Last Player Picked

I realized after the first year of the Price Guide that pure computer projections were not always that useful for fantasy.

For example, look at CAIRO this year and you’ll notice Reds prospect Billy Hamilton at $25, although he probably won’t see the majors this year. Stephen Strasburg is projected to pitch 55 innings, good for $7.

Clearly, something needs to be done to lower the value of minor leaguers like Hamilton that won’t sniff the majors. Something else needs to be done to bump up the value of guys like Strasburg who are coming off of an injury. That’s why the past couple of years I’ve added the option to the Price Guide to apply playing time adjustments to give a more realistic picture of 2012 values.

I’ve made a first pass at playing time projections for 2012. Lots of guys like Hamilton are projected for either 0 AB or 0 IP, removing them from the rankings. Strasburg now shows up with 149 IP, lifting him to a $23 player by CAIRO. (That seems high, but I think that’s due to optimistic rate projections rather than optimistic playing time.)

I’ve noticed that the playing time adjustment causes more money to shift toward pitching, probably more than is realistic. It also has sent catcher values into the stratosphere, which is also not going to reflect real drafts. Those are both usual tendencies for the Price Guide, but I’d like to damper them if I can.

I’ll keep tweaking the numbers as the spring progresses. There are a few low-impact guys that still need projections (e.g. Jose Lopez, Alejandro de Aza). If you notice any questionable omissions, please let me know.

With the start of Tango’s Community Forecast, I’m switching over to that as my source of playing time data. FanGraphs’ fan projections suffered from the weight of projections early in the spring, before injuries and situations were better known. They were also rough around the edges for fringe starters who can be important in AL/NL-only leagues.

This is illustrated in some of the biggest drops after the change:

Chase Utley
Kendrys Morales
Johan Santana
Kevin Slowey
Marc Rzepczynski

Picking up time, mostly due to recent Spring Training news, include:

Brad Emaus
Dustin Ackley
Mark Trumbo
Mike Morse
Will Rhymes
Rick Ankiel
Brent Morel
Brandon Beachy

I’ll update everything in a couple of days as the votes even out.

I’m trying out something new today: A version of the Price Guide for Points Leagues.

Basically, instead of checking boxes for the stat categories your league uses, you enter a point value for each stat. Values can be positive or negative and can include decimals. The Price Guide then totals everyone’s projected points, applies a positional adjustment, and then converts to dollar values.

I can’t find any sort of standardized setup for points leagues, so I know the default is pretty atypical (judging by the excessive love of catchers). If you know what values are normal for a points league, please let me know.

And if you notice any problems with or have any suggestions for the new version, feel free to email or comment below.

You may have noticed that it’s been quiet around here… I have had some real-life issues going on this summer that have kept me from the site.

First off, I apologize to those who have sent me emails over the past couple of months, most of which have gone unanswered. I’m afraid at this point I can’t go digging back through to reply to them all. So, if you still have a question or a problem to report, please email me again. I will be trying to reply to everything sent from this point forward.

Secondly, I hope to write a few posts this week accessing how well the projections did in 2010. I have a feeling the preseason dollar values did very well this year. I’m planning on highlighting some of the successes and see if there’s anything to be learned from the failures.