I recently released my top 125 starting pitchers for 2020 and I couldn’t believe that nobody had a single question about them and everyone who saw them found them to be perfect top to bottom. OK, dumb joke. Anyway, I appreciate everyone getting in the comments and discussing the rankings with me. I’m still responding to questions and comments if you want to ask me about someone in the rankings.

Today I want to look the biggest differences between my rankings and the early average draft position (ADP) information at the NFBC in their Draft Champions leagues (50-round draft-and-hold format). On their list, they group all pitchers together so I took out the relievers making it more of a 1:1 comparison with my SP ranks. This will be a two-part piece with the first being the pitchers where I’m higher.

10 Where I’m Higher

Jeff Samardzija, SF | 107th SP in ADP; 52nd SP by me

I wouldn’t even say I’m a huge fan of The Shark, but his current ADP seems like a great price for someone who finished 33rd among SP on Razzball’s Player Rater last year. Even if you don’t fully buy the 3.52 ERA, he offers high volume with a strong WHIP. At the very least, he has Oracle Park protecting him for half of his starts. It’s a boring investment, but I’ll gladly take him outside the top 100 SPs.

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Hello Draft Season!

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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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A new year and in turn, a new decade is now upon us! We have begun the Roaring Twenties once again. More importantly, fantasy baseball draft season is now upon us.

I am not one for paying large amounts of attention to positional rankings. Knowing who is valued as the 7^th best shortstop, or who the 11^th ranked second baseman is – is helpful no doubt, but that alone will not win you your fantasy leagues. We can spend time debating whether Rhys Hoskins is better than Trey Mancini, but since the duo have similar profiles, the discussion isn’t all that helpful on its own.

To me, the task that needs the higher priority – is the comparison of market prices to player valuations. The greater assignment is to determine the players which the market undervalues. One of the first exercises that I engage in – is to find the players which projections foretell a superior year as compared to where they are currently being priced.

The two needed components to complete this analysis are very generally:

• Projections
• Market

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12/18/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• A.J. Puk (3:25)
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• Jordan Montgomery (9:55)
• Cole Hamels (12:25)

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Using the current NFBC average draft data for their 50-round Draft & Hold leagues, I’m going to put together most of an offense going at 200 or later (2 catchers because I hate myself, an infield, and 2 OF). I guess it’s just a different way to identify some sleeper/later values that I like, but hey, let’s do it!

C1 – Omar Narváez, MIL | Pick 237

Among the 21 catchers with at least 650 PA the last two years, Narváez’s 120 wRC+ in 804 PA is 3rd behind only Mitch Garver (130 in 694 PA) and the guy he replaced, Yasmani Grandal (123 in 1150). He’s a brutal framer which could cut into his playing time a bit unless they have some plans to improve him, but I’d take 400 PA with 15 HR and a .277 AVG.

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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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I compared the average draft position data of the first 10 NFBC Draft Champions leagues with the 2020 Steamer Projections to identify 10 of the best values going in the top 150. I just took their auction calculator rank using Steamer and compared it against their ADP. Here’s what I found (sorted by ADP – Auction Calc. difference, highest to lowest):

Dinelson Lamet | SP – Auction Calculator Rank: 52, ADP: 128

He feels like a winter riser. He was getting hyped at the Baseball HQ event in Arizona for his strikeout prowess after posting a 34% mark in his 73 IP this year. While he won’t reach as high as this Auction Calculator Rank, I think he’ll beat this current ADP, especially in the NFBC realm where pitching is always pushed up.

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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 »

11/04/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host
• @wagner13454 – Dusty Wagner, guest & writer at ArbourPro

INTERVIEW WITH DUSTY

• Playing NFBC leagues (learning curve, FAAB, draft/ADP, etc…)

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