For the last three years I have run an industry mock draft during the month of September. It has been a fun exercise that suits three purposes: Read the rest of this entry »
I’m already thinking about 2018. It’s not that my teams are doing poorly; they’re fine, for the most part. It’s that the economist nerd in me, when thinking abut fantasy baseball, most often evaluates the disparities between perceived and actual values, and how long, if ever, it takes for the market (aka fantasy owners) to come to equilibrium, to use economic parlance.
For example: you may or may not be aware that Kevin Gausman, despite his atrocious start to the season, has been magnificent the last five weeks. In seven starts from July 2 onward, he’s posted a 3.24 ERA (supported peripherally by a 2.81 xFIP and 3.40 FIP) with 11.4 strikeouts and 2.6 walks per nine innings. The strikeout rate is fueled by a 15% swinging strike rate (SwStr%), which have come consistently, ascending into double-digit percentages in all seven starts (and in eight of his last nine). His strikeout-to-walk differential (K-BB%) by month: 2.0%, 8.8%, 9.2%, 23.4%, and, in one August start, 28.0%.
Meanwhile, he’s inducing ground balls almost half the time (49.5% GB). You could say he’s due for batting average on balls in play (BABIP) regression, and he probably still is. His BABIP constantly hovering above .349 does not inspire confidence, but few pitchers have ever been BABIP’d so hard in a single season — I discussed this phenomenon in regard to Robbie Ray. All said, while there’s no guarantee his BABIP regresses before October, Gausman still shows the promise we once expected of him — perhaps more — and it’s going largely unnoticed because of his downright repulsive first half. (He’s baseball’s #12 starter the last month.)
Such is the gist of this post, in which I’ll briefly touch upon players I anticipate to have average draft positions (ADPs) in 2018 that will lend themselves to relatively low-risk, high-reward opportunities in standard mixed leagues. Whether such expectations become reality is another story; that’s why I’m relying on ownership levels as a proxy for perceived value. All ownership levels likely retain some amount of draft day inertia, for better or for worse — in other words, leftover ownership (or lack thereof) in abandoned leagues — so take it all with a grain of salt.
Please note this is, by no means, an exhaustive list — just the first few players who come to mind, mostly because I’ve paid close attention to them all season.
It’s time to understand how ownership trends are playing out this year. I will start by breaking down one of the most common fantasy sites, ESPN. I will go over the batter ownership rates for different league sizes so owners know which players are applicable to them. Additionally, I will find the current replacement level player for each position.
With fantasy experts using ownership rates to help find potential waiver targets, it is important to know each league’s ownership level. Historically, I know I should only worry about players owned in 10% of leagues or less but not everyone plays in 15-team or deeper leagues.
As you know, Stats, Inc. keeps track of every player’s draft position in every draft conducted by the National Fantasy Baseball League. As soon as there’s been a critical mass of drafts, in (as we recall) late January, it starts publishing each player’s Average Draft Position, and updates those numbers continuously as drafts accumulate. And as our regular readers know, we’ve been tracking ADP changes. Our theory is that aggregate ADP, which changes pretty lazily once there are enough drafts, often masks dramatic developments in ADP during more recent drafts, and that it’s useful to know about these developments. If a player you’re targeting has, say, an ADP of 225 over the course of 50 drafts, but has an ADP of, say, 200 in the ten most recent drafts, he’s probably going to go two rounds earlier than you expected, and if you want him you’ll have to budget for that fact.
Although Stats, Inc. doesn’t offer breakdowns of ADPs, NFBC offers a few, and the most useful is the “Since March 1” category. If you’re interested in Steven Wright, for example—we confess we’re not—it helps to know that his overall ADP is 379 but his ADP since March 1st is 339. But, we think, it helps even more to identify more recent ADP trends. With Wright, the 40-place jump partly conceals a jump from 347 (his ADP as of March 21st) to 322 (his ADP in the 41 drafts held from March 21st through March 25th). As far as we know, we’re the only ones tracking this kind of information, or at least the only ones willing to share it gratis. Read the rest of this entry »
It is Bold Prediction season here at Fangraphs and I am ready to improve on my 2.5 correct out of 10 from last year.
This year I decided to do mine a bit different. I have been vacation and busy preparing for my trip to New York for Tout Wars, where I will be crashing/helping out with the festivities and harassing/getting to meet fellow industry colleagues. So, I decided to focus on players and themes that I felt I have not been able to touch on as much on my podcast or here at Rotographs. Read the rest of this entry »
It seems there was a major influx of drafts into this week’s ADP data. I imagine the NFBC is administering more drafts on a regular basis, but they might’ve also had a bunch of their draft-and-hold leagues finish up and get into the data.
For the uninitiated: I’ll be tracking differences in the NFBC average draft that is referenced regularly throughout the community and can be found here. Each Sunday I’ll pull the data, compare it to the previous week, and then deliver my key findings. You will still need to synthesize the data into something applicable for your leagues, especially if you don’t play in the NFBC, but this is the game’s sharpest market so I think it’s worth following. Last week I tried the positional thing, but there isn’t always something to discuss at every position so I’m going back to free form.
PREVIOUS EDITIONS:
BIGGEST RISER: Jeanmar Gomez | +28 spots to pick 333
This is three weeks in a row for Gomez as the biggest riser. That’s what being announced into a closer’s role will do for you. Greg Holland (+15 to 308) already got a huge boost and I think he’ll keep surging and wind up just inside the 250 in these next two weekends if he is in fact officially named as closer.
Continuing our weekly series, I’ll be tracking differences in the NFBC average draft that is referenced regularly throughout the community and can be found here. Each Sunday I’ll pull the data, compare it to the previous week, and then deliver my key findings. You will still need to synthesize the data into something applicable for your leagues, especially if you don’t play in the NFBC, but this is the game’s sharpest market so I think it’s worth following. Last week I tried the positional thing, but there isn’t always something to discuss at every position so I’m going back to free form.
PREVIOUS EDITIONS:
BIGGEST RISER: Jeanmar Gomez | +17 spots to pick 361
Oh look at you, Jeanmar! Back-to-back weeks as the biggest riser as the market adjusts to him at least starting the season in the closer’s role. Despite his two big jumps, he’s still 120 picks behind Hector Neris, though that’s built on early drafts when most assumed Neris would get the role because he’s actually good at pitching.
Big news, ladies and gentlemen: you can now find average draft position data provided by FanTrax on both our Auction Calculator and Projection sites.
AUCTION CALCULATOR (click to go to it)
After you input your desired settings and generate projections, you will see ADP listed right next to the player’s position:
I’ll be tracking differences in the NFBC average draft that is referenced regularly throughout the community and can be found here. Each Sunday I’ll pull the data, compare it to the previous week, and then deliver my key findings. You will still need to synthesize the data into something applicable for your leagues, especially if you don’t play in the NFBC, but this is the game’s sharpest market so I think it’s worth following. Last week I tried the positional thing, but there isn’t always something to discuss at every position so I’m going back to free form.
PREVIOUS EDITIONS:
BIGGEST RISER: Jeanmar Gomez | +27 spots to pick 378
Gomez dethroned Neftali Feliz (+23), who was going for a three-peat as the biggest riser. Gomez was named the closer by manager Pete Mackanin instead of an open competition with Gomez, Joaquin Benoit, and Hector Neris. However, despite the jump, Gomez sits only 10 spots ahead of Benoit and is actually 140 spots behind Neris. The Phillies might be showing some confidence in Gomez, but the market isn’t following suit.
Necessity is the mother of invention. –Plato
I wanted to know how owners were valuing Michael Brantley’s playing time. Currently, at NFBC, he is going 233rd overall in NFBC drafts. Over a full season, he is projected to be more productive than the two outfielders going right before him, Carlos Beltran and Randal Grichuk. Owners, via calculations or their gut, are significantly downgrading a full season Brantley. But by how much? I needed to find the league replacement value.
I could go through all the whole league setting and final the values like I did for my Tout Wars league. While I recommend this detailed procedure for any league an owner takes seriously. I was just looking for a quick answer and stumbled upon one while looking over my Fantrax league.
Our friends at FanTrax.com have their players listed with projected stats and ADP. Having both downloadable made a projection sheet quickly come together.