SubscribeLast Player Picked is a site exploring various aspects of fantasy baseball analysis, especially relating to drafting and player valuation strategies.
Much of what is discussed here will involve the Price Guide, an online tool I developed to build dollar values or player rankings customized for any league configuration.
Roughly one-fifth of the season is in the books. Since the Price Guide has daily updates on year-to-date stats, let’s look at who the biggest fantasy overperformers and underperformers are so far this year, relative to the composite projections in March.
We’ll start with the players who have been the biggest fantasy disappointments so far in 2010:
| Name | Proj. | Act. | Diff. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Javier Vazquez | $28 | -$30 | -$58 |
| Josh Beckett | $20 | -$32 | -$52 |
| Ben Sheets | $9 | -$30 | -$39 |
| Jake Peavy | $17 | -$21 | -$38 |
| Felix Hernandez | $28 | -$7 | -$35 |
| Edwin Jackson | $2 | -$33 | -$35 |
| Clayton Kershaw | $18 | -$12 | -$30 |
| Chad Billingsley | $18 | -$12 | -$30 |
| Gavin Floyd | $3 | -$27 | -$30 |
| Jair Jurrjens | $16 | -$14 | -$30 |
| Johan Santana | $28 | -$1 | -$29 |
| Wandy Rodriguez | $14 | -$15 | -$29 |
| Aaron Harang | $9 | -$19 | -$28 |
| Ian Kinsler | $18 | -$9 | -$27 |
I’m noticing a trend here…Lots of SP and an injured Ian Kinsler at the end. I don’t think this is cause for alarm for all of these guys just yet, though: Last year, this list was headlined by CC Sabathia, who ended up as one of the top fantasy pitchers. (Beckett also appeared in about the same spot.)
How about overperformers?
| Name | Proj. | Act. | Diff. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Gonzalez | -$14 | $24 | $37 |
| Livan Hernandez | -$17 | $18 | $36 |
| Barry Zito | -$7 | $27 | $34 |
| Ike Davis | -$31 | $2 | $32 |
| Ty Wigginton | -$11 | $21 | $32 |
| Jose Guillen | -$12 | $19 | $31 |
| Doug Fister | -$11 | $19 | $31 |
| Andruw Jones | -$10 | $20 | $30 |
| Fred Lewis | -$27 | $2 | $30 |
| Austin Kearns | -$25 | $5 | $30 |
| Austin Jackson | -$7 | $21 | $28 |
| Reid Brignac | -$25 | $2 | $27 |
| Sergio Santos | -$22 | $4 | $27 |
| David Price | -$5 | $22 | $27 |
| Ubaldo Jimenez | $7 | $33 | $26 |
| Brett Cecil | -$13 | $13 | $26 |
As with the previous list, there are quite a few SP. Which tells you what you already knew — there’s a lot of variability with pitchers.
Ubaldo has been fantastic, but it was pretty clear before the season that the projections were too low on him. (They all penalized him heavily for playing in Colorado, but his groundball tendencies make the thin air a lesser factor.)
I have the most faith in the prospects on the list — Ike Davis, Austin Jackson, and David Price, especially — to maintain their strong start. It’s not unusual for a young player to improve, and the projections had much less data about these players. I’m much less optimistic about Alex Gonzalez and Livan Hernandez.
At this point in the season, I’m still putting more faith in the preseason projections than on 1+ months of stats. Keep watching the Price Guide, though. Things will start to even out as the 2010 fantasy stats accumulate.
I’ve got three rather significant updates to mention today. Other than adding year-to-date dollar values once the season starts, these will probably be the final changes for this draft season.
1. Steamer projections have been added.
Steamer is a set of projections produced by Jared Cross and co., who have also done some recent forecast evaluations. I’m not adding it into the Composite projections for this year, but I probably will next year (especially if I can get my hands on it earlier).
Unlike most of the projections which aren’t expecting Aaron Hill to repeat his very good 2009, Steamer has him at $19 in a standard league. Other Steamer sleepers: Nolan Reimold ($17), Colby Lewis ($16), Brett Anderson ($21), and Stephen Strasburg ($17).
It has no interest in Jair Jurrjens ($1) or Matt Cain ($1), however. I’ll try to remember to check back in October to see how the picks played out.
2. The composite projections have been updated with the final community forecasts.
Voting closed today on the Community Forecast project. In fantasy terms, there hasn’t been a whole lot of change since Monday, but a few players have seen a small increase or decrease:
David Murphy -$7 (+5)
Chris Davis $5 (+4)
Aaron Hill $11 (+3)
Jose Reyes $15 (+3)
Coco Crisp -$6 (+3)
Juan Uribe -$8 (+3)
Landon Powell -$11 (-3)
Ryan Church -$12 (-3)
Carlos Santana -$9 (-3)
Corey Hart $0 (-4)
Jesus Flores -$14 (-5)
Oakland, Texas, and Washington were still low on votes last time, so their players were some of the bigger movers on this update.
It looks like Mets fans are feeling more optimistic about Jose Reyes’s maladies, as he climbed $3 in the past few days. Corey Hart, on the other hand, is shedding value (down $4) after a terrible spring could cost him a starting job. Although Chris Davis has gained some ground, I’d wager that if voting continued he would probably end up where he started. The Rangers’ acquisition of Ryan Garko means Davis might be losing some AB.
There are a few new names showing up as well, most notably:
Aroldis Chapman -$3
Hisanori Takahashi -$7
Jim Edmonds -$15
3. You can now enter keeper prices without saving stats.
One of the most common questions I am asked is how to enter keeper prices. That’s because that feature has been hidden in with “Let me edit these projections.” But things have changed:
Also, some of you had asked about entering keeper prices without saving the stats as well. Up until this point, it couldn’t be done. Now, you can actually transfer a keeper list across projections to compare, for example, what CAIRO and ZiPS think of your choices.
There have also been a few minor Price Guide bugs cleaned up, like QS and E showing up incorrectly on the Composite projections and inflation prices being left off of Excel.
I updated the composite projections to include playing time votes from the Community Forecast through this morning.
Reassuringly, there has been very little movement since the early version on Friday. Of the 1081 players listed originally:
11 gained more than $2
37 gained $2
257 gained $1
561 stayed the same
181 lost $1
22 lost $2
12 lost more than $2
Most of those 23 players who changed by more than $2 are of little fantasy interest. Here are the players you might care about:
Chris Snyder -$1 (+8)
Pablo Sandoval $15 (+4)
Torii Hunter $19 (+4)
Jason Bulger -$1 (+4)
Kazuo Matsui -$3 (+3)
Russell Branyan -$11 (-3)
Howie Kendrick $9 (-4)
Carlos Santana -$6 (-4)
The Angels were low on votes last week, and so their players are some of the biggest movers over the weekend. Branyan drops a little on news that he’ll start the season on the DL.
This change also adds 68 new players to the mix, such as fantasy non-factors Livan Hernandez (-$16), Todd Wellemeyer (-$15), and Robb Quinlan (-$26). Of the new players, Jeff Weaver is the highest ranked, at -$7. Nothing to see here.
I’m feeling really good about how the numbers look now. I’ll probably keep updating every couple of days until Opening Day, but I doubt much will change. As vote totals accumulate, any movement will probably be smaller than even this update.
Tom Tango has started up this year’s Community Forecasts, a project that recruits hundreds of fans to predict playing time for players on their favorite teams.
I took a snapshot of the PA and IP from the voting as of this evening and added a new option to the Price Guide to use it for playing time. It’s the new default option for the Composite Projections — “2010 Composite (CF)”.
At first glance, this appears to be an improvement over my previous manually tweaked playing time values. Several of the players who seemed too high (Carlos Guillen, David Freese, Matt Diaz) look much more reasonable, now. Garrett Jones, Nyjer Morgan, and Franklin Gutierrez are among the biggest gainers.
The fans are also doing a better job of sorting out the Rockies OF and 2B situations that I was: Seth Smith, Carlos Gonzalez, and Clint Barmes each gain a few dollars. Brad Hawpe, Eric Young, and Dexter Fowler drop a little bit.
Let me know what you think. I plan to keep updating periodically as the voting continues.
If you have checked out the Price Guide in the past week or so, you may have noticed a dramatic change in value for Jeff Clement.
Previously, the Pittsburgh firstbaseman was sitting at about -$1 in a standard league — a useful reserve but not a worthwhile regular.
Now, Jeff Clement is valued at $17.
What changed?
Remember that the Price Guide automatically determines positional eligibility by looking at the number of games at each position that someone played in the previous year. That works great for established major leaguers, but it means that there’s no positional adjustment for minor league players.
So for minor league players who didn’t have any games played in the previous year (or who just had a few September AB), I assign a default position. For example, Ian Desmond played 17 games at SS in 2009, which was just shy of the 20 game cutoff set by default and resulted in him only qualifying at “Util.” I set his default position as “SS,” and the problem is solved.
Jeff Clement had no major league appearances in 2009. So for him, I set the default position as “1B.” After all, he’s currently looking like the front-runner for the Pirates’ starting 1B job this year.
However, in the not too distant past Clement was a catcher. In fact, he played 38 games behind the plate for the Mariners in 2008. That’s good enough to qualify him as a catcher in many leagues, and so I switched his default position to “C.”
The result is an $18 bump in value! Compared to other 1B, his projection isn’t that impressive. But up against the much lower quality of hitters at catcher, he’s in the middle of the pack.
I’ll caution you to double-check your league’s eligibility rules before you get too excited about Jeff Clement this year. I think Yahoo, CBS, and ESPN all count him as a catcher, though.
Secondly, his value (like all catchers) plummets in leagues that only start one catcher. The deeper your draft, the better an option Clement looks.
Disclaimer #3 is that he’s not a lock for regular playing time in Pittsburgh this year. He’ll face competition from Garrett Jones and Steven Pearce (who will both play some OF, too), and a slow start could force Clement to wallow in AAA a little longer.
With those cautions, Clements could be a sneaky pick late in a draft. I’d probably favor him over low-upside guys like A.J. Pierzynski.
In looking at 2010’s LIMA candidates, we’ve looked at a couple of major groups already:
Not Necessarily Low Investments
These are guys who are already on the cusp of greatness: Josh Johnson, Jair Jurrjens, Wandy Rodriguez, Clayton Kershaw, Tommy Hanson. They won’t come cheap, but they could still be a bargain if they take another step forward in 2010. If you are following the LIMA Plan, you could consider grabbing one of these guys as your staff “ace.”
Bounceback Candidates
2009 was an unimpressive year on the surface for several pitchers whose track record points to a bounceback: Jake Peavy, John Lackey, Chad Billingsley, Roy Oswalt. Along with reasons for expecting a return to relevancy, there are also risk factors for each of them, and their name recognition might raise their price on draft day.
Today, let’s look at the final group, the pitchers who look like this year’s true LIMA pitchers. They are guys with solid peripheral stats (K/9 > 6; K/BB > 2; HR/9 < 1) and who could be acquired cheaply this year.
Ubaldo Jimenez
Ubaldo was recently the subject of a prominent Yahoo article and has attracted plenty of attention from fantasy drafters this year, who are treating him as a top 15 pitcher.
The projections are…less optimistic. The composite projections here peg him for a 4.01 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP with strikeouts as the only redeeming factor holding him in positive territory.
Although I’m torn between following the fantasy crowd and the projections, I think I have to side with the drafters in this case. I’m mainly suspicious that the projections aren’t valuing his strong groundball tendencies enough when applying the Coor’s Field penalty to his stats. Colorado is the best hitters’ park in the majors, but that effect can be kept in check if you keep the ball on the ground as well as Jimenez does.
A 3.60 ERA and 1.30 WHIP would bump Jimenez from $6 to $15, and that’s probably close to my limit on him. I’m still not sure if that’s enough to win him in most leagues.
Ryan Dempster
In placing Dempster with this group of pitchers, I think I had forgotten his impressive 2.96 ERA from 2008. Maybe I was still mentally penalizing him for his undistinguished time as a Marlins starter earlier in the decade.
This still might be the best place for him, though. I don’t think he’s a bounceback player, since I (and the projections) think he’s more likely to be closer to his 2009 (3.65 ERA) than his apparently flukish 2008.
He appears to be a fairly unremarkable, close-to-average pitcher for fantasy this year. His boring nature makes him ideal for LIMA — a cheaply decent pitcher who lets you focus your attention on purchasing hitters.
Kevin Correia
After a couple decent years as a reliever for the Giants, Correira responded to the switch to starter in 2008 with an ugly 6.05 ERA. Given a second chance by the Padres, however, he turned things around last year with a sub-4.00 ERA in 198 IP.
While that improvement is partly a Petco-fueled illusion, his park doesn’t let us explain away his rise in strikeouts from 2008 to 2009. He looks to be a solid back-end fantasy option with an ERA around 4.00, but he could be even better if you are able to leverage his home starts.
Gavin Floyd
On the surface, it looked like Floyd’s 2009 was a step back from his 2008, as his ERA rose from 3.84 in 2008 to 4.06 in 2009.
But there are reasons to see 2009 as a dramatic improvement for the 27-year-old righty: His WHIP held steady while he cut the number of homeruns he allowed (1.31 to 0.98 HR/9) and stepped up his strikeouts (6.3 to 7.6 K/9).
The projections are still cautious on Floyd, however. As with Jimenez above, they dock Floyd for pitching in Chicago, which is a bit of a hitters’ park.
We also can’t completely disregard his less-valuable performances in 2007 and 2008 after a good 2009. Unsurprisingly, the projections see his true ability lying in between 2008 and 2009. (It’s telling, however, that FanGraphs’ Fan projections are more optimistic than the ones here…)
Hiroki Kuroda
Kuroda missed some time with injury last year, and that could make him a sneaky pick for 2010.
He’s got several extra factors going for him: He’s pitching for the reigning first place team in a division with a couple of teams expected to be poor offensively (the Padres and Giants especially). While he’ll probably get starts in tough parks in COL and ARI, his home park and SD are favorable to pitchers.
Jorge de la Rosa
Another Rockies pitcher means I’ll continue the apparent theme of this post — home parks will largely determine the fantasy fortunes for many of these pitchers.
If you take everything I said about Jimenez above and applied it to a somewhat inferior pitcher, I think you would have a good summary for de la Rosa.
Jeff Niemann and Jason Hammel
As RotoGraphs did, we’ll tackle these two Rays prospects together (even though Hammel is now with the Rockies). The two of them have the lowest projections on this list, and — while drafters are somewhat more optimistic — I think fantasy expectations are fairly low for both of them.
But consider the positives in favor of these monstrously-sized pitchers: Each of them had a decent ERA last year, and that was backed up by the peripheral stats. They’ve both got a solid prospect pedigree and a good minor league track record. Hammel and Niemann might be the best test to see if LIMA can do a better job at predicting improvements than projections alone.
After comparing the Price Guide’s values to several other sources, I’ve attempted some of the players that the projections here tend to like more than most:
C – Mike Napoli
C – Geovany Soto
1B – Lance Berkman
2B – Kelly Johnson
3B – Chris Davis
SS – Erick Aybar
OF – Matt Diaz
OF – Ryan Ludwick
OF – Magglio Ordonez
OF – Jayson Werth
OF – Brad Hawpe
MI – Howie Kendrick
CI – Billy Butler
Util – Vladimir Guerrero
Notice that there are several guys on that list that are looking to bounceback from a poor 2009: Geovany Soto, Kelly Johnson, Chris Davis. Don’t forget that these are players with a track record (including the minors) that can outweigh one bad year, and there’s a good chance they wind up in between their 2008 and 2009 values this year.
I’ve found that fantasy owners tend to shy away from serviceable veterans in favor of the latest hyped rookies. Magglio Ordonez, Vladimir Guerrero, and Lance Berkman aren’t the players they once were, but they are still solid buys at the right price.
P – Roy Halladay
P – Chris Carpenter
P – Dan Haren
P – Ted Lilly
P – Erik Bedard
P – Hiroki Kuroda
P – Heath Bell
P – Trevor Hoffman
P – Rafael Soriano
I tried to pick some value pitchers from across all tiers. The projections really like Roy Halladay switching from a rough AL East to the more-manageable NL East. Ted Lilly isn’t exciting, but he’s been a reliably above average pitcher for several years now. And Hiroki Kuroda is a LIMA pitcher and could put everything together in 2010.
Chris Carpenter and Rafael Soriano fit in the category of “back from injury,” which means their price tag is a little lower in most leagues. Erik Bedard is a little different: He’ll miss the first part of the year, but 100-120 IP at his previous levels would be valuable. Ideally, you can stash him on the DL and combine his contribution with a replacement-level pitcher for the first few months.
Writing about the possibility of Chone Figgins at 2B recently brought something else to my attention: There is a surprising gap in fantasy value between 2B and SS this year.
For fantasy purposes, I don’t see much to get excited about at SS this year: With Jose Reyes starting the year on the DL, the top-tier of shortstops is even more barren — Hanley Ramirez in the early first round and Troy Tulowitzki a bit behind. Then you’ve got an aged Derek Jeter, followed by Jimmy Rollins, who has spent the past two years trying to prove that his 2007 MVP was just a fluke.
After that, it’s a bunch of low-ceiling old guys — Rafael Furcal, Miguel Tejada, Orlando Cabrera. Youngsters like Elvis Andrus and Alcides Escobar are getting some hype, but I’m not seeing much fantasy value for 2010 (and neither are the projections).
Compare that to the depth at 2B: The top fantasy tier at this position runs at least five deep (Chase Utley, Ian Kinsler, Dustin Pedroia, Brian Roberts, Robinson Cano). The projections are high on Ian Stewart’s sophomore year, as well, placing him just outside of those five.
There are also plenty of interesting names in the middle. You can target AVG with Howie Kendrick, HR with Dan Uggla, or a mix of HR-SB with Brandon Phillips. The projections predict a bounceback for Kelly Johnson and Rickie Weeks and a decline for Aaron Hill, but there’s plenty of intrigue with all of them. And all of that is before the boring guys at the bottom of the barrel — Jose Lopez, Placido Polanco, Orlando Hudson, and their ilk.
Look at things this way: The Price Guide puts 7 SS in double-digit values in a standard fantasy league. There are 13 2B who can match them statistically. That imbalance makes the 2B replacement level more similar to 3B than to SS.
The shortage of quality SS is one of the primary reason that the Price Guide propels Hanley Ramirez slightly ahead of Albert Pujols as the top fantasy pick for this year. The high number of quality 2B also knocks Chase Utley a tick lower here than at other sites.
For this year, I’m liking the auction strategy that goes hard after either Hanley or Tulo and then pairs him with either the cheapest of the Big 5 at 2B or one of the 2B bounceback candidates.
I’ve been doing some Yahoo mock-auctions lately in preparation for a real auction in a few weeks. It’s nice to be prepared and to already be familiar with the draft software before draft day.
There’s one factor that I think can give you an incredible edge on a Yahoo auction: Knowing Yahoo’s prices. Yahoo’s prices are displayed for each player that is brought up for bidding. It acts as an incredible price control — people are unwilling to stray too far from Yahoo’s recommendation. And this is an opportunity to leverage the situation.
Here are my four rules for dominating a Yahoo auction:
1. Configure the Price Guide for Yahoo leagues. The Price Guide can build values for any league, so you need to make sure it’s customized correctly for a Yahoo auction. Yahoo’s $260 cap includes 5 bench players, so I’d drop that down in the Price Guide (which only values starters) to $250 or $255. Yahoo leagues only do 1 C, no CI or MI, and 2 Util.
On the pitching side, Yahoo starts 2 SP, 2 RP, and 4 P. I think 5 SP and 3 RP gives a pretty good approximation. I also set a custom hitter/pitcher split to tone down the values for pitchers — 60/40 seems to be pretty close. This should be pretty close to what you need.
2. Be willing to spend on top-tier talent. Yahoo’s suggested values top out at $37. The Price Guide has no problem spending $50+ on Hanley and Pujols. It is quite realistic to end up with 4-5 guys who would typically be 1st or 2nd rounders.
3. Nominate guys that Yahoo overvalues. Once you’ve spent all your money on the best talent, it’s time to sit back and wait a while. Having spent lots of your money in Step 2, it’s time to help others spend their’s.
If there’s anyone autopicking in your draft, they will usually jump up to Yahoo’s recommended bid whenever they can. If there’s anyone that Yahoo has ranked higher than you do, you can easily clear some cash from the room.
All you have to do is nominate someone that Yahoo has ranked highly that you don’t want. It won’t take long for an autopicker to jump on it. Some names that worked well for me:
Rick Porcello
Garrett Jones
Jorge Cantu
Curtis Granderson
Elvis Andrus
Mark Teahen
Neftali Feliz
Ubaldo Jimenez
Gavin Floyd
Jason Bartlett
Aaron Hill
John Danks
Orlando Cabrera
Chris Coghlan
Kendry Morales
Ichiro Suzuki
Brandon Phillips
Andrew Bailey
Nyjer Morgan
Ryan Theriot
None of those are guys that the projections here think very highly of. And even if you don’t have anyone autopicking, your league is unlikely to resist the pull of Yahoo’s rankings. It’s unlikely that you will win any of those guys with a $1 bid.
4. Look for bargains where Yahoo’s prices are too low. As mentioned before, Yahoo doesn’t have the top-tier high enough, so don’t be afraid to get several guys in the $30-40’s. Yahoo is also really down on RP: Trevor Hoffman for $3? Bobby Jenks isn’t even ranked above replacement.
As your league is filling up on the trash you’re bringing up in Step 3, keep an eye out for potential bargains that you can get with the money you have left. Following the Price Guide, these are some guys you could be targeting:
Vladimir Guerrero*
Javier Vazquez
Mike Napoli
Hiroki Kuroda
Jonathan Broxton
Billy Wagner
Ryan Ludwick
Matt Holliday
Lance Berkman
Russell Martin
Ted Lilly
Trevor Hoffman
Carlos Quentin
Heath Bell
Johan Santana
Hanley Ramirez
Jay Bruce
Jair Jurrjens
Tim Hudson
Jose Reyes
Manny Ramirez
Albert Pujols
* Vlad only qualifies at Util, but Yahoo has two Util spots this year. Guerrero under $10 looks like a great deal in this format.
Are there any other strategies you’ve found for Yahoo’s auctions?
The Price Guide’s DH values for a standard league present a nice, halving pattern:
Vladimir Guerrero $20
David Ortiz $10
Hideki Matsui $5
I’ll admit, seeing an Andrew Jackson beside Vladimir Guerrero’s name surprised me a little. After a horrific 2009 (valued at $1 according to the Price Guide), I had tempered my expectations.
And apparently I wasn’t alone: Just to compare a couple of other sources, Fantasy Ball Junkie calculates the average auction price for Vlad as $8. Tim Dierkes values him at $9. Yahoo also suggests $9, but the Yahoo mock-auctioners are bidding an even more cautious $5.
In reality, when Vlad played last year, he played great. He hit for average and for power, he walked plenty, and even nabbed a couple of bases. His skills aren’t diminished, he just couldn’t get healthy. If we assume a healthy 2010 as the Rangers’ DH, he should be a lot closer to his 2008 ($25) than 2009. And that would make Guerrero a great bargain for 2010.
David Ortiz’s fall from grace is a little more worrisome. Whereas Guerrero was still batting around .300 in his down 2009 year, Ortiz couldn’t top .240 (after hitting .264 the year before). I don’t know if Ortiz is done or not as fantasy contributor, but I think the risk is much higher for him than for Guerrero. (Interestingly, Dierkes puts Ortiz at $8, just one buck below Guerrero. The Price Guide thinks there’s a much wider gap.) One redeeming feature for Ortiz is that he at least qualifies at 1B in leagues that requires 6 GS or fewer (like Yahoo).
Just like there’s an unquantifiable bonus for qualifying at multiple positions, there’s also a monetary penalty for a player who locks up your utility spot. I’d say that fantasy drafters take that into account when they are bidding, potentially to the tune of $2-3 below the true value.
Which brings us to Hideki Matsui. Matsui never had the power that the other two guys had, and that means he’s a notch below both of them. He’s valued at $5, and the DH inflexibility takes off a little of that value. Honestly, I think I’d rather have a slightly inferior hitter who can play a position and who doesn’t have as much age/injury risk. Even somebody like Mark Teahen (3B,OF) — valued at -$2 — seems like a more attractive option to me than Matsui.