On Monday, I unveiled the first edition of my American League starting pitcher tiers. Of course, it didn’t include every pitcher currently part of a team’s rotation. Don’t feel bad for them, as their day has come. Today, I’ll discuss the remainder of the crop that missed the cut. Do any of these guys have the potential to join the tiered?
Warning: this is a boring list. Try to stay awake while reading about these names.
Drafts are over and the season is officially here. We are looking at the teams we drafted with pride, believing that this will be our year. We have forgotten about those poor souls that were left behind. Yes, I am talking about the undrafted players. The guys that sit on our waiver wires untouched, hoping for a chance to enter our lineups. They are praying that an owner may sign them to a deal. Read the rest of this entry »
4/1/16
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“Microphone Check 1,2, what is this?”
Well, it’s not a five foot assassin, but instead it’s my first run at a tiered ranking of the first baseman. Also a week late in my tribute; sorry about that. I appreciate any and all feedback, but do keep in mind these are subjective and based on a predicative nature. Just because I have somebody tiered lower than you do doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go with what you think is best. Naturally. Also, players with a star next to their name played less than 20 games at first base last season, so they may or may not be eligible depending on your format, and they may or may not receive eligibility during the season.
For the astute and avid Rotograph readers, you will notice these rankings differ from the staff rankings we did earlier in March. I hadn’t done as much research for those at the time, so these are more in line with what I think at this moment. Which may change in ten minutes. Alas, the fun of rankings.
In the spirit of subjectivity and my love for music, I have created tiers based on my personal favorite jazz styles. In no way am I saying my top tier is the best style of jazz; just my personal favorite. In a perfect world, we could all somehow discuss jazz and baseball together. Here is my first attempt at doing so. Keep it real!
Last Friday, I asked our RotoGraphs readers on how they would approach my Tout Wars mixed 12-team head-to-head auction. The strategies stated in the comments were similar to the approach I took. But that is not how the rest of the teams operated and it threw me for a loop.
A person must remember the rules to this league are fairly unique with a head-to-head component making up 80% of the league’s wins and a roto component being the other 20%. A full rule set can be found here and the abridged set here.
Going back to the comments from Friday’s, here are the approaches the various readers would have taken.
Pitching Strategy
Few high K starters to make minimum IP, RPs otherwise
dparker713
jbona3
David
schulni
HappyFunBall
OutOfTheBox
Brad Johnson Read the rest of this entry »
Ottoneu founder/creator Niv Shah once described Ottoneu as an economic system that just happens to be built for fantasy sports. The entire platform is finely tuned to bring the stats, rules, and interface together to provide an excellent overall gameplay experience perfectly suited for baseball nerds.
Nerds often like math (which is why baseball nerds love sabermetrics), so let’s spend some time digging into some of the math behind the game of Ottoneu. This will be a blend of benchmarks and strategy, but overall the goal here is to create a reference for Ottoneu owners looking to win their leagues.
About four years ago, Matt Swartz helped me find that strikeout and walk rates posted during spring training for starting pitchers do have some predictive value. It’s very small, of course, but it’s there, and using the data improved the pre-season projection. The findings were validated when Dan Rosenheck completed an exhaustive study and discovered the same thing a year ago. It’s not the surface stats that matter, which we knew, but the underlying skill metrics, like strikeout and walk rates, that hold some value. It’s not much value, but it’s not nothing like some of us may have thought.
At last, it’s the final Pod’s Picks and Pans, as we finish things off with catcher. In the past, there have been years I haven’t even published a catcher version because there just wasn’t much disagreement. Which is strange because often times we all know the top tier, which is Buster Posey first, a couple of guys in the next couple of slots, and then a massive tier where we could make a reasonable case for a slew of guys to finish the season at said ranking at season’s end. Luckily, this year there does seem to be some disagreement worth discussing. Here are the updated consensus rankings.
You’re not sick of reading about my Picks and Pans yet, right? Of course not, you love them! We’re winding down the series and today we move along to the starting pitchers. As you no doubt have argued in the comments, my valuations take innings into consideration. It has to. We’re valuing the player’s contributions to our team. This is from a strict dollar value perspective. This is different than where I might suggest drafting the player in a snake draft, as I’d be more willing to take a lower ranked pitcher projected for better ratios than a higher ranked one with worse ratios, but more innings.
3/25/16
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
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