Johan Santana Traded to the Mets

Holy heffin’ hey, could arguably the best pitcher in baseball just get better? Well, yeah. Talked to a friend that is a Mets fan. This was his reaction, “We just got ourselves to the World Series. Who beats us? The Rockies? The Phillies? The Cubs? Padres? Please, their best hitter is Gonzalez. Maine/Santana, with our offense… Bring on October.” There’s a case to be made that he was right. I have a few random thoughts on the trade that sends Santana to the Mets.

--Johan Santana moves to a park where he has lifetime .60 ERA. This changes in ’09, but until then it’s a pitcher’s park.

--One thing that bothered me about Santana (and, frankly, there wasn’t a whole lot), he didn’t dominant the Indians, a team he faced a lot. He will now face hitters that are not as familiar with him.

--In the NL, marginal pitchers seem appealing. I found room for Brett Tomko when he was on the Dodgers and Padres. Great pitchers… They’re first rounders.

--I’m absolutely giddy to see how much Santana will go for in my NL-only auction. $40? $45? $50? Sold!

--I still like Peavy more. Before it was clear cut. Now it’s a tossup and I can see an argument that they’re interchangeable. The Padres face two weak divisional teams, Giants and Dodgers with the D-Backs a bit of a challenge but not much. Then there’s one offensive juggernaut in an offensive stadium, the Rockies. The Mets face the Nats and the Marlins, which is akin to the Dodgers and Giants. The Phillies are equal to the Rockies. The Braves are a bit of a challenge, akin to the D-Backs.

--Santana will now face pitchers and he doesn’t have to face Dontrelle. I’m Tivo’ing Santana pitching to Brett Myers.

--Santana in the NL…. This all seems unfair for the Senior Circuit’s junior batsmen, right?
OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Overrated and Underrated for Fantasy Baseball

When you’re looking at your 2008 fantasy baseball draft board, it will be imperative to locate the players where you are going to get the best value. Whether it’s in the first round or the tenth. You want to avoid the overrated players, because they will invariably go too high and focus in on the underrated ones. Or simply the rated ones. If this reads vaguely familiar, it’s because I’m cribbing Chuck Klosterman’s Spin magazine article from 2004:

If you are the kind of person who talks about music too much, there are two words that undoubtedly play an integral role in your workaday lexicon: “overrated” and “underrated.” This is because those two sentiments pop up in 90 percent of all musical discussions.

He goes on to list bands that are overrated (Wilco, Sonic Youth) or underrated (Duran Duran, Tortoise), coming finally to bands that simply rated, which are no more or less than their reviews (The Beatles). Klosterman’s sentiment also applies for fantasy baseball. Let’s look at some overrated, underrated and rated players.

Every New York Yankee, except Arod, Robinson Cano and Melky, is overrated. Arod is simply rated, he should go first and, on average, he will. Cano is more interesting example. I think because he tends not to steal and his average was fluky two years ago, he gets overlooked. As pointed out in the top twenty 2nd basemen to draft, he should be going slightly higher than he will. Melky Cabrera tends to get overlooked. Perhaps after this year that will change. Jeter, Posada, Hughes, Wang, Abreu, Damon, Chamberlain, et al are overrated.

Carl Crawford went from overrated in 2007 to underrated this year. People got sick of waiting for the 25/50 season forgetting that he still is very much in his prime.

Ryan Braun is the most overrated player heading into the 2008 season. Why he’s being hailed as the Messiah’s first born is dissected here.

Delmon Young is underrated on his way to being overrated. After this season, people will remember what a talent he is and forget his B.A.

Jonathan Papelbon is oddly rated. I say oddly because he’s the best closer in the game, he’s on the Red Sox (a hype machine) and he’s young. I would think he’d be overrated. Perhaps it’s because people underrate closers than overrate Papelbon making him rated. Maybe people don’t like his dance moves.

Aaron Harang took three years to get rated. Previously, he was underrated. I see no way he ever becomes overrated. His numbers on a contender would have had him overrated two years ago.

Every Japanese player is overrated.

Dave Roberts has been overrated for many years now (maybe because he was born in Japan). He’s oft-injured, pushing fifty years old and won’t get you the kind of steals you need for him to be a worthwhile draft pick.

The Padres pitching staff is underrated, even Peavy. Except home games in Coors, there’s no scary offense in the division. Two offenses (Giants, Dodgers) that are lacking and one offense that strikeouts at Dave Kingman rates (D-Backs). Then throw in home games in Petco, two other divisional pitching parks and facing the pitcher.

Mike Lowell went from rated to underrated to not rated at all to overrated in four years.

Every Rangers hitter is overrated. The ballpark is good, but the lineup is not. Josh Hamilton looks like he might be good, but he’s an injury risk. (Aside, Hamilton looks like he would know how to funnel a beer, but he doesn’t look like he’d smoke crack. Do frat boys smoke crack now? This wasn’t the case when I was in college. Weed -- sure, blow -- perhaps, heroin – figuratively I could see it, crack -- not a chance. But I digress.)

Ryan Zimmerman is in for a lifetime of overrated-ness. I can feel it in my bones.

Every centerfielder who plays a great defense is overrated. Aaron Rowand, it was two years ago he slammed into the centerfield fence. We get it; he hustles. Torii Hunter is injury-prone and doesn’t bat .300. Andruw Jones, nothing else needs to be written.

OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Top Twenty Starting Pitchers For 2008

We’ve tackled where to draft the top twenty catchers, 1st basemen, 2nd basemen, 3rd basemen, shortstops and outfielders. It’s time to toe the rubber and try and make sense of the starting pitchers for ‘08. Pitching always rates as the most valuable category for fantasy baseball and also the least predictable. You build your dream house overlooking the ocean. Every accouterment you can imagine; Sub-Zero refrigerator, 50” wall-mounted plasma and a top-of-the-line hibachi grill. Unfortunately, the cost for the personal Benihana chef forced you to skimp on plumbing and you end up with a river of feces running through your living room. A fantasy team is similar. You don’t want to build your dream team by splurging on offense, because then you’ll have to skimp on pitching, leaving you with a river of feces in the form of Kip Wells.

Without further ado, the top twenty pitchers to draft for ’08. If you want to see how the pitchers did fantasy-wise for ‘07, here’s our player rater.

1. Jake Peavy – See our top ten overall for projections.

2. Johan Santana – See our top twenty overall for projections.

3. Brandon Webb – Full disclosure: I got burned on Webb the year he was simply average (‘04) and I haven’t gone near him since. I’ve seen him garner top twenty overall status for ’08 drafts and, at this point, I can’t really argue. I would never draft a pitcher in the first or second rounds unless Peavy or Santana fell to me at the end of the 2nd round, but, with that said, Webb’s looking more and more solid. Only injury can stop him. Projections: 19-7/190/3.10/1.20

4. C.C. Sabathia – I’ve never had the fat Dontrelle on any team ever, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t. He’s in his prime and his numbers are peaking. Carrying around that extra poundage can’t be great for his legs, but he’s still young. Projections: 20-9/210/3.40/1.15

5. Erik Bedard – Filthy stuff, awful division to be a pitcher in. Not sure he can build on his ’07, but if he can maintain the torso, he’s easily a top ten pitcher. Projections: 16-10/230/3.30/1.10

6. Aaron Harang – Maybe this will be the year he gets draft early by flb-ers or maybe not, but I definitely will. He’s a workhorse that only struggles in the win department, and that can’t really be helped by him. One caveat: Dusty might have him averaging 140 pitches/game. Projections: 17-10/220/3.75/1.15

7. Cole Hamels – The future has arrived for the Phillies ace. If he stays away from injury, he battles Peavy for the Cy Young. Not sure how early I’m going to draft him, but he’ll be on one of my ’08 teams. (Conservative bet, I’ll probably have to draft him in the fourth round overall.) Projections: 20-7/210/3.20/1.10

8. Dan Haren – He was dominant before the trade and going to the NL is a boon to his value. He’s a bit prone to the longball and now that he’s in a hitter’s park has me a bit concerned. Projections: 17-9/210/3.60/1.20

9. Josh Beckett – Everything broke right last year for Beckett. He only walked forty batters all year. 40! He’s still an injury risk, but he can win seventeen games for the Sox with a 4.50 ERA (No arrigato, Dice-K), and I think his ERA will be better than that. Projections: 19-9/190/3.90/1.20

10. Roy Oswalt – Wins might be a problem for him, but getting hitters out has never been. His strikeouts have begun to decline and he’s said himself that he’s just trying to get hitters out, no matter how. Seems like he’s treading close to the NL version of Roy Halladay. Projections: 15-7/150/3.60/1.22

11. John Lackey – This is my preseason pick for ’08 AL Cy Young. (Remember, Cy Young doesn’t always equate to best pitcher.) The Angels have some more experience for their younger players and Torii Hunter. They should get Lackey the wins and he can do the rest. Projections: 20-5/180/3.00/1.20

12. Carlos Zambrano – He was out of his mind wild at times last year and he was still a quality starter to have on a fantasy team. If he got through Dusty and Barrett, the rest is icing and he obviously loves icing. Projections: 16-7/210/3.60/1.30

13. Roy Halladay – Is it me or is he starting to seem like he’s getting old? He no longer strikes out hitters at a good enough rate to rank him higher, but he doesn’t walk hitters either. Unfortunately, he does give up a lot of hits. I’m worried about Halladay and won’t be drafting him this year. You can do what you do. Projections: 15-7/120/4.00/1.25

14. Chris Young – He’s a flyball pitcher in the best flyball pitcher park. His division is light-hitting and he’s on a contender. What more do you need to know? Oh, I know. His height causes him to have back pain and his height is not going away. Projections: 15-5/160/3.00/1.10 and he only pitches in a 150 innings.

15. John Maine – He’ll be 27 in ’08, he’s got the experience under his belt from the last two years and he’s on a team that will score for him. He can easily be in the top ten for the ’09 preseason, act accordingly. Projections: 18-9/210/3.60/1.20

16. Justin Verlander – I was surprised by his ’07 season. There’s was no letdown from his ’06 campaign. If he continues to top his numbers, Lackey may have company for the AL Cy Young. Projections: 19-7/200/3.75/1.20

17. John Smoltz – At some point, he’s going to get old, right? I mean, he has to, doesn’t he? You don’t want to be there when it happens. If you can get him at a bargain rate, take the gamble. Projections: 16-7/160/3.75/1.22

18. James Shields – Kazmir gets the attention and Shields will win you your league. He had 184 Ks to 36 walks last year. Phenomenal. His wins may not be great on the Rays, but his ratios and Ks will be outstanding. Projections: 14-6/185/3.75/1.10

19. Felix Hernandez – Don’t forget about F-Her just because you want to forget about his ‘07 season. With nasty stuff and only turning 22 this year. He could shoot to the top five pitchers by as early as next year. This may be the last time you’ll be able to get him at a bargain for a decade. Projections: 16-5/185/3.50/1.15

20. Rich Hill – This year will be a great year to have Hill. He doesn’t seem to be too high on anyone’s radar. Reach in and grab him in the middle rounds and you will have what Hamels did last year, this year. Projections: 18-7/200/3.60/1.15

After the top twenty obviously a ton of pitchers (we’ll be putting together the draft list of 21-40 soon), but here’s one name people are giddy about and I’m not:

Fausto Carmona – K/9 was 5.74 and his K/BB was 2.25 in ’07. He’s not going to come at a bargain this year, so take a pass on him and see how he does. Not saying he’ll be egregious, but he may not be what he was last year. Projections: 15-9/120/4.25/1.22 and he has people scratching their heads wondering what happened.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the top twenty closers to draft in ’08.

OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Don’t Draft Hanley Ramirez #1

Our favorite ESPN columnist, Eric Karabell, crapped out a turd baby as he took a look at some fantasy baseball expert drafts for 2008 (year 5768 for all the Jews researching who to draft besides Shawn Green). His non-take on Hanley Ramirez is really what got my goat, and no one gets my goat, but me. Let’s look to see what Karabell had to say:

I know some people who rank Hanley No. 1, over A-Rod, and I don't call them crazy. Too many fantasy owners simply, and lazily, look at the 2007 stats and assume that's what they're getting. This isn't the case at all. You're getting 2008 stats, for better or worse.

Some analysts simply, and lazily, refuse to take a side for fear they’ll be wrong. Hanley is not going to do what he did last year.

A) He doesn’t take enough walks. Stats here, if you don’t believe me.

B) He swings wildly and injures himself. From September, 2007:

The Associated Press is reporting Florida Marlins SS Hanley Ramirez fanned on a high fastball and winced in pain as he dropped the bat during his follow through during the Sept. 3 game against the Washington Nationals.

Later in that month:

The Palm Beach Post's Joe Capozzi reports Florida Marlins SS Hanley Ramirez is considering having shoulder surgery in the offseason and won't play winter ball.

In October:

Juan C. Rodriguez, of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, reports Florida Marlins SS Hanley Ramirez underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder Wednesday, Oct. 3. Ramirez is not expected to be at full strength for the start of spring training.

C) The Marlins top paid player for 2008 is Jose Castillo. Hanley doesn’t even have Dontrelle to knock in anymore. Could Hanley try and do too much? He might.

Sure, Hanley is a bona fide talent. He can get you 20 homers and 40 steals, but he’s not as safe as Arod, Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols, David Wright, Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley. Frankly, I might consider Peavy or Johan safer. You want safety with your first pick; Hanley is not it. He has too many question marks.
OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Names NOT in The Mitchell Report

The blog is about fantasy baseball, but it’s sometimes hard to ignore what goes on in the real baseball world. Frankly, if we weren’t baseball fans first, we wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about fantasy baseball. So, with a heavy heart I write, yesterday was a tough day to be a fan. Taint on lots of big names, past and present -- Bonds, Clemens, Pettitte, McGwire, Bagwell, Gagne, Sosa, Justice, Tejada and, um, F.P. Santangelo. The list goes on for pages. If you want to read The Mitchell Report in its entirety, you can here. It’s lengthy and pretty depressing, kinda like if Ken Burns did a seven-part documentary on Tonya from The Real World. But today is a new day, and I’m going to try and put a positive spin on things. Here is a list of some players NOT in The Mitchell Report. If you will, a tribute.

Greg Maddux – 347 wins going into 2008. In 1998, while McGwire racked up 70 homers, Maddux went 18-9 with a 2.22 ERA and 208 strikeouts. Good to hear the Padres are bringing him back for another year. Maybe he’ll pass Clemens on the all-time wins list.

Tom Glavine – 303 wins, 2570 career Ks, and a lifetime 3.51 ERA. In 1998, Sosa hit 66 homers, but went 0 for 4 against Glavine with three strikeouts. In the Cubs second game against Glavine in 1998, Sosa sat out to give Matt Mieske some at-bats.

Randy Johnson – 4616 career strikeouts. Hopefully, he can make it back for his 300th win. It would be nice to see. In 2001, while Bonds hit 73 homers, Randy struck out 372 batters, which is eleventh most for a season and the most since Nolan Ryan in 1973.

Pedro Martinez – From 1997 to 2003, the heart of the having-a-trainer-inject-my-ass-with-something era, Pedro had ERAs of 1.90, 2.89, 2.07, 1.74, 2.39, 2.226 and 2.22 respectively.

Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera – Combined they have over 900 saves and zero mentions in The Mitchell Report. What’s that? Gagne had trouble bouncing back day after day? Trevor smiles at Mariano then, “Try it for twelve years.”

Cy Young Winners from 1996 ‘til present – Jake Peavy, Johan Santana, Brandon Webb, Chris Carpenter, John Smoltz, C.C. Sabathia, Roy Halladay and Barry Zito.

Alex Rodriguez – Canseco claims Arod should be in the Mitchell Report, but he’s not. I say we give him the benefit of the doubt. BTW, he’s arguably the best hitter in the game. When you’re in that argument, you’re pretty good.

Albert Pujols – See that premature balding is hereditary! BTW, second best hitter in the game.

Todd Helton – In 2001, he batted 132/49/146/.336. Too bad it was overshadowed.

Vladimir Guerrero – Some players medicate when they’re hobbled by injuries, some hobble. Here’s one for the hobblers.

Ichiro Suzuki – For not being in The Mitchell Report -- arrigato.

Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder – If they test positive, it’s because their steak was injected on the way to the slaughterhouse.

Frank Thomas – Okay, so he’s the Henry Hill of all of this, but it’s still a shame his 500 home runs came at a time when that was a ticket for Copperstown consideration and not a ticket to Copperstown.

Manny Ramirez – The thought of Manny trying to inject himself with something is ludicrous. Actually, the thought of Manny thinking is pretty ludicrous, but Manny get a hug from Big Papi for not being in The Report.

David Ortiz – While we’re here, someone Big Papi wasn’t hugging was McNamee.

Ken Griffey Jr. – Maybe if Griffey took the shortcut many of colleagues did to help recuperate from injury, he would be approaching 800 home runs. Maybe his self-respect meant too much.

I wish these players above had received more recognition then and now. There’s lots of names I’m failing to mention. Please feel free to comment below some names that weren’t on The Mitchell Report.

OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

How Do You Value Fantasy Baseball Hitters?

Part 3 of How Valid is the ESPN Player Rater?
By Senior Contributing Writer Rudy Gamble

In two previous articles (part 1 and part 2), we’ve laid out alternative views for judging the most valuable player in 2007 5x5 MLB fantasy baseball (we say Peavy) and for pitchers – using and abusing the ESPN Player Rater in the process.

In this article, we’re going to focus on valuing hitters. The questions we will tackle are:

1) What is the value of each hitting stat?
2) How does position depth/scarcity affect a player’s overall value?
3) How does our approach to hitter value compare against the ESPN Player Rater?

To download our player rankings for 2007, please click here. To view the ESPN Player Rater.

What is the value of each hitting stat?

Our approach towards valuing player stats is to look at two factors: 1) the difference between a player’s statistics and those provided by the best available option (BAO) on the free agent wire (which would take position depth/scarcity into account) and 2) the impact that stat difference might have on a league’s standings (ambivalent to position).

We’ll set position scarcity aside for a second to look at the composite stats for the BAO hitter in 2007: 67 Runs / 14 HR / 65 RBI / 6 SBs / .277. The closest player equivalent to these stats is Luis Gonzalez.

We used the final standings of our fantasy league to understand the impact of each statistic by looking at the standard deviations between teams’ totals. While it would be better if we had more league standings on which to base these standard deviations, we still feel this is superior to building ratios off team averages because it takes into account that some statistics have larger percentage gaps between teams vs. others. This is most evident when looking at HR vs. SB – while the average team in our league average 1.69 HRs to 1 SB and the BAO has a HR:SB ratio of 2.33:1, the observed impact on a team was actually 1:0.77 or that a HR has more value (not even counting the R/HR/RBI/AVG implications) to a team’s rank in the standings than an SB.

The ratio for these stats based on our analysis was: 3.3 Runs / 1 HR / 2.8 RBI / 1.3 SBs / .003 AVG. Points are credited based on these ratios (a point actually equals the above ratio * 4.6) after subtracting the BAO's stats.

Okay, let’s do two comparisons to show this works in action.

Eric Byrnes (103 / 21 / 83 / 50 / .286) vs. Miguel Cabrera ( 91 / 34 / 119 / 2 / .320)

This is an interesting one as it asks that inevitable question – how much are SBs really worth? Is it worth the addition 48 SBs to sacrifice those HRs, RBIs, and AVG that Miguel Cabrera provides? Let’s look at the points comparison of R/HR/RBI/AVG:

Runs: Byrnes 2.4 to 1.5
HRs: Cabrera 3.95 to 1.55
RBIs: Cabrera 3.95 to 1.43
AVG: Cabrera 3.48 to 1.01

(Note: While it might not look right that Cabrera’s 34 HRs could be worth 2.5x that of Eric Byrnes 21 HRs, remember that the BAO provides 14 HRs. So this is really a comparison of 20 HRs (34-14) vs. 7 HRs.)

Counting just these stats, Cabrera is about twice as valuable as Eric Byrnes (12.89 to 6.39).

But Eric Byrnes’ 50 SBs is huge given the average team only had 162 SBs in our league. A total like this could let you dominate SBs or focus on non-speed guys when filling out other positions (say, taking Khalil Greene’s 27 HRs instead of J. Lugo’s 33 SBs).

Eric Byrnes’ 50 SBs equates to 7.25 points in our scale while Cabrera’s 2 SBs equate to negative 0.45 points because it’s less than the BAO would’ve provided (which is 6). So factoring in SBs, Eric Byrnes is the more valuable fantasy hitter (13.6 to 12.4). But if your team was set for SBs, trading Eric Byrnes for Miguel Cabrera would be a no-brainer.

Placido Polanco (105 / 9 / 67 / 7 / .341) vs. Dan Uggla (113 / 31 / 88 / 2 / .245)

This comparison focuses on Polanco’s AVG contribution vs. Uggla’s power contribution.

Runs: Uggla 2.65 to 2.12
HRs: Uggla 4.0 to -0.78
RBIs: Uggla 1.94 to 0.30
SBs: Polanco -0.05 to -0.86

(Note: These comparisons do factor in position scarcity – hence, Uggla’s 2 SBs receive more negative credit that M. Cabrera’s above since the 2B BAO steals more than the average player.)

Counting these stats, Uggla is well ahead at 7.73 to 1.59 points, with the biggest driver being his 31 HRs which are worth 4.78 points more than Polanco’s 9 HRs.

But those HRs come at a price. Uggla’s .245 average is well below the BAO average of .277 (actually 2B’s have higher AVG than other positions so it’s even worse – examples of high batting average marginal 2Bs include Orlando Hudson’s .294, Luis Castillo’s .301, and Ronnie Belliard’s .290). Combining that bad average with his above average AB total (632), Uggla’s average would drop the average team’s AVG by .004 vs. the BAO 2B. This earns him a negative 3.28.

On the other hand, Polanco’s .341 in 587 ABs is worth a positive 4.77 points – more, in fact, than Uggla’s 31 HRs. He’s worth about an extra .004 on your team average meaning that swapping these two creates a .008 swing, a more dramatic swing than the 22 HR difference.

So while Placido Polanco is a negative on a team’s HR and SBs (and just about BAO level on RBIs), his high AVG catapults him into being a more valuable fantasy baseball contributor (6.4 to 4.4). If Uggla could just get to something like a .275 average or steal 20-30 SBs, his HR/RBIs could help catapult him up the 2B rankings (even with the anchor-like AVG, he ended up 7th most valuable 2B, well ahead of the .317 hitting ROY Dustin Pedroia).

How does position depth/scarcity affect a player’s overall value?

Position depth/scarcity plays a role from draft day through the end of the season.

During draft day, position depth/scarcity can increase/decrease a player’s value. A common practice is to ‘tier’ players at each position and try to group together similarly valued players. If there is only one player left in, say, the 2B tier and 5 similar valued players at SS, you may increase that 2B’s draft value because you can wait a round and likely get one of those shortstops.

After the draft, position depth/scarcity is used to compare the marginal benefit/loss of trading or adding/dropping one player over the next – e.g., I could trade Placido Polanco and replace him with little to no dropoff in any stat except AVG.

To factor this into our analysis, we extended our Best Available Option (BAO) concept to each position. We started with 10 rostered players for catchers and infield positions and 50 outfielders. We split the 1B/3B and 2B/SS positions equally and then divided up the utility position based on instinct and position depth (30% 1B, 2.5% 2B, 2.5% SS, 5% 3B, 0% C, 40% OF, 20% DH). We created composite stats for BAOs at each position – so for catcher, we took the 11th best AVG, 11th best HRs, etc. We then credited point totals based on the BAO at the position (“Position Points”) and averaged them with our average hitter BAO (“Player Points”). (Note: Since team rankings are position-agnostic – you don’t get more credit if it’s a middle infielder who hits a HR – there is a need to balance position depth/scarcity with overall stats. To keep it simple, we weighted it 50/50).

Below are the BAO stats per position (R / HR / RBI / SB / AVG) and some close statistical fits:

C – 47 / 13 / 57 / 2 / 0.273 (Paul Lo Duca, Johnny Estrada, AJ Pierzynski)
1B – 63 / 18 / 68 / 1 / 0.279 (Matt Stairs, Conor Jackson, Aubrey Huff)
2B – 79 / 11 / 61 / 9 / 0.288 (Orlando Hudson, Brendan Harris, Mark DeRosa)
SS – 72 / 11/ 60 / 11 / 0.279 (Brendan Harris, Jack Wilson)
3B – 70 / 18 / 72 / 4 / 0.279 (Kevin Kouzmanoff, Mark Reynolds, Aubrey Huff)
OF – 67 / 14 / 65 / 6 / 0.273 (Luis Gonzalez, Austin Kearns, JD Drew)

The most interesting about these BAO totals is how relatively close they are. The corner positions have a slight advantage in power and the middle infield spots have a slight advantage for runs, SBs and average. Catchers are weakest – particularly in Runs as catchers play less games and are disproportionately hitting 6th to 9th (less run opportunities).

Perhaps most surprisingly, the OF position looks no better than the middle infield positions. Wouldn’t you expect OF was a deeper position than middle infield? Isn’t BJ Upton more valuable as a 2B than an OF? Short answer: not really.

Here’s why: You’ve got roughly 15 2B, 15 SS, and somewhere between 52-57 outfielders on league rosters (OF are often used for UTIL positions). Looking at MLB rosters, you have roughly 30 starting 2B, 30 starting SS, and 90 starting OFs. FLB rosters, thus, are cutting deeper into the percentage of starting OFs vs. 2B/SS.

In addition, 2B/SS have added some pop over the years. 29 middle infielders hit at least 12 HRs. Granted, some had bad averages (Bill Hall, Juan Uribe, Stephen Drew), but the perception of those positions being power-challenged is outdated. (What IS true, though, is that it’s rare to find a middle infielder with 30+ HR power).

Outfielders, on the other hand, aren’t that deep. Only about 55 hit 15 or more home runs and that includes some players that might be at other positions (Berkman, Upton, Stairs) and the weakest ones look an awful lot like Luis Gonzalez and Austin Kearns (the BAO matches).

So while we did factor position depth/scarcity into our analysis, it really didn’t play a major role for hitters. The greatest impact was at catcher where the troika of great catchers in 2007 (Jorge Posada, V-Mart, Russell Martin) got about a 2 point boost because the Catcher position was the weakest in terms of BAO.

So Hanley Ramirez and Jimmy Rollins had extremely valuable fantasy years but the fact they played SS really didn’t add any significant value (maybe +2-3%).


How does our approach to hitter value compare against the ESPN Player Rater?

ESPN has a much simpler approach for estimating hitter value than the approach we have described above. It creates a cap at 5 points and a floor at 0 points. 5 points are awarded to the MLB leader in the stat and then each other player’s total is divided into the leader’s total and then multiplied by 5 to get their total – e.g., A-Rod led with 54 homers. David Wright had 30. He received 30/54 (.556) * 5 = 2.78 points in HR. Average is done in a slightly more complex way but the lowest possible total is zero (even if the player’s average has negative value).

From a macro-perspective, this simplistic approach works fine. The top hitters are going to appear near the top, the okay hitters in the middle, the bad hitters on the bottom. At a micro-perspective, we think ESPN’s simplistic approach has greater flaws vs. our approach. These flaws are less for hitters than pitchers, though, as the greater issues arise around ratio/average based stats and pitchers have two (ERA, WHIP) vs. one for hitters (AVG).

In a previous article, we identified four issues with ESPN Player Rater for valuing pitchers

1) Capping High Points at 5
2) Positive Ratio/Average Contributions Are Undercredited
3) Negative Contributions Aren’t Penalized
4) Overcrediting of Slightly Above Average Performance

These four issues all play a role for valuing hitters but #2 and #3 are not as major an issue because ERA/WHIP are more polarizing than AVG. For example, even low value hitters may hit .290 but only a great starting pitcher can manage an ERA near 3.00 ERA.

An additional issue we’ve found is:

5) The league leader used as the points base distorts the distribution of points – While the leader in Runs and RBIs is relatively close to the other leaders (no one had, say, 200 Runs or RBIs), A-Rod’s 54 HRs and Reye’s otherworldly 78 SBs set a very high bar for 5 points. This creates odd situations where Eric Byrnes 50 SBs (tied for 4th in majors) is worth less in ESPN Player Points than his 103 Runs (outside the top 20) and Jimmy Rollins’ 30 HRs (tied for 20th) are worth less than his 94 RBIs (tied for 42nd).

Here is the assessment on a stat by stat basis:

Runs – Overcredits for all players. For above average performance, Issue #4 plays a role (the Best Available Option’s 67 Runs warrants 2.3 points). For below average performance, Issue #3 starts taking effect (less than 67 runs should warrant negative points). An additional issue throughout is that runs are so plentiful across players that the value of a run is less than other stats (A-Rod’s 143 runs warrant 4.95 points in our estimation vs. 8.29 for his 54 HRs)

Home Runs – Undercredits great performance like A-Rod and Fielder (Issue #1). Issue #5 plays a role in underestimating the value of everyone at 25+ Homers. Players between about 15-24 HRs are slightly inflated based on Issue #4. Anyone below the BAO average of 14 are overestimated based on Issue #3.

RBIs – Undercredits the great performances like A-Rod and Matt Holliday (Issue #1). Overcredits above average performance (Issue #4). Undercredits below average performance (Issue #3). Issue #4 affects more hitters than Issue #3 (which is limited to speedsters and some 2B/SS – examples are Reyes’s 57 RBIs and Pierre’s 41RBIs)

SBs – This is the category where Issues #1 and #5 play a huge role in underestimating SB value. We have Jose Reyes’ 78 SBs at a whopping 11.5 points – the most points awarded for any offensive category. Teammate David Wright’s 34 SBs earned him a respectable 4.8 points (equivalent to Holliday’s 36 HRs and Vlad’s 125 RBIs). This underestimation affects hitter values all the way down to about 10 SBs. Issue #3 plays a very minor role – greatest for 2B/SS as speed is most common in that category (Freddy Sanchez’s 0 SBs earned him a negative 1.19).

AVG – Issue #1 only affects the top 3 hitters as Magglio, Ichiro, and Matt Holliday’s averages warranted 6+ points in our ratings. Issue #2 plays a role for the rest of those with averages above .330. Issue #4 plays a role in overestimating the value of hitters lower than .330 but greater than BAO (e.g., Luis Gonzalez’s pedestrian .278 warrants 1.99 ESPN points where it should be worth zero). For low average hitters, Issue #3 plays a role in greatly overestimating their value as they should have negative value. Uggla’s aforementioned average of .245 gets .86 ESPN points compared to our -3.28 points.

Amazingly, though, the cumulative effect of these issues seems to have little bearing on the ranking of hitters. We agree with the top 10 OFs from ESPN Player Rater with slightly different ordering. The top 10 2B match down to the order. The differences play more of a role in total player rankings – below are some examples of players differently valued (Our Ranking, ESPN Ranking).

Eric Byrnes (25, 43)
Jorge Posada (58, 92)
Juan Pierre (78, 117)
Derek Jeter (86, 106)

It’s worth noting that almost every hitter is higher valued in our rankings vs. ESPN because ESPN overvalues pitchers out of the top 20 and this pushes down all the hitters.

So while we find faults in ESPN’s methodology, we can’t fault using ESPN Player Rater to understand hitter position rankings. It works surprisingly well for hitters given its simplistic approach - it’s possible that its flaws are a bigger issue as you move down the player rankings. That said, we would caution against using the combined hitter and pitcher rankings given the flaws we’ve seen with their valuing and ranking of pitchers.
OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Are Fantasy Baseball Pitchers Correctly Valued In Player Raters?

(Part 2 of How Valid Is the ESPN Player Rater?

by Senior Corresponding Writer Rudy Gamble


If you've ever seen the ESPN Player Rater (or, for that matter, other quantitative player rankings for fantasy baseball), you've likely asked yourself:

How could there be so many starting pitchers at the top? (13 in top 20, 19 in top 30) Is that valid or just faulty weighting?

This looks even more peculiar when reviewing qualitative rankings (i.e., someone subjectively lists players) or reviewing pre-draft rankings.

Before creating our own Player Rater, our assumption was that the preponderance of starters in the top ranks of ESPN’s Player Rater was due to faulty methodology versus the true value of starters vs. hitters.

So it came as a mild surprise to find that 12 of our top 20 were starters (and we also agreed with ESPN that JJ Putz deserved top 20 inclusion). We were somewhat relieved when there were only 2 starters in the 21-30 ranks so our 14 out of the top 30 was less than ESPN.

But those were gut reactions. Now that we’ve gone through the exercise, is their truth to ESPN’s (and our) pitcher-heavy top of the rankings? Are they eerily prescient or is this a broken clock scenario?

[It's important to differentiate this exercise - the proper valuing of player statistics - versus the projection of future statistics that are done by folks like Baseball Prospectus and Ron Shandler and are used for drafting purposes. Their analysis has shown that projecting hitter stats is more accurate than pitchers stats which makes hitters less risky for drafting. While it's extremely rare to see top 10 draft results with more than 2 pitchers, this does NOT mean pitchers are less valuable. That is based on a risk/value assessment - our analysis just focuses on the 'value' part of the equation.]

We’re going to look at this as two separate subquestions: 2A) Should there be a lot of starters in the final season top 20? & 2B) Is ESPN’s ranking of starting pitchers correct?

For question 2A, let’s first look at the players in our top 20 as well as that of ESPN. We shared 19 of the same 20 players, albeit in different order. Ours includes David Ortiz at #19 while they have Cole Hamels included at #20. (Still, agreeing so much with ESPN feels unclean.)

Our Ranking. Name - Pos (ESPN Ranking)

1. Jake Peavy - SP (2)

2. Alex Rodriguez - 3B (1)

3. C.C. Sabathia - SP (3)

4. Johan Santana - SP (4)

5. Matt Holliday - OF (8)

6. Hanley Ramirez - SS (7)

7. Brandon Webb - SP (6)

8. Josh Beckett - SP (5)

9. Magglio Ordonez - OF (11)

10. John Lackey - SP (9)

11. Jimmy Rollins - SS (14)

12. David Wright - 3B (15)

13. Erik Bedard - SP (13)

14. J.J. Putz - RP (10)

15. Aaron Harang - SP (12)

16. Dan Haren - SP (16)

17. Fausto Carmona - SP (19)

18. John Smoltz - SP (18)

19. David Ortiz - 1B (22)

20. Javier Vazquez - SP (17)

22. Cole Hamels - SP (20)


To understand the impact of each category on these players’ total points, we looked at the mean and median points per category for the 13 starters and 6 hitters (excluding Putz).


Category: Mean; Median

R: 4.4; 3.1

HR: 5.1; 3.1

RBI: 4.9; 2.0

SB: 3.5; 0.4

AVG: 5.3; 2.4

W: 4.4; 4.9

SV: -0.3; -0.3

ERA: 4.8; 5.4

WHIP: 4.4; 4.8

SO: 4.4; 4.8


While the means per category looks very consistent across the hitting vs. pitcher stats (aside from Saves), the medians per category are smaller for hitter stats. This is because even the greatest hitters are rarely great in any more than 2-3 categories. While the numbers may average out high, it’s because some players dominate the category (HR=ARod) and others are merely very good or good. A-Rod led the majors in R, HR and RBI but was outside the top 20 in Average and SB. Hanley Ramirez was top 10 in R, SB and AVG but outside the top 20 in HR and top 50 in RBI. David Wright’s isn’t in the top 10 for any category - his true value is being very good across the board. David Ortiz wouldn’t steal a base if you stuffed it with pork and deep-fried it.

Looking at the top 20 in batting average, only 5 of these players were in the top 20 for HRs (Holliday, Ortiz, Pujols, Wright, and M. Cabrera). (Note: Braun didn’t have enough ABs to qualify for average but was in top 20 for HRs)

The best pitchers, on the other hand, tend to be great or at least very good in all four categories. Looking at the top 20 in the MLB for Wins, Strikeouts, and ERA, there are 19 pitchers who are in at least two of the categories – 5 of those pitchers (Peavy, Webb, Lackey, Sabathia, and Beckett) are in the top 20 across all three.

This leads to a rather straightforward theory - starters are more likely to populate the top 20 in a player rater because the top pitchers tend to get high points in all the categories where hitters only have a couple categories where they are great.

We tested this larger theory of “pitching stats are more connected” by doing a correlation analysis on all the hitters and starters to see how closely the performance in one stat is correlated with another.

A perfect 100% would mean that the stats are absolutely correlated – say, purchases at a store and a store’s sales tax receipts (every $1 in purchases would be x% in taxes). A -100% would mean that the stats are completely inverse – say, the amount of total salary a baseball team can afford and their likelihood of picking up Jose Lima.

Below are the results of the correlation analysis.

Analysis:

90-100%

80-89% HR/RBI, ERA/WHIP

70-79%

60-69% R/RBI, W/K

50-59% R/HR, W/ERA, K/ERA, K/WHIP

40-49% R/SB, R/AVG, W/WHIP

30-39% RBI/AVG

20-29%

10-19% HR/AVG, SB/AVG

0-9%

Negative HR/SB, RBI/SB, all stats with saves for starters

Let’s start with the highest correlating stats for hitters and pitchers: HR/RBI and ERA/WHIP. The fact that these stats correlate highest should be rather self-evident.

Those that do well in HR and RBI correlate positively with Runs but poorly with SB and AVG. There is barely any correlation on HR/AVG and a mild one for RBI/AVG (which makes sense since it does require hits generally to drive in runs). SBs are negatively correlated to HR and RBI - not a surprise to anyone who has ever drafted Juan Pierre, Scott Podsednik, or Willy Taveras.

Runs prove to be an interesting category as, besides HR/RBI, they also correlate well with SBs and AVG. This is likely due to high SB and AVG players being on base a lot, at the top of the lineup, and getting driven in by the HR/RBI guys.

So what we tend to have are two types of valuable hitters: Power/middle of the lineup guys who provide strong R/HR/RBI or Speed/top of the lineup guys who provide strong R/SB/AVG. Players like Magglio Ordonez hitting .360 while providing solid power numbers or Hanley Ramirez providing 29 home runs while providing great R/SB/AVG numbers are the EXCEPTIONS and not the rule.

With ERA/WHIP, these stats positively correlate at 40-60% with Wins and K’s. While there are those that do well in just one of these categories (say Wang in Wins or Kazmir in K’s, alliteration unintentional), a great starter doing well in most, if not all the categories, is more common than with hitters. Since there are more successful 3-4 category pitchers vs hitters (where you generally have to tradeoff strengths with weaknesses like Ichiro’s R/SB/AVG vs. HR/RBI), it makes sense that starters are disproportionately valuable.

The final point here – which was covered in the Peavy vs. A-Rod comparison - is the fact that starting pitchers have more influence over a team’s total stats than a hitter. This is particularly true in ERA and WHIP where a top starter may represent around 20% of your innings. Compare this to a hitter who is lucky to represent 8-9% of your ABs.

An illustrative comparison is looking at the stats of the 20th player in our rater – Javier Vazquez. His stat line of 15W/3.74/1.14/213K looks pretty good but what would the equivalent be in value for a hitter? If we link up Runs to Wins, HR to ERA, RBI to K’s, SBs to SV, and AVG to WHIP, our model would require a 120/21/137/0/.345 hitter. (fyi, if you want to see how SBs would play a role, switching the SB and AVG values would net .278 and 36 SBs)

So the answer to Question 2A is yes. We do feel that starters for any particular season should represent a majority of the top 20 value slots – unless, of course, a breed of power/speed guys start cropping up that rack up RBIs and don’t suck at AVG (see Mike Cameron, Chris B. Young).

On to Question #2B, is ESPN’s ranking of starting pitchers correct?

Let’s take a look at the pitchers just outside the top 20 in ESPN’s Player Rater and compare them to our totals.

ESPN Rank - Player Name – Our Rank

20 - C. Hamels - 22

21 - J. Verlander - 26

23 - K. Escobar - 36

24 - T. Lilly - 34

27 - J. Shields - 43

28 - T. Hudson - 42

29 - S. Kazmir – 55


Scott Kazmir’s stat line of 13W/3.48/1.38/239Ks netted him 3.25/3.58/2.55/4.98 in ESPN Player Rater points for a total of 14.36. Turning that into percentages, we’re looking at 22% for Wins, 25% for ERA, 18% for WHIP, and 35% for K’s.

In our rater, Scott Kazmir had 10.5 points that netted him 2.2/3.2/-1.4/6.8 or 21% for Wins, 31% for ERA, -14% for WHIP, and 64.5% for K’s.

Why the negative in WHIP? Because the Best Available Option (BAO) pitcher had a WHIP of 1.32 which bests Kazmir’s 1.38. His WHIP hurts your team, but you’ll take it because he does well in the other stats – especially K’s where he’s truly excellent.

The Kazmir comparison highlights several flaws in ESPN’s ranking of pitchers:

1) Capping High Points at 5 – Kazmir’s contribution in strikeouts has a greater impact on a team than, say, A-Rod’s run total. Treating them both at around 5 distorts Kazmir’s one special thing. It’s as if he’s Dirk Diggler and his “one special thing” has been shortened a couple of inches. (We’ll explore this concept further in another post – the capping, not fictional schlongs.)

2) Positive ERA/WHIP Contributions Are Undercredited – Kazmir’s 206.2 IP at a 3.48 ERA warrants slightly more credit than ESPN doles out since it is well below the BAO ERA of 3.96. If you estimate Kazmir represents between 1/6 and 1/7 of a team’s innings (figure 4 more starters = 800 IP, 4 relievers = 300 IP, total of 1300 IP which is about 1/6.5 of Kazmir’s total), that 0.48 difference in ERA nets out to about a 0.07-0.08 drop in team ERA. This is equivalent to the impact of a player hitting about .337 or driving in 116 RBIs. (This concept is also covered in the A-Rod vs. Peavy post.)

3) Negative Contributions Aren’t Penalized – Kazmir’s WHIP of 1.38 is below the 1.32 WHIP of the Best Available Option pitcher (the top FA starter if the best 50 starters and 40 relievers were taken). How could this net positive points? He’s hurting your team. The WHIP is a tradeoff for his other stats. It’s like going out with a girl because she’s hot AND crazy instead of because she’s hot and IN SPITE of the fact she’s crazy. This ‘tradeoff’ cost is also present in counting stats for second-tier pitchers like C. Wang (gets less than average strikeouts) or Chris "Tall San Diego Pitcher" Young (his 9 wins are less than average).

A 4th issue related to #3 – the overcrediting of slightly above average performance - is more apparent with Ted Lilly’s ERA (3.83 vs BAO 3.96) and WHIP (1.14 vs. BAO 1.32). While Lilly’s ERA should get some positive credit, it is not worth nearly as much as his WHIP. ESPN’s system doesn’t value the two that differently - Lilly with 3.12 points in ERA and 4.30 in WHIP. On the other hand, we credit Lilly with 1.3 ERA points and 4.8 WHIP points.

The summary of all these ESPN Player Rater flaws is the following:

Wins – Slightly undercredits great performance (issue #1), Doesn’t penalize below average performance (issue #3)

ERA – Undercredits great ERAs, overcredits slightly above average to bad ERAs

WHIP - Undercredits great WHIPs, overcredits slightly above average to bad WHIPs

Strikeouts – Similar to Wins but more pronounced.

For the pitchers in the top 20, these effects are minor – Harang and Vazquez are slightly inflated given their so-so ERAs, Carmona is deflated given his great ERA (3.06), Beckett and Webb switch places because Webb’s ERA superiority trumps Beckett’s 2 extra wins. Outside the top 20, the results become more pronounced since issues #3 and #4 play a greater role in the distorted value.

Thus the verdict for Question #2B - is ESPN’s ranking of starting pitchers correct? The answer is no. Their rater does a fair job at the top, but it gets continually distorted as you move outside the top 20 players because it doesn’t properly penalize mediocre to below average performance.

(Note: Unfortunately, the ESPN Player Rater's improper penalizing of below average performance has a lot in common with the internal review of Baseball Tonight anchors - please tell me John Kruk, Orestes Destrade and Eric Young aren’t coming back...)

Come March, when you’re preparing for your draft and trying to decide between pitchers, you can avoid the above mistakes by just comparing the two pitchers’ projected stats and credit a point for each of the following increments: 1.5 Wins = 0.19 ERA = 0.04 WHIP = 18 Ks. Might take a little more calculating but it could be the difference between taking Jeremy Bonderman over John Lackey (that decision still haunts me from last year...)

OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

How Valid is the ESPN Player Rater?

by Senior Contributing Writer Rudy Gamble

Anyone who played ESPN 2007 Fantasy Baseball last year probably had two lingering questions throughout the season:

1) Did the ESPN employees responsible for the database crash that screwed up the first two weeks’ worth of 2007 stats befall a fate worse than Harold “Harass is one word?” Reynolds (rarely insightful on Baseball Tonight but he’s like Peter F*in’ Gammons compared to replacement ex-2B Eric Young)?

2) Is the ESPN Player Rater completely incorrect or just mostly incorrect?

While we wait to see if Outside the Lines' Bob Ley or the ESPN Ombudslady answer our repeated requests for answers on question #1, we took on the challenge of question #2.

Now you may ask, “Is this a valuable exercise beyond the joy in potentially proving ESPN wrong?” Fair question. The answer is a resounding yes. One of the greatest challenges with Fantasy Baseball is determining how to compare the value of players and their statistical contributions – any idiot could tell you that A-Rod and Peavy were the best hitter and pitcher respectively but was Matt Holliday more valuable than Jimmy Rollins? Understanding the value of each of the statistics – ESPECIALLY in non-counting stats like batting average, ERA, and WHIP – helps from the draft throughout the season as rosters are juggled, free agent options are considered, and trade offers are mulled. (That being said, proving ESPN wrong was a motivating factor.)

In no particular order, here are some of the questions we have on the 2007 season that we don’t believe ESPN Player Rater correctly answers (based on 5x5 MLB Universe):

1) Who is more valuable: A-Rod (best hitter) vs. Peavy (best player)?

2) How could there be so many starting pitchers at the top? (13 in top 20, 19 in top 30) Is that valid or just faulty weighting?

3) ESPN creates a floor and ceiling of 0 (floor) and 5 (ceiling) for points per category. Does this misrepresent the contribution (or lack thereof) of players and what is the impact on player rankings? For example, how is Jose Reyes’ amazin’ 78 SBs worth the same amount of points as Josh Beckett’s merely impressive 20 wins? How is Richie Sexson’s horrific .205 batting average worth the same amount as Todd Helton’s sloth-like 0 SBs?

4) How is it possible that relievers J.J. Putz and Rafael Betancourt are worth more for ERA and WHIP than top starters like C.C. Sabathia, Johan Santana, and Brandon Webb when these relievers pitch about 1/3 of the innings as the starters?

5) Shouldn’t players at shallower positions receive bonus points – e.g, are Hanley Ramirez’s stats at SS more valuable than A-Rod’s stats for 3B?

To tackle these questions, we created our own Player Rater. See attached for the rankings and notes on the methodology we used. The methodology is nerdy and quasi-scientific - with heavy conceptual influence from Baseball Prospectus, Bill James, and other leaders in the field – but you could skip all the mathy stuff and just look at the rankings if you like.

We will answer these questions – and potentially others - over several posts. Let’s start off with the first one…

1) Who is more valuable: A-Rod (best hitter) vs. Peavy (best pitcher)?

ESPN has A-Rod #1 and Jake Peavy #2 by the slimmest of margins – 19.8 to 19.75. This order is in line with popular opinion. I’m sure if you were to do a ‘hindsight draft’ - whereby you draft based on 2007 stats – that Scott Boras’s wet dream would be picked #1 almost every time. There’s a much greater chance Peavy would go #3 or later than #1.

But is this some type of hitter/East Coast bias vs. pitcher/West Coast bias? Well, let’s look at how ESPN calculated the point totals:

A-Rod: Runs = 5, HR = 5, RBI = 5, SB=1.54, AVG=3.26
Peavy: K = 5, W = 4.75, SV = 0, ERA = 5, WHIP = 5

A-Rod led the majors in R/HR/RBI to earn the three category max of 15 points. His above average 24 SBs and .314 AVG netted him another 4.8 points. Peavy had a possible max of 20 points since Bud Black inexplicably turned to Trevor Hoffman to close games and was a win short of getting all 20 (should’ve showed up in that one-game playoff, Jake). So, maybe that’s it. Even the best starting pitchers can only contribute in 4 categories so a great 5-category hitter is more valuable.

What do our rankings say? It says Mr. Peavy is #1 by a healthy margin – 29.4 to 26.2 points. I’ll admit it – we were surprised too. Let’s look at our point allocations by category to explain it:

A-Rod: Runs = 4.9, HR = 8.3, RBI = 6.8, SB=3.2, AVG=3.0
Peavy: K = 6.8, W = 6.2, SV = -0.3, ERA = 9.3, WHIP = 7.4

This comparison is as good an opportunity as any to go over our methodological basis for crediting points (skip over if you’re mathphobic):

Rather than using a 0-5 point scale per category, we mirrored the VORP concept from Baseball Prospectus and created composite stats for what would be the best available option (BAO) at each position – e.g., what are the stats of the 11th best catcher who’d be the next best option post-draft. We then created a team full of these BAOs (kind of like a fantasy expansion team – hell, a team with Carlos Pena, BJ Upton, Troy Tulowitzki, Ryan Braun is much better than the MLB variety) and averaged their stats to create the BAO hitter and BAO pitcher.

We then took the team totals of our ESPN league to come up with relevant increments to award points. Our method would credit players with positive points if they performed above the BAO in a stat and negative points if they performed below (example: Magglio Ordonez was worth 7.7 AVG points while Richie Sexson was worth -4.6 points)

The increments were based on the standard deviation between our 10 teams’ totals which came out to roughly 1-2% of the average team’s total for R, HR, RBI, K, and W. SB and SV turned out around 4% of the average because team totals in these stats tend to be more widely distributed than the other counting stats (related to few players contributing the lion’s share of points – another way of explaining this is to consider the impact of 5 Wins vs. SBs and SVs on your league’s rankings. Wins would prove more valuable.). Lastly, the ratio stats – AVG, ERA, and WHIP – are around 0.5% of the average team’s total as there is much smaller % change between players (e.g., a great hitter hits .350, a bad hitter .250. That’s only a 40% difference. A-Rod hit 150% more HRs than fellow MVP candidate Mike Lowell)

These standard deviations were arbitrarily divided by 6 to create more point differential between players. For ratios, the team totals were multiplied up to reflect an individual player’s impact on the total – so a hitter would have to hit .0144 better than the BAO (assuming all 13 hitters had the same # of ABs) to raise the team’s average by the required .0011.

Lastly, we compared each player to two different types of BAOs: one specific to their position and one general (hitter or pitcher). These results were averaged together and helped to account for the fact that a BAO 1st baseman offers better stats than a BAO catcher so, all stats equal, the catcher is a more valuable hitter. (This topic will be further explored in another post. We’ve only got so much material to stretch over the offseason.)

So now let’s look at Runs vs. K’s to see this methodology in action. These make a good comparison in that the average team totals for these stats (based on our ESPN league) are nearly equal: 1150 runs and 1148 Ks.

A-Rod and Peavy led the majors in these categories (143 Rs and 240 Ks respectively) so ESPN credits each with 5 points. But the BAO hitter (who looks almost exactly like Luis Gonzalez’s stat line of .278/70/15/68/6) had 67 runs where the BAO pitcher (who looks closest to Carlos Villanueva’s season of 8 Ws/1 SV/3.94/1.35/99 K over 114 IP) had 101 K’s.

(Note: That may seem low for K’s but here’s a few other starting pitchers b/w 90 and 110 K’s that certainly saw some fantasy roster space during the season: C. Wang, G. Maddux, B. Sheets, C. Schilling, M. Mussina, J. Marquis)

So A-Rod had 76 more Runs than the BAO hitter and Peavy had 139 K’s more than the BAO in a category where teams had virtually the same average total. Another way of looking at it is that Peavy’s total would represent 20.9% of the average team’s total where A-Rod’s runs would be 12.4%.

The larger differential and impact of Peavy’s K’s vs. A-Rod’s runs are slightly curbed by the fact that Runs have a lower standard deviation which leads to crediting a point for 15.1 runs and 18.1 K’s. This nets out to 4.9 points for A-Rod’s Runs vs. 6.8 for Peavy’s K’s.

Peavy’s impact on Wins is similar to his impact in K’s and A-Rod’s HR and RBI totals net him 8.3 and 6.8 points respectively. His 24 SBs net him 3.2 points. (If anything, the ESPN total screws him – how could 24 SBs be worth only 1.5 points of 5 points, with 0 SBs equaling 0 points, given the average team only had 162 SBs?)

So it all comes down to the ratio stats (AVG, ERA, WHIP) to determine the winner.

Let’s look at A-Rod’s AVG first. To determine the impact, we start with a lineup made exclusively of BAO hitters. This group hits .2772. If we replace one BAO with A-Rod, the average goes up to .2806 – a difference of 0.0034. In addition, A-Rod had 583 ABs compared to our BAO’s 482 ABs. So A-Rod’s average has a greater impact than just 1/13th (it becomes worth about 1/11th). To account for this, we multiply his points by his # of ABs / BAO ABs (1.2). After accounting for the fact that the 3B BAO hits for a slightly higher average (.279), A-Rod’s batting average nets him 2.8 points.

Now let’s look at Peavy’s MLB-leading 2.54 ERA and 1.06 WHIP. Adding him to a BAO team (5 starters + 4 relievers with removing a BAO composite of the two) changes the team ERA/WHIP from 3.960/1.315 to 3.719/1.272. This is a net decrease of 0.241 in ERA and 0.043 in WHIP.

How huge is this? Well, looking at our league, this would be the number of points gained in ERA by deducting .241 (1 team – 5 pts, 2 teams – 4 pts, 2 teams – 3 pts, 3 teams - 2 pts, 1 team – 1 pt, 1 team – 0 pts). If you factor in that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams had a maximum of 0, 1 , and 2 points to gain respectively, you can see that at a MINIMUM, Jake Peavy’s ERA would’ve gained a team 2 points and more likely 3+. The WHIP difference is similar in impact.

Now we compared Peavy against our BAO pitcher who is a composite of the best pitcher available. This could be a starter or reliever. What if we compared him against strictly the BAO starter (the 51st best starter)? This would reduce the impact of Peavy’s Wins and K’s but would actually INCREASE the impact of his ERA and WHIP. Why? Because starters pitch more innings than relievers and tend to give up more runs and baserunners. The BAO starter has an ERA of 4.15 and WHIP of 1.34 (closest comparison – Carlos Silva) where the BAO reliever is at an ERA of 3.31 and WHIP of 1.24. Compared to the BAO Starter, his ERA is worth 9.9 ‘position points’ but 8.6 ‘player points’ for an average of 9.3 points.

In summary, we would say Jake Peavy was the MVP of 2007 Fantasy Baseball (5x5, MLB Universe) over A-Rod. While A-Rod had two high contributing categories (HR and RBI), one strong (Runs), and two above average (SB and AVG), Peavy has four high contributing categories with his ERA and WHIP point total of 16.7 dwarfing his closest competitors (Santana = 11.3, Sabathia = 11.2).

While we wouldn’t have the nut sack to draft Peavy #1 in a 2008 draft (pitching is less predictable than hitting), he’d be our choice for #1 in a ‘hindsight’ draft. And if you can’t even manage 20/20 hindsight, how can you expect to see clearly into the future...
OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Top 10 Starters 2007

1. Jake Peavy
19-6/240/2.54/1.06
Your pitching staff was in pretty good shape if Peavy was your number one starter as long as your number two starter wasn't Kip Wells. Leading the majors in strikeouts (though Bedard might have made a claim for that if he was healthy at the end of the year), leading the majors in ERA and WHIP for starters, finishing 2nd in wins and he singlehandedly put out the California fires. Okay, I made the last one up, but it wouldn't have been surprising. The only thing that hurt Peavy was out of his control, a haiku for Mr. Peavy:

With a cutoff man
Barrett throws out baserunners
Friends with Zambrano


2. C.C. Sabathia
19-7/209/3.21/1.14
After posting solid numbers in '06, Sabathia really came into his own this year. See, who says a plus-size model can't be sexy? He was the benefit of a solid defense behind him and an even better offense supporting him. By the postseason, he began to wane as his innings were nearly as high as his cholesterol. Hopefully this won't affect him next year.

3. Johan Santana
15-13/235/3.33/1.07
An off year for Santana and he still comes in at number three. If not for the one game playoff between the Padres and Rockies, he would've led the majors in strikeouts. It's a shame that we've come to expect the spectacular because the only thing Santana failed to do this year was drive in runs in games he pitched. With four or five more wins, he'd be in the discussion for Cy Young. Speaking of which...

4. Josh Beckett
20-7/194/3.27/1.14
They haven't given him the award yet, but he'll win it. The voters love wins, as if that's more of indication of how someone pitched than their ERA or their WHIP. Not that Beckett was a slouch in those categories either, so it's hard to fault him winning the Cy Young. Where you drafted Beckett as compared to Santana, you got plenty of value. And, for what it's worth, I like his taste in random country singers. He's the red state Jeter.

5. Brandon Webb
18-10/194/3.01/1.19
Not giving up a run for a month will usually get you on a list of the best pitchers. He was phenomenal for stretches, but merely average other times of the year. Yet, it's hard to fault him with these final numbers. BUT, if we do want to find fault, his walks were up, which accounts for his WHIP jumping from 1.13 in '06. Nevertheless, he registered nearly 200 strikeouts and came in 2nd to Peavy for NL-only pitchers. Yet, his strikeouts were down from last year even though he pitched more innings. Okay, I'll leave Webb alone. But, if you can't tell, I'm not completely sold on him.


6. John Lackey
19-9/179/3.01/1.21
Take out two games from Lackey's season and he has a 19-7 record and a 2.77 ERA. Not any two games, obviously. Just the two games played against Boston (both games at Fenway). The two games where he was 0-2 with an 8.38 ERA. Luckily, he calls the AL West home, a division with three pitcher's parks and the Marlon Byrd-led Texas Rangers.

7. Aaron Harang
16-6/218/3.73/1.14
Harang was nothing spectacular this year. He only put up the exact same numbers that we've come to expect from him. Numbers that rival the best in the game. Then again, he doesn't get drafted until the ninth round in a ML universe, so something must be wrong, right? Wrong. Perhaps it's his team, the media market he plays in or lack of wins, but for whatever reason, he's perpetually under the radar. I have a feeling the same people trumpeting Blyleven's Hall of Fame candidacy will have a new poster boy in fifteen years.

8. Erik Bedard
13-5/221/3.16/1.09
What kind of name is Bedard? French? Is he from Louisiana? Anyone ever hear him talk? Anyone care? I'm not sure Orioles' fans care. Ladies and gentlemen, your American League Harang. Bedard was had for a steal. Probably falling to the twelfth round in a ML universe. As mentioned above, he was headed for the majors strikeout title when a late season injury derailed him, but his season was still great. On a better team, he wins twenty easily.

9. Dan Haren
15-9/192/3.07/1.21
Another reason not to draft a ton of pitchers early on. In a ML universe, Haren probably was available into the tenth round. He blew away his previous career high in strikeouts, dropped his ERA by a full point and didn't allow more than five runs in any start all season.

10. Javier Vazquez
15-8/213/3.74/1.14
Yet another steal, falling to the seventeenth round in many ML universe drafts. And, FINALLY, living up to the hype of his days in Montreal. It's been a long time coming, hasn't it? Not to mention it was done on the crappy White Sox. Some things even Ozzie Guillen can't screw up.

There's so many more pitchers to talk about it will have to wait for another column.
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