Archive for What Went Wrong

It is time to look back on my season to see what worked and what didn’t. I had planned on just doing this Debby Downer article on what didn’t go right but it was depressing so tomorrow there will be an article full of humble brags and self-back pats. For today, it’s time for a beatdown.

Too much in a single player (a.k.a. the Luis Robert experience)

Tanner Bell and I shared nine draft-and-hold leagues and had the insane “luck” of drafting last in three of them. We liked Robert’s power-speed combination so we kept picking him there to the tune of five times. That was way too much exposure to a single player.

Tanner was on the BaseballHQ podcast with Patrick Davitt and one of his hitter banes was Robert. I commented on him bashing Robert and here was his response.

Tanner is about as calm as it gets and it is a rarity to see him get that worked up. We had Robert in over half our leagues and constantly battled from behind.

Simply, we had too many resources devoted to a single top-round pick. It was tough at the end of the first to diversify (ended up with Ozzie Albies and Bryce Harper, great) but we needed to limit our exposure to a single star.

A lack of diversification isn’t as much of an issue later in the draft, where players are likely headed to the wire at some point during the season.

The other issue with Robert is that I had blinders on for guys with steals and didn’t look at other options. Here are my rankings from my last draft.

Oh look, I have Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez ranked higher than Robert and I didn’t draft any Judge or Alvarez. None. While Judge and Alvarez did have some injury risk (so did Robert) and were projected as just four-category guys (I know Judge stole some bases), so I was off. Even though I plan on drafting fewer leagues next year (later topic), I need to diversify my top six to 10 picks (I’m not sure how many) hoping for Judge-like breakouts or not having my season riding on one player.

Lack of Power

I struggled for power in all my leagues. I have gotten to the point of ignoring Runs and RBI on draft day knowing I can stream them. There was no streaming for home runs this season. For reference, here are my overall percentile standings in NFBC leagues with an overall competition.

Here are the average of the percentile finishes:

Stat: Rank
Runs: 76%
HR: 54%
RBI: 77%
SB: 70%
AVG: 80%
K: 84%
W: 65%
SV: 69%
ERA: 56%
WHIP: 60%

Even with my home runs near 50%, I was able to push my Runs and RBI almost to 80%. If only I had a bit more power. I knew this deficiency was going to be an issue about a month into the season but I just couldn’t correct it. In the Main Event, we quit focusing on it and pushed all in for stolen bases and batting average.

Two issues were the cause: I expected the juiced ball to stay but it disappeared along with many 20 HR hitters (102 in 2021, 71 in 2022). Additionally, I just didn’t add enough power bats with too much of a focus on speed and batting average) and when I did, I missed (see: Jesús Sánchez).

I need to settle on a power metric that doesn’t matter what type of ball major league baseball is using that season.

Way Too Many Leagues

Over the past few years, I’ve kept adding leagues as the industry invitations and my bankroll have increased. I even took it a step further and agreed to manage a few leagues. It ended up doing 13 draft-and-holds and 17 FAAB leagues. Even typing it out seems like an insane number. It was way too many!

The volume cost me on two fronts. I don’t think I was able to concentrate on each league, especially at the season’s end. For most of the season, I just tried to add as many stats as possible, but when each league and opponent needed to be scrutinized in detail, the time commitment ballooned.

Here are some close calls:

In this league, I missed out on over $7000 in prizes by losing this close batting average race.

In TGFBI, I could have been the overall winner with just one more Win.

In my auction championship with Tanner Bell, we held onto a second-place tie but just a little bit here-or-there would have helped.

In the NFBC Online Championship, I managed two teams that ended up in the top 20. Each Win was worth around 50 points, so picking up one or two over the course of the season would have made a huge difference.

While it was nice to have more horses in the game, I think it cost me in the long run. I’m going to cut back on the number and concentrate on leagues with higher entry fees. Also, I might consider dropping one or two industry leagues. Finally, I’m going to rely on best ball leagues (zero in-season management) to fill my preseason draft itch.

Cross-off or acknowledge similar players (Myles Straw rule)

In the Tout Wars auction, I had all the speed I wanted when Myles Straw came up for auction. I wasn’t completely off Straw (even though he fell on his face) because Tout Wars is an on-base league.

I didn’t need a speed source at all. I needed a well-rounded power bat and I was grinding for home runs the entire season.

Auctions, especially in dollar days can be a little chaotic, but I need to cross off any rabbits once I feel I have enough speed.

It’s time for the final installment of “Why We Missed”. The breakout pitchers and hitters are done along with the disappointing pitchers so it’s time to dive into hitting busts.

To determine who disappointed, I collected the information on any hitters who saw more than a $10 decline in value from their draft-day price. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. I only analyzed the hitters who had a positive draft day value.
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After looking at the pitchers and hitters who exceeded expectations, it was time to examine the players who didn’t live up to their ADP. I had a good idea this list would be loaded with pitchers who missed a ton of time and I was correct. Of the 48 pitchers featured, 39 spent time on the IL at some point last season.

To determine who disappointed, I collected the information on any pitcher who saw more than a $10 decline in value from their draft-day price. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. I just analyzed the pitchers who had a positive draft day value.

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A couple of weeks back, I examined why the industry might have missed on some breakout hitters. It was tough to find anything actionable with the hitting breakouts. It’s now time to see any useful information that can be extracted from the pitching side.

I collected the information on any pitcher who finished the season with positive production in a 15-team league and saw more than a $10 jump in value from their draft-day price. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. In all, 46 pitchers made the cut

There were several more categories than hitters butseveral are actionable. One item I ran into was an issue with where to draw a line with the change. Bradley Newman pointed out the mechanical changes Giolito went through to see his production drastically improve.

https://twitter.com/PhillyStars27/status/1187056648877154305

The changes were the root cause but if his plate discipline stayed the same, the adjustments wouldn’t have mattered. Also, it’s tough for the average fan to find out about these adjustments in real-time. The linked article was taken from late-May after Giolito was already universally owned. It was useless for any fantasy owner.
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Note: For my next few articles, I’m going to examine the hitters and pitchers who underperformed and overperformed in 2019. Each article may spawn off others since some areas may need to be explored in more detail. After performing horribly in 2019, I need to take take a hard look at why I missed last season and what I can do to improve.

I’m going to start with the one player class every owner hopes to hit on, breakout hitters. A couple of these cheaply acquired star hitters can help carry a team. It could be a prospect turned uber-prospect (e.g. Pete Alonso) or just a hitter displaying new skills (e.g. Ketel Marte). I’m going to dig into the reason these breakouts were not draft-day targets and look for any common themes.

To get the test subjects, I ran our auction calculator for end-of-season production and then compared the auction dollars to the values created from their ADP. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. Using this method, I found 62 hitters who outperformed their value by $10 or more.
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2018 was undoubtedly a disappointing season for Joey Votto. After pairing his high average, high OBP production with the second highest home run total of his career (36) in 2017, Votto saw his full-season home run total drop below 20 for the first time. And it wasn’t just the home runs that disappeared. Votto posted the lowest slugging percentage (.419) and ISO (.135) of his career.

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It was easy to mock the Padres signing of Eric Hosmer to an 8-year $144 million deal. It’s a real possibility that literally everyone outside the key decision makers in the Padres front office believed that it was a bad deal. After his first season, the doubters are up 1-0. He posted the second lowest wOBA of his career and lowest since 2012. This after coming off his best career mark, meaning that his wOBA plummeted an exorbitant 0.67 points. Since you’re generally paying a first baseman for his offense, a .309 wOBA simply doesn’t cut it. So what went wrong?

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The fantasy community expected big things from Willson Contreras in 2018. While Gary Sanchez was the consensus No. 1 catcher overall on draft day, Contreras was usually the second or third catcher off the board, getting drafted roughly on a par with Buster Posey. In 2017 — Contreras’ first full season in the majors — he helped owners with batting average (.276), home runs (21) and RBIs (74), which is a rare combination for a catcher. If not for missing time with a hamstring injury and an oddly-low total of 50 runs, he would have offered even more.

As a 25-year-old set to hit in the heart of a potent Cubs lineup, Contreras seemed like nearly a sure thing to finish the 2018 season as one of the top three catchers in fantasy. Even with Sanchez and Posey struggling, Contreras wound up ranking just 11th in Roto value (per ESPN), three spots behind Posey.
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Brian Dozier entered the 2018 season as one of the most stable power-speed options in the game. Among the 17 players with at least 50 HR and 50 SB from 2014-17, his 194 HR+SB placed him fourth behind only Jose Altuve (226), Mike Trout (216), and Charlie Blackmon (204). He only hit .254 during that four-year run, but 2016-17 were his two best seasons during the run and he actually hit .269 in those two seasons.

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Months ago – possibly sometime late July to mid-August – Bill James tweeted about Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa. The topic: that anybody who had preferred Correa to Bregman entering this season was a fool. James was talking in a real baseball sense, but I’m sure the thought would have extended to fantasy baseball.

In response, I took a quick peek at both players’ priors, ignoring their 2018 production altogether. I determined they were roughly four win players. So, this being on twitter*, I called out James with my evidence. In short, it was possible to prefer Bregman, but Correa’s longer track record and similar projection were seemingly favorable. James called me a dumdum in response – the worst kind of sphere-shaped lollipop. That was the extent of his rebuttal.

*One thing you gotta love about Twitter… I, a glorified blogger, can walk up to Bill James, a founding father of sabermetrics, and tell him he’s wrong. And receive a banal retort in response.

More recently, I’m seeing a growing tide of people lamenting the mistake of selecting Correa in the late-first round of 2018 drafts. His downfall, despite being caused by a new injury(s), was somehow predictable. As far as I’m concerned, my colleagues are drawing the wrong conclusion.

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