Archive for March, 2010

« Older Entries

Community Forecasts Updated (03/29)

4 Comments
March 29th, 2010 by
Categories: Price Guide

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.

Community Forecasts are Up

11 Comments
March 26th, 2010 by
Categories: Price Guide

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.

Taking a Second Look at Jeff Clement

No Comments
March 23rd, 2010 by
Categories: Position Eligibility, Sleepers

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.

LIMA 2010: Cheap Starters

6 Comments
March 18th, 2010 by
Categories: LIMA, Sleepers

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.

The Price Guide’s All-Bargain Team

1 Comment
March 16th, 2010 by
Categories: Price Guide, Projections, Sleepers

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.

The Shortstop Shortage

2 Comments
March 11th, 2010 by
Categories: Strategy

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.

How to Dominate a Yahoo Auction

11 Comments
March 9th, 2010 by
Categories: Auctions, Fantasy Basics, Strategy

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?

Pricing 2010′s Designated Hitters

No Comments
March 8th, 2010 by
Categories: Price Guide, Projections

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.

What is the Price Guide?

33 Comments
March 6th, 2010 by
Categories: Fantasy Basics, Price Guide

The Price Guide is a free, online tool that gives you fantasy dollar values or fantasy rankings, customized for your league.

Here are some of the things it lets you do:

Customize Player Values for Your League
In fantasy baseball today, there’s no such thing as a standard league — your specific league settings can drastically alter the fantasy values of players. So why do so many fantasy sites and magazines only give a one-size-fits-all ranking of players?

Some Price Guide Categories

The Price Guide adjusts player values to the particulars of your league. So if you’re in an 8-team, NL-only league with standard categories or a 14-team league that adds OBP and holds, the Price Guide delivers values that are customized to those exact specifications. The Price Guide can be configured to handle literally millions of unique leagues.

Wonder how the Price Guide works? The details of its inner workings are all spelled out on the site, so there’s no proprietary secret or black-box to the methodology. There’s nothing about the Price Guide that you shouldn’t be able to recreate on your own.

Edit the Projections
While the Price Guide projections are already great, what happens if you disagree with the projected stats for a player? With the Price Guide, you can easily tweak any player’s stats and the values for all players will be automatically recalculated.

Editing a Player's Projection

So let’s say you come across a prospect who is initially slated for 10 HR and 10 SB, but you think he can get 20 of each. Enter new values on the Price Guide, and you’ll not only see his value jump, but you will also see a slight revaluation of everyone else as the number of available HR and SB increases.

Enter Keepers
If your league let’s you keep players, you know that they can have a dramatic effect on draft-day prices. With the Price Guide, as you enter keeper prices, you can watch the inflation rate raise the values of the remaining players.

Keepers

Upload Your Own Projections
If you ever encounter a situation where you want to change a large number of players’ values, the Price Guide also lets you upload your own projections into the system. All you have to do is put the stats in a simple Excel format and upload them to the site. You can upload as many sets as your want, so you are free to continually adjust your projections throughout the spring.

Uploading Projections

Add Values to Your League Website
Using a Firefox add-on called Greasemonkey, you can even add Price Guide dollar values to your league website. Get a leg-up on the competition with this handy tool to help you evaluate free agent pickups and trade opportunities.

Adding Dollar Values to a Yahoo League

The dollar values work with Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, and Allstar Stats leagues. As on the Price Guide site, the values are customized for your exact league settings, and the year-to-date values update daily throughout the season.

Interested yet? Everything is completely free, so why don’t you try it out?

The Biggest Movers

4 Comments
March 4th, 2010 by
Categories: Projections

Now that the composite projections have been adjusted for probable playing time, it might be interesting to see which players were most affected by the change. Here are the players who got the biggest bump due to increased playing time:

J.R. Towles (C – Hou)
Erick Aybar (SS – LAA)
Mike Napoli (C – LAA)
Matt Diaz (OF – Atl)
Gregg Zaun (C – Mil)
Chris Iannetta (C – Col)
Jorge Posada (C – NYY)
Elijah Dukes (OF – Was)
Rickie Weeks (2B – Mil)
Ryan Doumit (C – Pit)

On average, these players saw their fantasy values jump by about $14 after the playing time adjustment!

In fantasy baseball, a player’s value is based not only on his skills, but also on his opportunities. A relief pitcher gains tons of value when he moves from an 8th to 9th inning role and starts accumulating saves. Pitchers on good offensive teams will get more wins, and hitters will get more RBIs.

And a playing time opportunity will give some players a chance to find fantasy value this year. A couple of names on the list find themselves unexpectedly at the top of the depth chart for 2010 — J.R. Towles, Matt Diaz, and Gregg Zaun especially.

Others on the list missed significant time last year due to injury. That is true for Ryan Doumit, Elijah Dukes, and Rickie Weeks. The projections all downgrade their playing time, but they get quite a boost if we assume they will be healthy in 2010.

Notice also the unusual number of catchers on this list; I’ll come back to them in a minute. On the other hand, you have to go down a ways to start finding pitchers. Chris Carpenter and Billy Wagner get big boosts after injuries, and Mat Latos gets a depth-chart jump.

Here are the players whose value decreases after adjusting for projected playing time:

Chris Fetter (SP – SD)
Carlos Alvarado (SP – LAD)
Brad Brach (RP – SD)
Jon Jay (C – StL)
J.R. House (C – KC)
Matt Miller (2B – Col)
Matthew Way (SP – Phi)
Juan Francisco (3B – Cin)
Kelvim Escobar (SP – NYM)
Eric Farris (2B – Mil)
Oscar Salazar (OF – SD)

Who? I’d say taking these guys off the list is a definite positive. Once again there are a few factors that are evident:

First, apparently Petco can make several guys buried in the minors look like decent pitchers for fantasy. If they played anywhere else, we wouldn’t be seing Chris Fetter or Brad Brach on this list.

Others are just too far down on the depth chart and blocked by other players at the major league level. J.R. House looks like a decent catcher from his minor league stats, but he’s unlikely to get ahead of Jason Kendall and Brayan Pena on the Royals’ depth chart.

As mentioned above, catcher is the position with the most movement (in both directions) from the playing time adjustment. Real baseball teams determine playing time based on more than just fantasy production, and — for catchers especially — defense matters. So guys who have an above replacement bat might not figure to get any time in the majors, while several fantasy-irrelevant catchers will get plenty of starts. I think this shift is also responsible for pushing higher the dollar values of the top-tier catchers on the adjusted projections.

« Older Entries