Gotta be honest, it’s getting real tough to come up with preambles of value at this point in the season. With just a week and a half left, I’d suggest players get a bit more aggressive turning profits into more profits, while those who have lost this year probably shouldn’t chase bad money with good money.

However, there’s a question here that more data could answer – how does enrolment change late in the year? Or even on Thursdays, when there are far fewer games?

And, while we know we generally need about 40 points for a “double up” format, what’s our goal for a winner-take-all?

These are the kind of questions I’m hoping to answer in the next week or so, or possibly with a year-end wrap post, assuming DraftStreet is able to kick us some data (they seem receptive to the idea). So, what kind of questions would you want answered if I could get my hands on some Draftsreet data?

(In addition, any topics you’d like tackled in preambles this weekend? I’m nothing if not obedient.)

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If you drafted a shortstop early this year, chances are you’re looking back and you’re pretty disappointed. That’s because very few of those shortstops drafted as starters in a 12-team league returned positive value relative to their draft positions.

This analysis will use Yahoo’s Average Draft Positions (ADP), and while a lot of people also play in auction leagues, it stands to reason that ADP and auction dollars would be tightly correlated. And of course, comparing ADP to actual value rank perhaps isn’t fair since the context of the rest of a person’s draft is required, but it should still be a good approximation of the majority.

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Sorry folks, no preamble for today but we’ve got some very gimmicky picks for you after the jump!

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Does it feel like you’ve been getting slightly more bang for your hitter dollars the past week or two? Alternatively, has it felt like this year has been a bit tougher to get an edge at the plate?

If either of those thoughts had crossed your mind, one or more of the following is true:

a) You’re dealing with a bit of a fundamental attribution error.
b) You’re very perceptive to incredibly small changes over very large samples.
c) You’re Ike Davis.

B is what we care about, because it turns out that so far, September has provided more fantasy points on a per-plate appearance bases than earlier in the year despite there not being an accompanying wOBA jump. Additionally, fantasy points per plate appearance are down slightly this season compared to 2011 and 2012, which shouldn’t be that surprising since offense is down a tick league-wide.

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Have you had a really bad beat in daily fantasy this year? I’m sure you have – ace pitcher at a decent price or a mid-level pitcher at a bargain with a strong set-up, only they end up getting lit up. Or maybe you nail an opposing pitcher breakdown and just happen to grab the wrong player from the team while everyone else goes bananas.

These happen, plenty. I’m interested to hear the most costly ones, though. These are time when you were within X points of finishing in Y place but Z happened.

I’m not convinced it’s interesting enough yet, but if there are a few comically bad beats, I’ll spin them into the preamble over the weekend.

Believe it or not, when I solicited future shortstop topics last week, the name that came up the most was Brad Miller of the Seattle Mariners.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Miller just fine, and I thought his .297 wOBA ZiPS projection was low, too. It’s just…it’s Brad Miller. People got on me for analyzing if Adeiny Hechavarria would ever steal enough to have value, but the people demand a Miller analysis?

He’s 33rd in shortstop value for the year but at age 23 he has some potential growth, and at this position the path to being fantasy relevant is a pretty smooth one. So let’s have a look.

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Yesterday we talked about trying to avoid our early season mental anchors for teams, refreshing the leaderboards for team batting against righties and lefties.

Keeping with the trend of avoiding anchoring, it’s prudent to examine changes in team performance from one half to the other. While half-splits are arbitrary endpoints and not statistically significant ones, they’re also ones that are calculated for us.

While they may not tell the whole story, they at least give us some idea of teams that have gotten better (acquisition, strong call up, players improving) or gotten worse (traded player, injuries, players declining). Let’s have a look.

It’s easy to create mental shorthand early in the year and forget to update it. The Marlins offense is bad, the Astros strikeout a lot, and so on, are all fine quick tips to keep in mind. But it’s critical to update those shortcuts with teams that are joining or leaving the list of cherry match-ups.

For example, did you realize the Cardinals are a pretty nice fantasy target if they’re facing a lefty? Or that the Astros are not a layup but a high-risk, high-reward play against southpaws? It’s time to update who we identify as easy prey.

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With September call-ups now in full effect, I was curious as to how the pitching environment might change for daily leagues. While we know that more players and pitchers will get chances to play, we don’t see much of a league-wide drop in offense in September.

That’s probably because as many bad or borderline pitchers get extra playing time as batters.

But what about top-end starters? Do the aces do better in September as they feast on raw talent? Or are there more elite performances in general? To find out, I pulled game logs for August and September of 2012 and compared the spread of Draftstreet daily points. If there are more elite starting pitching performances, we’d expect to see September’s results more left-skewed than August.

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As the calendar’s turned to September, many fantasy owners have probably turned their attention toward solidifying their dynasty teams for 2014. That is, not everyone is left competing right now, and it’s difficult not to look ahead to next year if a shot at a podium position isn’t realistic.

Even a championship contender, though, can think long term in a dynasty format. Perhaps the trading deadline hasn’t passed or doesn’t exist. Or perhaps an injury or performance issue has an owner scanning the waiver wire for a new shortstop, but the owner wants the add to be a long-term fix rather than a short-term plug.

These are situations that don’t apply to all owners, of course, but dynasty leaguers can never stop thinking about the future.

Luckily, Fangraphs affords fantasy players a tool in this regard – the ZiPS “Rest of Season” projections.

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