As we hit the beginning of draft season, it is important to monitor where players are being drafted on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can read all the Market Reports here.
Here are two players who accumulated over 450 PAs in 2022 and a few stats to accompany them, choose one for your fantasy team:
Player A, DH
128 wRC+
18 HR
0 SB
FanGraphs Auction Calculator YTD 2022 Value (Default settings): $1.5
Player B, DH
119 wRC+
16 HR
0 SB
FanGraphs Auction Calculator YTD 2022 Value (Default settings): $9.6
Surely, you wouldn’t just choose player A without wanting to know more but if you had to choose, you absolutely had to, you would choose player A, right? You would do this because Player A’s wRC+ is higher and he hit more home runs. But now look at the rest of the roto stats each player accumulated in 2022:
Player A, DH
128 wRC+
18 HR
0 SB
.238 AVG
47 R
59 RBI
FanGraphs Auction Calculator YTD 2022 Value (Default settings): $1.5
Player B, DH
119 wRC+
16 HR
0 SB
.274 AVG
76 R
62 RBI
FanGraphs Auction Calculator YTD 2022 Value (Default settings): $9.6
With this new information, you would have to choose Player B. You would surrender two home runs for 29 more runs and three more RBI. But, is it fair to say those runs and RBI minus two home runs are worth $8? And why is Player A’s wRC+ 9 points better? Let’s start digging and then we’ll see if we can find our way back out.
—
wRC+ is by our definition, “the most comprehensive rate statistic used to measure hitting performance”, but it places heavy emphasis on runs. Here are the correlations between wRC+ and fantasy stats from the 2022 season (over 200 PAs):
| wRC+ | |
|---|---|
| wOBA | 0.99 |
| OBP | 0.87 |
| Dollars | 0.75 |
| AVG | 0.72 |
| HR | 0.69 |
| RBI | 0.67 |
| R | 0.66 |
| PA | 0.50 |
| SB | 0.13 |
Player A wOBA: .349
Player B wOBA: .343
Intuitively that makes sense. The statistic is called weighted runs created plus. But, it can be confusing if we consider our two examples above. Player A literally scored less runs himself and drove in less runs than Player B, yet he has a larger wRC+.
Let’s do some nitty-gritty mathematics and calculate each players wRC+ manually to see if we can surmise what’s going on:
wRC+ = (((wRAA/PA + League R/PA) + (League R/PA – Park Factor* League R/PA))/ (AL or NL wRC/PA excluding pitchers))*100
Player A wRC+ = (((14.4/461 + .114) + (.114 – .975 * .114))/ (10,600/91,118))*100 = ~128
*Played in the NL
Player B wRC+ = (((15.7/596+ .114) + (.114 – 1.06 * .114))/ (10,227/90,850))*100 = ~119
*Played in the AL
Even if we changed this calculation and placed player A in Player B’s league, creating the same denominator for both players, Player A would actually increase in wRC+. No, the issue is not league-specific or even park-specific, it is in the plate appearances. Player A was simply more productive in wRAA because he didn’t get enough plate appearances to maybe go through a few additional slumps. So, Player A has a better wRC+ because he was more productive with the plate appearances he was given, even though Player B was able to accumulate more statistics. That’s really the essence of what’s going on here. Player B accumulated more raw stats for your fantasy team than did Player A.
But, does it mean that if a player finished the season with an above average (over 100) wRC+ they have returned positive value? Well, it depends on how much you’ve paid as the fantasy manager, but in general, no.
There can be plenty of situations, most plate appearance based, where a player may post above average wRC+, but does not bring positive value or is no better than a replacement-level player. Take, for example, Lars Nootbaar who posted a 125 wRC+ in 347 plate appearances with an 8.9 wRAA. That’s above average. But over the course of an entire season, there were plenty of other outfielders who would have been better for your fantasy team. If you had an injury and were able to replace that injured player with Nootbaar for those 347 plate appearances, swell! But, when compared to the player pool given by the auction calculator, Nootbaar’s 2022 season cost fantasy managers $0.50. On the flip-side of this argument is Jose Trevino. Though significantly hurt by his poor production (-4.7 wRAA/91 wRC+) he still generated $4 in value because of the large positional adjustment he receives for being a catcher. This just goes to show how important using the right statistic is when it applies to your fantasy team. Had you looked at Trevino’s wRC+ and thought, “Oh, he’s below average”, you would have missed out on a $4 catcher.
The main rule of thumb for when you find yourself down in a hole and looking to get out is to stop digging. Have we found something in the shovels full of dirt? Fantasy managers should not blindly use wRC+ as a metric for selecting fantasy value. Plate appearance accumulation is still king. But, if you’re the type to zig while everyone else zags, you may be able to use wRC+ to find fringe-level players who others have looked over. If you look at the 0 line in the scatter plot above, just above it are players who were worth $1. In addition, there are a number of players who returned negative value but were very productive at the season’s end. While wRC+ has become more and more common as a one stop shop type of offensive production metric, perhaps it is falsely molding your competitor’s impression of a player and therefore can be used to your advantage.
Player A: Daniel Vogelbach (park factor was the average of Pirates and Mets)
Player B: J.D. Martinez
• Masataka Yoshida is expected to be posted soon.
The Buffaloes are going to allow Masataka Yoshida to move to MLB via the posting system. https://t.co/zKibIhgc81
— Jason Coskrey (@JCoskrey) November 16, 2022
Last year in Japan, he hit .336/.449/.559 with 21 HR and 4 SB. In 2021, he hit .336/.426/.557 with 21 HR and 0 SB. Read the rest of this entry »
As we hit the beginning of draft season, it is important to monitor where players are being drafted on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can read all the Market Reports here.
12/5/22
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!
Follow us on Twitter
PATREON
INJURIES/TRANSACTION NEWS
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Here is my chat transcript for today!
As we hit the beginning of draft season, it is important to monitor where players are being drafted on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can read all the Market Reports here.
12/2/22
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!
Follow us on Twitter
PATREON
10 Qs About Justin’s SP Rankings
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I am almost all the way through my pitching projections and as I start to compare my projections versus ADP I am noticing guys that I think are nice values or guys that are extremely overrated early in draft season. Here are a few of the starting pitchers I have ranked well below where they are going versus other starters in terms of NFBC Draft Champions ADP.
Dylan Cease: My Rank 19, ADP: 6
I am not surprised to see Cease a lot lower in my ranks than in the ADP. He is coming off of a monster season, but there are clear red flags. First, for being an “elite” starter, he doesn’t have a great WHIP. I think this is one of the most overlooked categories in the game. Part of his issue with the WHIP is how much he walks guys and I worry about the fact he does not have great control and him relying so much on two pitches. He could easily repeat last season and I’ll look dumb, but if I am taking a pitcher as high as he is going, then I would prefer to not have the questions I did.
Spencer Strider: My Rank: 17, ADP: 8
This is another player that I could look really stupid by the end of 2023. Strider was one of the best pitchers in baseball if you look on a per inning basis. If he repeats with a higher inning total, he could easily be the #1 pitcher in fantasy. That being said, I struggle with his lack of track record and what his innings count will be. He threw 136.1 innings in 2022 if you include the playoffs and minors and while he could make a jump to 150 or 160 innings, but I have a hard time projecting that. I also worry about his true two-pitch mix. Guys like him can struggle when they don’t have the feel for a pitch and as hitters start to see him over time. He may move up in my projections over time, but even if he does, I can’t imagine he ends up on any of my teams this year.
Nick Lodolo: My Rank 69, ADP 38
This one hurts a little because I love Lodolo’s potential. He can strike out anyone and I the control and command are improving. However, I don’t love that he pitches in Cincinnati. It is a horrible park and the team is not going to be good at all. He is likely going to deliver a bad WHIP and wins will be hard to come by and while I love the upside, it is hard to take a guy that has potential to be just a two-category producer as a SP 3 or high end 4.
Dustin May: My Rank 93, ADP: 46
Who is Dustin May? That is the question I struggled with when doing his projections. I want to believe he is the dominant guy we saw in 2021 and that 2022 is largely a product of his health. That being said, I just can’t get past the injury issues. He only threw 51 innings between the Majors and minors and he didn’t even appear in the postseason. I can’t imagine he gets to 130+ innings which means his upside is limited even on a great Dodgers team.
Michael Kopech My Rank: 101, ADP: 69
I am surprised at this point that people are still drafting Kopech as highly as they are considering what we have seen from him. I think a lot of people are throwing out how he looked after hurting his knee in June, but I worry about his command and control and the huge dropoff in strikeout rate in 2022 which means he is a fifth starter with a bad WHIP. Finally, I worry he won’t be able to throw 140-150 innings. Maybe a return to health means he becomes the guy many believed (including me) he would eventually become, but I think there are too many people still drafting him based off of his name value from that prospect pedigree and not enough people looking at what has happened on the field. I could definitely find myself pushing him up my ranks in spring training if we see a completely healthy Kopech that looks great, but for right now, I can’t draft him at cost.
I am almost all the way through my pitching projections and as I start to compare my projections versus ADP I am noticing guys that I think are nice values or guys that are extremely overrated early in draft season. Here are a few of the starting pitchers I have ranked well above where they are going versus other starters in terms of NFBC draft champions ADP.
