Archive for Roto

I’m continuing to step through my Tout Wars auction prep. Last week, I broke down the league’s draft including the pitcher/hitter mix and some ownership trends. Today, I am going to examine the league’s final standings to see what it takes to win.

Every owner may try to win every category but that approach is completely unrealistic. I believe an owner should never win a category if they are behind in any other one. Every bit of distance between them and second place is a waste. Get to second in every category and then starting taking over the top spots. There is no reason for an owner to win RBIs by 50 if they’re 8th in Runs.

To find what it takes to win the Tour Wars league, here are the average points per category for the past three winners. As a reminder, the league is a standard 15-team 5×5 league with OBP instead of AVG.

Season: Average Points per Category (1st place = 15 points, 2nd place =14 points, …, 15th place = 1 point)
2014: 12.1
2015: 11.3
2016: 12.7
Average: 12.0

A fourth place finish in every category puts me in good shape to win while averaging third place almost guarantees me a win.

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Rays traded Logan Forsythe to the Dodgers for Jose De Leon

After looking over several factors (e.g. league, park, etc.), the biggest change for Forsythe will be the players surrounding him and his lineup position. Currently, we have the Dodgers projected for 4.6 Runs per games while the Rays are at 4.3 Runs per game. A better offense equates to more plate appearances, Runs, and RBIs.

My one worry is lineup position. In the games he started last year, he always led off. Right now, RosterResource.com has him again leading off. If he struggles, the Dodgers have better lineup replacement options than the Rays did. His value could plummet if moves down, especially to the eighth spot.

As for De Leon’s value, the key will be how many innings he throws. With the Rays not really contending this season, he could spend quite a bit of time in the minors or be up in a couple of weeks. No one knows for sure.

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About three and a half years ago, I shared the bestest starting pitcher xBB% formula yet. Since I mentioned to you recently that I have been on an xEquation binge, I updated that bestest xBB% one too, of course. But as I was working on it with an additional variable, I realized that Alex Chamberlain had literally done the exact same thing about two years ago. That same thing was adding the 3-0% metric from Baseball-Reference.com, which is the percentage of plate appearances in which a 3-0 count is seen. So rather than take credit for developing a better version of my original xBB% metric, I’m now simply updating the coefficients of Alex’s equation.

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Last year, Tout Wars was nice enough to allow me to join their Head-to-Head league which I preceded to barely win. I just got informed that I will not be in this league anymore. Instead, I was upgraded and will join fellow RotoGraphs author, Al Melchior in the 15-team mixed auction league. Previously I’ve stepped through my preparation process for these industry leagues but this year I can’t. We are picking our player in New York City right before the season starts on March 25^th.  Besides Tout Wars, most local leagues will be drafting this weekend just before Opening Day. Anything I write about my procedure leading up the auction will be useless. Instead, I will write about my preparation over the next two months leading up to the auction.

Unlikely last year, this year’s preparation focuses on an established league with the same good owners. It will be a different animal to conquer than last year the league with some unique rules (H2H and Roto), which I exploited as much as I could. The new league is different in that it has been very constant.  Many of the same owners stay around for years and it has few if any rule changes. I will first begin my prep by breaking down the other information from past auctions.

Note: I know reading about another person’s team is unexciting and some information might be not applicable. I’ve added “Key Points” to summarize how the procedure can help individual owners in their own leagues.

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After a flurry of recent moves, the Mariners ended Wednesday with starter Drew Smyly as a new member of their rotation. Smyly has long been one of my favorite unheralded pitchers in the game, primarily because of his strikeout and walk rates, which Dave Cameron explained had him on the short list of baseball’s best starters in recent seasons.

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Don’t you love it when a player’s name makes it super simple to create an absolutely brilliant title? I do! So yesterday, the Mariners continued their fantasy league moves by acquiring 27-year-old southpaw Drew Smyly. Up until 2016, Smyly enjoyed a fantastic beginning to his career, as he owned a 3.24 ERA/3.43 SIERA between the starting rotation and bullpen. But shoulder injuries hit in 2015 and he becaome afflicted with a severe bout of gopheritis during this past season. His ERA ballooned to 4.88 as his strikeout rate fell and he allowed the second highest fly ball rate in baseball among qualified pitchers. Now he moves to Seattle, where perhaps a change of scenery could do him some good. Will he benefit from the park switch? Let’s find out if such a possibility exists.

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I have been playing in dynasty and keeper leagues as long as I have been playing fantasy baseball. There is something satisfying about being able to attempt to build long term contending teams and scour the wire for future talent. I also find that they stay the most active from the beginning to end of a season and in the off season. For a fantasy junkie like me, that is a fix I often need. However, there is a dark side to leagues like this…

*Cues the gloomy music* Read the rest of this entry »

In his ninth season, Colby Rasmus is set to join his fourth team, as he heads from one warm climate to another. But despite the fact he’ll be switching home parks, he’s still going to be playing in an orange juice box. On Monday, it was reported that he agreed to a one year contract with the Rays. Coming out of Houston, the knee-jerk reaction is that his fantasy potential, whatever there was left of it, is now kaput. But is that really true? Let’s bring on the park factors to find out what a move from playing half his games in Minute Maid Park (MM, Houston) to Tropicana Field (Tampa, errrr, St. Petersburg) may do to his performance.

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Yesterday, I discussed the fantasy relevant average fly ball and line drive exit velocity (EV) surgers, which overwhelming fueled a spike in HR/FB rate. Let’s now check in on the other side of the ledger — those hitters whose EV declined precipitously from 2015 to 2016.

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We officially have two seasons worth of Statcast data! Mind you, it’s not two full seasons, nor does it include every batted ball. But it’s still highly useful data. Although I continue to work on developing new equations with the data, we could all agree on one thing — harder hit balls are better. This is especially true when considering fly balls and line drives. We care far more about this bucket of batted balls than grounders because I have calculated a correlation of 0.769 between average fly ball and line drive exit velocity (EV) and HR/FB rate. So let’s find out which fantasy relevant hitters enjoyed EV surges from 2015 to 2016 and if those spikes resulted in HR/FB rate increases as well.

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