Archive for Meta Analysis

This offseason, I struggled with how much fantasy-based content is too much content. I’ve created plenty of material including a 300-page book on my process and several articles per week here a FanGraphs. In addition to writing about fantasy baseball and playing in a few free leagues, I started dipping my toe into high stakes. The entries started out small but I’ve rolled my winnings back in and it was a sizable amount this spring.

With five figures on the line, I felt the pull of providing the best content available and being competitive in these leagues. This offseason, I had several takes. Some I made public while others, I sort of kept to myself. Here are three examples.

1. One of my guys this year was José Suarez (shares). I didn’t go into the offseason being high on him but liked some of his mid-season changes.

A complete transformation. [Suarez’s second half 18% K%-BB% is in line with Wood and his comps (Urias and Alcantara). He is a breakout in hidden plain sight. I would take Wood ahead of him (longer track record), but Suarez would be an easy second choice.

… I ended my campaign for him right then and tried to roster him in every league. While others noticed the article, I didn’t go out of my way to make him one of my guys. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to continue examining projection accuracy. Today, it’s a quick run through the hitter counting stats. From last year’s results, I came to the following conclusion.

Hitter Rate/Counting Stats

For the stand-alone projections, THE BATs stands out (I’d use THE BAT X). Just below THE BAT are all four aggregators.

This year’s results didn’t disappoint.

I’m not reposting all the background information that no one reads anyway. It can all be found in the previous playing time article. I’ll just post the results and then draw my conclusions. Read the rest of this entry »

I tweeted out wanting to know who had shoulder surgeries similar to Fernando Tatis Jr. and it garnered many examples and opinions on the subject.

Hitters with a torn labrum in their shoulder (Tatis).

Jake Meyers ('21) – not back yet
Greg Bird ('16) – might have ended his career
Devin Mesoraco ('16)
Daric Barton ('11)
Posada ('08) – partial tear, back decent and then faded
Jesus Flores ('09) – career ender

Any others?

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) January 29, 2023

All I wanted was the names of those who had the same or similar operations but got a lot more. With those comps, I hoped to get a range of potential outcomes. Well, I got them and whole lot more.

I know most people will already be anchored to an opinion that is probably based on already drafting or passing on Tatis in drafts or rostering him or not in a keeper league. For those with an open mind, here is what I think is the best information people gave me. Read the rest of this entry »

I started out wanting to see if a player stole more bases from one lineup slot compared to another one. Discussions around Trea Turner’s spot with the Phillies led me down this path. Last season, Turner had 603 PA from the 2nd and 3rd spot in the batting order and just 105 PA while leading off. He was on a 29 SB/600 PA pace from the leadoff spot and a pace of just 22 SB/600 PA from the other two. I wanted to see if the bump was normal and if not, what should I expect? What I found was a mess and don’t plan on regurgitating here. I put the “F- Around, Find Out” philosophy to work with over a day wasted to end up with three graphs and four actionable conclusions.

Read the rest of this entry »

There has been some recent news about A.J. Puk (link) and Seth Lugo (link) joining their team’s rotation. Both were full-time relievers in 2022, so it would be quite a transition. The question I wanted answered was not if they would make the transition, but if they did, what are the most reasonable number of innings they should be expected to throw if they make the transition? After looking into some comps, it was more than I expected.

To find my sample, I didn’t want any tweeners, guys who started 15 games and had 20 relief appearances. Both Lugo and Puk were only relievers last season and could be going to the rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2023 digital editions (full and appendix) of The Process are now available to be purchased (the paperback is off to the printers and will be available in two to four weeks). These editions are packed with new information. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a disappointing end to the 2022 season for me as I wrote up in my “What Missed” article. Stepping back, I shouldn’t be complaining with my first five-figure season (over 200% ROI), winning my LABR and TGFBI leagues, and almost the TGFBI overall (screw second). Here are a few things that did work. Read the rest of this entry »

It is time to look back on my season to see what worked and what didn’t. I had planned on just doing this Debby Downer article on what didn’t go right but it was depressing so tomorrow there will be an article full of humble brags and self-back pats. For today, it’s time for a beatdown.

Too much in a single player (a.k.a. the Luis Robert experience)

Tanner Bell and I shared nine draft-and-hold leagues and had the insane “luck” of drafting last in three of them. We liked Robert’s power-speed combination so we kept picking him there to the tune of five times. That was way too much exposure to a single player.

Tanner was on the BaseballHQ podcast with Patrick Davitt and one of his hitter banes was Robert. I commented on him bashing Robert and here was his response.

Tanner is about as calm as it gets and it is a rarity to see him get that worked up. We had Robert in over half our leagues and constantly battled from behind.

Simply, we had too many resources devoted to a single top-round pick. It was tough at the end of the first to diversify (ended up with Ozzie Albies and Bryce Harper, great) but we needed to limit our exposure to a single star.

A lack of diversification isn’t as much of an issue later in the draft, where players are likely headed to the wire at some point during the season.

The other issue with Robert is that I had blinders on for guys with steals and didn’t look at other options. Here are my rankings from my last draft.

Oh look, I have Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez ranked higher than Robert and I didn’t draft any Judge or Alvarez. None. While Judge and Alvarez did have some injury risk (so did Robert) and were projected as just four-category guys (I know Judge stole some bases), so I was off. Even though I plan on drafting fewer leagues next year (later topic), I need to diversify my top six to 10 picks (I’m not sure how many) hoping for Judge-like breakouts or not having my season riding on one player.

Lack of Power

I struggled for power in all my leagues. I have gotten to the point of ignoring Runs and RBI on draft day knowing I can stream them. There was no streaming for home runs this season. For reference, here are my overall percentile standings in NFBC leagues with an overall competition.

Here are the average of the percentile finishes:

Stat: Rank
Runs: 76%
HR: 54%
RBI: 77%
SB: 70%
AVG: 80%
K: 84%
W: 65%
SV: 69%
ERA: 56%
WHIP: 60%

Even with my home runs near 50%, I was able to push my Runs and RBI almost to 80%. If only I had a bit more power. I knew this deficiency was going to be an issue about a month into the season but I just couldn’t correct it. In the Main Event, we quit focusing on it and pushed all in for stolen bases and batting average.

Two issues were the cause: I expected the juiced ball to stay but it disappeared along with many 20 HR hitters (102 in 2021, 71 in 2022). Additionally, I just didn’t add enough power bats with too much of a focus on speed and batting average) and when I did, I missed (see: Jesús Sánchez).

I need to settle on a power metric that doesn’t matter what type of ball major league baseball is using that season.

Way Too Many Leagues

Over the past few years, I’ve kept adding leagues as the industry invitations and my bankroll have increased. I even took it a step further and agreed to manage a few leagues. It ended up doing 13 draft-and-holds and 17 FAAB leagues. Even typing it out seems like an insane number. It was way too many!

The volume cost me on two fronts. I don’t think I was able to concentrate on each league, especially at the season’s end. For most of the season, I just tried to add as many stats as possible, but when each league and opponent needed to be scrutinized in detail, the time commitment ballooned.

Here are some close calls:

In this league, I missed out on over $7000 in prizes by losing this close batting average race.

In TGFBI, I could have been the overall winner with just one more Win.

In my auction championship with Tanner Bell, we held onto a second-place tie but just a little bit here-or-there would have helped.

In the NFBC Online Championship, I managed two teams that ended up in the top 20. Each Win was worth around 50 points, so picking up one or two over the course of the season would have made a huge difference.

While it was nice to have more horses in the game, I think it cost me in the long run. I’m going to cut back on the number and concentrate on leagues with higher entry fees. Also, I might consider dropping one or two industry leagues. Finally, I’m going to rely on best ball leagues (zero in-season management) to fill my preseason draft itch.

Cross-off or acknowledge similar players (Myles Straw rule)

In the Tout Wars auction, I had all the speed I wanted when Myles Straw came up for auction. I wasn’t completely off Straw (even though he fell on his face) because Tout Wars is an on-base league.

I didn’t need a speed source at all. I needed a well-rounded power bat and I was grinding for home runs the entire season.

Auctions, especially in dollar days can be a little chaotic, but I need to cross off any rabbits once I feel I have enough speed.

As we head toward the final week and a half of the season, we have one more full week for weekly transaction leaguers to ponder. While this current week included two teams with eight games and no teams with fewer than six, next week features teams playing between five and seven games. Let’s review which teams to more highly consider their players (seven gamers) and which teams you should consider alternatives (five gamers). Below are the teams in each group, plus a handful of players that should get a relative boost in value and aren’t heavily owned, along with borderline players who should see a relative reduction in value.

Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of weeks ago, I examined hitters who were getting No Respect from the opposing defense. The pitchers were throwing these batters slow fastballs right across the plate. Additionally, the fielders moved up because they didn’t expect the guy to hit the ball with authority. After getting some hints from the comments and some changes I listed in the original article, I decided to implement a some with the goal to find inexperienced major league hitters who might not have shown all their power and have another gear. The MLB teams know of this power since they have access to minor league Trackman information. Read the rest of this entry »