Archive for the ‘Projections’ Category

The Strasburg Questions

5 Comments
January 27th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

Yesterday, I asked what you would be willing to pay for Stephen Strasburg if your draft were held today. Reassuringly, the comments I received echoed what I had been thinking, and they basically raised the same questions that I have.

The projections so far (CAIRO and ZiPS) have him as a late-round 4.00+ ERA pitcher for about half of a season. That would probably be worth a mid-single digit bid in most leagues.

But there are enough questions around Strasburg to make bidding much more complicated. I see at the following factors weighing in on Strasburg’s value:

How many innings will Strasburg pitch in 2010?

I don’t follow the Nationals too closely, but right now it looks like there’s at least a chance Strasburg could start the season in the majors. There aren’t a ton of great options available for Washington, so a good spring gives Strasburg a shot at spending April in D.C.

However, it has become common practice to cap a young player’s innings to prevent injuries, and so I’d say the most optimistic prediction for Strasburg would be 160 IP. The Nationals won’t have anything to play for in September, so I’d think they would shut him down.

Of course, the Nationals may also decide to start Strasburg off in the minors. In that case, we’re talking about something closer to 100 IP.

I’d say the risk of only getting 100-150 IP out of a SP is a factor that keeps Strasburg’s value low for 2010.

How high is the upside?

I mentioned yesterday that projecting Strasburg in 2010 is more complex than just picking a single number, like a 4.38 ERA. I’m making up some numbers here, but let’s throw out some quick probabilities for what Strasburg’s ERA might look like:

5% – 3.00
10% – 3.50
25% – 4.00
40% – 4.50
20% – 5.00

That gives, on average, a 4.30 ERA. It also gives Strasburg a 5% chance of becoming a top-tier pitcher immediately. There’s a 10% chance he winds up in the middle-tier for fantasy, and a 25% chance he’s worth a late-round grab. Most (60%) of the time, however, he’s waiver wire fodder.

I admittedly have no idea how realistic those probabilities are. However, I think the chance of him being either good or very good gives him a much higher ceiling than your typical 4.38 ERA pitcher. And I think that upside must slant his value a little bit higher.

How much risk can your fantasy team assume?

When drafting, I try to balance out upside picks with more conservative choices. If I already have, say, Roy Oswalt and Roy Halladay, then I have quite a bit of freedom to take some chances with the rest of my pitching staff.

The answer to this question will be mostly dependent on how your draft is progressing when Strasburg comes up. But I think it also matters regardless of context specifics. In general, I think pitching depth looks pretty good this year. It seems like it will be possible to put together a solid, reliable staff without spending too much money. The availability of quality SP might make me somewhat more inclined to take on a riskier proposition.

Put all of those factors together, and I’m guessing that I’d be willing to bid about $8 on Strasburg in a typical league. That’s not enough to ruin my season if things go wrong, but I think there’s a decent chance he’s worth it.

Where Would You Draft Stephen Strasburg for 2010?

9 Comments
January 26th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

CAIRO’s latest update gives the Price Guide its first projection for the Washington Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg:

4 W, 4.38 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 70 K, 76 IP

SG is going from college stats here, so this is still wildly speculative. The Price Guide indicates that a pitcher with those stats isn’t worth starting in most fantasy leagues, including NL-only leagues. It would be the kind of pitcher you draft for your bench, only to drop in April so you can pick up some guy who starts the season on an unexpected hot streak.

Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS gives a somewhat more optimistic look for Strasburg:

10 W, 4.18 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 113 K, 114 IP

That’s a draftable pitcher for late in a fantasy baseball draft. The IP make it hard to find a comparable, but that’s roughly what you might expect from Rich Harden or Chris Young. (They have injury risk, but Strasburg has risk as well.) It’s also not too far off from what you might expect from A.J. Burnett (with significantly fewer IP).

With Strasburg, of course, you’re not simply drafting a projected statline. There’s an enormous amount of upside, much more so than your typical 4.38 or 4.18 ERA pitcher. That upside is obvious for those in keeper leagues, but is it worth anything in 2010?

What do you think? Let’s say you’re in a 12 team, standard redraft league and have $260 to spend. If your draft were held today, what would you pay for Stephen Strasburg?

And you can’t say, “I wouldn’t draft him because someone else would pay more.” How cheap would he have to come for you to bid on him?

I’ll give my answer tomorrow.

Johan Santana, Josh Beckett, and…Colby Lewis?

4 Comments
January 25th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

Here are CHONE’s 2010 projections for three very similar-looking starting pitchers:

Pitcher A – 3.96 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 150 K, 168 IP
Pitcher B – 3.89 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 165 K, 183 IP
Pitcher C – 3.85 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 174 K, 187 IP

Pitcher C is World Series hero and fantasy mainstay Josh Beckett. Pitcher B is two-time Cy Young winner Johan Santana. Pitcher A, of course, is Colby Lewis.

Colby Lewis? Really?

Lewis has spent the last two years playing for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in Japan’s NPB league. He was recently inked by the Texas Rangers to fill out their rotation. Before his time in NPB, he was a top prospect for Texas who managed some unimpressive MLB stats from 2004-2007. In Japan, however, he became a new pitcher:

2008 – 15 W, 2.68 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 183 K, 173 IP
2009 – 11 W, 2.96 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 186 K, 176.3 IP

CHONE takes those awesome Japanese stats and tempers them considerably; the sub-3.00 ERA and sub-1.00 WHIP are lost in the translation. Even taking quite a bit off of his NPB stats, Lewis looks like a very good player in MLB.

Before you get too excited abut Colby Lewis, though, I’ll make a few cautionary observations:

1. CHONE hates Santana as much as it loves Lewis.

The comparison of Colby Lewis to Johan Santana is not just a statement about Lewis, but also about Santana. CHONE is projecting a 3.89 ERA for Santana, and he hasn’t topped 3.33 in the past eight years.

Apparently there needs to be a separate post to examine what to expect from Johan Santana in 2010. So that comparison is more for shock-value than for balanced analysis. Guys like Matt Garza and James Shields are the sorts of guys we really expect to have a 3.90 ERA with lots of strikeouts, and they are probably a better benchmark for Lewis.

2. Not all projections love Colby Lewis.

ZiPS isn’t on this site for 2010, but it is considerably less optimistic for Lewis:

11 W, 4.39 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 128 K, 176.3 IP

That’s still above replacement level, on par with end-game picks like Gavin Floyd and Andy Pettitte. ZiPS appears to be putting less weight on his Japanese stats and more on his undistinguished MLB-career.

This raises an important question: Which is more indicative — recent stats in a non-MLB context or MLB stats from three or four years ago? Colby Lewis in 2010 could be an important data point in this discussion.

3. Translating Japanese stats is an imperfect exercise.

While MLB-NPB translations are based on how the switch impacted other players, it is still hit-or-miss. The Japanese game is simply different than what is played in North America, and skills that were valuable in one league might not help in the other.

However, the track record for CHONE has been pretty good on recent imports Hiroki Kuroda, Kenshin Kawakami, and Koji Uehara. These were pitchers who looked like decent-not-great fantasy pitchers based on the projections, and who basically lived up to those expectations. The fact that a 2.90 pitcher like Lewis would be a 3.90 pitcher in MLB seems to indicate that the translation is being fairly conservative.

The bottom line: Lewis could come very cheapily in 2010 drafts, as long as the hype on him doesn’t build. Magazines that have an early print date probably won’t be aware of him, and that means that there are probably several people in your league who won’t be aware of him, either. There’s also no $51 million posting fee to create the buzz like what surrounded Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Even using the more pessimistic ZiPS, I feel pretty good about paying at least $5-6 for Colby Lewis. At that price, it’s not a big deal to cut him if he doesn’t work out. If it turns out CHONE is right, then that’s a cheap bet that could pay huge dividends.

Interesting Catcher Prospects

6 Comments
January 19th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Keepers, Projections, Sleepers

Last week, I pointed out some unexpected players who had positive fantasy values due to their speed and stolen base potential.

In combing through the Price Guide, there is a second set of relatively surprising players who show up above replacement level: Minor league catchers.

The problem here is twofold: First, the replacement level for catchers is really low, especially in leagues that start two of them. When a guy can hit .260 with 12 HR and be considered above average, you know it doesn’t take much offense to be above replacement.

The second issue is with the defense rigors of catching. There are quite a few guys in the minors who have a major-league quality bat for a catcher, but not a major-league glove. (Likewise, they could handle first base on defense, but their offense wouldn’t be worth it.) So they are stuck in the minors until their defense improves.

There’s no one as interesting as Matt Wieters was last year, but there are several of relatively unknown catchers who are showing up in positive territory:

J.R. House (KC – $5)
This one is a mystery to me. House is 30 years old and has just finished his third year in AAA. His 2007 and 2008 minor league stats look good, so I’m guessing that’s part of what is driving CHONE and CAIRO to both place this guy above replacement level (basically on par with Chris Iannetta).

Luckily, this projection is an enigma that shouldn’t cause much concern. House is buried on the Kansas City depth chart behind the newly-arrived Jason Kendall and returning favorite Brayan Pena.

Carlos Santana (CLE – $4)
Buster Posey (SF – $1)

Carlos Santana and Buster Posey have some similarities and are worth looking at together. Both are top prospects, and neither is really blocked by anyone on the major league roster. Cleveland traded off Victor Martinez (BOS) and Kelly Shoppach (TB) to free up a spot for Santana, and San Francisco let their incumbent, Bengie Molina, leave for free agency.

Now, it is possible that one or both of these teams will attempt to acquire a 1-year stopgap to give their prospects more time to develop (and to prevent them from accruing service time). That was the case last year with a somewhat better catching prospect in Baltimore, as the Orioles grabbed Gregg Zaun with the intent of easing in Matt Wieters. Even with the possibility of their teams bringing in a veteran, I’m still counting on an ETA for both of these guys sometime in 2010.

The projections are split on who they like better for 2010. CHONE ranks Posey a bit above replacement and Santana just below it. CAIRO places Santana about $12 higher than Posey, with one on either side of the replacement level. Posey has the better prospect pedigree of the two and probably the one I would favor as well.

I’d say that Wieters’s 2009 is about the best you can expect from Santana or Posey in 2010: Two-thirds of a year with about 10 HR and a not-deadly average. That’s a lower end starter in a two catcher league or a decent bench player for leagues starting one catcher.

Jesus Montero (NYY – $1)
Montero is the Yankees’ clear number one prospect, recently drawing a comparison from John Sickels to perrenial fantasy first-rounder Mike Piazza. Unfortunately, Montero is unlikely to see any time in 2010 with Jorge Posada entrenched as the starter and a couple of solid backups (Jose Molina and Francisco Cervelli) already in place. It’s possible that he could enter the picture in 2011 (the last year of Posada’s current contract) and potentially handle the lion’s share of starts in 2012.

All of that assumes he sticks at catcher, which isn’t a guarantee at this point. For 2010, despite already having 20 HR power, his only value is as a keeper.

Jonathan Lucroy (MIL – $2)
Angel Salome (MIL – $1)

We’ll tackle these two Milwaukee catchers together. Jason Kendall has moved on to Kansas City (see J.R. House above), which means Milwaukee should be trying out a new catcher in 2010. Interestingly, CHONE seems to prefer Salome to Lucroy, and CAIRO like Lucroy more than Salome.

The bottom line: Posey and Santana look like the main targets, guys clearly worth bidding on this year. Lucroy or Salome could be a $1 flyer in two-catcher leagues, depending on how the Brewers handle things. Montero is a 2011/2012 keeper only, and House is probably not worth targeting.

A couple of other names of interest that the projections like:

John Hester (ARI)
Tyler Flowers (CWS)
Michael McKenry (COL)

Projecting 2010 Saves

14 Comments
January 18th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Saves

With Jose Valverde signing with the Tigers and Octavio Dotel apparently heading to Pittsburgh, the closer situation for most teams has been settled.

You may have noticed, however, that one of the most glaring difficulties with using computer-generated projections (CAIRO, CHONE, etc.) for fantasy baseball is the lack of saves in these projections. Recognizing that saves are much more tied to a player’s situation than to his skills, most computerized projections make no attempt to quantify the number of saves for each player.

While that represents the reality of projecting, it obviously won’t work for fantasy, which allocates 20% of the pitching points based on saves. But what can be done to fix this?

I was hoping that the FanGraphs Fan Projections would be helpful for this, but there are still lots of pitchers (Joe Nathan, for one) who don’t have enough projections to show up. As it is, there’s at least enough data to pick an appropriate scale — about 40 saves for the top closers and 15-20 for the marginal ones.

So I have attempted to come up with my own save projections. I started off with a list sorted by the number of saves from the past two years, averaged with a 2:1 weighting. From there, I tweaked the rankings to account for changes in situations and a rough estimate of skill. The results are four basic tiers of closers:

40 Saves
Joe Nathan (47 S in 2009, 39 S in 2008)
Mariano Rivera (44, 39)

35 Saves
Jonathan Papelbon (38, 41)
Francisco Rodriguez (35, 62)
Brian Wilson (38, 41)
Francisco Cordero (39, 34)
Joakim Soria (30, 42)
Heath Bell (42, 0)

Papelbon and K-Rod are near the 40 save tier, but I think they’re just a shade below the top two. Bell and Soria both require some bonus credit to get ranked this highly, compensating for Soria’s missed time in 2009 and Bell’s single year track record.

30 Saves
Trevor Hoffman (37, 30)
Jose Valverde (25, 44)
Jonathan Broxton (36, 14)
David Aardsma (38, 0)

At this level, everyone has question marks. We’ve got injuries (Valverde, Francisco, Qualls), age-concerns (Hoffman), and one-year samples (Broxton, Aardsma) clouding the situation. These guys are still pretty solid, though.

25 Saves
Brian Fuentes (48, 30)
Brad Lidge (31, 41)
Ryan Franklin (38, 17)
Bobby Jenks (29, 30)
Huston Street (35, 18)
Matt Capps (27, 21)
Rafael Soriano (27, 3)
Chad Qualls (24, 9)
Frank Francisco (25, 5)
Billy Wagner (0, 27)

Despite leading the league in saves in 2009, Fuentes was a little rocky and now has Fernando Rodney on his team. Lidge’s totals look good, but I’m also a bit concerned with his late-season breakdown. Capps and Soriano have some question marks for injuries. Basically, this is the tier where I’m not surprised if anyone loses the closer’s gig by the All-Star break.

20 Saves
Kerry Wood (20, 34)
Andrew Bailey (26, 0)
Brandon Lyon (3, 26)
Mike Gonzalez (10, 14)

15 Saves
Leo Nunez (26, 0)
Carlos Marmol (15, 7)
Scott Downs (9, 5)
Jason Frasor (11, 0)
Octavio Dotel (0, 1)

The 15-20 range are all really speculative; I expect a good number of these guys to lose the closing job by midseason. Scott Downs and Jason Frasor seem like the best candidates in Toronto, but I can’t find any information about who is more likely to get saves.

These are back-of-the-envelope calculations — not exactly mathematically rigorous but certainly better than 0’s for everyone. I’m also not watching these players nearly as close as the fans of their teams are, and so I’m hardly an expert on their situations and skills.

I’ve gone ahead and added them to the Price Guide as the default save projections for CHONE, CAIRO, and the composite projections. I’d still encourage you to edit the projections how you see fit, but I think this at least starts things off looking more reasonable.

However, I’d really like some help in refining these numbers. Anybody have any suggestions for improving these tiers?

Interesting SB Prospects

3 Comments
January 14th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

One of the most exciting parts about baseball projections are the projections for the minor leaguers. Here we get a chance to see what just about every professional player could do if he were given a full season in the majors.

For the most part, translating the stats for minor league players shows that even the best prospects wouldn’t be impact players for fantasy. The one skill that translates well to the majors is speed, and so there are quite a few young players that look like they could steal 30-60 bases if given a chance in the majors.

Looking over the current values on the Price Guide, here are a few names that stand out as SB-threats:

Eric Young (2B, OF – COL)
CHONE thinks Eric Young Jr. could nab 39 bases in 2010, while CAIRO puts him down for 52! (ZiPS splits the difference with 45 SB.) He is coming off a 58 SB year in Triple-A, so those numbers are quite attainable.

His fantasy value is also aided by playing in Colorado and by being eligible at middle infield. Both projections have him as about an $18 player this year in standard leagues, in the ballpark of guys like Evan Longoria, Lance Berkman, and B.J. Upton. I’m trying to temper my expectations, but that would be incredible.

Best of all, it looks like he’s going to be given the chance to start 2010 with the big-league club as a utility player (2B, 3B, and OF). That was a role that worked well last year for Ian Stewart (who, as projected, quietly put up a solid fantasy season in 2009).

Stewart also played a valuable role as the Player Most Likely to be on My Fantasy Teams, and I’m guessing that Eric Young will play that part this year. For lots of steals without killing the other categories and great positional eligibility I’m ready to go into double-digits for Young. I doubt anyone will be pushing me up to $20, but the projections think he will be worth it even so.

Julio Borbon (OF – TEX)
Julio Borbon is another speedy player that the projections love. He’s pegged for 34 (CHONE), 35 (CAIRO), or 41 (ZiPS) SB. He’s not yet expected to be the hitter that Young is, so his projected fantasy value is around the upper single-digits.

The big impact for Borbon is the Cubs signing Marlon Byrd to a 3/$15 deal this offseason, which frees up a spot in the Texas OF for Borbon. The current plan is for him to be the starting CF and leadoff hitter for the Rangers, and that could be very good for his fantasy value.

Michael Brantley (OF – CLE)
Michael Brantley’s name may be familiar as one of the prospects Milwaukee gave up for their late-season rental of CC Sabathia back in 2008. There’s a possibility that he is the starting LF for the Indians in 2010, and that would give him a chance at 30+ SB. The rest of his game is not quite fantasy-worthy, but he could be a valuable guy on the bench and as a keeper after this year.

Eric Patterson (2B, OF – OAK)
Patterson could be a 10-30 player in 2010 — basically Shane Victorino with less batting average. It’s not clear yet if the A’s have a place for him (and his questionable defense) on the diamond. Depending on how things are looking this spring, he could be worth a late flier.

Other possibilities for 30+ stolen bases don’t look like they offer enough with the bat to get a starting gig with a major-league team. Some names for those who are panning for gold include:

Eugenio Velez (2B, OF – SF)
Freddy Guzman (OF – NYY)
Jason Bourgeois (OF – HOU)
Tony Campana (OF – CHC)
Josh Anderson (OF – CIN)
Eric Farris (2B – MIL)

Greinke & Ibanez

2 Comments
May 28th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Projections

The Price Guide’s composite projections said Zack Greinke would be worth $9 in 2009. That’s what you would pay for a 4.15 ERA and 1.32 WHIP pitcher — one with a middling strikeout rate on a bad team for wins.

Zack Greinke currently sits at $52 of value in a standard mixed league — tops for any hitter or pitcher. He’s turned himself into a dominant strikeout pitcher (9.7 K/9) who is giving up so few runs per start that he gets wins even as a Royal.

The composite projections put Raul Ibanez down as a $14 player. That’s a 20 HR, 80 RBI, outfielder who is about to turn 37 years old.

With 17 homeruns already this season, Ibanez looks like he could match his full-season homerun projection (22) by the end of May. He’s flipped that $14 projection into a $41 value so far this year — leading all hitters.

Does that mean anything going forward?

At this point, I’m much more sold on Greinke’s breakout than on Ibanez’s. I could envision Greinke as a top 10 pitcher next year much easier than I can see Ibanez as a top-tier hitter.

Most of that confidence is due to their respective ages: Greinke is 24 and Ibanez, 36. It’s much more likely for a 24 year old pitcher to take his game to the next level than for a hitter in his “decline” years.

Wild guess for end-of-year values: Ibanez $26, Greinke $37.

Even wilder guess at 2010 projections: Ibanez $17, Greinke $34.

April’s Biggest Underperformers

17 Comments
May 7th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Projections

We’ve played about one month of games so far. For a standard league, here are the players with the largest gap between their year-to-date performance and their preseason dollar values according to the composite projections:

Player Proj. Act. Diff.
CC Sabathia $38 -$6 -$44
Cole Hamels $30 -$12 -$42
Brandon Webb $30 -$6 -$36
Chien-Ming Wang -$1 -$35 -$36
Josh Beckett $21 -$14 -$35
Jose Reyes $38 $3 -$35
Rafael Perez $3 -$31 -$34
Vladimir Guerrero $22 -$12 -$34
Jimmy Rollins $26 -$6 -$32
Matt Holliday $30 -$1 -$31
Hanley Ramirez $40 $10 -$30
Geovany Soto $20 -$9 -$29

While the top of the list is SP-heavy, there seems to be a reasonable representation of hitters and pitchers here. Brandon Webb and Vladimir Guerrero get a partial pass because of injuries, but everyone else here has earned a spot on this list fair and square.

Should any of these performances have been expected?

There were plenty of concerns this spring about the 2008 workloads for CC Sabathia and Cole Hamels. The Brewers rode Sabathia hard down the stretch, not afraid to pitch him on short-rest. Including three rounds of postseason play, Hamels had a frighteningly high number of innings pitched last year.

Those were concerns that the projections didn’t really account for, but I imagine smart owners factored in some extra risk and lowered their max bid for those two pitchers. (I didn’t draft Sabathia or Hamels in any of my leagues this year, for what it’s worth.)

On that list, I see no reason to hang on to either Chien-Ming Wang or Rafael Perez at this point in the season. Wang didn’t even project above the replacement level, and Perez is the sort of middle reliever that only gets drafted while you’re waiting on guys like Scott Downs and Ryan Franklin to emerge.

Other than Wang and Perez, I don’t think you can bail on any of these players. I would imagine that most of those players end the season closer to their projected values than their current values.