Buying Sleepers at a Discount
I considered titling this article “Buying Low on Sleepers.” But what is low? It feels more relative than the term discount. We have a general idea of what a player’s preseason market value was. Acquiring a player at less than said market value would be considered buying at a discount. So that’s what I’ll go with here, as the phrase “buying low” is generic advice that lacks the proper context to take action.
Yesterday, I commanded you to exercise patience with your roster, avoid the temptation to evaluate players using the tiny sample of four games, and, do nothing. The reality is, however, that there are a slew of fantasy owners who are either new to the hobby, have not stumbled across the brilliant writers at RotoGraphs just yet and will panic, or are veterans, and their personal nature is to be impatient and make spastic changes to their team(s) on a daily basis.
But after one week’s worth of games, can you really, truly take advantage of these owners? Yes, yes you can. Of course, I’m not talking about acquiring the Mike Trouts of the world, those top picks who just so happen to be hitting .200 at the moment, with two RBI, and nothing else. No, one week is far too early to have any shot at getting the elite at a discount.
Instead, that very man featured in the tweet I highlighted yesterday, Marcell Ozuna, is a prime example of the type of player to target. The preseason sleeper, if you will. Ozuna, like many sleepers, is young, didn’t perform well last season, and there are several reasons for optimism. He has some promising power upside and the friendlier fence distances at Marlins Park this year should help him achieve that upside. But as we found with the owner who tweeted at me, it’s clear that at least one person is panicking at his slow start, which as I type this, stands at a .143 average and pitiful .169 wOBA (update: he homered!).
The sleeper is a player we pay for in the hopes he exceeds expectations. Perhaps even “breaks out”. He usually doesn’t cost a whole lot in a draft or auction. Typically, such player doesn’t have a track record of actually performing at that level, at least in the Major Leagues. He hasn’t done it before.
So after a week, we are dying for some clue that we were right, and the player is indeed at the beginning stage of a season-long breakout. Even though it’s just the first week, it’s easy to convince yourself that you were wrong about your sleeper, the player will remain asleep, and he’s either droppable or a trade candidate to another foolish owner who still believes that sleeper is going to perform.
So these are precisely the types of players in which now would be a good time to start making your offers. You want some names, don’t ya? Here we go…
Brett Lawrie
Gerardo Parra
Domingo Santana
Byron Buxton
Ketel Marte
Marcus Semien
Brad Miller
Jorge Soler
Note that no comments accompany any of these names. That’s because my preseason forecasts remain. There’s not a whole lot of new to say about these players.
BUT! Of the names above, the only one that truly concerns me is Byron Buxton. I expressed some serious concerns heading into the final month last season about Buxton simply not being ready to succeed at the Major League level. So far, he has done nothing to make me feel any differently — he has struck out a ridiculous 11 times in 19 plate appearances, with no walks. Can you buy him at a discount? Probably! Do you really want to? Perhaps only if he’s literally free.
If you’re curious about my thoughts on the players I named above or any other specific players, comment me!
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Mike, you have Ketel Marte as your No. 20 SS in preseason, so you weren’t all that high on him to begin with. Do you think he’s someone to buy now?
Yup, a lot of those I named I didn’t particularly like, but also remember that was for shallow 12 team mixed leagues. I was probably lower than the market on Marte, but I would still be open to buying anyone at a discount…to my preseason value. As usual, depends on your league format. In that size, he’s not worth much in my eyes, so a discount basically means I’d only care to pick him up for free from free agency.
How do you feel about Soler? On one hand he should receive the bulk of playing time. But on the other, the Cubs have a lot of options for LF, including Bryant, Baez (when he comes off the DL), and Szczur. Do you think Maddon will play him everyday, or is he destined to be a part-time player this season?
I am also looking to make a move for Baez. Dropping either Soler or Souza as I need the INF flexibility. Sounds like there’s a strong chance Bryant gets moved to LF with Baez stepping in at 3B.
Man, how silly would it be if Matt Szczur steals time from Soler?! There is certainly playing time risk, but only really if Soler continues to fail at hitting. Really depends on your roster and what your alternative is.
Soler will get every opportunity to keep the full time job but I actually think it will be his defense that ends up costing him PAs unless he just mashes. He is atrocious defensively and is already being pulled late in games for some combo of Szczur or Bryant and Baez is playing both 3B and LF in his minor league rehab stint.
Where Soler benefits is no obvious platoon partner with Schwarber down. Bryant, Szczur and Baez are all righties. The Cubs can (and have) plugged La Stella in vs righties and move Zobrist or Bryant to the OF but even in that situation I think it is Fowler that sits which is the lineup the Cubs ran out Sunday.
No matter what, I think Soler is in a far better situation than he was a week ago and there’s too much offensive upside to ignore. I’d be buying him anywhere I could. If I had to guess, Soler continues to start most games and the Cubs use their flexibility to pull him around the 6th inning for a defensive replacement.
Thoughts on Rougned Odor? He isn’t exactly a sleeper, but he’s starting in a funk like last season, and that one got him a trip to AAA. Anything you’ve noticed to sway your opinion for the long-term?
No, it’s been a week, buy at a discount if you can. Choo’s injury may also keep him at the top of the order, which is a huge boost.
Already bought and am holding a bunch of rotographs sleeper hitter picks, what I’m missing are some starting pitchers to grab at a discount…?
A question about interpreting projections. After asking Paul Sporer I have some confusion about how to view the projections at this point in the season. Suppose a player was projected to hit 15 HR in 150 games, a rate of 0.1 HR/game. In the first 10 games he hits 10 HRs. You would continue to project him to hit HRs at a rate of 0.1 HR/game, or 14 HRs over his remaining 140 games? Giving him a season total of 24 HRs, correct? Is it proper to view the projections as projecting rates that follow independent probability rules in this way?
This is related to the gambler’s fallacy where one will incorrectly believe that if the roulette wheel comes up red 5 times in a row, it’s “due” to come up black and will place a big bet, as the odds are now in your favor. I’ve read many times that it’s similar in baseball, if a hitter overperforms in the first half, he won’t underperform in the second to make up for it, but simply hit his projection rate in the second half, and end up overperforming for the season.
I disagree though and don’t think the gambler’s fallacy totally applies to baseball players. Each at-bat is not independent of each other like a coin flip or roulette wheel spin. We’re making projections on a full season of performance, not per game. Whether the player happens to hit his home runs early in the season or later, I still generally stick to my full season line. Of course, an early season HR barrage increases the odds he outperforms. But, you figure his HR/FB rate at that point is far above expectations and it’s going to regress significantly in the second half.
I’m kind of shocked to read this.
Makes some sense though. The brain is a funny thing. People respond to expectations by force of habit, and players are as aware of what people say about them as you and I. Habit and attitude to context have as much sway in an at-bat as any probability we attach to a guy’s talent level, so it’s natural to expect a little over-regression after an outlier period.
I look for guys like Pederson, Tyler White, Trumbo and Altuve, who show a habit of exceeding lower expectations coming up (although Trumbo and Joc might struggle to meet higher expectations when they get there).
And I stay away from guys like Avisail Garcia, until the friendly staff at FG uncovers some change in approach that coincides with a statistical surge (Alex Gordon, JD Martinez . . .)
Mike, it sounds like you do agree? You add your Rest of Season prediction, which is largely unchanged, to the current line. You don’t adjust the rates of the ROS line dramatically upward (and overweight the small sample of results) or downward (in a type of gambler fallacy adjustment). Thus, in the example Nate gave, the best prediction of total HRs is 24.
It’s not independent probabilities, but projections for rest of season stats are (and should be) based on multiple years of data.
No, what I meant is my full season projection won’t budge. Obviously if we’re 3 months in, it’s going to have to. But I’d guess the first couple of weeks, I wouldn’t change anything based on results. However, a change in underlying skills like strikeout and walk rate could change a projection. A higher batting average that based on a higher BABIP, no.
I find that really interesting and surprising. Without knowing how projections are generated I would have assumed they just project rates over games and assume independent probability. If at bats aren’t independent, then it seems like hot streaks and slumps should be real things, but of course the data do not support this (or previous analyses are missing something). The flip side of this would be to say don’t trade for Trevor Story because he has already “used up” most of his home runs. That use of projections is also not very satisfying. I guess I will just try to more or less split the difference when trying to evaluate trades, or wait for ZiPS ROS.
I’m not sure where Mike is going here either. What a player has done this week should have extremely little (or almost no) bearing on what we project him to do going forward. The hot streak happened, those stats are banked, and we should still continue to project the player to perform on a per-at-bat basis the same way we projected him a week ago.
It’s hard to explain without sounding like I don’t understand math and the gambler’s fallacy! Basically, I’ve seen many, many times, a player with a high (lucky) BABIP or HR/FB in the first 2 months, and that comes crashing down over the rest of the season. There is a lot of luck involved, so although it’s wrong to say everyone is allotted a certain amount of luck in a given season and if they “use it up” in the first two month, they’ll need some bad luck to balance things out, often times that’s essentially what ends up happening.
This is more on an individual basis than the whole player population. It’s why I’m hesitant to trade for a starting pitcher with a low 2.00 ERA and .200 BABIP after 2 months. I know that BABIP is going to spike dramatically and a 5.00 ERA month is coming. In my experience, it happens a lot. Remember Nick Martinez? He didn’t pitch really well, then get figured out and pitch poorly. His luck simply evened out.
It’s obvious how baseball would not obey independent probability, e.g. pitchers and hitters are constantly adjusting to one another. But still, expecting BABIP to drop lower in second half to compensate for a high BABIP in the first half…Do you know of anyone who has looked into this?
“they’ll need some bad luck to balance things out, often times that’s essentially what ends up happening”
Often times, yes. I’d say they get bad luck, maybe, about half the time?
Nate, I wouldn’t say I “expect” bad luck in the second half to compensate, however, I think that there is more a chance it occurs than the RoS projections would assume, treating the performance as completely independent from the first half.
Mike, the beliefs you’re describing ARE the Gambler’s Fallacy.
“It’s why I’m hesitant to trade for a starting pitcher with a low 2.00 ERA and .200 BABIP after 2 months. I know that BABIP is going to spike dramatically and a 5.00 ERA month is coming.”
If the underlying skills are the same, the odds of him hitting red or black next month are completely independent of previous results – they’re what we would expect based on those skills, no more, no less.
I’m not sure how else to phrase this more clearly. You think he’s “due” to his red after hitting black for a month. That’s the Gambler’s Fallacy in a nutshell.
Yes, it is. But what I’m saying is that I don’t believe that it’s a fallacy to believe it true in baseball. Players aren’t coins. We expect a certain performance to be achieved over a full season. If I project a 3.30 ERA from a pitcher, I’m not expecting him to hit that exact ERA every single game, every week, every month. It’s going to rise and fall, but over the season, it will eventually end around that mark.
A pitcher’s monthly underlying skills will be more stable than his luck metrics (BABIP, HR/FB, LOB%), though still jump around. Often, if a player has a low BABIP month, he’ll have a high BABIP month to bring his overall season BABIP in line with expectations.
The heart of this matter is the statistical dependence of games/PAs or even months of players playing baseball. If they are independent, gambler’s fallacy applies. If they are dependent, it doesn’t, and recent performance should tell is more about future performance. Some underlying metrics are dependent, that’s basically what stabilization points say. These are usually used more as a measure of skill or improvement in skill though. But in small samples, like a month, it seems weirder. In any event this seems testable. I would dig into it but I apparently have another job I’m supposed to be doing now.
I think Mike is just saying that hot streaks and cold streaks are already priced into his projections.
i think regression to the mean is a better explanation that “luck evening out” when a player has high a BABIP that falls by the end of the year. This is not the gambler’s fallacy because even though luck metrics are largely determined by… luck there is also some skill involved which allows for regression. There is no such thing as mean in gambling scenarios.
curtis granderson tops the list for me, .056 BABIP so far!
I had quite a few shares of Marcus Semien (assuming that he would be hitting at the top of the A’s order.) He started the season batting eighth so I replaced him for Suarez in a few deeper leagues. Do you feel that his current lineup placement still merits “buy – low” label on Semien?
Well I think the mistake was thinking he’d be at the top of the order! Whether spring training order, last year’s order, or RosterResource, everything suggested he’d be at the bottom. It’s why I wasn’t particularly high on him in 12-team mixed leagues to begin with. But in a deeper league, he still comes with a nice mix of power and speed and if he costs less than on draft day (assuming that cost factored in the bottom of the lineup placement and not the top), then yes, I’d buy.
I get why they bat him 9th when facing righties, but why wouldn’t he bat 3rd facing lefties? He rakes lefties. It’s not even funny what he does to them.
Adam Conley?
I didn’t talk about pitchers…Conley has pitched ONE inning! In that inning, his velocity was up 2.5 mph over last year. That’s huge! If that jump is real and sustained, I’m bullish.
What are your thoughts on Jorge Soler? A bit of a sleeper who needed an injury and now got just that.
I do get the feeling that Maddon isn’t the world’s biggest Soler fan (he DH’d and sat prior to Schwarber’s injury), so I wouldn’t count on a starter’s worth of PAs once Baez is activated.
Yeah, see my comments above. It’s kind of ridiculous he wouldn’t get a full-time shot given his obvious upside and potential. But it’s not our call.
I agree with theulli. I watch most of the Cubs games, and Soler looks lost up there much of the time. If Javy makes contact with the ball upon his callup, I’ll bet Maddon finds a lot of excuses to keep Soler very close by, on his bench. Maddon loves everything about Baez’s game.
I’m enjoying every Buxton strikeout, because the prospect hounds want it SO SO BAD for him.
Is Keuchel hurt or a possible buy-low?
See Eno’s comments on Keuchel in his excellent post from today.
Do you take his Keppler for my Miller since I have to use Miller in the OF?
Unless it’s a keeper league, then no. Kepler is only up now as a 4th outfielder and won’t play much.
Where’d you have Semien relative to other SS to begin the season? What about Andrus? I’m going back and forth between these two. Thanks
I valued Andrus higher, but I also valued Andrus higher than most. Probably just me properly valuing steals and no one else doing so? I don’t know. In my 12-team mixed, Semien I had at $2, Andrus $9.
Does Delino Deshields jr fit this category? Just claimed him off waivers.
He does, but I worry about his playing time during a slump. And he hasn’t even played every day and it’s only week 2. So it’s a concern.