2010 Best and Worst Fantasy Baseball Draft Values

Before I start digging into 2011 fantasy baseball projections, I thought I’d use up some blog space to look back at 2010.

I’ve calculated the total value of each player by taking their total value as measured by my Point Shares metric (a Point Share represents the estimated difference in an average team’s points if they were to substitute a given player for the average player at his position). I converted each player’s Average Draft Position (ADP) to an ‘Expected Point Share’ metric and subtracted that from their final calculated value in a 12 team mixed league. So if a player outperformed his draft position, he’s in the positive.

The full results are here. There are links on the page for 2010 Player Raters for MLB 10, 12, 14, and 16-team leagues.

Below represents the best values across the various roster spots. I’ve created two ‘All-Star’ teams: one for players drafted in the top 100 and one for players drafted outside the top 100. If there were no players who outperformed their draft position, I kept the slot null. As you can see below, 2010 was a bad year for ‘Top 100’ catchers and relievers. Top 100 SPs had a solid year with 12 of the 21 providing positive returns (relative to draft position) and only two complete flameouts (Beckett and Vazquez).

As for the worst values, it was a positively brutal year for Top 100 second basemen as five of the eight picked in the top 50 had disappointing to very disappointing returns (Utley, Kinsler, Pedroia, Roberts, Hill with Uggla, Cano and Phillips the other three). The same goes for third baseman as Sandoval edged out Beckham, A-Rod, Reynolds, and Figgins for the honor of worst return. Eleven 3Bs were taken in the top 100 and only Michael Young provided a positive return (Wright was close – with an ADP of 14 and final rank of 19).

	2010 Best Draft Values (ADP Top 100)				2010 Best Draft Values (ADP>100)
Pos	Name	Value	ADP	Final Rank	Name	Value	ADP	Final Rank
C	None	—	—	—	John Buck	+4.3 PS	373	124
1B	Joey Votto	+3.5 PS	29	6	Paul Konerko	+6.3 PS	202	17
2B	Dan Uggla	+3.9 PS	87	14	Kelly Johnson	+6.0 PS	273	45
SS	Troy Tulowitzki	+0.4 PS	17	15	Alex Gonzalez	+5.1 PS	>400	108
3B	Michael Young	+1.3 PS	95	60	Jose Bautista	+13.3 PS	>400	3
OF	Josh Hamilton	+4.0 PS	54	10	Carlos Gonzalez	+9.8 PS	124	1
OF	Carl Crawford	+2.0 PS	15	8	Chris B. Young	+7.0 PS	301	35
OF	Hunter Pence	+1.9 PS	84	37	Angel Pagan	+6.6 PS	>400	74
OF	Shin Soo-Choo	+1.3 PS	66	41	Delmon Young	+6.0 PS	323	55
OF	Andrew McCutchen	+0.7 PS	86	66	Drew Stubbs	+5.6 PS	287	55
CI	Miguel Cabrera	+0.9 PS	10	7	Aubrey Huff	+5.7 PS	310	59
MI	Robinson Cano	+3.4 PS	46	11	Rickie Weeks	+5.3 PS	187	27
UT	Adam Dunn	+0.6 PS	65	49	Adrian Beltre	+5.3 PS	178	25
SP	Adam Wainwright	+5.2 PS	57	5	Trevor Cahill	+7.0 PS	>400	62
SP	Roy Halladay	+4.3 PS	24	2	Mat Latos	+6.9 PS	331	43
SP	Ubaldo Jiminez	+4.0 PS	99	20	Colby Lewis	+5.4 PS	<400	100
SP	Felix Hernandez	+2.7 PS	32	9	David Price	+5.1 PS	172	29
SP	John Lester	+1.9 PS	58	26	Roy Oswalt	+5.0 PS	159	23
SP	Matt Cain	+1.4 PS	92	53	C.J. Wilson	+5.0 PS	366	96
RP	Joakim Soria	+1.9 PS	100	52	John Axford	+6.4 PS	>400	78
RP	Mariano Rivera	0.0 PS	72	73	Billy Wagner	+6.0 PS	146	12
RP	None	—	—	—	Hong-Chih Kuo	+5.7 PS	>400	95
RP	None	—	—	—	Tyler Clippard	+4.4 PS	>400	107

	2010 Worst Draft Values (ADP Top 100)				2010 Worst Draft Values (ADP>100)
Pos	Name	Value	ADP	Final Rank	Name	Value	ADP	Final Rank
C	Matt Wieters	-4.8 PS	94	341	Bengie Molina	-5.1 PS	166	482
1B	Lance Berkman¹	-7.4 PS	59	429	Todd Helton	-5.7 PS	194	530
2B	Brian Roberts	-10.4 PS	47	543	Jose Lopez	-5.0 PS	119	422
SS	Jimmy Rollins	-8.3 PS	20	320	Asdrubal Cabrera	-5.1 PS	152	463
3B	Pablo Sandoval	-6.4 PS	39	273	Chipper Jones	-4.6 PS	131	409
OF	Jacoby Ellsbury	-16.3 PS	19	608	Nolan Reimond	-9.1 PS	192	602
OF	Grady Sizemore	-14.4 PS	28	600	Brad Hawpe	-7.2 PS	109	521
OF	Nate McLouth	-9.8 PS	91	576	Carlos Gomez	-4.5 PS	219	494
OF	Jason Bay	-9.4 PS	26	433	Nyjer Morgan	-4.5 PS	127	395
OF	Carlos Beltran	-9.3 PS	90	561	Chris Coghlan	-4.2 PS	189	452
CI	Prince Fielder	-6.3 PS	8	94	Alex Gordon	-6.5 PS	211	566
MI	Chase Utley	-8.3 PS	4	118	Everth Cabrera	-5.8 PS	223	548
UT	Dustin Pedroia	-6.5 PS	36	267	Chris Davis	-11.5 PS	157	608
SP	Josh Beckett	-9.8 PS	77	562	Brandon Webb	—-	134	n/a
SP	Javier Vazquez	-8.4 PS	60	486	Erik Bedard	—-	225	n/a
SP	Zack Greinke	-5.9 PS	31	220	Scott Kazmir	-8.2 PS	175	587
SP	Dan Haren	-3.9 PS	41	151	AJ Burnett	-7.0 PS	129	532
SP	Tim Lincecum	-3.5 PS	12	69	Jair Jurrjens	-6.0 PS	141	492
SP	Johan Santana	-2.9 PS	44	117	Jake Peavy	-5.3 PS	107	413
RP	Joe Nathan	—-	75	n/a	Chad Qualls	-4.7 PS	205	490
RP	Jonathan Broxton	-3.4 PS	69	197	Trevor Hoffman	-4.1 PS	167	423
RP	Francisco Rodriguez	-1.0 PS	83	104	Mike Gonzalez	-3.5 PS	193	412
RP	Jonathan Papelbon	-0.9 PS	67	92	Kerry Wood	-1.3 PS	221	291
¹ Kendry Morales ‘won’ with a -9.61 PS (52nd ADP, 514 in value) but I feared he might celebrate the honor and reinjure himself.