Last Player Picked

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.

The focus of this blog is primarily on fantasy baseball drafts and auctions. While much of the discussion is on nuances and details of drafting, I think I can condense my draft strategy into two simple rules:

Rule #1: Trust your projections, not your intuition.

Too often, our expectations are too high for a player coming off of an unexpectedly good year. Our expectations may be too low for a player after a poor or injury-plagued year. We may underrate old players with good time left and overrate exciting young prospects.

In all of these cases we are trying to mentally adjust a player’s value, and these adjustments are made objectively and consistently by good projections. Players will be regressed to the mean to compensate for fluctuations in past years. Their stats are adjusted up or down based on an expected aging curve.

Furthermore, we can be biased for or against certain players or teams with no logical underpinning for liking or disliking them. For example, I think Kevin Youkilis looks like a hobo. I think he looks like he’s about to wet his pants every time he comes to bat, and I don’t want him on my team. However, none of those opinions should change his value at the draft.

The bottom line is that projections adjust for the right things — fluke seasons, aging, park effects, etc. Trying to estimate those changes in your head will not be as effective.

Projections also make no adjustment for things that do not matter — your own personal likes or dislikes.

Rule #2: Trust your intuition, not your projections.

My second rule for drafting is simply the reverse of the first rule.

This rule observes that, while projections are good, they are far from perfect. It is naive to believe that a player projected at $25 is worth exactly that and not a penny more or less. All that projection is really indicating is that $25 is the most likely value from a wide range of possibilities. There’s a good chance he’ll be worth about $20-30, but he could also be worth $50 or nothing at all. It doesn’t make sense to be so wedded to projections that are inaccurate so often.

Furthermore, a pre-draft dollar value does not make any change for in-draft dynamics. If pitchers are going for less (or going later) then you will want to drop pitcher values and reallocate that money elsewhere. If you get a starting shortstop for $30, then the value of remaining SS drops, at least for you.

Basically, a $25 projection should not stop you from bidding one dollar more or five dollars more, and it shouldn’t force you to go above $19. That decision is going to be dependent on the circumstances at the time.

While a good set of dollar values is valuable, it shouldn’t be the final word on a draft decision.

So those are my two rules for drafting. Does anyone have any other guiding principles at the draft?

Earlier this week I talked about draft deflation… The basic idea was that fantasy players are going to pay less than what is projected for the lower-tier players. I mentioned two reasons for this phenomenon: variances in projections and focusing on sleepers.

Now, if owners are consistently spending less than what is projected for the $15 and under crowd, then that extra money must go somewhere. Not surprisingly, the money saved through deflation will typically show up as inflation for the top-tier of players.

I’ve chosen to focus on deflation in one area causing inflation in another, but I’m sure you could make the opposite argument as well: If top-tier players are equally valued by most fantasy owners, their prices will tend to be inflated. And if everyone overspends on those players, then the prices of lower-tier players are deflated because everyone runs out of money.

Either way you choose to look at it, I think it’s a real trend for teams to pay more than expected for stars and to pay less than expected for scrubs.

The thing to remember, though, is that top-tier players are concentrated in the early rounds of the draft. If you are in a situation where you expect the prices in later rounds to drop below your projections, it might be wise to anticipate that by spending extra early. You pay the inflated prices when you have to, anticipating deflated prices later.

This common auction order (best players first) is probably also a factor in inflation/deflation. Early on, teams have lots of money and plenty of open positions. More teams will be involved in the bidding, and it is more likely that the market will bid efficiently.

Later, teams may not bid if they are worried about budgeting, or if they already have filled a certain position. Since it is typically the lesser players brought out at this stage of the auction, it is more likely that their prices will be deflated.

In practice, overspending early can be a difficult thing to make ourselves do. It’s easier to overspend in situations where we have already seen the deflation, as with keepers. With keepers, we know we have saved money on certain players, so we know we can spend extra on others.

But with this natural inflation, we don’t actually see the deflation until the end of the draft, and it’s much harder to overspend early. Knowing that teams struggle to do this should be an advantage to those who overcome the psychological barriers, though.

So I hope you don’t feel bad after going the extra buck or ($5) on Hanley Ramirez this week.