Fantasy Baseball Advice

Grey and I were invited back for Yahoo’s most prestigious expert league – the Yahoo! Friends & Family League (the other Yahoo!-sponsored leagues we’re in include acquaintances and hoi polloi).  The league has 14 teams consisting of 7 Yahooligans, 3 guys from Rotowire.com, 2 from Hardball Times, and one from Wall Street Journal and Razzball (two sites with a ton of audience overlap).

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.

Position	Name	Round	Pick
C	Jorge Posada	16	220
1B	Miguel Cabrera	1	5
2B	Tsuyoshi Nishioka	14	192
SS	Starlin Castro	8	108
3B	Pedro Alvarez	6	80
OF	Nelson Cruz	3	33
OF	Hunter Pence	4	52
OF	Torii Hunter	11	145
OF	Will Venable	17	229
CI	Justin Morneau	5	61
MI	Jason Bartlett	22	304
UTIL	Seth Smith	18	248
UTIL	Marlon Byrd	20	276
SP	Felix Hernandez	2	24
SP	Daniel Hudson	9	117
SP	Ted Lilly	10	136
SP	Matt Garza	13	173
SP	Tim Stauffer	19	257
SP	Clayton Richard	21	285
RP	Neftali Feliz	7	89
RP	Brandon Lyon	12	164
RP	Fernando Rodney	15	201
Bench	Tyler Clippard	23	313
Bench	Clay Hensley	24	322
Bench	Daric Barton	25	341

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….

Yahoo! Roto Arcade invited us back to be a part of their 14-team Head-to-Head ‘Pro-Am’ league.  They were so anxious to get things started that the draft was scheduled for February 23rd.  Something’s wrong when draft day is closer to Groundhog Day than Opening Day.

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.

If you read Razzball, you know that we’re not afraid to criticize the rankings of ESPN and Yahoo!.  You should also have realized by now that Grey and I don’t always agree on players.

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.

	Grey’s Team			Rudy’s Team
Pos	Name	$	Rudy $	Name	$	Grey $
C	Miguel Montero	$10	$1	Buster Posey	$25	$14
1B	Ryan Howard	$36	$26	Luke Scott	$8	$0
2B	Brandon Phillips	$25	$19	Martin Prado	$13	$1
SS	Elvis Andrus	$20	$10	Starlin Castro	$10	$1
3B	David Wright	$38	$31	Jose Bautista	$26	$16
OF	Matt Kemp	$31	$27	Carlos Gonzalez	$38	$28
OF	Hunter Pence	$25	$20	Carl Crawford	$36	$29
OF	Manny Ramirez	$11	$1	Nelson Cruz	$31	$24
OF	Travis Snider	$10	$1	Jayson Werth	$25	$19
OF	Lorenzo Cain	$5	$0	Nick Markakis	$17	$9
CI	Michael Young	$19	$10	Chase Headley	$4	$1
MI	Rafael Furcal	$15	$5	Tsuyoshi Nishioka	$12	$5
UT	Casey McGehee	$18	$10	Torii Hunter	$18	$12
SP	Francisco Liriano	$19	$9	Justin Verlander	$21	$17
SP	Yovani Gallardo	$19	$13	Mat Latos	$19	$13
SP	Brett Anderson	$13	$5	Daniel Hudson	$12	$9
SP	Clay Buchholz	$11	$7	Ricky Nolasco	$11	$6
SP	Gio Gonzalez	$9	$1	John Danks	$9	$4
SP	Ian Kennedy	$8	$2	Travis Wood	$8	$0
RP	Jose Valverde	$12	$10	Huston Street	$14	$8
RP	Francisco Rodriguez	$12	$10	Joe Nathan	$8	$3
RP	Jake McGee	$3	$0	Brandon League	$5	$0
Tot		$369	$216		$368	$219

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?

This years marks our first time participating in LABR (League of Alternative Baseball Reality) which is sponsored by USA Today and is the granddaddy of all fantasy baseball expert leagues.

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…

One of the better features of ESPN Fantasy Baseball is their ‘Live Draft’ results which provides an idea of how players are being valued in 10 and 12-team mixed leagues.

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.