• Carlos Reyes had Tommy John surgery and will miss all of 2017 and probably a month or two of the 2018 season. Our own Mike Sonne went into the details on predicting Reyes’s injury.

• Max Scherzer is not able to pitch because of a stress fracture in his knuckle which means he might not be ready for Opening Day.

“I don’t even want to comment on [Opening Day], because I don’t even know what I’m going to be able to do or not,” said Scherzer, who has been the Nationals’ Opening Day starter for the past two years. “It’d be unfair for me to even project or even talk about that.”
….
As Strasburg threw change-ups and sliders and honed two-seam fastballs, Scherzer was heartened by the fact that he could play catch with a baseball. He spent the winter throwing tennis and lacrosse balls to keep his arm in shape, because the baseball was too big for his injured finger to grip. He modified his grip again on Thursday.

“As this fracture continues to heal, as the symptoms continue to alleviate, as we get treatment on everything, I’ll be able to work back into all my grips and obviously get back on the mound,” Scherzer said. “But right now it’s just getting back out there, throwing a baseball and getting my arm in shape.”

Because he can’t grip a baseball, Scherzer’s not if he will be ready for the season’s start. Before this news, he was the clear #2 starter. As of now, I think he drops down to the next pack with Thor, Sale, and Bumgarner.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I participated in a 12-team NL-only auction league hosted by CBS (full analysis available soon from CBS). To add a wrinkle to the experience, I decided to try to construct an average team. No studs, but especially no scrubs. Just spend as close to $11.3 per player as possible. The main reason for this approach is that I wanted to stay away from the bottom feeders common in “Only” auctions. I was looking for regulars across the board. The strategy fell apart as my fortitude and simple rules failed.

First off, I wasn’t able to do much auction planning since I found out about it less than a week ago. Additionally, I didn’t want to use the traditional spread-the-risk approach of a bunch of $20 players. Mine idea was a No Scrubs approach. With $20 players, several $1 players enter the team. I wanted semi-talented players with jobs for every position.

After creating projections using the SGP method, I had to come up with an auction framework. In their book, Simple Rules, Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt go over how to create and utilize simple rules. Here their basic premise.

You want to make the rules as simple as possible to increase the odds that you will follow them. You can also limit your rules to two or three … to increase the odds that you will remember and follow them.

All right, I decided to go with just two rules.

1. Targets players between $5 and $17 ($11 +/- $6). I would not be able to get every player for exactly $11, so I was going to need some leeway.
2. Don’t overpay or reach for players.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just got done entering my catchers for our positional rankings series. After the first dozen players, I noticed the selection turns south quickly. The cliff happens around the 15th guy off the board. I think owners need to have a plan going into a draft or auction on how they want to approach the situation. Here are my ideas this year for different league sizes.

10-Team, 1 Catcher (#1 to #10)

• Buster Posey
• Gary Sanchez
• Jonathan Lucroy
• Russell Martin
• Yasmani Grandal
• Willson Contreras
• Salvador Perez
• Stephen Vogt
• Yadier Molina
• Brian McCann

I am fine with any of the above being my catcher.

Read the rest of this entry »

Projection Analysis: Yoan Moncada

Many prospect experts project Yoan Moncada to be one of the game’s few top prospects. Some have him as the top guy but his MLB playing time and production varied substantially. I found I needed a projection I felt comfortable using.  I’ll start with his playing time.

I believe he’ll be promoted between the Super Two deadline (so the White Sox can save money) and early September (rosters expand). I thought about using July 15th (All-Star Game) as my cut off.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rangers sign Mike Napoli

Signing with the Rangers boosted Napoli’s fantasy value. If healthy, he’ll accumulate a full season of PA at first or DH.  He’s going to be in a good offensive park with good hitters around him. He just needs to keep up the gains he showed last season.

In 2016, Napoli went pull and flyball crazy on the way to posting his highest single-season home run total (34). His power may regress some, but if he comes to bat 600 times 30 home runs are reachable. He’s never going to have a decent batting average because of his lack of speed, high flyball nature, and near 30% strikeout rate.

The big losers with this signing are Jurickson Profar, Joey Gallo, Ryan Rua, and Josh Hamilton who are all competing for the DH spot. Playing time looks to be at a premium among them. Of the four, I have always liked Profar’s talent but he needs to play to be productive. I hope he gets a chance sometime.

Read the rest of this entry »

My Tout Wars prep continues. I have already examined the league’s historical aspects which I have used to create initial auction values and a draft outline. With the initial projections out of the way, I am refining them. One step in this process is to find the replacement level player and adjust players who will miss time accordingly.

The concept behind the replacement level player is fairly simple. If a good player is expected to miss significant time, his fantasy value is based on just the games he is expected to play. For the games he misses, some lesser player (replacement level player) will fill. The better player’s total value will be both his and the replacement player’s contribution.

For example, I don’t expect Yoan Moncada to get called any earlier than the Super Two deadline around June 1st. For the months he’s in the minors, a less talent replacement level player will be subbing in for him. The same idea works with pitchers. Tyson Ross is expected to miss at least a couple of months so a replacement is needed until he gets healthy.

Read the rest of this entry »

My fellow RotoGraph writers and I have started compiling our preseason position rankings. My initial rankings are projection based and then I adjust them as I see fit. I found several rankings/projections where the industry and I disagree. I am going to dig into three of those players today with more to come.

Freddie Freeman: Disputed Projection

Tenth? Really? I didn’t expect Freeman that low. Depth Chart based SGP values place him out as the tenth first baseman. At NFBC, he is the 6th first baseman which is near my gut based ranking. Additionally, he just went 24th overall in MLB.com’s Fantasy411 slow industry draft.

I am fine with the six players ahead of him (Goldy, Rizzo, Cabrera, Votto, E5, and Bryant). Then my gut disagrees and I am pretty sure some of our readers will also.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, our own Brad Johnson discussed unpredictable auction values in “Rationality Will Ruin You”. I 100% agree with his premise. Unexpected inflation exists but so does a solution. By charting out the desired and the potential outcomes before an auction, an owner can remove a ton of auction frustration.

Brad examined the elite player section of the draft where the actual auction values are higher than most people’s predicted values. Owners refuse to pay these high values but instead end up spending their resources on near replacement level talent. The following simple chart helps an owner deal with the problem along with uneven hitter/pitcher mix and outlining a personal auction strategy. The process is similar to the one used in Winning Fantasy Baseball by Larry Schechter but with a few more additions. Here’s the procedure.

Step 1. Get auction values

This step could be as simple as using our auction calculator or creating your own projections like our own Mike Podhozer does. To set the pitcher/hitter mix, use the league’s historic mix or just go with standard 70/30 split.

Read the rest of this entry »

Prospect list season is in full swing. Our Eric Longenhagen is knocking out his team lists. Keith Law has just finished his top 100 and team lists. Baseball America is done with their team rankings and is working on their prospect annual. And MLB.com just released their position rankings and top 100. The MLB.com’s top 100 list intrigues me the most. Since it provides scouting grades, it can be used to project a hitter’s fantasy value.

Earlier this offseason, I had a series on using prospect grades to project MLB talent.  While Field and Arm grades help to keep some players playing, defense doesn’t count in fantasy leagues. By comparing a hitter’s Bat, Power, and Speed grades I was able to come up with an overall 20-80 fantasy grade and projected full season stats. These values aren’t close to the final say in player values. They are just an input to be used with scouting reports, normal projections, and other systems like KATOH. Read the rest of this entry »

So far in my Tout Wars preparation series, I’ve documented the league’s draft tendencies and the stats needed to win. Today, I’ll create the framework for player pricing. Along the way, I will show how there is no position scarcity except with catcher. At least for this league

Completing this step brings the preparation is laborious, but necessary. Once it’s done, I can spend most of my time evaluating players and their projected playing time.

For evaluating players, I utilize the Standings Gain Points (SGP) method. I previously outlined the procedure and it‘s the same method Larry Schechter recommends in his book, Winning Fantasy Baseball. Normally, this procedure is fairly straight forward since I’ve historically used three-year average values. Last year’s offensive explosion complicates the math. With more offense available, home runs, Runs, and RBIs become less important. Predicting 2017’s run scoring environment is impossible so I won’t for now. I feel I need to use a weighted average system with 2016 getting the most weight but I am just not sure how much to weight them. To get the process started, I will use the average standings from 2014 to 2016 for this work.

Read the rest of this entry »