SubscribePart I of this series was simply a look at a new feature of the Price Guide — the ability to customize the hitter/pitcher split whereever you wanted. Part II was an experiment to see how that feature works in real-life, using the Tout Wars league as an example. Now we get to the implications of this tool — Should you create values that imitate the values of your league?
Last year, I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why real-life drafters were willing to spend more on hitters and less on pitchers than what the Price Guide recommends:
Examining the 70/30 Split
Diverging from ADP
More Thoughts on ADP
My final conclusion was that…well, I never really figured out why this happens.
However, I’m not sure if a conclusion on what is most correct is really essential. I have two simple things in mind for approaching my drafts this year with regard to the hitter/pitcher split:
1. Adjust the prices to fit the league’s historical tendencies.
This would mean, for example, that if I were in Tout Wars Mixed, I would use the 72/28 split that models reality instead of the 63/37 that the Price Guide default spits out. I don’t know if this is the correct thing to do, but it does work.
Why is that? In simulating drafts, I’ve noticed that trying to buck league trends is a quick path to failure. If you are willing to draft pitchers early but the other eleven people in your league wait, you will probably lose.
The opposite is also true — if everyone in your league drafts pitchers with their first picks and you draft hitters instead, you will also lose. One person by himself or herself cannot exploit a league’s weakness. A player is only worth what the league is willing to pay for him.
Adjusting the split to match the league is valuable because it helps get the bargains. If I get in a bidding war for CC Sabathia and win him at $40, I might only be paying a fair price according to the Price Guide defaults. But if the bidding on Sabathia is an outlier and most top pitchers go for around $30, then I am probably missing a bargain price on someone else because I was willing to pay a “fair” price on Sabathia.
If I adjust the split, I will either pay a fair price (according to your league) or a bargain price (according to the default Price Guide split). Either way, it is impossible to overpay.
2. Be willing to spend extra on pitching when necessary.
I balance the first strategy with a willingness to occasionally exceed the adjusted split.
While I’m not really confident in the Price Guide’s default splits, I’m also not confident that the leagues are doing a better job. And so, for certain pitchers, I’m going to be willing to spend an extra $1-2.
Doing so will still leave me below the Price Guide’s default prices on those pitchers, and it still allows me to bid competitively on the top-tier hitters. Once again, I think it’s as close to a win-win as I can get.
Am I on the right track here?
Related posts:
It doesn’t seem quite right to say “[a] player is only worth what the league is willing to pay for him.” It seems more accurate to say that “a player’s price is only what the league is willing to pay for him.” Players will return an objective value relative to other players over the year; the Price Guide is designed to project (as best as possible) the differences in those values. It’s sort of like a stock market where the only “value” a stock produces is in dividends.*
*This excludes the trade value of players – e.g., the rest of my league prices relievers much lower than their objective value; accordingly, I can’t flip them for as much value as, say, a 1B of comparable value later in the season.
All that said (and it may just be semantics), what you described is almost exactly how I approach my drafts. I think it’s helpful to run two sets of rankings: one that has “objective” values and one that’s tells me how much the league I’m in will spend. We can then examine the divergences between the two, and go $1-2 above the “subjective” rankings for pitchers (or any players) that the objective/subjective comparison says will be undervalued by market price.
If you stick to that, you’ll amass the most value at the lowest price. To use your example, you’ll lose out on some “good” deals (e.g., a Sabathia that the objective PG values at $40, that the subjective PG prices at $30 and that actually goes for $37), but you’ll be able to get better deals (e.g., a Haren that the objective PG values at $40, that the subjective PG prices at $30, and that you buy for $31). Despite giving up a “good” deal, you’ll have bought a player of equivalent value, and have an extra $7 to spend elsewhere.
@tyler: That Sabathia/Haren example is the exact kind of thing I had in mind; well explained.