The first lesson I learned from this draft is one I want to share with you even before the table of players and prices; it’s just that important. Do not try to do an auction draft on a phone. Snake drafts are unpleasant but doable; auctions are a recipe for disaster.
Lesson learned? Good! Here are the National League starting pitchers who were drafted in the recent Rotographs and friends mock auction. Read the rest of this entry »
Paul Sporer of the internets (and the infamous starting pitcher draft guide) on was gracious enough to power through our mock auction with us, so then I pestered him to talk a little more about his team. I spotted a few interesting things about his lineup and wanted to ask him some questions. Here’s our exchange!
Yesterday, Mike Podhorzer shared part one of this epic journey and teased that today we would be incorporating batted ball angle to see if that helps our model. I am, in fact, going to do that today.
But first, I am going to take a quick step back and let you know my reasons for doing this. Next, I’ll introduce some data on batted ball angle, as noted above.
We often talk about ottoneu as if it were a single game and experience, but in reality it is three very different games, depending on which scoring system you choose. As with any fantasy format, you have different values on different players based on the stats you choose, but even the ways you reflect those stats can have a huge impact on the way the game is played and the way auctions proceed.
For those of you who are thinking about starting an ottoneu league (or another ottoneu league), I wanted to take a look at the three different formats and what you should expect in terms of game play and player valuation for each.
Yesterday, Eno Sarris published the results of our epic mock auction draft. Lucky for me, I have no life and I love auctions, so I was happy to draft for as long as it took. Heck, I’m ready for another seven hours of drafting already! I am a veteran of auctions, having participated in leagues that use this style since 2001. All the rules were standard, except we had 14 teams, instead of the 12 I have almost always valued players for. In all my years of experience in auctions though, every single draft has taken unexpected twists and turns. This one was no different. This is my crazy mock auction draft story.
Today, I will focus on players who played through injuries in 2012 and how those players performed compared to their projections. I found players, who played through injuries, over performed their their projected power numbers the next season. From my last year’s FG+ article:
If a player persevered through an injury during the season, their overall stats probably suffered. Projections don’t know if a player played through injuries, though. The player’s projections might have been better if the player had simply gone on the disabled list to recover instead of trying to play through pain.
Last week Bill Petti did battle with Marcel and came away bruised, if not beaten. Numerous mathematicians and would-be projectionists have done the same: few strategies, no matter how cunning, have been able to provide a long-term advantage over Tom Tango’s painfully simple forecasting system. But Marcel goes beyond taunting the experts; he bares his nasty little teeth at us all.
I began using projection systems in my fantasy preparation a decade ago; I lined up Marcel, CAIRO, and CHONE and let them help me break ties for the rankings I was unsure about. Many of you probably do the same. Even then, I mistrusted Marcel. Metaphorically speaking, if the Bill James projections are the mother who pats your head and makes you hot chocolate when you make a mistake, Marcel is the crotchety old uncle who snarls at you to stop being such a screw-up. That guy hated everyone, but I could never bring myself to get rid of him.
He hasn’t changed. Here’s how Marcel felt about Mike Trout, blue-chip prospect and demigod-in-process, in 2012:
Read the rest of this entry »
No one could blame you if you didn’t believe in Salvador Perez last season. While he mashed to a tune of .331/.361/.473 as a 21-year-old rookie, there were reasons for skepticism. Perez had only received 158 plate appearances, had a poor walk rate and he posted a nearly unsustainable .362 BABIP. On top of that, Perez suffered a knee injury last March, which would sideline him for three to four months. By the time he returned, it was pretty easy to temper your expectations. But just as things looked their worst for Perez, he blossomed. Perez returned from the injury in late-June, and hit .301/.328/.471 in 305 plate appearances. Entering his age-23 season, Perez’s future looks incredibly bright.
As a forecaster of baseball player performance for usage in my fantasy leagues, I am always looking for new data to incorporate into my projections and new methods for predicting outcomes. Home runs are a result that excites all, even chicks dig ’em. But how can we better determine whether Chase Headley’s breakout, for example, was for real? The answer may lie in newly available data collected by our own research extraordinaire Jeff Zimmerman.
They deserve your sympathy and gratitude. The 14 managers that came in on three separate days and drafted for hours and hours just for your pleasure — they deserve some praise. So, rip up their teams if you will, but maybe add a thank you on the end. Cause this behemoth took almost seven hours, and if it was anyone’s fault it took that long, it was mine, except that auctions take forever. In any case, it was about seven hours that these guys spent for your pleasure.
Well, some of the pleasure was ours. Auctions are fun. In a snake draft, if a guy likes a player just a fraction more than you, you don’t get a chance to draft the player. But in auction, you can spend exactly as much as you want on the dude.
Well, exactly as much as you want in the moment. There are always regrets.