Fantasy help needed

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

Oh Tom. I like the sound of your magic wonder machine.

I have actually TOO many outfielders and can't play them all. It's a 14 team league too. Alot of teams have real shit outfields and I have a great one due to real good holdovers too.

With that said, can you tell me what the best values are for the money spent on them (300 dollar cap). Its also not all about bang for the buck as I can easily afford all of them, but what is the best 3 plus DH that I should use and who should I look to package 2 for 1 to upgrade with?

$87 Manny Ramirez
$53 Torii Hunter
$7 Alex Rios
$6 Jeff Francouer
$4 Corey Hart

Dr. Giganto

Here where each of those players ranks in my system:

#46 - Corey Hart
#81 - Alex Rios
#97 - Torii Hunter
#133 - Jeff Francoeur
#166 - Manny Ramirez (his projections assume he'll miss some time due to injury...he's certainly on pace to crush his projections so far though)

So obviously I would say Hart and Rios are steals, and Manny's probably overpaid regardless of whether or not he gets hurt this year. I've never done a salary cap league, but it seems to me like tying up 30% of your cap on an OF (one of the easiest positions to fill) in his mid-30's isn't the wisest move

Also, bear in mind that my system assumes a 12-team league. I also did it for my 16-team league, and these were the ranks:

#33 - Hart
#92 - Rios
#110 - Hunter
#140 - Manny
#144 - Francoeur

Dr. Giganto

oh, i forgot to mention, the 16-team league uses OPS instead of batting average...thats why Francoeur is so low, since he NEVER walks

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

Wow Hart and Rios 1 and 2 huh? I certainly didnt see Hart being considered that good even though I love the guy.

Freak

Why would the order change when you go from 12 to 16 teams? How come Hart becomes more valuable and Rios becomes less?

I'm actually a Rios owner trying to sell high since I don't feel confident he'll get much better than he is now. The guy is 6'5, but less than 200 pounds... I don't get that.

Dr. Giganto

The rankings are determined according to how each player does in each stat (runs, HRs, RBIs, etc), relative to the average number of players in the model. I took the total teams in each league, and multiplied the number of players you need at each position by 1.5, making the assumption that with bench spots, each team will have on average 4.5 outfielders. Thus, for my 12-team league, my spreadsheet had 54 OFs listed, but my 16-team league 72 OFs listed. The strengths of those extra 18 players can shift the rankings.

So, for instance, if the 18 players I add are generally high-power, low-SB guys, then the existing high-SB guys will get a boost. So, for instance, Ichiro will become relatively more valuable, since he steals a lot of bases, and the percentage oh high-SB guys is lower. If the 18 extra guys are predominantly low-power, high-speed guys, someone like Adam Dunn would get a boost, since there are relatively less sluggers.

Comparing the 2 files, it looks like most of the "extra" OFs in the 16-team league were low-SB guys, so the system likes Corey Hart's projected 22 SBs a lot more than Francoeur's 8 projected SBs.

By the way, Hart's projection for this season was 92 runs, 26 HRs, 83 RBIs, 22 SBs, and a .282 AVG...

Rios was 92-21-85-16-.281

Hunter: 81-20-87-17-.284

Manny: 74-22-89-1-.281

Francoeur: 76-22-86-8-.283

Also, they projected Manny to have about 100 less at-bats than the other guys, because of injury risk

Freak

I don't understand the Francouer projection at all...

In the two years since he became a starter, he's played all 162 games both times -- but your projections seem to indicate he's an injury risk? Or that he'll just fall off at age 24? In both years he's had 80+ runs and 100+ RBI... and he has only 9 career SB.

Dr. Giganto

I dont know...Baseball Prospectus's projection system can be a little quirky with certain players, especially those that have really unique characteristics about them. It could be that they see Francouer's low walk rate and high K rate and assume he cant keep up the same level of performance? Maybe he's had an abnormally high BA with runners in scoring position and they assume he'll "regress to the mean" Actually, I just looked it up and he batted .341 with runners in scoring position last year, helping contribute to his 100+ RBIs. The system probably assumes he'll bat closer to his overall career average when he's up with RISP this year.

As for the SBs, maybe the system just sees "24-year old OF" and assumes he'll run more?

Baseball Prospectus is pretty hush-hush about how they come up with their PECOTA rankings, but I do know they just plug all of the players's data into the system and it spits out a series of projections. They're generally pretty good, although they're obviously going to miss sometimes.

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

It seems like a pretty fair system I have some questions but I can't access my league here.

Dr. Giganto

One of the guys that BP's projection system has a lot of trouble with is Ichiro.

The computer takes a look at Ichiro's numbers, sees a lot of singles, very few walks, and little power, and assumes that he's been lucky thus far. After all, players can generally control their walk rates, strikeout rates, and their power numbers, but the biggest year-to-year variation comes on BABIP (batting average on balls in play...which is basically hits minus home runs, divided by at-bats minus home runs and strikeouts).

BP's program assumes that a guy who hits a ton of singles and not much else must have gotten lucky for all those balls to have dropped in for hits. It doesnt have the benefit of the human eye to see that Ichiro is a unique case. But most players tend to follow certain patterns, and their performance can be reasonably estimated using their age, ballpark, teammates, walk rate, strikeout rate, power, and probably some other factor that determined BABIP, such as goundball/flyball ratio and/or line-drive rate

Crazy stat I heard recently: Last year, Ichiro had 200 singles for the second time in his career. In the entire history of baseball, no other player has even done it once.