Whether I like it or not, I’ve opened Pandora’s box on year-to-year consistency. The concept states that if a hitter’s overall year-to-year production is consistent, the consistent production will continue. Therefore, good, consistent hitters should be valued more highly since owners know what they’ll be getting on draft day. The problem is that consistent overall production doesn’t lead to future consistency.

The discussion started last week when I wrote that Eric Hosmer and Edwin Encarnacion had similar fantasy values but Hosmer’s NFBC ADP (average draft position) was quite a bit lower. Reader’s stated in the comments they devalued Hosmer because of his year-to-year inconsistency.

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We usually try to avoid stepping on each others toes here at RotoGraphs. I’m going to risk a little phalanx* squashing to clarify a few of my opinions about something Jeff Z wrote yesterday. Jeff called for fantasy owners to focus on overall production when drafting their rosters. He’s absolutely right, especially in the current post-scarcity meta. Unfortunately, comments on his article – including from me – indicate that we may have distracted ourselves from the actual theme. So let’s reinforce a few important details.

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… 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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One of the most basic concepts in any economic system is supply and demand. Even if the nitty gritty details are a bit fuzzy, the general idea is simple – a given widget’s value depends upon how many similar widgets exist and how many people want that widget. If there are more people than widgets – it’s expensive. If there are more widgets than people, it’s cheap. You get it.

Now that I’ve insulted your intelligence by crudely explaining supply and demand, let’s get to today’s real topic. Occasionally, a fantasy owner will decide they want to sell a specific player in a specific time period. In my observance, this usually leads to a suboptimal return. It’s always best to sell when there is peak demand for your asset. If you have to push the deal uphill, chances are you’re coming out on the wrong side of it. Reality has supplied us with a fantastic example.

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Team context is undoubtedly a huge factor in fantasy sports as the performance of the whole obviously correlates with the individuals. That doesn’t mean good players don’t reside on bad teams or that being on a 100-win team guarantees a player success, but you’re obviously not entering your drafts with an idea of loading up on Miami Marlins and Detroit Tigers, teams expected to struggle throughout 2018. As the league shifts to more of a haves/have nots phase with several rebuilds under way, you might find yourself crossing off a bunch of “have not” teams only to realize you’re cutting the pool too much to field the kind of teams you want. One team you might consider delving deeper on is the Atlanta Braves.

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Draft season has become a year-round endeavor for fantasy baseballers if so inclined. Usually the winter dotted with industry-based mocks that will appear in the magazines set to hit the shelves soon, but nowadays both NFBC and Fantrax get live leagues going so quickly that there’s barely any down time. I’ve done or am in the middle of a couple leagues of my own while also participating in a host of mocks and I’m noticing some early trends.

Trea Turner is a Top Fiver

When Sammy Reid and Doug Thorburn took Turner 4th overall in my AFL draft, I didn’t bat an eye and tipped my hat at their commitment to the 25-year old fantasy beast. I did think it’d be on the higher end of his upper range as I saw him settling in the back half of 15-team first rounders. Alas, they nailed it dead on as his current average draft position (ADP) is 4th overall. He’s even gone as high as 2nd overall, presumably behind Mike Trout.

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1/5/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 18, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER18!

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Solo episode where I discuss my first 11 picks in the “Beat Paul Sporer” league.

• Draft results

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Gazing right back at you is someone who relentlessly falls prey to the law of small numbers; to hindsight bias; to over-reaction; to narrow framing; to mental accounting; to status-quo bias; to the inability to evaluate your own future regret; and, most of all, to overconfidence. – Jason Zweig

I’ve been digesting all the literature on behavioral economics I can find as I stated in an article earlier this week. This focus area has gotten quite a bit of attention in the past few years with Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman each winning the Nobel Prize in economics for their work in this field. Thaler (Misbehaving) and Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow) have each written must-read books on the subject. I recommend both books, they are loaded with information. To give a brief induction into the various behavioral economic concepts and their application to fantasy baseball, I will utilize a speech given by the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Zweig on the subject.

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Entering the 2017 season, we were talking about two game changing trends – the home run surge and the 10-day disabled list. We’ve talked home runs to death. I think we all get it – players continued hitting record quantities of home runs. The 10-day disabled list also had a big impact on our fantasy games, and no team better exploited it than the Los Angeles Dodgers.

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Fantasy baseball slowly evolves and with the start of 2018, I’m going to focus on some topics in which savvy and unconventional owners could utilize against their competition. Some of these topics I’ve been contemplating and researching for a while, others are still just dust in the air. The following contains some ideas I hope to have a better understanding of by the year’s end and frame it so owners and utilize it. I’m not the only source of ideas. I’m 100% positive I’ve missed some simple useful topics and would love to research those in presented in the comments.

StatCast Batted Ball Data

As a baseball community, we’ve been slow to adapt and utilize StatCast batted ball information. Besides major league baseball employees, no one is leading the change. Part of the problem is having an easy to access database for everyone to use. That barrier is being removed as tools like Bill Petti’s baseball-r package can be used to help scrape the needed information from Baseball Savant.

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