Despite the tiny sample, what one player are you most worried about so far?

Visit this week’s roundtable @ RotoAuthority to see my answer (which clearly resulted in jinxing Nefty Happy) and others…

Visit this week’s roundtable @ FantasyPros911 – the only fantasy baseball blog that my namelganger Rudy Giuliani reads – for the answers.

THE TOPIC: What can we expect from Colby Lewis in 2010?

It must be remotely close to a new fantasy baseball season as the Fantasy Roundtable returns from a couple months of dormancy.

This week’s Fantasy Roundtable is being hosted by the roundtable creators over at FantasyPros911 – the only fantasy baseball blog that my namelganger Rudy Giuliani reads.

THE TOPIC: What were your biggest mistakes in 2009?

Enjoy!

Second Half Sleepers that should be available in more than 50% of mixed leagues.  Here’s the answers.

THE TOPIC: Where would you draft David Wright in a mid-season league and why?

I veered toward the most bearish in the group – saying I’d take him somewhere in picks 20-30.  Grey put him at #14 in his midseason fantasy baseball rankings.  Click on the link above to see what some other Fantasy Bloggers thought…

THE TOPIC: Three pitchers who have exceeded expectations so far are Jon Lester, Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander. Owners of these pitchers have been relying on them as weekly starters who play an intricate role for their fantasy teams. All three are on pace to strike out over 240 batters. If you had to choose one of these pitchers to continue this trend, who would it be? Why?

All three pitchers got a vote so it’ll be interesting to see how all us ‘perts will look in retrospect. I just wish the Phenoms offered up Jason Marquis because I think he’s a lock for 22+ wins…

THE TOPIC:  You find yourself in 7th place in a 15 team mixed 5×5 league.  You’ve just lost your best hitter to injury and your pitching isn’t that good.  If you really want to win, what do you do?

Spoiler alert! There’s no fool-proof way to do this – no matter how much you really really want to win – but there’s some good advice in here nonetheless.

What category(ies) do you think about least when drafting and managing your fantasy roster?

Brett Greenfield – Fantasy Phenoms
Wins.  You have the least control over predicting it.

Tommy Landry – RotoExperts.com
When I am drafting my fantasy teams, I almost completely discount the Wins category at the draft. In fact, I so dislike it as a fantasy category that I altered my main league to count Quality Starts instead. Why do such a thing? First, pitchers are inconsistent and never a sure thing. How can I possibly value a number of wins for a guy who might start three games and go down for the year with a busted UCL? Or get removed from the rotation? Demoted? You get the picture. The second, and more important issue, is that wins are highly dependent upon team defense, quality of bullpen, and just plain dumb luck. It’s easy to see why, if your team can’t field a ball, you’ll lose out on win opportunities (Hence the FIP metric). Same goes for teams with shoddy bullpens who can both blow the win/save and trash the SP’s ratios (via inherited runners scoring) in only a few short pitches. But the one factor that can absolutely kill fantasy value for pitchers (even on the elite teams) is luck. This is the reason BABIP has become such an important stat in fantasy over recent years, because it demystifies the impact of luck on the game. That said, I never again want to suffer through a season like Roger Clemens had in 2005, where his shiny happy 1.87 ERA was only good for 13 wins in 32 games started. Go for Ks and especially the ratios, and cross your fingers about the wins, because you simply can’t predict that category with any degree of certainty on a year-to-year basis.

Tim Dierkes – RotoAuthority.com
The two I think about the least are wins and saves.  With wins, I feel that I just can’t control it.  I wouldn’t draft an OK pitcher on a good team, like Chien-Ming Wang, just in search of the W.  It doesn’t always work, but I don’t worry too much about the quality of a team or offense if I like the starter.  Even during the season I don’t change that approach, I just try to assemble guys who will succeed in ERA, WHIP, and Ks.

With saves, I’ll wait until late in the draft and go for the Frank Francisco/Huston Street/George Sherrill class, for the most part.  But during the season I am vigilant in making sure I have three or more active closers.

Mike Podhorzer – FantasyPros911.com
Technically, I think about every category equally since I calculate dollar values for every player. If I didn’t though, the Wins category would be the easy answer. We all know how flukey the category could be, whether it’s the bullpen blowing your win or your pitcher’s offense deciding not to show up for the game; there are too many variables that go into wins and losses that are out of a pitcher’s control. Last year, Gavin Floyd won 17 games with the White Sox, while posting a 3.84 ERA in 206.1 innings. In just 10 fewer innings, his rotation mate John Danks only won 12 games, despite posting a superior 3.32 ERA. The difference? 8.51 runs of support behind Floyd compared to just 6.51 for Danks. Wins should not be completely ignored as the odds are a pitcher on a team with a good offense like the Red Sox will win more than a pitcher with the backing of a weak offense like the Pirates, but focusing on the pitcher’s underlying skills is the much better approach.

Adam Ronis - Newsday
The category I pay the least attention to is wins. There are too many factors involved in wins that are beyond a pitchers control. They need run support, defense and the bullpen to hold the lead since most pitchers rarely go the entire game. Johan Santana easily could have won 20 games last season and won 16 because of poor run support and a shoddy bullpen. This season it has been even worse. He has two losses and didn’t allow an earned run in either one. He is 4-2 with a 0.78 ERA. Dan Haren has a 2.09 ERA and a 56/9 K/BB ratio in 56 innings and is 3-4. For most other stats you can go by a players skills, but for wins too many elements are involved that are outside of the pitcher’s control.

Patrick Cain- Albany Times Union
Without a doubt average is the least thought about. I use to pay little attention to WHIP, but now its average. If I’m taken a bunch of Adam Dunn-like players I’ll be sure to grab one high average guy, but that’s the extent of it. One reason could be I focus most on my H2H league. And avg in a H2H is incredibly variable. Even great avg hitters like Albert Pujols has 0 for 10 streaks, so you can still have week of a team .250 followed by a followed .450.

Jon Williams – Advanced Fantasy Baseball
I try not to concentrate too much energy thinking about the actual 5×5 categories especially when it comes to pitchers. I prefer to look at K/BB ratio, K/9, and Ground Ball percentage. I believe this gives a much truer indication of a pitcher’s skills than Wins, Saves, ERA, or WHIP. I also look at the defense and lineup of the pitcher’s team. If a pitcher shows good skills and pitches in front of team with a quality defense and/or a great lineup, they go even higher up my rankings.

Hitters are another story. It is impossible to ignore the traditional categories with hitters but there are still better indicators of skills. I like to look at Ground Ball/Line Drive/ and Fly Ball percentages. Consistently high Line Drive rates are a solid indication of a skilled batter, especially when it comes with high walk rates and low strikeout rates. In potential power hitters, I want to see a high Fly Ball percentage and consistent HR/FB ratios. A player’s team and position in the lineup helps when estimating potential Runs and RBI totals.

Rudy Gamble – Razzball
I can’t argue with the consensus that Wins are the flukiest stat.  I just look for SPs with solid ERA/WHIP/K potential and generally get boned on Wins (how does my boy Randy Wolf have a sub-3.00 ERA on a 27-13 team and have 2 wins?).

I tend to discount AVG more than others.  I find low AVG guys like Adam Dunn, Mark Reynolds, and Dan Uggla fall in drafts further than they should given their value in other categories.  I just look to complement with cheap AVG/Runs guys  like Freddy Sanchez or Placido Polanco.

As for Runs, RBIs, and Saves, I consider all three to be highly driven by opportunity.  I find Runs/RBI are driven mostly by lineup spot and will adjust expectations if shifts are made (e.g., Kemp loses value getting put so far down in LA lineup).  For Saves, I’ll pickup just about any guy who is closing.  My goal is to draft enough Saves that I can live without pickups but, if I’m successful picking up Saves on the waiver wire, I’ll start trading closers at some point during the season.

The Fantasy Roundtable this week is hosted by Tim Dierkes of RotoAuthority who I remain friendly with despite refusing my suggestion to add an animated Cartman to his site that says “Respect RotoAuthoritah“.  His question:

Here on April 30th, what is your single biggest fantasy baseball regret of the year?

Fairly good mix of responses.  Check it out…

The first one was hosted by Patrick Cain of the Albany Times-Union Fantasy Baseball section.  His advantageous location in the heart of New York State politics makes his blog the must read for the Governor and his staff (as in his staff must read it to him – the NY Guvn’r is blind, people!  If he can’t see prostitutes, we New Yorkers assume he’s much less likely to frequent them.  Wonder if he does the Ray Charles thing and feels their wrists to know if they’re skinny or not?).  Anyway, here’s the link and the question:

What cold starts should I be reading into…and why?

I answered this one about 2 weeks ago but my advice seems fairly prescient.   Worth checking out.

The second one is from Patrick DiCaprio of FantasyPros911.com - the site that fantasy pros like Grey and I go to only in the case of an emergency.  I kid of course as one of the 911 (Mike Podhorzer) is beating me both in an NL league and in the Fantasy Razzball standings (will do a post on the standings later this week).  Here’s their link and question:

Whom do you prefer for the remainder of the year, Aaron Hill or Howie Kendrick?

What – you expected Shawn Hill vs. Kyle Kendrick?  The answers on this one proved to be rather consistent.  Go figure.  On a side note, Kendrick would be a tough last name if you were an old Jew because the fellas would all nickname you Schmendrick (the Howie would fit in well too).  It would be almost as bad as being JJ Putz or Japanese pitching star Fakokta Mashugana.

Name one pitcher and one hitter that is on the waiver wire in most leagues, that is worth picking up and could become the next Cliff Lee or Ryan Ludwick.  Why them?

This one was so easy….to be wrong.  Click on the above link to see my best guesses.  I wasn’t the only one to choose my hitter or pitcher so either I may be onto something or groupthink has reared its ugly head once again…

Do you have players that you will absolutely not draft even if they fall far in snake drafts or go cheaply in an auction and if so why? Include examples.

Can’t say I was super enlightening on this one but feel free to judge it yourself…

Anyway, here’s the question:

What is your favorite source or method of uncovering sleepers?

Enjoy…

What do you think has a greater impact on one’s ability to win a fantasy baseball league: player evaluation or strategy?

Some interesting responses both in the post and in the comments.

While I’ve got this post open, here’s another link where I kibbitzed with another blogger – this one being on the awesome Disabled List Informer.  Check out the comments where DLI was kind enough to answer some of my questions regarding what pitches create the most injury risk.  Looks like my assumptions about breaking pitches in the risky pitcher post do have some medical credence (sliders are the worst…I’m still not sold that 12-to-6 curveballs aren’t arm killers).  Anyone who likes pitchers who throw a lot of cutters (see Roy Halladay and Jon Lester) may not be happy about the physical therapist opinion on that pitch.

Name the player who is the worst value for his average draft position, within the first three rounds.

Can’t say I agree with every suggestion (I’m too chivalrous to say which ones) but it’s an interesting read….

What sabermetric or alternative statistic (e.g., Ground Ball ratio, Contact Rate, etc.) do you find to be highly over or undervalued for fantasy baseball player valuation purposes?

Brett Greenfield – Fantasy Phenoms

I think that BABIP is a highly overvalued statistic for analyzing a pitcher and I’ll tell you why.

Certain pitchers tend to consistently have low BABIP’s, such as Chris Young of the Padres.  This is primarily because he is one of the biggest fly ball pitchers in the major leagues.  In 2006, Chris Young led the majors in fly ball rate.  In 2006 he also led the league with the lowest BABIP.  In 2007, Chris Young led the majors in fly ball rate.  Again, in 2007 he led the league with the lowest BABIP.  Pitching in Petco Park strongly favors pitchers in general, but it also favors fly ball pitchers, since the outfield is so big.

BABIP, in general, is a stat that favors the fly ball pitcher, too.  Let’s take two equal pitchers, where one of them induces 70% groundballs and the other induces 70% fly balls.  The pitcher who induces 70% fly balls is far more likely to have a lower BABIP than the pitcher who induces 70% ground balls.  This is because a ground ball has a much better chance of going for a base hit than a fly ball does.

In fact, in looking at the 20 pitchers with the lowest BABIP’s from 2008, 90% of them were pitchers who favored the fly ball.

The 10% that were in the top 20 that induced more ground balls than fly balls, yet still had a low BABIP, should be considered lucky.  Most tend to consider every pitcher in top 20 (or those with BABIP’s below .265) as having been lucky and predict that their ERA and WHIP will regress the following year.  Sure, the top 20,  regardless of fly ball or ground ball tendency, could very well see their BABIP deviate closer to the norm the following year.  But if they are strong fly ball pitchers, their BABIP may not go up enough to make a noticeable difference in their ERA or WHIP, rendering BABIP as a useless statistic when evaluating them.  Several pitchers tend to have low BABIP’s year in and out such as Matt Cain, Ted Lilly and Chris Young.

BABIP can be useful when combined with other statistics, but when used by itself, can be deceiving. 

Patrick Cain – timesunion.com Fantasy Baseball blog

My often-cited stat problem is summed up in two words: Spring Training. But to be more specific, in a few weeks many of us will crunch the numbers to see what players saw a 200 pt increase in slugging percentage during ST. It’s alleged that three-quarters of players that hit this mark, have better than normal years.

I have a few problems with this.

1. Define “better.” If Player A hits a lifetime of .700 OPS and now is .710…so what. That’s not a breakout.
2. Many guys who do improve aren’t a surprise. They’re young players who got a year old and a year wiser.
3. Most of all, the data sets are small for each player.

Here’s a list I found from late in ’08′s Spring Training. The group certainly has a few gems (Josh Hamilton) but also a number of flops.

Chris Synder, Mike Morse, Ivan Rodriquez,Melvin Mora, Grady Sizemore ,Brian Anderson, Chris Burke, Rafael Fucal, B.J. Upton, Mike Cameron, Yorvit Torrealba, rick Aybar, Torii Hunter, Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, Billy Butler, Gerald Laird, Tony Gwynn Jr., Craig Consell, Josh Hamilton, Ryan Shealy, Andre Ethier, Robison Cano, Ray Durham

It’s a small data set, but the list wasn’t too impressive. That being said…I’ll still take note of it when I draft.

Tim Dierkes – RotoAuthority.com

Most people who read this are well aware of BABIP (batting average on balls in play) and its uses for pitchers.  However, in a more general sense, I still find that most fantasy baseball players are unaware of or choose not to look at this statistic.  It is a pretty easy concept but it still has not hit the mainstream.  I don’t think it’s really close to hitting the mainstream.  On baseball broadcasts we are still given the misleading impression that a low opponent’s batting average is an entirely controllable skill.

I am not saying that a pitcher with an abnormally low BABIP should be dismissed.  More that if a pitcher’s brief successful run is clearly leaning on a low rate of hits allowed, he is probably a fluke.  Even casual fantasy players should be glancing at a guy’s last five starts and if he’s succeeded because the hits did not drop in they should know to pass.

Jon Williams: RotoExperts

There are two distinct groups of fantasy owners -– those that use advanced statistics, and those that do not. I do not think that I am taking a huge leap to suggest that those that do not use them are primarily those that do not understand them. Because if they did understand them how could they not use them? The problem is many owners who use them (and many writers who write about them) do not truly understand how to utilize these statistics. There are many examples of this but I will just point out a very common one.

BABIP is an excellent statistical tool that measures the number of batted balls that safely fall in the field of play for a hit. The typical batter is able to average between .290-.310 on the balls they put in play. The uninformed owner will assume that if a batter has a BABIP of less than .300 in any given period that he was unlucky. And he assumes that if a batter averages greater than .300, that the batter was lucky. In both cases, this owner will assume that the batter will regress to a “normal” .300 BABIP or thereabouts. This is too many assumptions and we all know what happens when we assume.

In reality, every batter and every pitcher has a different level of skill. For example, players who excel at utilizing their speed out of the batter’s box tend to have higher BABIPs. There are also batters (even some with speed) whose skill level leaves them with a BABIP below the .300 average. If an owner truly wants to utilize these stats to advance their game, they need to read more than the basic definition of the stats and examine their use. An easy way to do that is to read the work of those that truly understand. The writers at HardballTimes.com and Fangraphs.com are very good places to start.

Patrick DiCaprio – FantasyPros911.com

In my mind it is clearly ground ball ratio. The percentage of groundballs is simply ignored by most fantasy owners, who instead focus on K, BB and K/BB. Valuable though these things are the fact is that everyone knows them, and they do not represent value. The most undervalued pitchers in baseball are those with middling control but huge groundball rates and good strikeouts. How did Ubaldo Jimenez do last year?

The second most ignored group are those with good groundball rates and weaker strikeouts, at least in deep “only” leagues. If you take a list of guys with the same K rates (in theory) but group A has good control and group B has high groundball rates, group A will probably do better but group B will have a lot more value.

Derek Carty – THT Fantasy Focus

This is a topic I could talk all day about.  There are so many stats that either shouldn’t be used or are used incorrectly.  I won’t single out any person or site individually, but I’ll list a few stats that I don’t like.  The first one I don’t imagine will be on anyone else’s list, and it’s one I imagine some of you thought was a good one to use.

K/BB: It seems like everyone is using K/BB ratio these days, and on the surface it makes sense.  DIPS Theory says that we should focus on events that a pitcher has control over.  Strikeouts and walks are the two most important of these events, so capturing their effect in one stat makes sense.  There are two problems, though:
1) A strikeout is not worth the same as a walk, so weighting them equally is flawed thinking.  I found here that it’s better to have lots of strikeouts and lots of walks as opposed to few strikeouts and few walks, even if the K/BB ratio is exactly the same.  I then took it a step further and created a stat that properly combines the two.
2) Ratio stats are almost never a good idea.  Say a pitcher has 10 K and 5 BB.  That makes a 2.0 K/BB.  But it also makes an 0.5 BB/K.  Using K/BB shows double the impact of using BB/K, yet they are measuring the same thing (and which we use is completely arbitrary).  If you’re set on weighting the two equally, at the very least do K minus BB (divided by IP or TBF or something like that).

BABIP: This isn’t a bad stat, it’s just that so many people use it incorrectly.  And quite honestly, I have no idea why.  It’s very simple.  Most pitchers regress toward the league average BABIP of around .300 or .305 (some sites don’t even get this right, saying that league average is some different figure, or saying that it’s different for batters and pitchers.  It’s not!). Very few pitchers can repeatedly do better or worse than this, so we say that pitchers have very little control over BABIP.  Batters, on the other hand, can have a substantial amount of control over BABIP.  Ichiro, for example, has a .356 career BABIP. Hitters do not regress toward league average, rather, they each regress toward their own, unique number.  Despite this, we’ll still inevitably hear people continue to use it incorrectly.

A few other stats I dislike but don’t have the room to discuss (if you’re interested in an explanation for any of these, please feel free to e-mail me):
GB/FB (not to be mistaken with GB%, which is a good one), OPS, Linear Weighted Power, FIP, ERC, BB/K (for hitters), ISO, BAA, speed score to represent steals, H/9, HR/9, WHIP, Runs Created, Quality starts (QS), BB% to calculate anything other than times on base, LD% + .120 as xBABIP

My final point is this: if you’re reading a site that is using advanced metrics, or any metric that you aren’t 100% familiar with, make sure that this person/site truly knows what they’re talking about.  There are plenty out there that simply don’t, and relying on poor advice can be so detrimental to your fantasy season.

Adam Ronis – Newsday

I think BABIP is a good measure for hitters when used correctly. Too often people refer to an average BABIP of around .300 for a hitter, but it varies for each individual. Take Edgar Renteria as an example. His BABIP was .326, .348, .317, .318, .325, .375 from 2002-2007. It was .294 last season, so you can expect his average to improve this season.  Ichiro is the perfect example of how it varies for each individual. The BABIP for his career are: .371, .347, .333, .401, .319. .350, .390 and .337.

Many guys with elite speed will have higher BABIP, such as Carl Crawford. His BABIP since 2003 is .329, .326, .328, .332, .375 and just .301 last season, so you can expect Crawford to hit for a higher average. BABIP is a good tool to use, but it has to be examined on an individual basis.

Rudy Gamble – Razzball

I figured I’d wait to see how everyone else responded before taking a crack at my own question.  Looks like I don’t have to cover BABIP!

Undervalued:  Batted Ball Statistics for hitters (Fly Balls/Ground Balls/Line Drives). I believe these were first identified by Ron Shandler.  Line Drive % is generally good for predicting high average hitters but I tend to ignore it as I trust projection systems like Marcel, CHONE, and ZiPS for batting averages.  I find the % of Fly Balls is crucial for understanding a player’s HR potential.  For instance, let’s look at three players that seem to have 30/30 potential – Grady Sizemore, BJ Upton, and Matt Kemp.  Based on watching these players play, they all seem like 30 HR possibilities.  But their 2008 GB / FB were:  Sizemore 34.9%/45.7% , Upton 50.5% / 30.6%, Kemp 45% / 32%.  Basically, Sizemore hits almost 50% more fly balls than these two and, thus, is a safer bet for 30+ HRs.  Unless Upton and Kemp greatly change their approach at the plate (not unprecedented but rare), their upside is likely 25 HRs and will likely end up at 20.

Overvalued:   VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) – Okay, this stat isn’t probably overvalued by many but this is commonly used by those creating their own player rankings.  For fantasy purposes, It determines player value by comparing a player against the best undrafted player available at his position.  My problem with this is that this tends to overvalue players at 1B/3B/OF and undervalue 2B/SS/C.  The reason?  Focusing on the best undrafted player ignores the drafted players.  Let’s narrow the focus down to HRs.  Using 2009 projections, I’d estimate the VORP 1B to have about 14-15 HRs.   This is James Loney/Casey Kotchman territory.  For 2B, this is at 10 HRs – say Orlando Hudson.  This would make a 30 HR 1B about the equivalent of a 25 HR 2B (+15 VORP).  The problem – there’s probably 6 1Bs who’ll reach that mark whereas only 1-2 2Bs will reach it.  How can they be equal?  Well, the average drafted 1B is at about 28 HRs.  The averaged drafted 2B is at 16 HRs.  Using the averages, you would find that a 30 HR 1B is closer to the equivalent of a 18 HR 2B.  I’d argue VORP is only useful for fantasy baseball purposes when valuing a trade where you’ll need to replace your end with a free agent.  But if you are ranking players, it is better to use a position average over the VORP.