2011 End of Season Player Rankings
Now that the 2011 fantasy season is all but over (don’t forget to play ottoneu Pick Six during the postseason!), we have an opportunity to look back and see which players did what, and where each player should have been drafted if we knew exactly what was going to happen this year. With that in mind, it’s time to produce some retrospective values and rankings for you to enjoy and reflect on.
Earlier this morning, I outlined changes made to the FVARz system that I introduced in February, and that system is what was used to produce these rankings. Please be aware that these are retroactive values only, and while you are free to use them for predictive purposes without adjustment, I wouldn’t recommend it. So, without further ado, let’s do this thing.
The Top Twelve
1. Matt Kemp — $42
2. Justin Verlander — $40
3. Jacoby Ellsbury — $37
4. Ryan Braun — $36
5. Clayton Kershaw — $35
6. Curtis Granderson — $35
7. Roy Halladay — $30
8. Cliff Lee — $30
9. Jered Weaver — $29
10. Miguel Cabrera — $29
11. Jose Bautista — $29
12. Adrian Gonzalez — $28
Since you probably spent well less than $40 on Kemp, Ellsbury and Verlander, those three were clearly the MVPs of the 2011 fantasy season. I’m willing to bet their surplus value was leaps and bounds above any other player in the league.
Since I know you’re interested in seeing where your favorite players ranked according to FVARz, I have published the final values on a Google Doc and made it available for the world to see. All you have to do is click this here link to be magically transported to the spreadsheet.
Zach is the creator and co-author of RotoGraphs' Roto Riteup series, and RotoGraphs' second-longest tenured writer. You can follow him on twitter.
Zach, what league format is this based on? I assume mixed, but how many teams and how many starters at each position? 12 teams, 14 hitters (2 catchers) and 9 pitchers?
Mixed standard leagues. Not two catchers. Players at each position are determined by research prior to the 2011 season.
Zach, the Google docs spreadsheet only includes the final results. It would be great if you posted a spreadsheet with the calculations, or at least a detailed explanation (with equations) of your improvements. Thanks
link to the google doc didnt work
You sure? It looks like others are having no problems, and it’s working for me.
What is the budget/salary cap that these values are based on?
$260
David Ortiz is not on the google docs sheet. I think he and the other DH only qualifiers got filtered out.
There really isn’t a way to properly do DH, so they are ignored by the FVARz system.
shits weak
Assuming most leagues use at least one Util/DH spot on offense, wouldn’t it be appropriate to just judge DH only guys vs. overall league average or replacement level since a fantasy GM could use any offensive player in those spots?
Every player should be considered among the entire population of hitters that qualify at his position (taking into account position and league scarcity, of course).
Thus, DHs who only qualify as Utility players should be compared to the entire population of draftable players for one’s league. That will obviously decrease the overall value of a DH, but that makes sense, because anybody can be used as a Util, so they are indeed a bit less valuable.
i guess that’s why you left Billy Butler off too? But he was 1B this year. And in my yahoo league he’ll be 1B next year too. Gimme my Billy!
nice work, btw
Thanks. Interesting stuff and thanks so much for putting it out there. I’m more of a Standings Gain Points guy, but I get the logic of the z-score model. A few comments.
1) Can you be more explicit about the format. There are so many scoring categories and other variations out there, I’m not sure if anything is “standard” anymore.
2) Could you recalculate with DH/Util as well. I think Scott’s got it right. The population for DH is DH-only players plus the lowest scoring players at other categories.
3) I think there are a few small errors in the Google Docs doc. Looking at the top 252 players (21*12) there are only 53 OF drafted while there should be 60. Likewise, there are 79 SP and should only be 72.
4) The total salary of the top 252 guys drafted is only $2808 and it should be $3120.
Thanks. This is really great stuff.
You don’t have to subscribe to stars and scrubs to realize that you won’t win getting only one or no players for 30$ plus. Assuming a 12 team league, do you really suggest getting one guy for 32.50 and then all the rest for under 30?
The order of players looks fine but the values definitely look… lower than I would expect for the stars. I guess paying a premium for having a high floor justifies paying more than these values.
1. It would be interesting to see each player’s Average Cost in this spreadsheet.
My guess would be that so few of the top performances would have ‘yielded a profit’ and that most the profits in the league go to the Phillip Humbers and marginal players.
2. I would really like to see that taken a step further: using Excel Solver to maximize a teams FVarZ subject to a $260 budget and position constraint and find ‘the best team you could have possibly drafted’.
I would guess that the top teams yielded by that method would look like a scrambled bunch of lottery tickets that would have looked like a bad idea at the start of the season.
Setting up Solver can be a pain but this might be something I try.
Players 126:135 are on their twice (Freeman – Weeks)
NVM, googledocs just acting screwy