Archive for Meta Analysis

From time to time, I’ll hear reference to BeerGraphs as if we’re trying to legislate which beers are actually the best with our numbers. I don’t really think that’s the aim — we research beer trends and report what the numbers say, and we try to offer different ways to slice available numbers so that you can make more informed decisions. There’s no way to analytically prove which beer is the best.

There’s no way to analytically prove which settings are the best for your fantasy league. It’s fantasy, it’s not real, and so whatever settings you decide are just the rules for the game you are about to play. Different settings do beget different styles of analysis, though, so it’s worth a little thinking to get it right, especially if you are about to start a league that you hope will be around a while.

I’ve got 15 leagues. I’ll just write about the pros and cons of each. Maybe that’ll help.

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Coming into the 2014 season, Jean Segura’s 2013 production still baffles me (I have two more pieces on him coming up in the future). He had a an amazing first half (11 HR, 27 SB, .325 AVG) and then his production dropped off in the second half (1 HR, 17 SB, .241 AVG) which no obvious signs of change. Other players showed the same decline like Chris Davis (.461 wOBA to .365) and Jason Kipnis (.387 wOBA to .317).  Players exist on the other end of the spectrum. They seemed to get better in the second half of the season. Elvis Andrus went from hitting .242 with no home runs to .313 with four dingers.

Having more data is always better. Using three to fours years worth of data make the best projections. It is just human nature to remember the most recent results and quickly react off of them. Whether it is fantasy baseball or the economy, people jump immediately to action. I will look at probably the smallest set of data (besides pitch velocity) which fantasy expects use: half season data.

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One relief pitcher trait I like to have on hand during draft season is how much of a split has a pitcher displayed over his career against right- and left-handed hitters. Most teams don’t want their closer to have a large split because with all hands on deck in the ninth, the opposing manager will use up all his available platoon options. The reason a pitcher may or may not have a split may be many, but truthfully I don’t have time to evaluate each relief pitcher in detail (and still stay married) so I use this nice little cheat sheet.

I examined which pitchers have historically small or large handedness splits and how much to take them into account when valuing the relief pitcher for a closer’s role.

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There’s been some talk about the ideal auction budget mix on twitter recently. Perhaps, if you click this link, you can see some of the conversation between Chris Liss, Mike Gianella, Steve Gardner, Peter Kreutzer, and Jeff Erickson upon which I was snooping. It’s a fairly complicated conversation, and far-reaching. Let’s jump in.

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I spend a lot of time analyzing baseball, but sometimes you need to take a step back and analyze yourself. With New Year’s Eve coming up fast, now is just one of those times.

Between January 1, 2013 and the end of the regular season, I offered a lot of advice in my articles here on RotoGraphs, and thought I’d take a look back at each measurable piece of advice and grade myself.

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Over the last two years, my fellow FanGraphs authors have discussed the effects of aging on player performance and shared various pretty curves. Eno Sarris introduced some hitter aging curves for both batted ball type distribution and isolated power. Then Bill Petti looked at the various plate discipline metrics. The one skill missing thus far has been speed.

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The real baseball aspect of the trade which sent Prince Fielder to Texas and Ian Kinsler to Detroit has been covered in detail here at FanGraphs. I will give a look at how the trade affects the fantasy value of the players affected.

Winners

Jurickson Profar, Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus playing time– The three-head Texas infield monster needed to be broken up. Many people thought Kinsler would have been traded or moved to the outfield last off-season. Kinsler and Andrus now don’t have to have give up atbats to Profar. Basically, the trio would be splitting up about 1350 PA three ways (450 PA each if evenly divided). Now each hitter can hope to have over 600 each if they remain healthy. Kinsler may see a small production drop because of the new home park (92 vs 101 RHH HR PF) not being as kind to right-handed hitters, but it will be off set by the increase in plate appearances.

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Jurickson Profar finally got some decent time in the majors during the 2013 season because of an Ian Kinsler injury. Plenty of hype surrounded the 20-year-old since he was a generally considered the game’s top prospect going into last season. He is still a young with plenty of room for growth, but I am worried about speed limiting his fantasy potential.

Before I delve into the numbers, all of Profar’s value will hinge on his playing time. Last season, the best prospect in baseball didn’t have a position with Ian Kinsler at second and Elvis Andrus at shortstop. The lack of an everyday position never opened up until Kinsler got hurt. Once Profar was given a chance to start, he didn’t exactly excel at the plate. He hit .234/.308/.336 with 6 HR and 2 SB. Most of the switch hitter’s struggles came against left-handed pitchers with a .188/.291/.250 line.

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About a week ago during one of the RotoGraphs podcast, Eno Sarris and Mike Podhorzer were discussing Adrian Gonzalez’s walk rate falling off the cliff. It was basically cut in a third going from 18% in 2009 to 6% in 2012. Over the time frame, Adrian’s eye didn’t change, instead he just was not intentionally walked (IBB) as much. Today I am going to look at the effects of intentional walks on walk rates and some player whose walk rate have recently been bloated because of them.

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For the second year of its existence, I participated in the LABR mixed draft league. The draft took place in mid-February, way before I would ever normally draft a serious team. At that point, I was still adjusting my player projections and adding players I hadn’t developed a projection for, so it was no surprise that I felt much more confident in my Tout Wars team after drafting it a month later. Although I didn’t fare as well (winning both leagues would have been pretty cool!), I still finished second. Of course, that sounds slightly more impressive than it was, as the gap between second place and seventh place was a mere six points!

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