We've Moved!

We've finally moved to our new home at www.theshallowfly.wordpress.com. Once I pony up it'll just be theshallowfly.com but for now you'll have to type in the wordpress bit. It's a much better website and we're excited about it. Take a look.

John and Eric

New and Improved Site

Dearest loyal reader,

We here at The Shallow Fly endeavor to provide you with the finest fantasy baseball content that John can dream up in a 45 minute window. Of late we have found that our web platform has been letting us down. After a consultation with a graphic designer last night we have the beginning of a brand new web page that we think will vastly improve upon this webpage that looks like it was put together by some guy with absolutely no knowledge of how to do this sort of thing. 

There will be another writer joining the page hopefully today with his first post which I'm excited about. We now have a twitter account and we have a bunch of ideas on how to make this site more fun to visit.  

Please have some patience while we work through the kinks, we think it’ll be worth it. 

Baseball Stat of the Day

This is amazing:

there have been more perfect games than Votto infield flies since 2009.

AL Third Basemen Opinion

For my birthday a few weeks ago my lovely girlfriend asked me what I wanted and as usual I could think of nothing. After racking my brains she asked me about memorabilia because I’m always going on about things I want signed and one of the great regrets I have in life is leaving my entire collection at the top of a closet in an apartment I moved out of years ago. In there were autographed balls from Ted Williams, Brooks Robinson and Don Mattingly (who was my favourite player as a kid). Every now and again I still feel a pang of regret about leaving that stuff there, especially the Williams ball. So off we went to a memorabilia store downtown where I found an awesome Ted Williams piece that was way too expensive and a really nice Stan Musial piece that I would love to own as well but was out of my budget. As we were about to leave I decided to look through the unframed autographed photos and found a really nice one of Brooks Robinson stretched out to make a diving grab. After some negotiations with the owner I now have a 16 x 20 photo framed in my office of Brooks. This goes quite well with my Don Larsen autographed World Series perfect game piece and of course the many bits from Arsenal. Soon my office will be a man cave.

All of this got me thinking about third basemen and fantasy baseball. Brooks was regarded as the greatest fielding third baseman of all time but in fantasy no one really cares about that. Since this is my blog and I can roam from topic to topic all I want I figured I’d list 2 third basemen I’m up on and 2 I’m down on.

This is about guys performing above or below their price. Obviously if given the choice I’m going Miggy, Longo, Beltre but this isn’t about that.

2 I’m Up On:

Lonnie Chisenhall:

Chisenhall has been one of the Indians top prospects for a few years now and is pencilled in as their starting 3B this year. He was a first round draft choice in 2008 and would have gone higher had he not been kicked out of his program in 2007 for stealing cash and computers. That there is proof I do research as I had no idea about that until now.

I don’t necessarily think he’ll light the world on fire but Rotoworld has him at $7 and ESPN at $5 which is cheap. Last year in 260 ABs between 2 levels he hit 8 home runs and now that he’s healthy and a year older it’s reasonable to assume 15-16 home runs will follow from 500 ABs. His average needs work and his K/BB ratio is pretty bad but he’s still young and that too should improve. For his career his contact% has hovered around 80% which is good and his walk% around 7% which is fine as well, this combined with a slight uptick in line drives which he saw when he returned after a broken arm means that he should be a reasonably safe bet this year.

With third base being a desert this year a $6 or so investment in Chisenhall could be worth $10 and allow you to spend your money elsewhere.

Jed Lowrie:

This one wouldn’t have been here a few weeks ago when I did my auction but it looks like he’s the A’s 3B now so he qualifies. Lowrie was a hyped Red Sox prospect a few years ago who was moved to Houston in a package for Mark Melancon. The big knock of Lowrie is apparent when you look at his at bats for the last few years: 171, 309, and 340. He has trouble staying on the field but he has legitimate 25-30 home run power in that bat if he can stay healthy. His injuries have been a bit fluky though: 119 games lost to a broken and strained wrist, 108 games lost to mono, 52 games to a sore left shoulder and 66 to ankle and thumb sprains. None of these are related so hopefully it was just bad luck.

He makes good contact (81% rate), has a good eye, hits a lot of fly balls, and hits in an improved lineup. Rotoworld has him at $6 and ESPN at $8. He could potentially be worth close to $20 if he stays healthy but even with some DL time a $12-15 season is entirely within reach.

2 I’m Down On:

Will Middlebrooks:

Rotoworld - $15, ESPN - $11 and my beloved Shandler - $21 so why am I down on him? Primarily it’s because he’s young and his K/BB ratio is so bad it leads me to believe his adjustment will be much slower than what people are expecting. Last year he burst onto the scene with 15 hr in only 75 games. Who doesn’t want a 30 hr third basemen? Lost in that is a 24.5% strikeout rate while only walking in 4.5% of his plate appearances. When you strike out that much good pitchers are going to find massive holes in your swing. Furthermore his hr/f% in Boston was 21.4% which is huge. That number was higher than David Ortiz for perspective. Assuming he doesn’t automatically fix the holes in his swing and that his hr/f rate drops into the teens then he could have a big sophomore slump coming.

I think that he’s a fine keeper but growing pains are ahead for him.

Adrian Beltre:

Rotoworld - $26, ESPN - $33

I think he’ll be one of the best third basemen available so don’t take this the wrong way. I just see some warning signs that he won’t be quite as good as what people are expecting. First of all is the lineup. Texas is not as good a team offensively as they were last year. Kinsler has been up and down for a few years and in 3 out of 4 has hit in the .250 range. The one year he was above that he only had 391 AB due to injury. Hamilton has left town and not really been replaced. I can’t see Pierzynski coming anywhere close to what he did last year, Martin is a rookie and although he looks good he could struggle, Cruz is being investigated for steroids in the Braun/ARod sting and that could end very badly for him, etc. All this is to say that the offensive load will fall on his shoulders. Nothing in his numbers indicates a big concern other than last year he had over 600 at bats for the first time since 2006. That led to his best statistical season since the monster year he had in 2004 with the Dodgers. Projecting his numbers over 500 at bats instead of 600 and you’re talking 80 runs, 25-28 hr, 85-90 rbi, and with a .315 average. Great numbers no doubt but projecting off his last year numbers seems foolish. 

Sports Illustrated Fantasy

I just felt like I had to say something here. Every single time I'm bored enough to actually click on that terrible fantasy section I'm both amused and appalled. It has got to be the worst fantasy baseball site provided by a respected sports source of all time. With very few exceptions I disagree with what they say or what they say is so obvious that it doesn't bear mentioning at all.

Seriously it's ridiculous.

They label Chris Sale as a "do-not-draft arm". In what universe is Sale undraftable?

Other gems are:

R.A. Dickey - "Breakthroughs just don't happen late in your 30s". Really? Because how many other guys without a Ulnar Collateral Ligament have gone to the minors, completely learned a new pitch, and THEN PROCEEDED TO THROW A KNUCKLEBALL OVER 80 MPH? Oh right. The answer is none.

Encarnacion - while criticizing his bat, "Watch for injuries and errors - some of the reasons he didn't break out until age 29". Last year after moving to first base part time he made 3 errors in 66 games started for a .995 fielding percentage. Also what the fuck does this have to do with his bat? Will they bench him? Will they move him back to third? No and No. Injuries are always a concern but don't bring up his fielding here.

Crisp - "the A's are not a team that values the stolen base". Coco Crisp has gotten the green light significantly more as a member of the Oakland A's than he did as a member of Boston or KC. In fact it's not even close. Here are his last 6 years of stolen base attempt % (basically how often he goes with a bag open in front of him) -

Year	Team	%
2007	Boston	23
2008	Boston	25
2009	KC	28
2010	Oak	40
2011	Oak	41
2012	Oak	36

so tell me again how they suppress his running? 

I could go on and on but they make me nuts. It's like they don't do research or something. 

Part 2 Continued – Pitching

My goal with pitching is generally broken down as follows:

1 SP - Ace

1 SP - very good pitcher

2 SP – cheap but high K/9, young or otherwise undervalued. Here’s where I’ll take a chance on guys taking ‘the next step’.

1 Closer with a job

2-3 MR – middle relievers with high K/9 AND K/BB ratios. 

I also try to grab the ‘next in line’ guys.

We start 7 pitchers so this would be my starters with one bench. For my bench I like at least 2 and perhaps 3 of my 4 to be pitchers. Some guys go the opposite way and I can’t fault them but I like to maximize my innings pitched through high K/9 and K/BB middle relievers that might get some vulture wins and potentially become closers. This normally ends up with me being near the top in most pitching categories except Wins which I struggle in. The other downside here is that with only 1 bench bat injuries can cripple my lineup so I’m generally much more active in free agency than my competitors. One of my competitors in particular loves multi-position eligible guys and bench bats and each year he has over 100-120 more games played than I do. To make up for this I need to be effective in the games I do play.

I’ll refer you to the ‘How to make a Justin Verlander’ blog I wrote on my philosophy of mixing middle relievers with high strikeout starters to round out my pitching so I won’t explain that here.

As I said earlier I had mapped out my team with either Carlos Santana as my catcher or Ryan Doumit.

With an assumed $20 invested in Santana I had mapped out my pitching as follows (As my first attempt):

P             Scherzer              $30         KEPT

P             Peavy                  $7          KEPT

P             Dickey                 $30

P             Holland                $8

P             Hanrahan             $24

P             Herrera                $2

P             Tillman                 $2

B             Alburqueque        $1

B             Delabar               $1

B             T. Hunter            $1

That totals $106 which I decided was way more than I wanted to invest in pitching. I also came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t touch Hanrahan with a 10’ pole this year.

Next I decided to break down my dollars spent on bats and arms. Since there seemed to be cheap pitching available but I knew I still needed to spend some considering I already had $37 invested in Peavy and Scherzer I broke it down as 180/80. For me this became either 184/70 or 180/74 as I had dealt $6 away to win the Greinke sweepstakes last year.

My second shot at planning my rotation was:

P             Scherzer              $30         KEPT

P             Peavy                  $7           KEPT

P             Madson               $15

P             Holland                $5

P             Floyd                   $7

P             Tillman                 $3

P             Alburqueque        $1

B             Hunter                  $1

B             Uehara                 $1

B             Herrera                $1

That totals $ 71 and other than the exclusion of Dickey I don’t think there’s much difference than to my first shot. Frankly I have more faith in Madson coming off Tommy John than I do in Hanrahan so that’s like free money.

So what did I end up with?

P             Scherzer              $30           KEPT

P             Peavy                  $7             KEPT

P             Veras                  $12

P             Madson               $13

P             Norris                  $2

P             Cook                   $2

P             Tillman                 $3

B             Hunter                 $1

B             Uehara                $1

Total: $71

Obviously that didn’t go as I planned it.

Madson, Tillman, Uehara and Hunter were all guys that I had targeted so I’m fine with them on my team. Ryan Cook I think could very well end up the closer in Oakland and I thought he’d go for more money (Sean Doolittle went for $5 and I’d rather have Cook). Where I potentially dropped the ball is on Veras and Bud Norris.

For reference the $12 I spent on Veras that should have been spent on a starter could have purchased: Buerhle $11 (who doesn’t fit with my philosophy), Holland $12 (this one hurts a bit but I think that’s too much), C Perez (a much better option than Veras and I’m much more down on Pestano this year than last), Romero $11 (who I wouldn’t touch), and Santos $12 (who is a gamble but a decent one).  

I view Veras as likely crap but he could be fine. The thing with closers is you never know. His underlying skills are decent. His K/9 was 10.6 last year which is great, he doesn’t give up a lot of fly balls and he’s got the job in Houston. Even closers on bad teams get saves. His problem is that he walked 5.4 guys per 9 last year which will kill you every time (ironically enough Hanrahan walked 5.4/9 last year too – haha).

Norris has good skills but he walks more guys than you’d want out of a starter and his strand rate could be better. Otherwise he’s got really good skills and someone on Houston will win 12-13 games so why not him?

My problem overall is that I could have too many closers and not enough starters which is only a problem if I don’t make trades. Skill wise I’m happy with the $71 I spent on pitching and I think that I can get more value out of this by dealing a closer. I view Uehara, Cook and Hunter all as potential closers for their teams. 

1st half to 2nd half BABIP anomalies: Butler and Crisp

Billy Butler

1^st half: .31                          2^nd half: .37

What Happened?

Butler went from being a very solid but unspectacular first base option in the first half to being in the elite of first basemen in the second half. This was driven by a BABIP of .37 which is completely unsustainable although there are some encouraging signs when you dig deeper into his numbers. His walk%, contact% and k/bb ratio all remained almost the same between the two halves with is good. He continued his career norm as a lefty killer by hitting .370 in the first half against them to .302 in the second half which is in line with his .320 average vs lefties. He hit .272 vs righties in the first half up to .335 in the second which offset the drop vs lefties.

The biggest driver of the BABIP increase and overall value increase was that his line drive rate increased from 21-26% while his ground ball rate dropped and his fly ball rate dropped from 31-27%. The line drive rates mark a career high but as a ‘professional hitter’ who is 27 years old he might just be squaring up the ball better. His hr/f% dropped from 22% to 18% in conjunction with the fly ball drop but his home runs only dropped from 16-13 which is encouraging. A note of caution is that he doubled his career rate for hr/f last year while also posting the fewest fly balls he’s had in a year. If that hr/f ratio regresses to his career average then he’s more of a 20 homer guy than the 29 he hit last year. All of that said he’s a great bet to be one of the better first base options available and one you can have confidence in due to his low volatility.

Coco Crisp

1^st half: .25                          2^nd half: .31

What Happened?

This is a bit dicey to be breaking down as Coco seems to always be battling some form of injury and last year was no exception. He had the flu, an inner ear problem, a shoulder issue, hamstring problems and finally pink eye. This makes putting any stock in first half/second half splits a bit silly but I’m going to do it anyway. Like Butler his bb%, ct% and k/bb remained almost identical from the first half to the second so it’s not like he changed his plate approach a whole lot. What changed dramatically was the results. Gb% went from 49-41%, line drive% from 16-23% and his fly ball% stayed essentially the same. Turning ground balls into line drives will always be a positive thing and the numbers bear that out. In only 70 more ABs he more than doubled his runs (20-48), quadrupled his hr (2-9), doubled his rbi (16-30), increased his steals (16-23) and cranked his average (.219 - .289). His first half was worth $8 and his second $31. He saw across the board improvements against both lefties and righties, got the green light more often and took it (33% - 38% - numbers which are exceptionally high) and increased his slugging % from an anemic .286 to a very healthy indeed .513. To put that second half slugging rate in perspective, Cespedes was at .505 for the year and Billy Butler was .510. Of course he’s not going to simply double his second half but it was a fun ride.

What will Coco do this year? I honestly have no idea but I do know it’ll be both frustrating and fun. 

BABIP Definition

Sorry I should have mentioned that BABIP stands for batting average on balls in play. This means that when the player makes contact what is his average. Keep in mind that this does not include home runs as they aren't technically in play.

Normally .300 is average and players can expect to regress to that level depending on the type of player they are. Fast players generally have higher BABIPs since they can leg out hits and slow guys might be lower. Line drives are better than fly balls that stay in the park and this will affect the number as well.

1st half to 2nd half BABIP anomalies: Ackley and Aybar.

For this piece I went through AL players with last names from A – D and looked at their first half to second half BABIP splits for any large anomalies. For now I'm just doing the first two names that jumped out at me. Many people don’t put stock in first half to second half splits but I think that at the very least it helps explain players that look better in our minds than they perhaps really are or helps explain players that seemingly had a different skills approach that might mean better production in this coming year.

I’ll choose some stats to support my argument but for most of these guys I’ll have looked at other numbers I don’t put down here simply because it would be redundant.

Dustin Ackley:

First Half: .30                      Second Half: .23

What Happened?

Ackley went from hitting .241 in the first half to .211 in the second. This was driven by a complete drop off against righties from .246 (which is bad) to .183 (which is awful). His numbers against lefties actually increased in the second half to cushion this drop. His walk% dropped from 10-7% while his contact% increased from 77-82%. What this means is that he started putting his bat on the ball more often than working an at bat. The result was a worse K/BB ratio than in the first half and a decrease in line drives with an uptick in fly balls. Line drives are much more likely to be hits than fly balls so we can see the drop right there.

He doubled his home runs from 4 to 8 but it cost him nearly everywhere else. He still had a low rate of HR/Fly from 5-8%. He’s young and this is too small of a sample size to put much stock in but nothing here points to a big step forward coming. His plate discipline eroded and the result wasn’t great in the power department. Also of note is that his SB success rate dropped from 88% to 75%. Still a decent success rate but he might not get the green light as much if that drops anymore.

Erick Aybar:

1^st half: .29                          2^nd half: .35

What Happened?

Across the board improvements to Aybar make him look like he’s becoming an elite option especially hitting in that lineup. But his average vs lefties went from .295 to .390 which has got to be unsustainable especially with a career avg of .291 vs lefties. In 2011 he hit .216 against them further illustrating how crazy that .390 is. He saw a similar jump vs righties from .238 to .309 which is closer to his career .285 mark. His contact% stayed similar and remains high (around 88%) which points to a good batting average going forward. The biggest driver of the improvements from the first half to the second half are that his ground ball% dropped from 55 - 50% while his line drive% jumped from 16 – 21%. His hr/f rate jumped from 2%!!!!! To 11% which is waaay over his career 6% rate. Nothing in his past points to such a huge jump in power so temper expectations going forward. The average is real and so is the speed and the runs will follow. One thing to keep an eye on early is how often he gets the green light. First half last year he went 10% of the time he had an open base and 27% in the second half. That’s a crazy difference and explains the jump in bags from 5-15. His success rate remained at 83% so if he can keep the rate around there he’ll be just fine. Of course hitting in front of Pujols, Trumbo, Hamilton et al might mean he sees a red light more often than not. We’ll see. 

Part 2: My targets

Catcher:

As I said earlier I thought that there was no reason to spend money on a catcher this year as there were many available that, with varying levels of palatability, could play for my team. So I mapped out my team a few different ways. First was with my number 1 choice at catcher Carlos Santana there for an assumed price of $20 and then a few more times with the catcher I was willing to risk it on Ryan Doumit at $5. Now Doumit has had a lot of trouble staying healthy and plays for a terrible Twins team in a pitchers park but last year he had a career high 484 at bats with the Twins rotating him and Mauer behind the plate to keep his knees fresh. Santana seems like a very good bet to have an excellent year and could very well be the most valuable AL catcher this year. Doumit has alternated 400 AB seasons with 220 AB seasons and this year he’s on the wrong side of that. The difference $15 in price comes with a much more confident bet on Santana.

Every time I mapped out my team I liked the team better with Doumit than Santana. So what happened? I bought Santana for $19. I was in on the bidding with $20 as my ceiling and frankly was surprised to get him at $19. Doumit ended up going for $6 so I wasn’t far off with my price estimates. Unfortunately for me spending $19 on Santana screwed me on my number 1 target which was....

Second Base:

Dustin Pedroia.

I have never been a huge fan of Pedroia but I respect what he brings to a fantasy team. Looking at who was available at 2B after Cano was kept left this list:

Kinsler, Pedroia, Kendrick, Zobrist, Altuve, Beckham, Johnson, Keppinger and Bonifacio.

Kinsler I think is overpriced, Altuve to me is a wild card, Beckham could be crap, Johnson is crap, Keppinger I have no faith in, Bonifacio could be great for fantasy but might not have a job so that left Kendrick and Pedroia for who I wanted. Well, I wanted Zobrist but with his multiple position eligibility I knew he’d go for a pretty penny and the Rays offense is decidedly underwhelming me this year. 

Now Kendrick has finally passed through the prospect to post-hype prospect to steady producer stage. He’s not the .325 hitter than many predicted but he’s a solid producer in a stacked lineup. For $15 or so I thought he’d be a good fit but I really wanted Pedroia. Of all the 2Bs out there he was the one I had the most faith in. Year to year he is steady and I like steady.

So...I bought Kelly Johnson for $6.

This could be disastrous. I won the last two years by having a very strong spine of my team. In 2011 I had VMart, Andrus and Cano up the middle and last year it was Mauer, Andrus and Cano. This year it’s Santana, Drew and Johnson. 

Quite the astounding downgrade there.

Pedroia went for $34 which was more than I expected and I spent more than planned on catcher. Had I tossed $35 at Pedroia (and there’s no guarantee the bidding stops there) then the rest of my team is a wasteland. I made the decision to gamble on Johnson returning to his 2011 form and build more balance into my team. Time will tell if this is as catastrophic as it is looking to be.

Outfield:

As I mentioned in Part 1 I viewed outfield as being sneaky shallow. When you look at the number of outfielders we take (40) and then add in utility players of which 5 are normally OF then the pool is 45 deep. How many AL outfielders are steady producers and how many are wild cards to what they will give you? I broke it down as follows:

Steady Producers that I have confidence in:

Kept and unavailable: Trout, Bautista, Cespedes, Jones, Gordon, Jennings, Jackson, Rios, Trumbo, C. Davis, De Aza and Matt Joyce 

Available: Markakis, Gardner, Swisher, and Saunders. That’s it. 4 guys that if healthy I feel reasonably confident will produce where I expect them to. That doesn’t mean they’ll be great but that they are less volatile than most of the others out there. Everyone else could be very good or very bad or somewhere in the middle.

Ichiro? Who knows? Is he the guy who played for the Yankees last year or the guy who kept getting worse for Seattle?

Melky Cabrera: How inflated are his numbers from steroids? Looking back two years ago his numbers were:

AB	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
458	50	4	42	7	.255

Those are horrible numbers. Awful. The next year his numbers jumped to:

AB	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
658	102	18	87	20	.305

Which basically means in 200 more at bats he was more than twice as good as he was the year before. In terms of $ earned in fantasy he went from $7 to $33 and honestly I think that $7 was high for what he did 2 years ago. What will he do after testing positive and presumably being clean? Who knows but I don’t want to gamble to find out.

Ellsbury: great player with one highly inflated year and history of injury trouble. Will he be good? Most likely. Will he be worth the $25+ he’ll cost? No clue. His dollars earned for the last 4 years look like this: $41, $2, $49, $9. If the pattern sticks then he’ll be amazing but again...who knows? Do you want to gamble on him?

Granderson, Cruz, Morse, Brantley, etc. all of them have big question marks on them this year.

So I ended up with $18 Rios (who I traded for), $18 Coco Crisp, $26 Michael Bourn and $17 Nick Markakis. I had Markakis going for closer to $25 so this was value to me. I don’t really like taking guys switching leagues but I think that speed translates well between the AL and NL in a more predictable way than other metrics so Bourn at $26 is reasonable and I have a soft spot for Coco. When he plays he’s good. He’ll be hurt and he’ll have to fight for at bats in that crowded team but he’s their sparkplug and I’m betting he has another year of relevance.

Rios I view as steady but I already touched on him.

Review for now:

I wanted a cheap catcher and strong 2B with a balanced outfield. I got an expensive catcher and a terrible 2B with a balanced OF. We’ll see how this plays out.

I’ll finish my auction plan tomorrow. 

Laziness took over - apologies.

Apologies for not writing anything for a few days there. After Arsenal were dumped out of the Champion's League by Bayern Munich the week went off the rails but I'm back and clear headed now.

I will make a formal post later today but wanted to link to an article that I found written by Mr. Shandler on Mike Trout. I thought about writing my own bit on why Trout is someone to avoid based on their price tag but who am I kidding? Shandler does it better.

Here's the link http://www.baseballhq.com/content/fanalytics-12-reasons-not-draft-mike-trout

The other thing that I wanted to pass on and should have heeded myself is NEVER DRAFT A DREW. This should have been abundantly clear to me from watching JD Drew for years prove that human beings can indeed be made of glass and I don't really blame Stephen Drew for getting hit in the head but bad things just seem to follow those Drews around. Stephen Drew is my starting shortstop and while I did not expect him to move mountains this year I thought he'd provide a reasonable return on my modest $6 investment. Now I can be quite reactionary and perhaps he'll be fine but concussions and baseball have a habit of lingering. Just ask Justin Morneau.

Inspiration for today

One of my favourite goals ever.

Mild Hangover and Ze Germans

I am mildly hungover after last nights trip to the pub for trivia night where without the support of the rest of the team we got slaughtered. It was ugly as we tied for last place. Who knew that the Alimentary canal was in your body and not some city??? We did because we eavesdropped.

In honour of this hangover I am leaving work to go to the pub this afternoon to cheer on the boys in red & white against ze Germans from Munich. I am a die-hard Arsenal supporter and even though it looks grim today I will be there with my fingers crossed and a Carlsberg mini-pitcher in hand.

This means I shall not be writing about baseball today.

COYG

Part 1: Deciding Your Keepers

Auction Post-Mortem: How my plan played out

This is probably going to be a pretty big post which will have to go up in segments. I am hosting a design meeting later today that I have to prepare for and won’t have time to finish this properly. As you may have noticed by now I don’t really edit anything so let’s see how this goes.

Part 1: Deciding Your Keepers

We have to submit our keepers normally on March 1^st with our auction anywhere around the 15-20^th of March. This year we had some members away on vacation so we had to have our auction on March 1^st which meant our keeper list went in on Feb 17^th – or about 2 games into Spring Training. This presented some new wrinkles that we hadn’t dealt with before.

The general rule of thumb for your keepers is that if you can get them cheaper at the auction than what you’re keeping them for you let them go. You may also have players that you could not get cheaper at the auction but you are uncertain about how they’ll do in the upcoming season and therefore don’t really want to keep them. Falling into this category for me this year was Jim Johnson ($23) and Joe Mauer ($22). Then there are the guys that are way overpriced but come at scarce positions and someone is likely to want them given inflationary factors. For me this was Cano ($46).

For guys that you will be keeping their value is directly related to how much of a bargain they are. Say for example, I had Cespedes for $12 going into this year and he’s likely a $26 player then that’s a steal. I can use that $14 I ‘save’ on Cespedes to overspend on another position or two. That makes him extremely valuable. If someone offered their $31 Bautista to me for my Cespedes I’d tell them where to go and how to get there. Of course if they were both the same price I’d likely take Bautista every time (personal preference). This can turn average players into valuable commodities and excellent players into waiver fodder. A $7 Jake Peavy is way more valuable than a $20 Chris Sale even though you’d take Sale over Peavy any day of the week.

My roster going into this year before cuts was:

Billy Butler	1B	31
Chril Tillman	P	8
Coco Crisp	OF	20
Curtis Granderson	OF	39
Edwin Encarnacion	1B/3B	23
Stephen Drew	SS	6
Elvis Andrus	SS	34
Eric Thames	OF	6
Hiroki Kuroda	P	20
Jim Johnson	P	23
Jake Peavy	P	7
Joaquin Benoit	P	7
Joe Mauer	C	22
Joel Peralta	P	6
Kendrys Morales	1B/OF	19
Matt Harrison	P	9
David Robertson	P	6
Michael Saunders	OF	9
Robinson Cano	2B	46
Max Scherzer	P	30
Vinnie Pestano	P	12
Zack Greinke	P	39

At this point I generally use a stop light on each guy. Basically green = keep, yellow = maybe and red = cut. Greinke was out as he went to the NL.

Reds were: Pestano, Cano, Peralta, Kuroda, Thames, Andrus, and Granderson.

Yellows were: Scherzer, Saunders, Robertson, Harrison, Morales, Mauer, Benoit, Johnson, Butler, Coco and Tillman.

Greens were: Peavy, Encarnacion and Drew.

When I decide on keepers I value stability highly. I am more than willing to spend money on a $31 Billy Butler who may not produce at the $31 level but will hit .290, 20, 90 almost guaranteed with the potential for more rather than a $35 Josh Hamilton who could be amazing or mediocre. At auction I’ll take more chances but with keepers I want to know what I’m paying for. Now you might notice that none of Peavy, Drew or Encarnacion are sure-things which is true but for their prices its well worth the investment.

Now my eye turns to trades I can make. To do this I look at all of the other rosters and try to identify players that I will value more than my competitors at their prices. At the same time I’m also projecting keepers on other teams to determine which positions will be shallower than others. Almost automatically I noticed that catching was quite deep this year for us. We take 10 catchers of the 15 with starting jobs and there were up to 12 catchers that given their price I could stomach playing for my team. This made Mauer and his $22 price tag expendable. For outfield I came to the opposite conclusion. Based on some of the projected keepers I made it looked like there would be very few ‘sure-things’ available and that apart from the elite (Trout, Bautista, Cespedes, Jones, Gordon, etc)  who were all kept there wasn’t much. Guys like Ellsbury, Melky, Suzuki, Granderson and Cruz were all available but all are highly volatile. Granderson of course broke his forearm right before our auction so he was off the table. I decided that at the very least I wanted one outfielder that I had a reasonable level of confidence in and was well rounded. To achieve this I dealt Cano ($46) and Mauer ($22) for Alex Rios ($18). Cano is obviously elite and 2B looked to be a wasteland but I just won’t pay more than $40 for anyone as a keeper unless your name is Miguel Cabrera. The way the Yankees look this year I just can’t see him producing the same numbers as last year. Rios should be a 20/20 outfielder and for $18 I was sold. That’s not exactly a steal but at least it gave me one OF that I could be certain of.

Gotta do work now. ‘Til tomorrow....

How to make a Justin Verlander

Depending on your league you will have between 7-9 pitching spots available and between 2-7 bench spots. This post is about creating a Justin Verlander and managing your roster to achieve that. Of course only one owner can have Verlander so that leaves the rest of us without him. Some owners will rush to Felix Hernandez or Jered Weaver as a second choice option and others will skip this step and try to get a few of the CC Sabathia, CJ Wilson, Chris Sale bunch.

Last year Verlander ended the year with these numbers:

Innings                 Wins                      K                             ERA                        WHIP    

238.1                     17                           239                         2.64                        1.06

Excellent numbers worthy of a fantasy ace. My goal here is to create these numbers for less than Verlander costs. This isn’t that easy but it’s far from impossible. 

Start with a good pitcher with a high K/9 ratio like Max Scherzer. For comparison sakes I’ll use their dollar values at our 2012 auction. Verlander cost $36 but he was a keeper from the previous year. This year he cost $41 which is more likely what he would have gone for at auction the previous year so I’ll pick the middle $39 and use that. Scherzer went for $23.

Innings                 Wins                      K                             ERA                        WHIP    

187.2                     16                           231                         3.74                        1.27

Let’s combine that with Vinnie Pestano who was $6. I choose Pestano because high K/9 middle relievers are always readily available. They are also generally next in line for saves which can be huge. 

Innings                 Wins                      K                             ERA                        WHIP

70                           3                              76                           2.57                        1.10

Combine the two and you spend $29 and receive the following:

Innings                 Wins                      K                             ERA                        WHIP

257.2                     19                           307                         3.43                        1.23

If we assume that $39 was market value of Verlander last year then for $10 less you would have received 3 more wins, 68 more Ks, lost .80 of ERA and .17 of WHIP. This is a reasonable trade off and based on these numbers I’d take Scherzer/Pestano and $10 over Verlander but of course that’s not a fair comparison. The true value of Verlander is that he puts up these stats using only one roster spot instead of 2. With that other roster spot you’d have a higher ERA and WHIP because no one is as good as he is but you’d also gain in Wins and K. The catch is you’d have to spend more money so that $10 gap between them rises.

For me I’d rather have Pestano/Scherzer and the $10 which is the difference between Mauer ($16 last year) and Russell Martin ($7) than Verlander. Everyone builds their roster their own way but only one team can own Verlander. The rest of us are playing catch up. 

Keeper League Inflation and Mistakes That People Make

So this bit is obviously on keeper league inflation and why it is important. I will begin by stating that until writing this piece I have never ever worked out the actual inflation in my keeper league. Honestly I just ballpark it because I’ve seen owners make some pretty strange decisions based on their inflation calculations and I’d rather not go down that road.

I don’t want to get into the details of figuring out your league inflation rate so follow this link (inflation) and it will be explained. For the purposes of figuring our my league inflation this year I used Rotoworld and ESPN’s value for 5 x 5 AL only and then worked off the average between the two. For the most part the two are relatively close in terms of the projected dollar values but there are the occasional diversions which are large. For example, ESPN has Salvador Perez as a $10 player whereas Rotoworld has him at $18 so this yields an average value of $14 which is what I used.

Going into the auction I had postulated to a friend of mine that there might actually be some degree of deflation or closer to standard market pricing than we’d ever seen before. Looking at some of the keepers vs. their projected dollar values meant that dollars were being taken off the table instead of the opposite which is the goal of keepers. Max Scherzer, who I kept at $30, was the player with the biggest ‘overpayment’ by $13.50 over his average value with Dunn ($12), Cano ($11) and Longoria ($11) as the other biggest gaps between values. On the other end of things Mike Trout was far and away the best keeper at -$33. Next closest was Lawrie, Rivera and VMart. Of course both Lawrie and Trout had been brought up from the farm which explains the difference in their values while Rivera and VMart had been stashed on the IR by owners last year at reduced prices.  Scherzer and Dunn seem like the biggest leaps listed here but they both could produce near their prices. Cano and Longoria are two of the best at their positions and I don’t have too much of a problem with what they were kept at. The drop off at 3^rd in particular is huge after Cabrera/Beltre/Longoria.

So after crunching all of the numbers I came out with an inflation rate of 7.74%. Basically this means that adding 7.74% to the projected value of the available players would give you the value you should bid on them. For example if Miguel Cabrera is valued at $37 by ESPN then he should go for $40 after rounding up. What did Cabrera actually go for? $52 which is a whopping 40% over his $37 value as per ESPN. Justin Verlander was projected as $33 and went for $41 which is 24% over his projection. How is this explained? Well the reality is that 7.74% is just a number. It’s a number that explains the average inflation but some players will be wildly over this number and some will be wildly over that number. Getting back to the Scherzer example he was overvalued by 81% and Cano by 31%. By these metrics I made a horrible decision to keep Scherzer whereas Cano wasn’t nearly that bad. The point of this exercise is that no player will be exactly 7.74% more than his projected value. Truly elite talent will almost always have a higher inflation rate than the league average and you can often make your money back on lower/mid tier talent. Keeping Cano at a 31% inflation rate really isn’t that awful.

The problem with our auction was that after the elite talent started going off the board at highly inflated values (Cabrera 40%, Verlander 24%, Pujols 44%, etc.) everyone got gun-shy. The adjustment the owners made to these high prices based on a perceived lower inflation rate than in years past was to sit on our hands. The result was guys like Wieters went for a 58% reduction on his projected value and one owner actually ended the auction leaving $27 on the table. Obviously this is inexcusable. Hindsight is 20/20 but he missed out on any real pitching staff by not spending that money.

When the dust settled you had $6 guys going for $2 and $10 guys going for $7 but $25 guys went for $30. This isn’t that far off than what I’d expected but if I’d gone the extra few bucks on some positions my team would be far better off.  

The conclusion is to know your inflation rate but use it only as a guide. Simply applying that rate and bidding accordingly will mean you overpay for some and miss out on others. Get a feel for the auction, determine what positions are easier to fill than others and bid that way.