t sound like a lot but 0.8 standings points is worth $2 based on my Point Share calculations (for the 12 team MLB format).

If you went with a hitter, you’re looking at a similar yearly line that we used for the replacement OF (.264/60/8/51/14) multiplied by 0.3 (for 50 out of 162 games) and then by 0.2 (about 1.5 games out of 7 where you have an opening to play them).  This nets out to a measly 4/0.5/3/1 line which totals out to 0.5 standing points or roughly $1.

So for #1, we’ve got an estimate of $1-$2.

For #2, I’m just going to assume $0 since the chances that your 3rd bench spot has any trade value is low.

For #3, I’ve found most of a team’s later round and bench picks usually end up on the waiver wire in a shallow league format like 12-team MLB.  There were 37 players who I valued at $10+ for end of year that Grey ranked at the equivalent of $3 or less (out of top 200).  Only 8 of those players were drafted in the majority of Razzball Commenter Leagues:  Asdrubal Cabrera (ADP 222), Michael Bourn (108), Starlin Castro (153), Jhonny Peralta (~250), Kyle Farnsworth (~250), Ryan Madson (~250), Coco Crisp (238), and Brandon League (235).  So throwing out Bourn and Castro, there were 6 players of notable value that could have been bench filler.  Since we’d be losing 33% of our bench spots, let’s assume we’d lose only 33% of these potential lottery tickets.  That nets out to 2 players in a 12 team league that might’ve been lost because of an occupied bench spot.  The average value of those 6 players was $14.   So missing out on a 16% chance to get a $14 player is worth $2.20.  (Note:  There are a whole bunch of variables/scenarios I left out for post brevity including 1) an owner might’ve still dropped the ‘lottery ticket’ in favor of another waiver pick, 2) the ‘lottery ticket’ wouldn’t be starting from day 1 so they wouldn’t earn their $10+ value, 3) there’s potential to have stashed someone worth $1-$9, 4) the replacement OF for Braun is the ‘lottery ticket’, etc.  Let’s pretend all these variables average out.)

If I figure that #1 and #3 have some overlap – the ‘lottery ticket’ would’ve either represented some of the part-time at-bats/IP or replaced a starter who became my off-the-bench plater, I’m going to say the opportunity cost of a bench spot is in the range of $3-$4.

So $22 minus $3.50 = $18.50 which is about the 60th most valuable player from last year (Carlos Beltran, Adam Jones).  So end of 5th round/early 6th round SHOULD be Ryan Braun’s ADP.  Right now, ESPN has him at 39, Yahoo has him at 48, Fleaflicker has him at 83 and Grey has him at 119.  It’ll be interesting to see where it ends up in the various leagues (including Razzball Commenter Leagues).

In other news…

Jerome Williams – The Angels’ starter has won all 3 of his Angel starts with this past one by far the best – 8 IP with just one hit (a Trayvon Robinson HR) and a walk.  Nothing to see here.  Just a 30 year old journeyman who’s perhaps half a notch more tolerable than Tyler Chatwood.

Chase Utley - Pulled out of the game after being hit in the helmet.  The Phillies brass are concerned he might have a mild concussion but Charlie Manuel is confident it’s just a standard variety ‘noggin burner’ and he just needs to rub some ‘piss ‘n’ vinegar’ on it.

Matt Cain – 7 IP, 2 ER, loss.  Same old song.  He’s now 11-10 despite a 1.06 WHIP.  He’s a career 68-73 despite a career 1.19 WHIP.  He should retaliate against the offense – I suggest he takes a dump in the pine tar.  Just don’t lose your balance or you’ll end up with sticky buns and tempt Pablo Sandoval.

Aaron Harang – Beat the Giants with a 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunner, 3 K start.  He’s now 13-5 for a team that’ s 19 games under .500 (62-81).  He’s like Steve Carlton for the 1972 Phillies except he’s not lefty, not an above average pitcher (3.74 ERA/1.39 WHIP), and has never allegedly said that the world is ruled by 12 Jewish bankers meeting in Switzerland.

Ian Kinsler – 2 HRs to up his season total to 28 and tie for the team lead (with Nelson Cruz).  If it weren’t for the .245 AVG, he’d be in the conversation with Cano and Pedroia for most valuable fantasy 2B (.245/101/28/71/23).  Or as an incompetent announcer would phrase it, “You talk about second baseman who can hit…Ian Kinsler…”

Justin Verlander - Snagged win #22 but gave up 4 ERs thanks to 2 HR / 4 RBI by his kryptonite – Shelley Duncan.  Clearly Verlander can only effectively pitch to batters shorter than him and he’s just lucky that there aren’t a lot of 6’5″+ hitters.  The Yankee and Red Sox scouts should be out recruiting locked-out NBA players for playoff rosters.  If there’s one lesson to be learned from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, it’s that if the other guy is going to go tall, you’ve got to do the same.  If there is a second lesson to be learned from MMPR, it is that if you’re producing a show that has kid actors, it is best to hide their faces behind masks so you can swap in other actors when the original ones get too old or expensive.  Saved By The Bell would still be on if it was set in Milwaukee and each of the kids wore a different sausage costume.  (Kelly Kapowski – Polish sausage.  Slater – Chorizo.  Zach – Bratwurst.  No one qualified for Italian Sausage until the summer season with Stacey Carosi.)

Victor Martinez - Hit a 7th inning grand slam.  His .325 AVG and 89 RBIs are great for a catcher but that was only his 10th HR of the year.  And he’ll have only DH-eligibility next year.  V-Mart is going to be discounted like he’s Wal-Mart.  (Correction: As noted in the comments, V-Mart has 26 games at Catcher this year so should retain C-eligibility next year.)

Daniel Bard - The Sawx’ rumored closer in waiting ruined Tim Wakefield’s billionth chance of being one of the 13 worst pitchers with 200 career wins by posting a 5-spot thanks to a single, HBP, 3 BBs, and the next pitcher giving up a run-clearing double.  That said, aside from having only 2 wins, Bard has been everything a Mr. B could’ve hoped for (2.76 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 66 Ks, 1 pity save).

Jacoby Ellsbury - 4 for 5 with a HR (#25), 3 RBIs, and 2 Runs.  5 more HRs away from 30-30.  And only 2 HRs and 44 SBs away from joining Rickey Henderson and Eric Davis in the illustrious 27-80 club.  (Oddly enough, both done in 1986 – Davis in 415 ABs!).

Manny Acosta – Got the save for the Mets as Parnell and Izzy threw 30+ pitches the night before and no one else in the bullpen had 299 saves.

Carlos Lee - Hit his 15th HR of the year – and his 3rd in the past 8 games.  Maybe El Caballo doesn’t need to be taken to the glue factory just yet.

Andrew McCutchen – The Dread Pirate HR’d twice against the Astros.  He’s now at 81/22/85 but only 20 SBs and .269.  Jeff Francoeur has 20 SBs.  Braun has more than 20 SBs.  Can’t the Pirates hire Omar Moreno to be his Davey Lopes?

Chris Carpenter - Shut out the Brewers on 4 hits, 2 BB, and 5 Ks.  He also allegedly yelled an expletive at Nyjer Morgan.  Maybe he just mispronounced his name.

Rafael Furcal – Another HR – his 4th in the last 8 games.  He had 4 in his first 63 games.  Even with the sudden power burst, wow do his stats look bad this year.  .215 AVG?  5 SBs?  When did Rafael Furcal turn into Rafael Belliard?

Roy Oswalt – The 2nd best Roy in Philly is looking close to his old magical self again with a 7 IP, 7 K, 2 ER effort vs. Atlanta.  I’m having a premonition – Oswalt pitches well through the regular season + 1st round of the playoffs, makes some bad throws in the championship series, says he’s going to retire to spend more time with his family and tractor in Mississippi, and then end up playing again in 2012, 2013, and 2014.  It’s just the Mississippi way.

Jemile Weeks – 4 for 5, now batting .303 with 22 doubles, 21 SBs, and 0 HRs.  Growing up, Jemile was always the fast one, Rickie was the strong one, and Nynind’haph was the seductive one.

Brett Pill - 2 games, 2 HRs, for the Giant rookie 1B who mashed in AAA the past two years while the Giants skipped over him to promote rookie tease sensation Brandon Belt.  Proof once again that when grabbing for the Belt, it’s better to be safe and take the Pill first.

Early congrats to the owner of team Bill Bergen c. 1909 (aka commenter ‘Tom’) who has the early lead. Your team must really suck. Although they can never suck as much as your team’s namesake. E-mail us your address at info@razzball.com and we’ll send you a free t-shirt. The same goes for the owner of the Pesky Pole Dancers in the Razzball Commenter League. For those unfamiliar, we worked with a company to design two t-shirts – a Sparky Anklebiter shirt and a “It’s Tough Being In A Platoon” shirt. They’ve got several other t-shirts as well that are sans Razzball fingerprints. Buy one of the t-shirts now and receive a free once-used envelope and invoice with your name on it!

Early congrats to the league, Razzball 5, which so far has the highest competitive index of 107. It’s probably because you’re collectively out-pacing the 1250 IP cap but at least your innings so far have stuck.

The competitive index is based on the point totals of the top 8 teams in each league. If your league is bad (good?) enough to have 3 teams that fall below the top ‘Razzball Dummy’ team, I use the ‘Razzball Dummy’ team’s points.

Second to last note: I had Vin Mazzaro on my bench for his historic 14 ER in 2+ IP. Sonavabench!

Last note: If you’re in one of the Fantasy Razzball Leagues, fill out this form to add your Razzball Commenter Handle:

Onto other fantasy baseball news….

Jake Peavy - A 3 hit shutout with 8 Ks against the Indians who’ve recently been scalping opposing pitchers.  To quote the great Larry King, “Sorry Mr. Westbrook but the best Jake pitching today is Jake Peavy”.

Bartolo Colon- How fitting.  Jake has his first great comeback start and the Fatman nearly matches him (8 innings, 0 ER, 3 hits).  Now they just need to thank their doctor who I think first starred in the Six Million Dollar Man.

Pedro Alvarez – 3-run HR for Alvy.  Maybe he’s finally figuring out how to get the lobster in the pot.  Reminds of this old joke about two elderly Pirate fans sitting on the Roberto Clemente Bridge.  One of them says, “Boy, the Pirates’ <fill in 3rd baseman> has been really terrible.”  The other says, “Yeah, I know, and too few at-bats.”

Jon Niese – 7 shutout innings with 7 Ks.  You made your Aunt and Uncle proud!

Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman - Yes, the Cardinals were victorious against the Astros and Bud Norris (with that last name, shouldn’t he be a Texas Ranger?) but both Holliday (quad) and Berkman (wrist) were out of the game by the 5th inning.  Much like the rest of our existences, they are ‘day-to-day’.  Bud Norris must’ve roundhouse kicked them with his mind.

Mark DeRosa – Left the game in the middle of an at-bat when he re-strained his wrist.  That hurts more than having your wrist restrained – depending on who’s doing it.  If it’s Mrs. DeRosa, I would not be check-swinging.  The official announcement is ‘day-to-day’ but I’d move the versatile DeRosa to ‘Left Out’ in all but NL-only leagues (where we unfortunately have him).

Kyle Lohse – Another strong (8 innings, 1 ER, 7 baserunners) yet not dominant (3 Ks) start.  He should change his last name to Wihn.  He’s now 5-2 with a crazy low BABIP (somewhere in the .215 range).  His ERA/WHIP might be due for regression but he’s still worth starting while he’s on this streak.

Craig Kimbrel – Okay, maybe it’s officially time to start worrying.  Tonight was blown save #4 and it was an ugly one – 2 ER & 4 hits  in 1/3 of an inning to spoil the Braves second straight extra inning victory.  This is after Jonny Venters threw two shutout innings in the 9th and 10th.  If it weren’t for the anti-lefty sentiment that fuels closer decisions and McCarthyism, Venters would be closer by now.  But my guess is Kimbrel won’t be a fugitive from the closer role as he’d been dominant his previous 4 outings (4 IP, 1 hit, 9 Ks).

Mark Reynolds – 0 for 5 with 2 Ks and a BB in the Orioles 15 inning loss to the Yanks.  He did manage his 2nd sB of the year but his average now stands at .184.  To those of you who said he couldn’t repeat last year’s .198 AVG, well, I guess you’re still technically correct.

Julio Teheran – 4 innings, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, and 1 strikeout.  This is after his first start where he threw 4 2/3 innings and managed 1 strikeout.  I know it sounds pervy but I’d trade in this 20 year-old phenom for a Minor.

Yovani Gallardo – A six inning win with 2 ER and 9 Ks.  That’s three straight wins for Yovani.  Have we finally seen the end of his evil telenovela twin – Oyvani Goneyardo?

Elliot Johnson - 2-3 with 3 RBIs as he started for the 3rd straight night.  Sam Fuld might be Mr. April but looks like someone is auditioning hard for Mr. May (TM to Dave Winfield).

Trevor Plouffe – 2 for 4 with 3 RBIs.  He’s shown some power in the minors (15 HRs in 445 AAA ABs last year) and a K-rate (22%) that screams .250-.260.  So, best case, he’s a J.J. Hardy in hi prime type.  Worst case, he’s 2011 J.J. Hardy.  Either way, I don’t think anyone minds seeing Gardenhire say “See ya” to Casilla when Nishioka comes back.

Neftali Feliz – A blown save after Hosmer took him deep to star the 9th.  Ron Washington was tempted to bring in Arthur Rhodes to face the lefty rookie but, when he approached him, Rhodes responded in a world-weary voice, “I’m getting too old for this s**t” and shared how he plans to spend his retirement.

Michael Dunn - Quick shoutout to the Mr. B‘s.  Dunn now has 25 Ks in 19 innings this year.  He can come in handy in daily leagues where you need K’s.

Clay Buchholz – Unlike Steve Howe and Dwight Gooden, Buchholz was able to go face-to-face against Coke and come out unharmed (7 shutout innings, no decision).  Buchholz is pitching well of late (he’d won four of his last 5).  More importantly, he’s been putting up some K’s (he’s now averaged 6 in his last 3 games).  His K/9 and BB/9 ratios were very average last year (6.2 and 3.5 respectively) and they’ve been about the same this year.  If he can keep K’ing guys like he has in the past 3 games, his value goes up significantly.

Danny Duffy - Making his first major league start, you can imagine the pressure Double-D must’ve felt to fit in with his Royal teammates.  4 innings and 10 baserunners (including 6 walks) later….son,  you’re going to fit in just fine.  Ignore for 10/12-team mixed leagues but I’d keep an eye on him for deeper leagues.

Scott Hairston – Is it me or does this guy have the face of an anthropomorphic frog?  No wonder why he’s an outfield while his father and brother are infielders – he’s a natural at shagging flies.

Early congratulations / unintended jinx to…

1. The Pesky Pole Dancers who are in 1st place among the 456 participants (38 leagues of 12)! And thanks for putting an image in my head of Johnny Pesky pole dancing. At least you didn’t name it after this guy.
2. Everyone in RCL 5 as you are currently the most competitive league (competitive index of 105).

We’ll do our best to update the standings on a regular basis. We’re currently talking to a commenter about becoming the league commissioner of which the duties will be to update the standings regularly, mine for interesting data, and sell used cars in Milwaukee.

League Competitive Index is based on the total stats for the whole league. The index page can be found here. The points formula is courtesy of Tom Tango at InsideTheBook.com and is: HR + SB + R/3 + RBI/3 + (H-.27*AB) + 2*W + 1.5 * SV + K / 5 + IP – (ER+H+BB/ 2).

One last item. It would be great if we can attach each team to a Razzball Commenter handle. Please fill out the below form so we can add your handle to the Master Standings page (note: you can also enter this for a leaguemate if you like).

But what happens when a financial industry wizard and a certifiable baseball GM scheme together to implement the same strategies that fueled the recent Wall Street collapse?  In the case of the New York Mets franchise, disaster happens – the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.

In The Skim Is In – How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team From First to Worst, financially-successful journalist and sportswriter Mike Lupica chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Dante-like journey from World Series team to a paragon of all that’s wrong in America.  By misquantifying the game’s tangibles, Bernie Madoff and ‘boy (was he not a) genius’ Omar Minaya were able to skim out that extra 2% that separates a losing organization from a winning organization–they were able to deliver to New York something that the Royals had never brought to Kansas City: a pyramid of incompetence that entombed a whole franchise.

Following are some excerpts from the book:

Tricking Yourself Into Thinking You’re Smarter Than the Competition:

….Minaya, along with passionate sidekick Tony Bernazard, developed metrics that let them take advantage of aspects of the game that they felt were undervalued such as FIS (fluency in Spanish) and LoCoZo (short for ‘loco como un zorro’ which translates to crazy like a fox).  As Minaya saw it, “People would see a 40 year old Moises Alou as injury-prone and unlikely to repeat his past successes but we knew he still spoke fluent Spanish and anyone who pees on their hands has LoCoZo to spare.  For $15 million, we got two years of .340+ AVG with power from Moises.”  To the rest of baseball, they saw that Moises only managed 377 ABs in those two years and this money could have been invested in a billion better ways.  But it was strategies like this that helped Minaya feel he outsmarted baseball by tying up unwanted players like Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo to multi-year contracts, ‘outfoxing’ the Yankees and Mets to sign Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran to $100 million dollar contracts, and cutting losses with uni-lingual, even-tempered prospects Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom, and Brian Bannister.

Whiffing On Andrew McCutchen:

….Mets scout Rodrigo Ciudad was accustomed to life as a Mets scout.  Responsible for scouting all of the United States, Rodrigo’s region was nowhere near the Mets’ preferred baseball hotbeds of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Venezuela.  With most teams employing multiple scouts in his region, Ciudad tended to focus in warm weather climates that were more conducive to baseball talent and his love of fresh mango dusted in sugar and chili powder.  It was on one of these mango-missions that he heard about a Florida high schooler named Andrew McCutchen.  Ciudad liked what he saw in the young outfielder and was even more encouraged when the Mets didn’t sign a top free agent and would keep their 1st round pick.  Unfortunately, Minaya lost a bet with Jeff Wilpon over who would get to make the first pick in the 2005 amateur draft.  Wilpon, the owner’s son, ignored Ciudad’s pleas, saying “We’ve already got a better version of McCutchen in Lastings Milledge.” and spent the 9th pick of the 2005 draft on Mike Pelfrey.  To add insult to injury, the hapless Pirates drafted McCutchen and the Reds followed that pick with Texan High Schooler Jay Bruce.

Turning A Lucrative Franchise Into an Over-Leveraged Shell

….Fred Wilpon was always wary of ‘get rich quick’ schemes.  He made his money through shrewd real estate investments.  If George Steinbrenner was an IPO that struck it rich, Wilpon was a trustworthy mutual fund – steadily accruing value over time.  Bernie Madoff was the same way.  He wasn’t in business for the quick buck.  He was in it for the slow billion or so bucks.  They quickly became friends and, for 10 years, didn’t overlap business with friendship.  Wilpon started by investing $10 and, upon getting $11.50 back the next year, slowly invested more and more funds from his company (Sterling Equities).  The consistency was welcome to the Wilpon as inconsistency might’ve required him to do research into how the money was being made.  Smart enough not to meddle in the day-to-day dealings at the Met offices, Wilpon focused on building up the right-side of the Sterling Equities balance sheet (to the tune of $500+ million in debt), building a new stadium, and starting a new TV network.  His financial prudence led him to avoid selling branding rights to the new stadium to a ‘fly-by-night’ company like Enron, striking a deal with the responsible CitiGroup.  You can imagine the disappointment when his trust in Wall Street and consistent profits proved to be his very downfall….

The format is 14 team, MLB, 5×5, 1250 IP cap, Roto, Snake Draft with the following roster format:  C/1B/2B/SS/3B/4 OF/CI/MI/2 UTIL/9 P/3 Bench.

The four differences  vs. our other expert leagues are:  1) Only one catcher, 2) 4 OF and 2 UTIL vs. 5 OF/1 UTIL, 3) Snake draft vs. auction draft, and 4) 1250 IP cap.

The roster differences are minor as we generally don’t spend a lot on catcher anyway and we planned to draft a 5th OF as one of our UTIL spots.  The snake draft was a somewhat welcome departure vs. auctions as they tend to take less time and keep us sharp for snake draft commenter questions.

The IP cap was a factor in our decision making.  It requires that teams use the equivalent of roughly 5.5 full-time starters (180 IP each = 990 IP) and 3.5 relievers (60 IP each = 210 IP).  So our plan was to draft only 4 quality starters and we’ll play matchups for the rest.

Otherwise, our strategy going in was just to draft as good a team as possible.  See below for our roster.  You can see the other rosters here and post-draft comments here.

Overall, I think we succeeded on drafting a team that has a shot to win.  We got what we think are 4 solid SPs (F-Her, D. Hudson, Lilly, Garza) and two Hodgepadres (Stauffer, Richard) which we can start at home.  The offense has a solid mix of upside plays (Cruz, Castro, Alvarez, Nishioka) and reliable vets (Posada, Miggy, Morneau, Torii).  I ran the rosters against our projections and our team came out on top with our biggest strengths in HR/RBI/AVG/Saves and our biggest weaknesses in SB/Wins/Ks.  But everything’s so close (e.g., 6 teams within 6 SBs of each other) that you have to take it with a grain of salt.  As I mentioned in the NL LABR post, I don’t think you can win a league at the draft (assuming you draft against peers) but you can certainly lose it.  And we didn’t lose it.

A couple of other notes:

1) I’ve found that our post-draft projected AVG is looking better across a number of our teams.  I think the improvement I made in calculating the impact of AVG in Point Shares has helped.

2) I found that our rankings – based on Point Shares – had a number of outfielders at the top of our draft boards for a lot of the draft.  This is either because I’m smarter than everyone else and value OFs correctly or I’m dumber than everyone else and value OFs incorrectly.  Either way, we stuck to a strategy where we wouldn’t draft more than 2 OFs in the first 9-10 rounds and felt comfortable with our two top OF choices (Cruz, Pence) who were also near the top of the Yahoo! default rankings by the time we picked them.

3) Several teams stocked up on Middle Relievers in response to the 1250 IP cap – conceivably because the best middle relievers will deliver better ERA/WHIP/K per inning than lower-level starters (I think starters still provide a better W/IP ratio).  The only flaw I see in the logic is that determining quality Middle Relievers in the preseason is a fool’s errand.  There just aren’t a lot of ‘dependable’ middle relievers.  So we were more than happy to fill out the rest of our hitting slots and grab Stauffer/Richard vs. speculate on Middle Relievers.  They’ll be plenty of opportunities to go MR fishing during the year if we want to go that route.

Let us know what you think of the team….

Our team’s performance in this league last year mirrored our top hitter Justin Morneau’s season – a great start with plenty of 2nd half headaches.

The format of the league is 14-team H2H, 5×5 roto (1 point per category you win for week), weekly changes, auction draft, 2 C /1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/3 SP/2 RP/4 P/4 Bench.

Grey wrote a recent post on H2H draft strategy. For this specific draft, our two main strategies were:

1) Draft at least 7 quality starting pitchers

H2H teams tend to throw more starts per week than in standard leagues.  So the pitching talent on the free agent wire is weaker (because more SPs on rosters) and the impact of top starters is watered down by all the additional starts.  We wanted at least 7 quality starters so we can take advantage of the pitchers with the best matchups (including 2 start weeks) and avoid having to compete too much with all the other teams over the free agent pitching crumbs.  If that meant losing out on top tier starters, so be it.

2) Focus offense towards high R/HR/RBI.

Grey and I both feel that SBs are streaky where H2H rewards steady.  So we focused our offense on the steadier R/HR/RBI stats with a goal of being just middle of the pack in SB and AVG.  We wanted just enough in SB and AVG that we could break even on these categories while winning the other three the majority of the time.

Below is our roster.  We spread the dollars around to a ridiculous degree – ending up with only two players above $20.  This wasn’t our plan but our competitors went beyond our player values on the top tier players (including a ridiculous $62 bid for Hanley Ramirez).  We felt that the player depth didn’t warrant such high bids and that our stinginess would be rewarded as the draft wore on.

Based on my calculations, we ended up with $306 in value on our roster for our $260 – more than any other team.  That counts the 4 bench players.  My rough estimates on just the top 23 players – based solely on starts and using standard roto – is that we’re a top 3 team that’s very strong in R/HR/RBI (top 3 in each) and weakest in ERA/WHIP (which we hope to improve by maximizing matchups).

Mike Napoli C $13
Kurt Suzuki C $6
Justin Morneau 1B $21
Adam LaRoche 1B $8
Kelly Johnson 2B $13
Ryan Raburn 2B $10
Starlin Castro SS $7
Neil Walker 3B $6
Matt Holliday OF $32
Mike Stanton OF $19
Bobby Abreu OF $9
Nick Swisher OF $9
Jose Tabata OF $7
Denard Span OF $4
Domonic Brown OF $6
Daniel Hudson SP $9
Matt Garza SP $9
John Danks SP $8
Gio Gonzalez SP $8
Edinson Volquez SP $7
Jhoulys Chacin SP $7
Ian Kennedy SP $5
Johan Santana SP $3 (to stash on DL until mid-year)
Heath Bell RP $11
John Axford RP $10
Drew Storen RP $7
Joe Nathan RP $5

NOTE:  We still have about 10 spots available for Fantasy Razzball – the game where you try to manage the worst team possible.  If you’d like to sign up, click here.  If you would like more info on the rules/format, see here.

Grey has his rankings based on watching a ton of games, poring through stats, fantasy acumen, and whimsy while my Point Shares rely on my cooked-up methodology (honed after a couple years) and various inputs that I’ve grown to trust (ZiPS, Marcel, FanGraph projections, Fantistics for playing time projections).  Aside from tweaking some playing time projections, I just let the player data rank itself.

Since commenters often like to pit us against each other, we figured we might as well make a game out of it.  I converted Grey’s rankings to MLB 12-team dollar values by crediting the same dollar value per rank that I have (e.g., his #1 overall pick gets the same dollar value as my #1 overall pick).  This allows us to focus on the dollar value differences vs. just number of picks – because obviously a guy I pick for #10 and he picks for #60 is more noteworthy than a guy I put at #210 that he puts at #260.

The assigned rosters net out to $368-$369 worth of 12-team MLB value according to each owner but only valued at $215-$220 by the competitor.  Perusing the rosters, you can see that Grey’s team is stronger in the corners and 2B/SS while mine is stronger in OF and C.  This gives a sense of how we weight the various positions.  There really isn’t any clear trend in pitching except maybe Grey gives more weight to consistent, reliably healthy closers where the agnostic Point Shares are willing to take on the risk of Street and Nathan.  I expected something similar in terms of risky starters (I don’t adjust Point Shares for ‘riskiness’) but we both ended up with a number of risky pitchers (all of Grey’s besides Gallardo are on my risky list where I have Latos and Nolasco).  I think this goes to show that younger pitchers are harder to value and thus more volatility in ranking systems.

Note that neither of us are actually proposing these rosters.  For instance, I would never suggest Luke Scott as a 1B but there really weren’t any other 1B which I valued higher than Grey.  And I can’t imagine Grey would choose to invest so little in OF.

We’ll revisit these rosters as the season goes on.  I can see several ways to compare the teams including 5×5, using a modified version of Tom Tango’s point formula, and using the default ESPN or Yahoo points systems.

So what do you all think?  On which team would you place your bet?

We had an awesome time at the draft.  It was pretty crazy to be in the same room with a number of guys that we’d only known through the little headshots they have on their website.  Plus, the draft was held in Phoenix – giving us the opportunity to catch two Cactus League games (nothing too notable except that Lonnie Chisenhall and Drew Pomeranz of the Indians look really good) and eat at Pizzeria Bianco (potentially the best pizzeria in the US).

We are in the 13-team NL-only league which is C/C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/10 P.  The reason for the 13th team and 10 pitchers (vs. 9) is to make the roster depth equivalent to the 12-team AL-only league.  The budget is $260/team.  After everyone has filled their starting roster, there is a snake draft where we pick 6 reserves.

Below is our roster (To see all the rosters, see this post on USA Today’s Fantasy Windup blog).  We feel pretty good about the team.  I think you can lose the season at the draft but you can’t win one…..and I don’t think we lost it.

C  R. Barajas $3
C   D. Mesoraco $1
1B  A. Pujols    $40
2B D. Espinosa    $13
SS  J. Reyes    $29
3B C. Blake    $5
OF  R. Braun    $37
OF  L. Morrison    $18
OF  M. DeRosa    $5
OF   S. Hairston    $2
OF  N. Schierholtz    $1
CI    Jeff Baker    $4
MI   N. Walker  $18
UT   J. Francisco    $2
P    Y. Gallardo    $21
P    C. Marmol    $20
P    J. Vazquez    $11
P    H. Kuo    $6
P    C. Hensley    $5
P    C. Richard    $5
P    C. Capuano    $4
P     R. Wolf    $3
P    M. Lindstrom  $2
P   T. Gorzelanny    $2

Reserve:
C Eli Whiteside
2B/OF Eric Patterson
3B Mat Gamel
P Yuniesky Maya
P Aneury Rodriguez
P Zack Braddock

One big difference in a draft this deep against such experienced competition is that we couldn’t follow our usual strategy of “find the best bargains”.  We didn’t expect to see any bargains in this draft and that proved correct.  We made three big bets (Pujols, Braun, Reyes) that will likely make or break our offense.  But who would you rather bet on?  (okay, maybe not Reyes but SBs are expensive either in $ or the players other stats).  I don’t love the Neil Walker and Logan Morrison picks but they are guaranteed playing time and should be solid R/RBI producers without hurting our AVG.  Our pitching staff could use a real 2nd starter (I’d consider Vazquez a #3) but we should be close to league average in most categories – hopefully Kuo or Hensley get us some cheap saves and 4 of our bottom 6 SPs (counting the two in reserves) can post decent numbers.

We’ll keep y’all posted on the team as the season goes on…

I have compared the ESPN results with my Point Shares to identify the relative bargains (and overpriced players) in standard leagues .  You can see the comparison vs. all ESPN’s top 200 players here.

There are two Point Shares ranks in the spreadsheet:  180/80 and 153/107.  Point Shares values hitters and pitchers alike as it is based on how many points the player would add to the average team (replacing the average drafted player).  If you valued hitters and pitchers equally, you’d invest 13/22 into hitting and 9/22 into pitching.  Since there is no standard for valuing draft picks, it’s easier to divide it into the standard $260 auction budget which gives you 153/107.  In most drafts, hitters go at premiums.  The standard split I find with hitters vs. pitchers is 180/80.  Since that’s the more common draft approach, I’m using the 180/80 split for this post.

Quick shorthand for the below.  Any player with a positive (+##) is being picked that many picks after their estimated value.  Any player with a negative (-##) is being drafted ahead of their value.  Plus is good value.  Minus is bad value.

First Basemen

In both the ESPN live drafts and Point Shares (180/80 split), the top 7 1Bs are within the first 28 picks (Pujols, Votto, A-Gonz, Miggy, Teixiera, Fielder, Howard).  Point Shares are slightly more bullish on Votto (5th vs. 9th), Miggy (6th vs 12th), and Fielder (15th vs. 24).  The other four actually match up within one pick.

The ‘fair value’ rates continue through Dunn (+3 in PS) and Morneau (+1 in PS) and then the poor values start kicking in as people panic on 1B depth.  Kendry Morales, Konerko, Butler, and Adam LaRoche all are being picked 16-63 picks ahead of their Point Share value.  The relative values outside the first tier of 1Bs are Carlos Pena (-4 picks vs. PS), Derrek Lee (+6), and Gaby Sanchez (-7).

Recommendation:  Try to get one of the first 9 1Bs and, if not, be patient as there will be values later in the draft.

Second Basemen

Historically, I’ve found 2B/SS are overpriced in ESPN leagues.  Except Dan Uggla who I seemed to have on every team the last 2 years.  Things have changed and I think it has something to do with injuries – three of the top 5 2Bs are coming off injury-shortened seasons (Utley, Pedroia, Kinsler).  And Rickie Weeks at #7 is no sure thing for 150 games either.

For the first 7 2Bs (Cano, Utley, Pedroia, Uggla, Kinsler, Phillips, Weeks), the only player going well above Point Shares is Robinson Cano.  He’s going #5 in ESPN which is way above his PS rank of #26.  My projection for him is 94/25/98/5/.304 – if I switch this out for 110/30/100/5/.320, then he moves to #7.  I like Cano a lot but 2B is deep and I think there are 1B and OF 1st round targets that are more likely to deliver that type of offensive line.  Utley (#19) and Pedroia (#31), and Phillips (#57) are all within a couple spots of my rankings with Uggla going from the biggest bargain to the 2nd biggest reach (9 picks over value).  Kinsler and Weeks come at 12-18 pick discounts but that’s assuming they reach 550 ABs which they’ve each accomplished once in the past four years.

The remaining 2Bs are all over the map.  The overpriced:  Martin Prado (-36), Aaron Hill (-38), Gordon Beckham (-86), Chone Figgins (-47), Howie Kendrick (-60) .  The underpriced:  Ben Zobrist (+20), Kelly Johnson (+2), Neil Walker (+23).  Brian Roberts is squarely in the middle at 2 picks over value.

Shortstop

As usual, most shortstops are being overpriced but there are some bargains.

Overvalued:  Derek Jeter (-26 picks), Jimmy Rollins (-56), Elvis Andrus (-47), Stephen Drew (-18), Rafael Furcal (-53), Ian Desmond (-34), Erick Aybar (-81), Juan Uribe (-93), Alcides Escobar (-99)

Undervalued:  Jose Reyes (+15), Alexei Ramirez (+17), Starlin Castro (+25)

Correctly Valued:  Han-Ram (2nd pick), Troy Tulowitzki (+1, 7th in PS vs. 8th in ESPN)

So if you’re not going to spring for Han-Ram or Tulo in the 1st round or Reyes in 3rd round, I’d wait and try to get the communists (Alexei and Castro) at their ESPN values.

Third Basemen

Last year, I found all 3Bs to be overvalued.  It’s a bit more mixed this year.

In the first tier, Longoria is going a little higher than I’d like (4th vs. 10th) as are Zimmerman (22nd vs 38th) and the soon to be 3B-eligible Youkilis (23rd vs 36th).  But I think David Wright (13th pick), A-Rod (20th pick) and Jose Bautista (32nd pick) are all solid values.  It goes downhill fast from there:  Beltre (-65 picks), Michael Young (-63), Aramis (-54), McGehee (-44), Sandoval (-22), Ian Stewart (-50), and Polanco (-166).  The two bargains are Pedro Alvarez (+23) and Mark Reynolds (+97).  Yes, that’s a 97 pick difference for Mark Reynolds.  Which is crazy because he was going around #18 last year (and I cautioned that was too high).  Here are my projections:  88/34/93/13/.231.  His line last year was 85/32/79/7/.198 but that came with a really low BABIP (.257).  I’m not saying to draft him at 55th (the Point Share calculation) but he seems to be the best value now – especially if you get him near his ESPN ADP of 152.

Catcher

Only 9 catchers have an ADP below 200 in ESPN drafts.  The more established catchers seem to be going at about fair value if not a little higher:  Mauer (-7 picks – 26th vs. 33rd in PS), V-Mart (+2), McCann (+2), and Geovany Soto (-4).  It looks like most of Matt Wieters’ hype has worn off because he’s only going 14 picks ahead of PS (172nd vs 186th).

The bargains are:  Buster Posey (+22 – 23rd in PS vs. 45th in ESPN) and Carlos Santana (+38), Mike Napoli (+109).  I’ve got Posey at 84/21/90/3/.299, Santana at 79/19/83/8/.267, and Napoli at 70/26/75/6/.255.  Maybe these projections are slightly bullish but I think all three are possible (except if Mike Scioscia starts coaching the Rangers).  I’m always trying to get a big discount on catchers or I punt so I’d wait until the 5th round for Posey, 9th round for Santana, and 13th round for Napoli before pulling the trigger.

Outfield

Carl Crawford is the top OF in ESPN ADP – going 3rd behind Pujols and Han-Ram.  I have him 8th overall and behind two other OFs:   Braun (3rd vs. 7th in ESPN) and CarGo (4th vs 10th).  I love both those guys if they are on the board after the first 2 picks (and you can take a 1B on the turn).  I’m finding that OFs are generally available at a discount vs Point Shares.  That holds true throughout the draft so I’d stick to the BRAN plan and try not to draft more than 1 OF per 5 rounds to avoid stocking up on OFs only to find better bargains on OFs in later rounds.

Here are some bargains: Matt Holliday (+7), Nelson Cruz (+17), Shin Soo-Choo (+22), Andrew McCutchen (+14), Jayson Werth (+17), Jacoby Ellsbury (+10), Hunter Pence (+13), Andre Ethier (+21), Mike Stanton (+28), BJ Upton (+24), Jay Bruce (+27), Curtis Granderson (+26), Drew Stubbs (+43), Brett Gardner (+30), Torii Hunter (+49), Carlos Quentin (+35), Nick Markakis (+67), Bobby Abreu (+51), Rajai Davis (+46), Nick Swisher (+59)

Here are some overpriced OFs:  Ichiro (-12), Alex Rios (-13), Shane Victorino (-7), Delmon Young (-9), Michael Bourn (-25), Colby Rasmus (-9), Juan Pierre (-7), Vernon Wells (-29), Grady Sizemore (-54), Manny Ramirez (-73), and TRavis Snider (-78).

Starting Pitchers

This is the position where I’m most surprised.  Every year, I find that I overvalue starting pitchers vs. ADP.  For this post, I’m using a modified ranking which bumps up hitter value and takes down pitcher value after finding most drafts weight offense heavier.  One additional factor behind this decision is that last year was the ‘year of the pitcher’ as ERA/WHIP fell across the board.  At the same time, the performance for Aces has stayed relatively flat.  To consider an SP in the first 15 picks, I want either a projected WHIP near 1.00 and/or 250+ Ks.  I don’t think Halladay or F-Her are going to deliver either of those marks.

But the ADPs for starters are as high as I’ve seen them in years.  ESPN has 4 starters in the first 18 picks (Halladay at #6, Lincecum #14, F-Her #15, Cliff Lee #18) and 10 in the first 4 rounds (48 picks).  Last year, I think Halladay and Lincecum had ADPs closer to #20.  My first inclination is to think my weighting is too severe but my rankings for hitters line up pretty well with ADP.  I think we’re just seeing a situation where ESPNers are moving starters up their draft boards.  My only guess is that the lower offensive counting stats are making pitchers look more tempting in comparison.

I think the best bet this year is to be patient and find pitching bargains throughout the draft.

Here are the best bargains I’m finding: Felix Hernandez (-10),  Justin Verlander (-1), Dan Haren (-8), Mat Latos (+6), Josh Johnson (+10), Jered Weaver (0), Max Scherzer (-9), Shaun Marcum (-10),  Ted Lilly (+5), Colby Lewis (+8), Daniel Hudson (+37), Jeremy Hellickson (-10), Ricky Nolasco (+43), Ryan Dempster (+14), Edinson Volquez (+1), CJ Wilson (+13).

One word of warning – a number of those pitchers in the bargain list are on my ‘risky pitcher‘ list.

Relief Pitchers

The relative value of closers in ESPN ADP and Point Shares is about even.  There are differences, though, in specific player values.

Here are some bargains:  Neftali Feliz (+7), Joakim Soria (+4), Carlos Marmol (+24), Jonathan Papelbon (+15), Jonathan Broxton (+19), Huston Street (+44), John Axford (+10), Francisco Cordero (+12), Jose Valverde (+29), Matt Thornton (+75), and Craig Kimbrel (+22).

Some overpriced relievers:  Brian Wilson (-12), Mariano Rivera (-10), Francisco Rodriguez (-28), J.J. Putz (-8), Brad Lidge (-12).

I’d stick with the BRAN strategy on relievers.  In a 12-team league, I’d want at least one closer in the first 9 picks and eventually have at least 3 closers (preferably 4).  When in doubt, go for guys with stron K potential (Thornton, Kimbrel, Lidge, Nathan) over true SAGNOFs like Ryan Franklin and Brandon Lyon.

My focus is on identifying those who 1) are a favorite for a MLB rotation, 2) pitched in the majors last year anscrd had some level of success, and 3) are more likely to miss a considerable part of the season (< 2,000 pitchers or, roughly, missing 1/3 of the season or more) or have a significant drop in their skills (measured as xFIP increased by .75+).  Using xFIP helps to separate a true decrease in performance from just bad luck.

Last year proved to be the safest season for starting pitchers in the last six years.  Only 8 pitchers qualified as a ‘dropoff’ and one of those is a technicality (Joba moving to the bullpen).  The other seven were:  Brett Anderson, Doug Davis, Jair Jurrjens, Jason Marquis, Jeff Suppan, and Javier Vazquez.  Josh Beckett had 2,172 pitches and a +0.66 xFIP to barely escape both thresholds.  The counts for the previous 5 years (with roughly the same amount of qualified pitchers) is:  21, 28, 10, 17, and 19.  Since James ‘Dr. Freeze‘ Andrews hasn’t developed an instant Tommy John surgery, I am going to assume this is a statistical fluke and the ‘dropoff’ rate will stay at about 25% per year vs. 2010′s 11% (8 of 70).

With 2010′s 11% dropoff rate, my list of 20 risky pitchers should have been able to identify at least two of the pitchers.  Now, this is somewhat unfair since Marquis and Suppan were toast going into 2010 and I would’ve never picked them but, anyway, see below for the results.  I suppose I should get some credit for nailing three of my first four picks but I wish I added Javier Vazquez (he was on the 2009 list) and Jar-Jar Jurrjens (14.1% sliders in 2009).

* The 11% dropoff rate I quoted is for pitchers with 2,700+ pitches the previous year.  I’ll dip below that threshold to find candidates.  Ohlendorf had 2,693 pitches in 2009.

My criteria for judging a pitcher’s riskiness are elaborated on in this post.  In a nutshell, the two assumptions are:

• Pitching a full season in MLB is a skill.  A player who has never pitched a full season in MLB is a riskier proposition to succeed at this than a player who has pitched 1 full season.  A pitcher who has pitched 1 full season is less likely to repeat this the next year than someone who has done it for 2 seasons, etc.  Since rookie starters are rarely guaranteed a rotation spot at the beginning of the year, we focus on pitchers with at least one year of experience who have earned a rotation spot and, potentially, your fantasy baseball draft pick.
  • Criteria #1:  Previous year was first full year (2500+ pitches)
  • Criteria #2:  Previous year was a significant leap vs. previous year in MLB pitches (700+ pitches)

• Sliders are the most effective pitch one can throw but are worse on the arm than fastballs/changeups (note all the sliders on this list).  Pitchers who rely on sliders (15+% of pitchers) take this risk if they feel it’s the only way to reach their expected level of success.  Over time, some pitchers prove they can handle the heavy rate of sliders (e.g., Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, CC Sabathia).  But young pitchers relying heavily on sliders for success are more akin to a kid on his tippy-toes trying to make it on a ride – they can only keep it up so much before they fall below that line or get hurt trying.   (Note:  Surprisingly enough, there is no evidence that curve balls or cutters add any risk – e.g., pitchers who throw 15+% curve balls have a 23% dropoff rate, slightly below the league average.  But I still tread lightly with young pitchers who throw a lot of curveballs or sliders+curves)
  • Criteria #3:  Threw 15+% sliders

Here’s a quick glossary of terms reference below:

• wSL, wFB, etc. – These stats – grabbed from FanGraphs like just about all the stats in my analysis – estimates the runs saved above average.
• FIP & xFIP – Fielding-Independent Pitching devised by Tom Tango that uses a formula based on the items under a pitcher’s control (K, BB, IP) to devise a fielding-independent ERA.  xFIP goes one step further by adjusting HRs to the league-average rate.
• Point Shares – My methodology for estimating fantasy baseball player values.  See here for more info.  You can see 2010 projected Point Share estimates through the 2011 Fantasy Baseball Rankings button in the top menu.

One caveat before I move on to the picks.  ‘Risky’ does not mean ‘undraftable.’  Even the pitchers that satisfy all three criteria have only a 42% chance (based on 2004-2010) of either a significant drop in skills (measured by xFIP) or pitching < 2000 pitches (~20 GS).  And there are other variables that I cannot account for – notably pitching mechanics (here are some interesting articles on it by SI.com’s Tom Verducci and Joe Lemire).  So if you really like a pitcher and you can draft him at fair value, go ahead.  Just try to avoid drafting more than one…

#1 – Brett Myers

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,145 -> 3,457 (+2,312)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  No
Slider %:  28%

A ‘Brett’ makes #1 on the list for the 2nd straight year – albeit one with less sex appeal in roto drafts.  This marks a return for Brett Myers who I had #4 on the 2009 list and he responded with an injury-filled 1,145 pitch year.  Last year, he was a workhorse for the Astros (3,457 pitches) and was one of the top 30 ‘best values’ based on his ADP.  But Myers threw 28% sliders and another 20% curveballs to reach that performance level.  Even worse, all his value is tied into those two pitchers as his fastball was worth -14.1 runs vs average as opposed to his slider (+14.7) and curveball (+13.2).  I’d steer clear of him in favor of similarly ranked but safer alternatives.  This is one of those cases where a pitcher treats his elbow like a close family member and that’s not a good thing.

#2 – Bud Norris

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  954 -> 2,726 (+1,772)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %:  33%

Look at that – two Astro pitchers at the top of the list.  It’s like Brian McNamee’s 2005 appointment book!  Bud Norris’ 4.92 ERA in 2010 doesn’t look great but his 9.25 K/9 IP does.  Combined with his xFIP of 4.12, Norris is the epitome of a promising late-round pitcher.  And while the pitch increase seems dramatic, he did throw 120 minor league IP in 2009.  The catch is that he’s a similar pitcher to Brett Myers.  His fastball has been below league average throughout his short career with his slider being his only above average pitch.  The list of second year pitchers since 2005 coming off  a 2,700 pitch season with 25+% sliders are: Bronson Arroyo (2005), Nate Robertson (2005), Casey Fossum (2006), Daniel Cabrera (2006), Josh Towers (2006), Ian Snell (2007), Armando Gallaraga (2009), Johnny Cueto (2009), Brett Anderson (2010), and Joba Chamberlain (2010).  The only one of those ten pitchers not to see an increase in xFIP is Joba Chamberlain and he was a reliever.  Eight of these 10 failed to reach 3,000 pitches the next year (Arroyo and Snell were the exceptions).  Houston, we may have a problem.

#3 – Francisco Liriano

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  2,318 -> 3,021 (+703)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %:  34%

The Liriano of 2006 finally reappeared last year and he had a fantastic season (3.06 xFIP, 9.4 K/9 IP) somewhat obscured by a rough BABIP (.331) that inflated his ERA to 3.62.  His fastball speed has found its way above 93 MPH after being at 90-91 MPH in 2009-2010.  It’s hard not to look at him and not think of Johan Santana.  That’s the problem, though.  He may be a diminutive Venezuelan lefty in a Minnesota Twin uniform with a similar repertoire as Johan (fastball, slider, changeup) and they may both enjoy a 7th inning arepa but that’s where the similarities end.  During his dominating prime (2004-2008), Johan had an above average fastball and an all-world changeup (averaged +20 wCH).  His slider was his third pitch, both in effectiveness and frequency.  As Santana’s fastball went from 94 MPH down to 89/90 MPH, his fastball and changeup both suffered and have turned him from a great to a good pitcher.  Liriano, on the other hand, depends on his slider for his relative greatness.  His fastball has been slightly below league average in his career (that’s discounting his -25 wFB in 2009) and his changeup has been only slightly above average.  His slider was a +23 runs in 2006 and +19 runs in 2010 and its effectiveness vs. the fastball/changeup explain why he throws it at such a high clip (37.6% in 2006, 33.8% in 2010).  Until Liriano proves his arm can handle back-to-back years with that high of a slider rate, I consider him very risky.  You can say I’m leery-a-no.

#4 – Anibal Sanchez

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,476 -> 3,234 (+1,758)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %:  25%

Anibal Sanchez posted his first full season with the Marlins in the 5th year since his 2006 debut.  To give some perspective, he was a Marlin rookie the same year as Hanley Ramirez (both were part of the Josh Beckett trade).  He was a solid 2010 sleeper (a year later that I predicted) with 13 wins, a 3.55 ERA (1.34 WHIP), and a solid 7.3 K/9 IP.  The red flag with Sanchez – besides his past injury history – is that he throws 25% sliders (his most effective pitch) and another 10% curveballs.  His fastball was about average last year so it’s possible that he can reduce his reliance on breaking balls but I would expect a drop in K-rate and xFIP if he does.

#5 – Ervin Santana

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  2,300 -> 3,561 (+1,261)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  No
Slider %:  37%

Ervin Santana and Brett Myers are like the Ervin Johnson and Larry Bird of slider-dependent pitchers who have not shown the magic to stitch together two healthy slider-heavy seasons in a row (Myers’ 2003-2006 run was before he started relying on a slider).  Santana’s 17 win 2010 season conjures up memories of 2008 until you see that his K-rate went down (8.8 to 6.8 per 9 IP) and his BB rate went up (1.9 to 3.0).  So the upside is not as high and he still throws a s**t-ton of sliders.  Oh, and his wFB was -13.6 while his wSL was +14.3.  Pass.

#6 – C.J. Wilson

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,299 -> 3,441 (+2,142)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %:  12%

Everyone who saw CJ Wilson’s successful 2010 season coming, please raise your hand.  While it’s difficult to find a pitcher who successfully converted to an SP after 5 years in relief (Wilson was a SP in the minors), there are a handful of cases where a reliever became a valuable SP contributor the next year:   Derek Lowe (2001) Adam Wainwright (2008), Justin Duchscherer (2008), Ryan Dempster (2009), Todd Wellemeyer (2009), and Brett Myers (2009).  Dempster fared okay his second year as a starter.  Wainwright had a finger issue.  Derek Lowe saw his ERA go up nearly two runs and his xFIP went up +0.44.  Wellemeyer collapsed (+0.72 xFIP).  Myers only managed 1,145 pitches.  Duchscherer didn’t pitch in the majors the next year.  Not a very good track record.  The fact Wilson threw 3,441 pitches in the regular season AND a full slate of playoff games can’t help this situation.  (see 2009 Cole Hamels).  CJ could end up standing for Clubhouse Jester this year.

#7 – Ian Kennedy

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  28 -> 3,170 (+3,142)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %:  5%

The ex-Yankee prospect finally delivered on his promise with a solid 3.80 ERA/1.201 WHIP and 7.8 K/9 IP while staying healthy (3,170 pitches, 190 IP) after an injury-plagued 2009.  Another positive is Kennedy’s balanced pitch mix where his league-average fastball (59% of pitches at -0.8 wFB) is complimented by an effective changeup (17% of pitches for a wCH of +16.4) and curveball (17% of pitches for a wCB of +6.3 runs).  If Kennedy can manage another full season like last year, I wouldn’t even consider him for future lists.  But 2nd year pitchers are risky propositions as they haven’t proven they could handle the year-over-year strain – this is especially true for a pitcher who virtually took the prior year off (23 IP in AAA/majors in 2009).  He should come at a cheap price in drafts so I wouldn’t worry about him too much – just try not to pair him with anyone else in the top 10.

#8 – Chris Carpenter

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  2,670-> 3,549 (+879)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  No
Slider %: 20%

Carpenter was #7 on last year’s list for the same reason he’s on the list again – I don’t trust any pitcher who throws over 40% breaking pitches (he also throw 27% curveballs).  Given Carpenter’s injury history, it’s incredulous that he threw 200 more pitches than his younger, also breaking pitch-obsessed teammate Adam Wainwright.  Carpenter’s regression from 2009 (ERA from 2.24 to 3.22, xFIP from 3.38 to 3.84) and his pedestrian K-rate (6.8 K/9) should mean he comes at a reduced price this year vs. in 2010.  But I wouldn’t draft him with Bea Arthur’s d**k…I mean, I wouldn’t screw him with any of my draft picks or auction dollars….aw, you know what I mean.

#9 – Phil Hughes

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,459-> 3,007 (+1,548)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %: 0%

I apologize to Yankee fans who fear that Hughes’ presence on this list is a sign that we have been acquired by ESPN and are now Yankee-haters.  Not the case.  But read my commentary for CJ Wilson (#6 on the list) regarding the history of converted relievers having back-to-back healthy years.  It is almost as imposing as the Phil Hughes bar in Upper East Side New York that my friend Schultz loves so much.  I love Hughes’ maturity, his pitch repertoire (93 MPH fastball, cutter, curve, changeup), and his run support.  I’ll love him more in 2012 when – either way – he’ll be a less risky proposition.

#10 – Brian Duensing

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,322-> 1,885 (+563)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  N/A
Slider %: 20%

If you tell me that you have everything you want and you draft Duensing, well, you don’t get me nor my slightly obscure Beatles references.  I’m digging pretty deep for Duensing since he only threw 1,885 pitches as he was on the Twins-patented “start the season in relief, become an SP midway through the year” plan (see Santana 2003, Liriano 2006).  Duensing managed a 10-3 record with a 2.62 ERA in 130 IP last year – giving him the preseason lead for the 4th slot in the Twins starting rotation.  A cursory glance at Duensing’s advanced stats provides compelling reasons to avoid him on draft day (5.37 K/9, an xFIP of 4.10).  But that stat line isn’t far off from what you’d get from tolerable endgame playes like Pavano or Buehrle.  The reason he is on this list is he had to throw 20% sliders to achieve that unimpressive K-rate and it was his most valuable pitch (wSL of +14.3).  His minor league history shows a similarly unimpressive K rate so there is absolutely no margin for error with this guy.  Maybe he can be Buerhle 2.0 but it’s more likely he’ll be Done.0 at some point this season.

#11 – Brandon Morrow

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,254-> 2,523 (+1,269)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %: 15%

There are few things more attractive on draft day than a young pitcher with a crazy K rate (10.95 K/9!!!!) and an ADP greater than 100.  It’s so attractive that you can’t pass up a guy like Morrow if you get him at the right price.  That’s why you love him today…but will you love Brandon to-Morrow (it’s a pun and a lyrical reference!)?:  1) 2010 was his first full-season as an MLB SP, 2) He had pitched relief for much of the previous year, and 3) His slider is his most effective pitch and he throws it 15% of the time.  So draft him hoping he’s a lasting treasure but don’t be surprised if 2010 was just a moment of pleasure.

#12 – Mat Latos

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  869-> 2,965 (+2,096)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %: 23%

This one hurts more than Morrow.  Latos was awesome last year.  He had four pitches that were above average as far as runs allowed (Fastball, Slider, Curve, Change) with the Fastball/Slider combo ranking in the top 15 (respectively) amongst all starting pitchers.  His 2.92 ERA is mostly legit (3.36 xFIP) and his K-rate is above 1 K per inning (9.21 K/9).  Given he plays in Petco National Park, he is a potential top 10 pitcher for 2011.  But he hits all the dropoff criteria so, if you draft him, pair him with a safer option.

#13 – Jhoulys Chacin

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  211-> 2,304 (+2,093)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  N/A
Slider %: 14%

The player with the fragranciest name west of Aramis is an interesting case study.  His pitch count increase is misleading as he pitched 100 IP in AA the previous year and 35 AAA IP in 2010.  If pitch count isn’t an issue, why in the age of Ubaldo and the humidor would a Rockie pitcher with a K-rate above 1 per inning (9.04 K/9) make the list?  While Chacin may have a similar pitch mix to Ubaldo (both throw 25-30% breaking pitches), Chacin throws 4-5 MPH slower than Ubaldo (96 MPH fastball vs. 91 MPH fastball).  This is one of the reasons why Ubaldo’s fastball was the 2nd most valuable in baseball last year and Chacin’s was league average.  Colorado is a cruel stadium for pitchers depending on breaking pitches (see Darryl Kile).  Unless Chacin can learn to throw harder from Ubaldo or to throw more grounders from Aaron Cook, he’s a riskier play than you might otherwise think.

#14 – Jason Vargas

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,477-> 3,020 (+1,543)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %: 9%

Despite having the perfect name for a grade school bully (sounds like Scott Farkus), Vargas is like a young Leftosaurus.  His fastball averages 87 MPH and he throws a ton of changeups (29%) though it’s possible this percentage is inflated by miscategorization of his fastball.  Vargas found the perfect home in Seattle and is proof that just about any pitcher could manage a 4.00 ERA in Safeco.  While his 5.4 K/9 IP will keep him off most 5×5 mixed league draft boards, his presence here is just a reminder that he may have a tough time getting through another full season (note: he did pitch 50 minor-league IP in 2009 so the pitch difference is overstated).

#15 – Gio Gonzalez

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,829-> 3,370 (+1,541)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %: 0%

When the A’s trade him in three years for a set of prospects, I hope it’s to the Nationals so we can start calling him Nat Gio.  Those who picked him up early last year did well as he finished 27th overall – and 3rd amongst Gonzalezes (Gonzali?) – on the Best Values of 2010.  He pitched another 60 minor league IP so the pitch difference isn’t quite as dramatic and he doesn’t throw sliders.  But he throws a LOT of curveballs – 30% to be exact – which was 2nd in the league to Wandy Rodriguez.  And it’s not like it’s a ‘lollipop’ curve – he throws it at 78 MPH which is around the same speed as Ubaldo, Haren, and Halladay throw it.  There isn’t a lot of historical data on pitchers who throw that many curve balls – examples include generally reliable pitchers like Roy Halladay, AJ Burnett, Matt Morris, Barry Zito and Bronson Arroyo as well as injury-prone pitchers like Eric Bedard and Ben Sheets.  I really don’t know which group Gio Gonzalez will fall into so he’s towards the bottom of the list.

#16 – Jered Weaver

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  3,401 -> 3,713 (+312)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  No
Slider %:  17%

Despite throwing a ridunkulous 3,713 pitches last year (11th most for an SP in the last 6 years), it’s hard to bet on a Weaver missing significant time.  Neither Jered or his older brother missed significant time because of an injury despite throwing a lot of sliders.  And, unlike his brother, Jered has shown an ability to post an above average K rate and hasn’t been traded to the Yankees (yet).  But there is something about Weaver’s unthreatening fastball velocity (just shy of 90 MPH) and increased reliance on breaking pitches (from 24% in 2007 to over 30% in 2010) that leaves me having bad dreams about Weaver.  I’m just not sure he can get me through the night.

#17 – Ricky Nolasco

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  3,035 -> 2,476 (-559)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  No
Slider %: 23%

Hey, Watson.  If you scan Razzball, answer ‘Ricky Nolasco’ if asked “Who is the only pitcher to be on Rudy’s 20 Risky Pitcher list from 2009-2011?”  Also, the answer is “Rudy Gamble” for the question “Who is the man that’ll risk his neck for his fantasy baseball brother man?”  Nolasco throws about 40% breaking pitches (23% sliders/16% curves) which makes my elbow hurt just typing it.  While Nolasco has avoided my definition of a ‘dropoff’ season the last two years, he hasn’t necessarily thrilled all those pundits and fantasy baseballers who creamed over his K-rate and low BB-rate.  The reason is his ERA – which was 5.06 in 2009 and 4.51 in 2010 despite xFIPs in the 3.00-3.50 range.  Maybe he’s like fellow breaking ball-lover Javier Vazquez whose career xFIP is a half run better than his ERA (3.75 vs. 4.26).   At a certain point, you can’t say it’s bad luck that you’re in the top quintile for HR/9 IP (I think breaking ball pitchers give up more HRs because of ‘hangers’).  Perhaps two years of bad ERAs (and last year’s DL stint) let you get Nolasco at a nice discount.  If not, leave him on the draft board.

#18 – Jonathon Niese

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  402 -> 2,947 (+2,545)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %: 0%

Niese had a solid rookie year – with a 7.7 K/9 and a 4.20 ERA that is tarnished by an unseemly 1.46 WHIP.  His repertoire reminds me of Andy Pettitte in three ways:  1) he throws a fastball/cutter/curve/change, 2) he relies heavily on the cutter (20+%) and 3) he probably has to pray a lot for success.  Niese cutter averaged 85.6 MPH last year which is towards the low end for cutters.  Among those who throw 20+% cutters, here are a few examples:  Halladay averages 91.4 MPH (freak!), Jon Lester averages 89.7 MPH (inspiration!), Brian Bannister averages 88.1 MPH (smart!), and Dan Haren at 86.4 MPH (eh!).  Pettitte got by at 82-83 MPH last year but threw it faster in his prime.  So if Niese experiences any loss in velocity coming off his first full season, whatever effectiveness he had in 2010 will likely disappear.

#19 – Brett Anderson

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  2,816 -> 1,801 (-1,015)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  No
Slider %: 31.3%

Given Anderson was a ‘dropoff’ in 2010, he doesn’t technically qualify as a candidate for 2011.  But you are still going to draft him assuming he is going to give you near 200 IP so he is worth including in the list.  Brett Anderson was a pundit favorite going into last year but his slider rate scared me enough to give him the #1 risky pitcher spot.  After missing about a third of his starts last year, I think he still has residual hype from 2009 to fuel hype around this being a bounceback year.  I say this because no one loves bouncebacks more than Grey and he kept on IMing “He’s sexy.  Draft him!” during our last auction draft.   But take a look at his 2010 results.  In 112 IP, he had a 6.01 K/9 IP.  Blech.  His xFIP was 3.75 but his ERA was 2.80 thanks to an unsustainable strand rate a very low HR rate.  Yes, he’s got great control (1.76 BB/9) but that’s not enough to make him an ace.  This is with throwing 31.3% sliders which is 7th in the majors for pitchers above 110 IP (three above him are on this list:  Norris, Liriano, and Ervin Santana).  I’d maybe take a late round flier on him or bid $2 in a mixed league.  But I wouldn’t invest much more in him until he’s shown he can handle 200 IP with a slider rate that high.

#20 – Clay Buchholz

MLB Pitches 2009-2010:  1,521-> 2,810 (+1,289)
2010 was first year > 2,500 MLB Pitches:  Yes
Slider %: 19%

I don’t particularly hate Buchholz in 2010 despite the fact that he hits all three criteria and – based solely on his ESPN commercials and this photo - he gives off a Beckett-like douchiness.  But I just don’t like 2nd year starters who throw a number of breaking pitches (he also throws a curve 9% of the time).  His 17 wins and 2.33 ERA look awfully good but, like Anderson, he had very low HR and high strand rates.  His xFIP was 4.20 which, coupled with his 6.2 K/9 is just so-so.  He throws fast enough (94 MPH fastball) that he could take a step up in 2011 but I wouldn’t pay market price for him.

There are plenty of lemons in baseball*.  Fantasy Razzball is the sugar that helps make them as satisfying as a cool, refreshing drink.

* There were three players whose last name was lemon – pitcher Bob Lemon and OFs Jim and Chet Lemon – but all three were good to very good players.   As was Hank Sauer.  Harry ‘Stinky’ Davis did stink though.

This post ushers in the 4th annual installment of Fantasy Razzball  - the game where the goal is to manage the  worst fantasy baseball team possible.  We have gone from one ‘blogger’ league in 2008 to 16 leagues in 2010.  At this rate of 16x growth every 2 years, we will have over a million leagues by 2016.   So it’s best to get in now while the competition isn’t as heavy.

League Rules

• 10 Team Leagues, MLB universe, uses Yahoo! position eligibility
• Weekly Roster Changes (leaves you time to lavish on your Daily Leagues)
• C / 1B / 2B / SS / 3B / CI / MI / 5 OF / 9 P / 5 bench
• 1,250 innings cap.  No minimum IP.  No AB mins/maxes
• We’ll be commissioner of all leagues and will designate one person per league to help arrange a draft date that works for everyone.
• Leagues will be filled on a first come, first serve basis.  If you want to play in the same league with a couple friends, no problem.  Just submit the e-mail addresses at the same time.
• Each league will have four ‘dummy’ teams that merely serve to draft the top players.  This helps minimize the damage for anyone who misses the draft and forgot to update their draft list.
• 1 team per person.
• Collusion between teams is grounds for disqualification from winning the grand prize.
• Blogs/sports sites may have multiple participants but one team per writer.  These blogs will be noted in the standings and during periodic standings posts.  It is expected – but not required – for some quid pro quo mention of Razzball on your site.

• Hitter Stats
  • AB = +2
  • H = -3
  • R = -4
  • HR = -6
  • RBI =  -4
  • K = +2

• Pitcher Stats
  • IP =  -1
  • HR = +4
  • L = +8
  • K = -1
  • ER = +1.5
  • H+BB = +1

The point structure makes it so that about 2/3 of the league’s hitters as well as just about every pitcher has positive value.  So leaving a roster spot open or filled by a guy who plays once a week will hurt your team.

Grand Prize

An autographed baseball by Fantasy Razzball All-Star Neifi Perez, Grey Albright, and myself (Rudy Gamble).

How To Sign Up

Click here for our signup page.  Note any requested leaguemates in the 3rd column.

If you are a sports blogger, fill out this form to be part of our Fantasy Razzball blogger leagues.