In last week’s edition of this series, we uncovered several undervalued speedsters for 2020 drafts. We did so by comparing the Steamer projections to current NFBC Average Draft Position reports. Today, we will go through a similar exercise for potential power bargains.

For this article’s draft value comparisons, I look at:

• The player ranks as computed by the FanGraphs Auction Calculator with Steamer projections (standard NFBC 15 team roto league settings).
• The current NFBC ADP (of Draft Championship leagues from November 27, 2019 to present).

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Introduction

I thought it would be an interesting exercise today to look at fantasy baseball in a different way – profitability at the major league team level. Certainly, the better real-life clubs consist of not only more fantasy relevant players, but also of the higher quality ones.

But what else can be said about the profitability of the fantasy player pool at the team level? Does a higher spend translate to more value for fantasy owners? Does winning ball games correlate with higher levels of fantasy profitably? What can we learn from looking at player investments from this unique ball club perspective?

Let’s dive in and see …

Definitions & Methodology

For today’s analysis, I have used the same pre-season pricing and full-season valuations as in my game theory projections comparison. There are three specific quantities that are relevant here:

• $Value – This is the 2019 full season rotisserie value that each player provided this season. I use my own auction calculator which employs a Z-score methodology to generate the $Values. Standard NFBC 15-team settings are assumed (Mixed AL/NL, $260 budget, standard NFBC positions). I assume that players are only eligible at their original 2019 positions + any positions that they were expected to gain in the first 2 weeks of the season.
• $AAV – Average Auction Value – This is the average of what NFBC owners paid to acquire players during the heart of the 2019 draft season. These values come from all NFBC auctions between March 15, 2019 and March 25, 2019.
• $Profit – The difference between the $Value and the $AAV per player.

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In my previous article, I compared a number of baseball projection systems for the 2019 season using a game theory approach. We looked at the profitability of each projection system in the context of simulating what would transpire at a fantasy baseball auction. We measured each projection’s successes and failures.

Several readers had approached me to further split out the resulting analysis into the hitter and pitcher components. By popular demand, I have decided to do exactly that. Today’s article will detail the analysis by its offensive and defensive elements.

For a refresher on the process and methodology, or for reference, please refer to the original post which can be found here.

Overall Results:

First, let’s quickly remind ourselves of the results of overall total profitability by projection system in 2019.

As we previously saw, ATC and Steamer were the two best overall systems according to this analysis in 2019.

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Introduction

Last year, I introduced a game theory approach for comparing baseball projection systems. Today, I have once again applied the same methodology in order to evaluate which set of baseball projections excelled in 2019.

Most others who venture in such a comparative exercise make use of some type of statistical analysis. They calculate least square errors, perform a chi-squared test, or perhaps do hypothesis testing. I won’t be engaging in any of these capable methods.

Instead, I will look to determine the profitability potential of each projection system by simulating what would have happened in a fantasy auction draft. Instead, I’ll play a game.

What do I mean by this?

First, think about what happens in a fantasy baseball draft auction.

Suppose that Rudy Gamble of Razzball (or anyone who exclusively uses the Razzball projections) walks into a rotisserie auction league prior to the 2019 baseball season. Let’s say that Rudy decides to participate in an NFBC auction league. Mr. Gamble would take his projections and run them through a valuation method to obtain auction prices. He would generate a list that looked something like this …

Razzball Projected Values: Chris Sale 49, Mike Trout 45, Jacob deGrom 44, Max Scherzer 44. Mookie Betts 42, J.D. Martinez 37, Giancarlo Stanton 36, Justin Verlander 35, … , Brandon Lowe 1, Josh Reddick 1, Mark Melancon 1, etc.

In addition to the raw projected values generated by the Razzball system, Rudy would then establish a price point that he is willing to pay for each player. There might be a premium that he will pay for the top ones, and a discount that he expects to save on lower cost players. He may be willing to bid up to $46 on Jacob deGrom (valued at $44), but would only pay $1 for a $4 Jason Kipnis, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

While it might be better to focus on FAAB usage right before the season starts, I wanted to have an idea on how to focus my draft resources. Also, FAAB management was one of my major faults after I picked over my 2019 teams. It was an issue and I need to address it. Now is the time. I took the 50 players with the highest average FAAB bids in the 2019 NFBC Main Event ($1000 in FAAB) and found which players were the best and worse deals and did the best deals have similar actionable traits.

Note: One unintended side effect was that the minimum average value was $51, so all players with a bid of over $50.

To rank the player’s usefulness, I pair them up against each other and let my Twitter followers which of the two players were a better deal last year. While not ideal or the only method I could have used (I could create from value to EOS), it was the quickest and the rankings pass the idiot check (me, myself, and I).

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I covered my first 10 rounds and the strategy that went along with it in my article yesterday.  

You can also find the full draft board there. This is a 50-round draft and hold league that will finish the draft in January. Here are my picks from round 11-21:

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After years of jealousy sitting at home, I finally was able to attend First Pitch Arizona earlier this month. Quick Plug: if you have the opportunity to do go, it is a fantastic experience that is well worth the money. First Pitch has amazing panels and seminars that will really sharpen your game, but more importantly than that, the discussions you have with some of the smartest people in the industry are invaluable.

Now, every year there are drafts that occur at FPAZ. I thought it would be a fun experiment for me to try a new strategy I have been game planning for the 2020 season. The draft was a NFBC style 15-team 50 round draft and hold. We drafted the first 21 rounds in Arizona and then will draft the rest in January. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I looked at the largest auction player bargains of 2019. These were the players who were highly profitable after considering their opportunity cost of acquisition. We defined the bargain amount as:

$Bargain = $Value – $AAV

We defined $Value as the accumulated 5×5 full season rotisserie value of each player, and $AAV as the average auction cost to purchase the player pre-season. We make use of the NFBC Average Auction Values which are readily available to us.

For the full methodology of how these player bargains are calculated, please refer to my introductory post.

Today’s attention will be directed to what I refer to as the value drainers. These are the largest “rip-offs” of 2019 – i.e., the players who earned the most negative profits for fantasy owners on a full season basis (net of their auction price). Read the rest of this entry »

The Arizona Fall League moved up the Fall Stars game to mid-October this year which in turn moved up Baseball HQ’s First Pitch Forum conference. As you may know if you’ve been following me for a while, we conduct some early NFBC Draft and Hold leagues out there where we select our first 23 players live and then finish the remaining 27 rounds online in January. This is always fun because of how fresh we are off the regular season and it’s interesting to see how much recency bias owns the draft. Plus, there’s the bonus of being at the AFL meaning some of the prospects on the cusp get pushed up as well.

Here’s a quick rundown of my first 23 picks conducted out of the 13 spot. I’ve long aimed for a late pick in order to be early in the first round (actually the 24th) when we resume in January as news and moves often create some big-time values to be garnered that late in the draft.

1.13 – Justin Verlander | SP, HOU

I figured picking late would leave looking at a starter in the first round and I have no problem with that. There is some trepidation with taking a 37-year old pitcher for some, but I don’t share those reservations because there is literally nothing in Verlander’s profile that makes him look like a risk outside of his age.

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Note: For my next few articles, I’m going to examine the hitters and pitchers who underperformed and overperformed in 2019. Each article may spawn off others since some areas may need to be explored in more detail. After performing horribly in 2019, I need to take take a hard look at why I missed last season and what I can do to improve.

I’m going to start with the one player class every owner hopes to hit on, breakout hitters. A couple of these cheaply acquired star hitters can help carry a team. It could be a prospect turned uber-prospect (e.g. Pete Alonso) or just a hitter displaying new skills (e.g. Ketel Marte). I’m going to dig into the reason these breakouts were not draft-day targets and look for any common themes.

To get the test subjects, I ran our auction calculator for end-of-season production and then compared the auction dollars to the values created from their ADP. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. Using this method, I found 62 hitters who outperformed their value by $10 or more.
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