Archive for Stock Watch

… they need Production. That’s it. If anyone says differently, they’re wrong. I’m tired of hearing owners say they want 35+ home runs from first base. It doesn’t matter where the production comes from. Owners don’t get extra points because the home run was from first base or from their shortstop. Home runs are just one category. Other hits, besides home runs, keep the AVG high and can also generate Runs, RBIs, and stolen base opportunities. Home runs don’t have monopoly on run scoring. Owners need to stop tying home runs (or any other stat) to a position and just pick the most productive players.

Today’s rant is being brought to everyone by my Twitter followers. Yesterday I asked them why Eric Hosmer was getting no love with his low NFBC ADP.

I have Eric Hosmer valued as the 28th or 32nd best hitter (z-score and SGP methods). His NFBC ADP is the 46th hitter off the board. Here are my theories for the difference. Which one do you believe is correct?

I have no idea.

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) January 23, 2018

The big winner is power from first base. I’ve never gotten this philosophy of targeting a single stat, like stolen bases or home runs, from a set position. This is especially true early in a draft. In the first 100 picks or so, all the players are average or better. Accumulate as many of these above average talents as possible and then fill in the voids. If the team needs stolen bases, find them now later. Or batting average. Or heaven forbid, home runs.

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“… pros were more likely to ride a wave of irrational exuberance than to fight it. One reason is that it is risky to be a contrarian. ‘Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally’” – Richard Thaler in Misbehaving

At the root level, fantasy baseball is about acquiring more undervalued assists than your opponents. Everyone wants a first-round talent for a last round price (e.g. Aaron Judge). With teams clamoring to acquire every advantage, they are insistent on wasting away an early draft advantage. In early 2018 drafts I’ve participated in, an early emphasis on middle infielders is inflating their value way beyond their projected production. Is the observation wrong? If so why? If not, how can an owner take advantage of this mispricing?

Note: For this article, I will lump second basemen and shortstops together into one middle infield position. Neither position has more talent than the other and the bottom players will be used to fill a middle infield position.

For those who have recently created mixed-league valuations, positional scarcity doesn’t exist besides with catcher. I use the method outlined in Larry Schechter’s book, Winning Fantasy Baseball to determine my values. I’m not going to go into the process’s exact details but it’s the standard procedure used by fantasy experts to prep for auctions. Even a couple years ago a small amount of positional scarcity existed but a huge influx of good middle infielders has raised the group’s overall talent level up to the other positions.

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Jonathan Villar burst onto the scene in 2016 with 19 HR and 62 steals. He was going 19th overall in 2017 NFBC drafts and was a huge disappointment when he hit posted a .293 OBP, 11 HR, and 23 SB. With 2018 drafts starting, I’ve seen his ADP (200) way below where he should go using his Steamer projection (~118). The disconnect is understandable but not to the current level. Opportunity exists for huge upside.

Just for reference, here are Villar’s basic stats from the past four seasons and his 2018 Steamer projection.

Of all the values which changed his value from 2016 to 2017 was the 76-percentage point drop in OBP. Less times on base meant fewer steals and runs scored. An OBP under .300 is kill for any hitter.

Besides the scoreboard stats, here are his 2nd order stats over the same time frame.

His plate discipline is the biggest discrepancy over the past two season seasons with his K%-BB% jumping from 14% to 23%. Even though he maintained similar power and groundball rates, the overall decline in contact rate while swinging more did him in.
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In leagues with Runs and RBIs as categories, predicting how a player’s mix will change with a new team can be guessing. Some clown at Fantrax yesterday wrote the following:

“As for Headley, his value drops by going to a worse offensive team in a pitcher-friendly park. Part of the decline could be offset by a move up in the lineup since he mainly batted seventh for the Yankees last season.”

It could go up, it could go down, who really knows? While writing the statement, I needed a better answer so I created a couple quick and simple tool. If an owner can estimate a few stats, they can predict changes in plate appearances, Runs, RBI when a hitter moves from one team to another.

The key was to be simple and quick. For simplicity, only the following stats are needed.

• New likely lineup location
• Estimate of projected home runs
• Estimated games played such 150 out of 162 games as a percentage.
• Estimated Runs scored by a team. Used over on-base percentage because team level runs scored is easier to find and remember.

The estimated runs scored is the toughest value to come up with. I’d just go to FanGraphs team projection page to get a decent idea. Just take that year’s RS/G and multiply it by 162. Another method is to take the previous season value and plug it into the following regression equation:

`RS in Y2` = .575 * `RS in Y1` + 311

The goal is just to get a basic idea of possible changes.

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The projection systems love Miguel Cabrera. To them, he’s a hitter who performed decent in the first half and struggled in the second half. The projections don’t know that he has two herniated discs in his back. Because of the injury, his wOBA dropped from .339 in the first half to .274 in the 2nd half. Using projections, he’s the 54th highest ranked player but owners have pushed his ADP closer to 100th. It’s time to determine why the disconnect.

It was definitely a tale of two halves for Cabrera.

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Yesterday, The Marlins traded Dee Gordon to the Mariners for three minor league prospects. The trade came out of nowhere since the Mariners already rostered a top second baseman, Robinson Cano. Then it became known that Mariners plan on playing Gordon in centerfield. Having both middle infield and outfield qualifications a couple weeks into the season could move up his average draft position. The question remains though, will Gordon be able to cut in centerfield? Probably.

Gordon’s offensive talent is easy to access. The 29-year-old makes a ton of groundball contact and gets on first base using his speed. Once on base, he uses those legs to steal as many bases as possible. That’s it.

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About a week ago, I compared rankings with some actual ADP. One player which stood out was Rougned Odor. He ranked 47th overall (AVG vs OBP league) and it’s tough to rank a person so high who hit only .204 last season. Steamer projections currently have him back up to a .255 AVG. Acceptable but not great.

Additionally, Odor comes to the plate hacking and rarely walks (4.2% for his career) so almost all of his value comes from his BABIP. If his batted balls don’t fall for hits, he’s not getting on base. Since his value is so BABIP driven, I decided to see what the BABIP bounce-back chances were for low-walk hitters.

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In my last article, I examined the potential value differences between the top-50 rank players and their average draft position (ADP). Today, I will examine the next 50. While the first list contained quite a few players moving up, today’s list is a little more balanced with over and undervalued players.

One of the biggest takeaways from the first article was the extra replacement value catchers receive in a 2-catcher format. To simply explain the idea, I will turn to Joe Bryant who goes through a fitting example but with football.

The league’s bottom catchers are so bad so any catcher who can hit has good value. Evan Gattis being ranked #17 got most of the scrutiny in the rankings. As was pointed out, the projection may be high on the plate appearances but the process was still sound. Here is how Gattis compares to the last catcher ranked (Yan Gomes) and Francisco Lindor compared with the last middle infielder (Kolten Wong).

Yan Gomes is such a sink, especially with a total of 55 Runs+RBIs. It’s imperative to understand and value catchers correctly for each league formats. It’s a potentially huge advantage for those owners who spend the time. Read the rest of this entry »

“Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks,

… or fantasy baseball players

I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.” –Warren Buffett

Collecting as much value (talented players) from as little possible resources (draft picks or auction dollars) is the key to starting off a winning fantasy season. From now until each draft, owners should be trying to calculate player values and the possible range of outcomes. With these value ranges in mind, owners can use their draft resources to get the best deals. It’s time to start finding those deals.

To find the bargains, player values first need to be calculated. To create the values, I will use the average final standings from the 32 leagues in the 2017 NFBC Main Event (15 team, 5×5 roto with AVG).

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A few days ago, Jake Leech asked me if Zack Cozart’s 2017 improved plate discipline would stick into 2018.

https://twitter.com/Stroke_19/status/931525718667943936

Cozart saw quite a bit of improvement with his K%-BB% dropping by 6% points.

Note: I like using K%-B% to get an overall value for a hitters plate discipline. Earlier this year, I investigated what early season stats point to a true breakout. K%-BB%, along with launch angle (FB%), were the two key factors to focus on.

The Steamer projection has his K%-BB% regressing closer to his 2016 values than the ones from 2017. This is how projections work with previous season stats having some weight along with some regression.

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