SubscribeMy policy in the past has been to leave the projections untouched — they are objective evaluations of players, and I have wanted to avoid adding my own subjective thoughts. The Price Guide lets anyone tweak the results to their own liking, so I’ve left the subjective changes up to the users.
However, there are a few cases where there is valuable information about a player’s particular situation that the projections are unaware of. Typically, this involves retirements, injuries, and closer precedence. With those things in mind, I’ve made the following adjustments to the composite projections:
Removed
Jeff Kent
Mike Mussina
Greg Maddux
Reduced Playing Time
Ben Sheets 50%
Shaun Marcum 50%
Dustin McGowan 50%
Curt Schilling 50%
Matt Wieters 25%
Alex Rodriguez 10%
Added as SP (only affects positional adjustment)
Kelvim Escobar
Kenshin Kawakami
Koji Uehara
Changed Save Totals
Jonathan Broxton +10
Heath Bell +10
J.J. Putz -15
Takashi Saito -15
There are a couple of other injury situations that could also affect playing time (Chase Utley, Ervin Santana, etc.). I’ve held off on modifying their projections without a clear idea as to how much time they will miss. I’ve also avoided making any predictions for the trickier save situations (Rangers, Mariners, Cubs, etc.).
My intent was to make conservative adjustments on the most obvious players. Are there any further changes you think should be made? Are there any on the above list you disagree with?
Related posts:
Update: Billy Wagner reduced by 50%. (Like I said, I’m being conservative with my adjustments…)
Tim Hudson reduced by 50%.
Mays, can you put in an option so we can eliminate free agents from being valued? I would like to run an AL-only view without seeing the free agents. Also, can you add the 2008 errors (or the 3-2-1 weighting) to the options for hitters?
@Jooky Junk: 2008 errors are added.
Weighting is a little problematic, because it would favor guys with less playing time in past years (unless I made a lot of effort to adjust for that). It would also be a little cruel to Ryan Braun, who had 0 errors last year as a OF, but 26 the year before at 3B. So for right now, it’s just 2008.
For AL-only: Making changes to remove FA doesn’t seem worth it at this point when it’s basically Sheets, Pudge, and Pedro out there. What I really need is a good player ID for minor leaguers so that I can assign teams (and leagues) for the ones who crop up for fantasy.
I love the fact that you can tweak projections in the price guide and put in keeper information. But when doing 50 or 100 changes, it just can’t be done.
At one point you considered doing a spreadsheet version of the rankings. That would really help with a lot of issues, including the FAs, being able to put in keepers, tweaking projections.
Any possibilities of that? Or some better way to upload bulk changes/customizations?
Mays, do you have an option where we can subscribe to all posts and comments and get an email for everything added to the site?
Also, do you anticipate any of the projections you use to be updated again before the season starts?
I would reduce A-Rod by 30%. There’s a 10-15% likelihood, from his doctor, that he won’t recover this year so that should affect any projections. And my guess is it’s fairly certain he’ll miss more than 2 1/2 weeks of the regular season, which is what a 10% reduction in stats would warrant.
@Mays:
Do you use LahmanID or RetroID for players in your database? If so, you can determine what the LahmanID or RetroID will be and put that in for the players who aren’t yet in the Lahman/Retrosheet databases.
@Jooky Junk: I’ll keep updating the composite projections as situations change, but I doubt any of the others will change (although ZiPS has added a few players that I haven’t added yet).
@M.: How about we compromise at 20% for A-Rod? That would still cover all of April and then some.
@Molson: I’m using LahmanID. Yes, I can guess the ID for MiLB for most players, but it would still take some time to do.
Love the site and the Price Guide tool. I have a simple, quick request — can you add an infielder (“IF”) position to the batter options? I know it’s not a common option, but one league I’m in has a single position that can be any 1B/2B/3B/SS, instead of the CI & MI positions.
Mays
A couple other guys further down the list that I noticed: Pat Neshek is out for the year, Torres and Borowski retired.
I am in a league that uses the IF position too, if it isn’t too much trouble to add. I’ve been just counting it as a CI for now, since in a 14 team league like mine, I would gues most of the MIs worth using are already going to be gone.
Thahanks again for all of your hard work on the Price Guide!