In this edition of NL Starting Pitchers, we go with players returning from injury and those who are directly affected by it.

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Here are three players to keep your eye on in deeper leagues.

Chris Getz | 2% Owned (Y!) | 1% Owned (ESPN)
In terms of fantasy baseball, I’ve always been a Chris Getz fan-boy. I’m not exactly sure why, but a second baseman who could hit .275 with 20-plus steals is always someone to keep on your radar. Getz hasn’t yet hit .275 in his career, but g-d it I think he will. On the plus side, Getz doesn’t strike out all that often, and he does have the ability to steal bases, as he’s stolen 42 bags in his last 47 attempts. Getz has also been hitting at the top of the Royals lineup on occasion, so he could have some value in the “runs” category.

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Notes on three starters in the senior circuit to end your Wednesday, including a Mike Minor update!

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Jack Cust | 2% Owned (Y!) | 0.4% Owned (ESPN)
Be forewarned ESPN owners: Jack Cust is not outfield eligible. But if you’re like me and play more on the Yahoo! side of things, Cust could be a nice addition if things go right for him. We all know by now that Cust is much more valuable in OBP leagues, but if your team can stomach a relatively low batting average, you don’t have much to worry about. Cust has seemingly always had playing time questions surrounding him, but since the Mariners don’t have much in the way of a suitable platoon player, Cust should be an everyday player. Add him if you’re looking for some extra pop and decent RBIs.

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All offseason long, we here at RotoGraphs have been polling each other and coming out with final rankings for each position. Today I will introduce pitchers currently starting in the National League, also known as a group of terrible hitters.

The Wainwright Memorial Tier
Roy Halladay
Cliff Lee
Tim Lincecum
Josh Johnson

Roy Halladay was the first pitcher on each of the seven ballots collected, but it was a mixed bag after that. I have to say, it feels weird to see two teammates atop rankings of any sort; unless, of course, you’re a Miami Heat fan. Lincecum actually ranked 2nd on five of the seven ballots, but two other votes weighed him down enough for Lee to step in and claim the number two spot on our big board. You really can’t go wrong with any of these guys, though. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the third part in a published four part series. If you’re interested in reading the Update, click through!

If you haven’t done so, please make sure to read the first two pieces on Fantasy Value Above Replacement from earlier today.

Before we get into the auction conversion, there are a couple notes that need to be addressed.

Weighing Rate Stats – We can all agree that a batter that hits .300 in 600 at-bats is more valuable than one who does it in 400 at-bats, right? We have to take this into account and adjust for AB’s and IP in rate stats. Simply multiple a players normal z-score in the batting average category by their AB total. We’ll call this wBA. Once that is done for every player at that position, you take the z-score of those wBA numbers and you have your final batting average value. You do the same with ERA and WHIP as well, using IP instead of AB. It can actually end up helping some players with poor ERA numbers, because having a 5.00 ERA isn’t as bad if it’s only 150 innings. On the flip side, power hitters who play everyday and have a bad batting average will be penalized even more for it.

Pitcher Adjustment – Because pitchers can only contribute to four stat categories (SP don’t get saves, and it’s always best to disregard RP wins), we need to curb their value. I do this simply by multiplying their FVAAz number by 0.8 to reflect the ⅘ ratio.

Inputs – Please note, and this is a biggie, that this system is only as good as its inputs. If your projections are way off, the rankings might be, too.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can take a look at how to convert FVARz into auction values.

Auction Conversion
The auction conversion formula takes into account the number of players on each team, as well as the simple idea that every player taken in an auction has to cost at least a dollar. The conversion formula is below.

[(Team Budget – (1*no. of players per team)) / number of players per team] * (z-score above replacement / average z-score for above-replacement players) +1 = Dollar Value

Note: “Draftable” player are considered to be players who are projected to produce at a level above replacement level.

In our case, a 12-team standard league, it would look something like this:

[(260-(1*23))/23]*(FVARz / average FVARz for above-replacement players) + 1

If you want to make things easier, you can substitute 3.0 for “average FVARz for above-replacement players.” The number varies a bit year-to-year, but it is usually around 3.0. So our final formula is

10.3*(FVARz/3)+1

This formula works because it makes two things clear: The average player should be payed the average amount of money a team can spend on a player, and a replacement level player is worth $1.

A Small Sample Using Marcel
In case you’re having a hard time visualizing this whole process, I have done a small sample of FVARz using the Marcel projections found right here on FanGraphs. The sample is done using a 400 AB minimum, and the positions are done simply based on what Marcel says.

If you want to view the sample, click here and your wish will be granted.

Thanks
While I was the only one doing any direct work on this project, many others helped me out by letting me bounce ideas off them, and other such things. So, let me thank Michael Jong and Joel Goodbody, as well as FanGraphs’ own David Appelman and Eno Sarris.

This is the second part in a published four part series. If you’re interested in reading Part Three, and the Update, click through!

If you haven’t already, make sure to read the introduction to Fantasy Value Above Replacement from earlier this morning.

Step Two: Adjusting for Positional Replacement Levels
Theory 2: There will be more outfielders drafted than any of the other position players, and there will be more 1B drafted then any other infield positions.

Replacement levels are taken on a positional basis. While it may seem that it is just doubling up on the positional adjustment, it is still important to do it this way. If we only standardized replacement level across positions without accounting for the number of players drafted, we could end up with very uneven numbers. There will be more outfielders drafted than any other position players, and more first baseman drafted than any other infielders. We have to reflect that in this number, and this is how we do it.

A replacement level player is defined as “a player who is available on the waiver wire in a majority (50.01%) of leagues.” This will mean that some players taken in the last couple rounds will be at (or below) replacement level, and that is just fine. When I originally created this system, I had it set for 246 players above replacement level. According to the crowdsourcing data that I collected, you guys agree that the numbers should indeed be 246, since the last 2.5 rounds of a 23 round standard draft are replacement level or below.

Because the overall replacement level doesn’t necessarily help up pinpoint the levels at each position, I did a sampling of mock drafts this offseason to help come up with the numbers. Below is a list of how many players are considered to be above replacement level at each position.

C: 12
1B: 23
2B: 18
3B: 17
SS: 16
OF: 62
SP: 62
RP: 36

The data was found using a sampling of ESPN and Yahoo mock drafts to try and prevent one site’s bias from screwing with the data.

When we set a replacement level at each position, we do so by forcing the 13th catcher (for instance) to be a replacement level player. The FVAAz number will change every year depending on the strength of the position, so we just simply adjust using the 13th catcher instead of a set number. We use the 13th catchers’ FVAAz, and add the respective value (or subtract, in some cases) to force their Fantasy Value Above Replacement to equal zero. We then use the same factor and add (or subtract) it to every other player’s FVAAz at the position.

We now have our FVARz, and once we have one for every player at every position, we can directly compare these players. Now, regardless of position, a player with a FVARz of 10 is more valuable in drafts than a player with a FVARz of 9.

Next, we’ll look at how to convert FVARz numbers into “auction dollars,” as well as going over some semi-random notes.

This is the first part in a published four part series. If you’re interested in reading Part Two, Part Three, and the Update, click through!

In real-life baseball analysis, we have tools such as WAR to help us boil down a players’ contributions to a single number. Yet, in fantasy baseball, no such tool exists, sans a few “player raters” out there. The goal of this project was to create a number that would allow us to easily compare players’ values to each other in an effort to create accurate rankings before drafts begin. Today I will be rolling out a Fantasy Value Above Replacement metric, henceforth known as FVARz.

Using z-scores as the underpinning of this system can help keep things objective and accurate across the board. Simply start with a projected line in the players’ 5×5 categories and include it among the rest of the players at that position. Then, within each category, take the sum of the z-scores – the number of standard deviations away from the mean a player’s statistic is – and that determines the players’ value above the positional average. We then adjust for replacement level at that position, and you have a final number you can take to the bank. We can then use those overall value numbers to compare across positions, and even convert them into auction dollars.

For the sake of simplicity, all of these numbers are done for 12-team standard roto leagues, but the data can easily be manipulated to reflect a different number of teams, positional requirements, or player pools.

Step One: Comparing Inside the Position
Theory 1: Players can only play the positions that the game engine allows them, so those other players at their position are their only competition for a roster spot (sans UTIL).

All players’ raw numbers are compared only to those in their position grouping when it comes to overall value, because players can only play the position that the game engine allows. It does not make sense to directly compare Albert Pujols’ raw numbers to Robinson Cano’s raw numbers, for example, because they cannot occupy the same spot on your roster. Their raw data needs to be adjusted before we can directly compare them.

This is important because it is the way to calculate “position scarcity,” a key component in fantasy valuation. We can all agree that hitting 25 homers as a catcher is much more valuable than hitting 25 homers as an outfielder, and this will reflect that.

So compare the players’ numbers inside each position by using z-scores. Take the positional average and standard deviation in each 5×5 category, and calculate z-scores for each player’s performance in those 5×5 categories (we’ll talk more about how we properly do batting average and other rate stats later). We then just total up those z-scores, and call that out as our Fantasy Value Above Average, or FVAAz.

It is important to be consistent when deciding which players make it into your positional player pools. It is easiest to set an AB minimum (or IP for pitchers) and use it across the board in order to guarantee consistency. You can pick whatever number you like, but I’d recommend using a minimum around 400 AB’s.

Next, we’ll look at how we set our positional replacement levels, and why we do so.

We’ve been over it before, but the concept of “replacement level” is very important in regular old (boring) baseball, and it may be equally important in fantasy baseball. So, in order to better nail down a replacement level, I need your help. But first, some basics on replacement level before we get to the voting.

A replacement level player is defined as “a player who is available on the waiver wire in a majority (50.01%) of leagues.”

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Depending on how his fielding develops, Starlin Castro may always be one of those players whose better in real life than in fantasy baseball. However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have any fantasy value, so it’s important that we investigate and figure out exactly how much he is worth.

Instead of looking at all the different projection systems that we feature here on FanGraphs individually, it’s best to combine the four and get some kind of consensus. Because I’m a swell guy, I’ve done that for you. And for those of you wondering, I didn’t take the easy way out by just averaging out his actual batting average, instead using the hits and at-bats like a good little boy.

Combined projection: 73 R, 5 HR, 58 RBI, 14 SB, .300 BA (549 AB)

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