SubscribeYahoo’s Roto Arcade made a characteristically pun-filled comparison of Ryan Howard and Mark Teixeria:
Undoubtedly, Teixeira will hit for a healthier average, but his power numbers, even in the Bronx Bombers’ loaded lineup, will pale in comparison. Howard will likely finish with 8-12 more homers and 15-30 more RBIs.
The Price Guide’s composite projection gives Howard a 12 HR advantage and an extra 14 RBI — pretty close to what Brad Evans guesses, although more optimistic about Teixeria’s RBI chances.
However, the Price Guide has Howard batting a surprisingly solid .272 this year. That’s quite an improvement from the .251 he batted last year, but remember that he did manage to hit .313 in his MVP-winning year. Assuming that Howard can hang with Teixeira in AVG, his advantages in HR and RBI put Howard about $4 ahead of Tex in a standard league or $7 up in a Yahoo-style league.
So which one do you pick? (Yahoo’s poll indicates a preference of 2:1 for Teixeira.)
The answer might be neither of them. In the same price range as Howard and Teixeira, we also find Lance Berkman and Prince Fielder. Personally, I don’t have any strong feelings about any of those four, and I’d probably take whichever player is looking like the best bargain on draft day.
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What worries me about Howard is that last year he still had about 200 strikeouts but went from 107 walks to 81 in 50 more plate appearances. His OBP dropped to .339 and his SLG went down as well, dropping his OPS to .882. His average was probably a little low last year, as his BABIP declined a bit vs. what you’d expect, so it will probably be higher than .250, maybe .260, .265, but .270 seems a bit high.
Still, I like him better than Teixeria, and both a good deal more than Prince Fielder, but Berkman I prefer to all of them.
That said, based on where all those folks are usually drafted, leave them all and take Rollins or Utley. Then grab Morneau a couple rounds later or Adrian Gonzalez even after that.
I think the projection systems tend to over-regress for batting average at the extremes in some cases. PECOTA has Dunn hitting .262 and Howard at .270.
I’ll take the under on both of those.
It sounds like PECOTA just loves Dunn, then, because not all projections are that optimistic: ZiPS has him at .252 and CHONE .238.
Howard at least has that .313 season on his resume that projections are weighing in.
@Molson: Howard’s walk totals are at least a little bit better when you only look at unintentional walks… Most of the decrease came from 18 fewer IBB (understandable for pitcher facing a guy batting who has batted .230 most of the year).
What’s not to like with Teixeira?
Teixeira seems to be drafted based on 35/140, which is crazy. The Yankees lineup isn’t as good as that. I don’t see him going better than 30/120 again.
But lets just look at the numbers. Lets say Teixeira hits .290 and Howard .260. Not unreasonable estimates, no?
Assuming 550 AB for both, a 30 point difference in average is 16.5 hits.
A marginal HR here has about the same value as a marginal hit, and an RBI is about 40%-50% as valuable as either a hit or an RBI.
So if you assume that Howard has 10 more homers and 15 more RBIs. These 10 homers and 15 RBIs pretty much exactly make up for the 30 points in average.
If Teixeira hits .300 and Howard hits .250, then Howard needs to recover 27.5 hits, which is 12 homers and 27 RBIs, still within Evans’s “projection.”
So what’s not to like with Teixeira? Absolutely nothing. I’d be fine with either of them on my team. But I think that Howard is a better bet to beat his projections than Teixeira, so there’s upside. If howard hits 50 again and beats Teixeira by 20 homers, there’s no question he’s going to be more valuable. I think it’s slightly more likely that Howard goes .260/45/140 than Teixeira goes .300/35/130.
That said, I like Berkman to put up a .295/30/100 line with 10 SB to boot, giving him more value than either Howard or Teixeira, and with a lower ADP.
As long as it’s not a keeper league, anyway.
(off topic)
Hey Mays – is there any way you could clarify in a post (or point me to an existing one) where you describe (in brief) how you do your ‘iterations’?
Thanks in advance!
I wrote about the iterations here:
http://www.lastplayerpicked.com/how-the-price-guide-works-part-iv-iterations/
Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about it.
Thanks! – for some reason I never found that post.