Fantasy Conundrum: Depth At Replacement Level
Imagine you own a $20 outfielder. It’s pre-draft, and he’s the only player on your roster. He costs $20, and he’s projected to provide $20 of value. You’re offered a $17 shortstop who is projected to be worth $17. The projections properly account for position-adjusted replacement level. Would you take the trade?
No, right? You wouldn’t give me a dollar for three quarters, so why should you trade $20 for $17. Who cares about the positions, that’s supposedly included in the price.
Dig down another layer and you might consider the swap. It’s a $3 loss, but perhaps you can make up the ground in-draft. Shortstop is such a scarce position that we’re probably talking about trading the 20th best outfielder for the third best shortstop. Is losing $3 in a trade worth solving the fantasy nightmare known as shortstop?
Maybe this is an issue of replacement level. I said it’s included correctly, but maybe I’m wrong. This is where our little puzzle gets difficult. Replacement level at shortstop is ugly regardless of league type. In standard leagues, a replacement level outfielder can be better than most rostered shortstops. Especially if you have the flexibility to use guys situationally.
To put a name on it, let’s say Rajai Davis is a replacement level outfielder in your league. If you can afford to use him only against left-handed pitchers, the numbers that get counted for your team will be comparable to a MUCH better player. That opportunity is almost never available with shortstops. Try using Adeiny Hechavarria situationally.
Once we get right down to it, this seems to be a problem of replacement level depth. A 12-team, five outfielder league probably rosters about 75 outfielders overall. The same league might roster 24 shortstops. Let’s use Zach Sander’s end-of-season rankings to visualize how these replacement levels look.
Outfield
Shortstop
You can use a different methodology to get a different cohort of players, but the lesson is the same. Replacement level at shortstop is terrifying.
This premise is what we discussed in the comments of last week’s BATNA piece. And you know what, I’m mildly flummoxed. Intuitively, I believe that depth at replacement level matters. What I don’t know is how it should affect my dollar values. Should I be willing to squander $3 of value because outfield has more replacement level players?
There were 22 outfielders who provided between -$2 to $2 of value per Zach’s accounting. There were five such players at shortstop. And that’s ignoring situational value. Darin Ruf was a -$15 player. He also had a 156 wRC+ against left-handed pitchers. In other words, if you spot started Ruf in his handful of games against lefties, he was a star.
Ruf is also the 163rd ranked outfielder. There are 82 names between where I ended the above list and cherry picked Ruf’s name. Presumably, at least some of those 82 players have a situational use case. There are very few analogs among the shortstops. I see Javier Baez, Wilmer Flores, Jose Ramirez, Everth Cabrera, and Chris Owings.
What Now?
We’ve identified that outfield has a more robust replacement level than shortstop. There are more replacement level outfielders and they are more likely to provide leverageable, positive skills to your team. Replacement level shortstops offer few opportunities to leverage their talent, and most of them barely produce anything.
The range of depth at replacement level has us wondering (or at least me) if we would trade a $20 outfielder for a $17 shortstop simply to avoid the messy shortstop market. But if we’re willing to entertain trading $20 for $17, that must mean are valuations are wrong. I see a few possible solutions.
- Apply a replacement depth penalty to outfielder value
- Apply a replacement dearth bonus to shortstop value
- Ignore replacement depth entirely or else trust that it’s properly accounted
- Live with a world where $20 is sometimes equal to $17 in some weird, fringe cases
An important note about all of this: the decision to trade $20 for $17 invariably hinges on the user’s confidence. I know I can draft another $20 outfielder if I so desire. I can use the $3 I save in the trade to select three replacement level outfielders or one $3 outfielder. Even if we shift the scenario to a post-draft trade, I can simply go to the wire and focus on upside selections until one of them breaks out.
My question to you: do you include replacement level depth in your calculations? Replacement level is typically calculated by determining a hypothetical replacement quality performance and then anchoring it to $0. How would you also include depth in those calculations? Personally, I’m stumped.
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? Those dollar values should already have replacement level built in. The only thing you should consider is if you can use that extra $3 to get more than $3 worth of value, including the extra roster spot you need to use.
When I calculate replacement level, it’s a value. There’s no consideration of depth. If a position has more depth at replacement level, it changes how I view the position. Then factor in situational usage. Sometimes, a $0 player can be worth $5 if used only against lefties. There’s no easy way to account for if we correctly use a player situationally. That’s not reflected at all.
Firstly, this just means you have incorrectly calculated replacement level for OF. Ideally there is one player available at replacement level. You should recalculate your values with the actual replacements who are available once the season starts. Then you can know the real value of your assets.
Secondly, the situational (or better yet, bench SPs) thing is what I meant by getting more than 3$ of value from your 3$.
In Schechter’s book, he addresses the issue of how OF-replacement level is different from other positions.
To sum it up, because there are ~75 OFs rostered overall, you can assume (due to difference of opinion/projection) that six OF will be drafted who you didn’t have on your board. So he moves OF-replacement level up six spots from where he initially calculates it.
Other positions, with fewer rosterable guys, are less likely to have off-the-board guys selected by other teams.
You would never keep a guy pre-draft who is at-value. Second, in most leagues there needs to be no positional adjustments made except at the catcher position (in typically two-catcher leagues). A $2 OF will have the same value as a $2 SS or $2 1B or $2 2B.
That all said, if you were forced to keep one of the either the $17 SS or the $20 OF, I’d take the shortstop because there is greater possibility I will find an OF bargain later in the draft because of 1) the quantity of outfielders available and 2) the flexibility it provides if I need power or speed at the end of the draft. People will value $1-$6 guys differently, but its a lot easier to get a $6 outfielder for $1 than you would versus a shortstop.
A couple thoughts on this:
First, neither player provides any surplus value. So in that sense, the two players are of equal value. You’re not trading $20 for $17, you’re trading $20 for $17 and $3 to use elsewhere – in other words, $20 for $20.
Second, “replacement level” isn’t necessarily the best way to think about this. Rather, you want to think about your best alternative, and you can’t assume that replacement level is actually it. In an ottoneu league, for instance, there might be a dozen decent outfielders in the free agent auction, but only 2-3 shortstops you like as fantasy starters. If you think bidding on those guys will push them above where you value them, the $17 shortstop looks more valuable because you can’t replace that performance easily.
I think what you’re getting at with the idea of “replacement depth” is the intuitive idea that, regardless of the dollar values, you have better alternatives at OF than SS. If you don’t have the $17 shortstop, your best alternative might be overpaying in the draft or plugging the hole with a warm body and looking for surplus value somewhere else. If you don’t have the $20 outfielder, your best alternative is still probably a fair value in the draft, a couple of cheap breakout candidates, or a productive platoon – rarely are you going to be stuck just trotting a replacement-level guy with no upside out there every day.
Making use of that, however, requires a lot more research than just sticking a dollar value on a player. You need to really look at who’s available and try to figure out what your options actually are.
I use 4 “replacement” levels when I calculate position scarcity (I found this method online somewhere; I do not recall where). I use these ranked players for each position: 0.5*#starters, 1.0*#starters , 1.5*#starters, and 1.0*#owned. I find the difference between each player and each of these levels and sum them (I add only the positive values). I find this gives a better picture of the positional depth.
Interesting question. To spitball an answer, I wonder if it is in the nature of dollar values (real or fantasy) to fully account for a player’s value in context. That is to say, stats like WAR count up how much a player produces relative to replacement, and they can approximate how much such production is worth. The key, though is in the approximation, as players–or their replacement-level opportunity costs–may be differently valuable or detrimental in differently-constructed rosters. A speedy $20 OF may be worth more than $20 to your team if you need stolen bases and there are few alternatives. Or a well-rounded $17 SS may be worth more than $17 if you have to dig through the lower end of replacement level (as in, that probable -$2 range) for your backup. So I think making the trade has to be done on a case-by-case basis, because the players on your team may end up being more than the sum of their parts (by being platoonable), or less (by, perhaps, leaving stats on the table by running up the score in a particular category).
Since a draft is coming up, though, isn’t this a trade of a not-too-scarce $20 OF for a very-scarce $17 SS + $3, though? Without knowing the context of which other players are kept, I’d rather build around the SS.
When I used to do my own calculations for replacement level I would take the median value of the next 10 SS and 30 OF and use that as replacement level. Of course, this was for a 20 team league so SS got quite a bump, as did some SP. Works sometimes, the only problem is injury as so few SS make it through year. A team with a healthy C and SS in a deep league is almost top 5 by default so luck plays into it a lot too
Is it possible that we’re looking at this all wrong? Instead of looking at replacement levels and positional scarcity, should we be looking at the numbers we’ll need to win categories in roto or average weekly numbers to win categories in H2H? If we do that, then a team with all but the weakest positions being above replacement level, be better than one that has solid above average contributers at the weakest positions but also has replacement level OF’s and 1B?
If we can say that to place in the top 3 in your league that you’ll need 400 SB (just pulling these numbers out of my ass), you’ll need 400 HR, a .280 AVG, 700 R and 700 RBI. Then does it matter where you’re getting the production as long as you’re getting it? That $20 OF is probably going to outperform that $17 SS based on raw numbers. So, if you get enough production from other positions and let the weakest ones go until only replacement levels are left, wouldn’t you in theory have a better team? Only the top 2 or so C, SS, and 3B will perform as well as the top 5 or so 1B, and OF’s and many of them come with injury concerns. You could get Lucroy for $16 or you could get Duda for $16. Duda hit 17 more HR’s and drove in 23 more RBI, which has to outweigh Lucroy’s +.050 points in average. So, now let’s say that you have a budget of around $20 remaining (I’m not too worried about pennies here). You could have Lucroy and Chris Davis, or you could have Duda and Gattis. Lucroy and Davis combine for 39 HR, 138 R, 141 RBI, 6 SB and a .255 AVG. Duda and Gattis combined for 52 HR, 115 R, 144 RBI, 3 SB, and a .257 AVG. Is 23 R worth about as much as 13 HR?
Looking straight from replacement level and top of position levels, would you rather have 28 HR, 133 R, 146 RBI, 27 SB, .264 AVG or 36 HR, 134 R, 153 RBI, 13 SB, .295 AVG from your 1B/SS combo? Using end of season ranks, you’re looking at Desmond and Mauer vs V-Mart and Jeter. Right now Desmond and V-Mart are neck and neck on FantasyPros ADP board, and while Jeter is retired, the next lowest SS is Lowrie and the next highest is Bogaerts, both are going well below Mauer on the boards (176.5 vs 209.7 285.5)
Frankly, if I had to pick a pair, I’d go with a top 1B and a replacement level SS than to get the top SS and replacement level 1B. It just doesn’t seem to make any sense to me to go for positional scarcity first unless the player from the scarce position can put up numbers like a top 1B or OF. Guys like Tulo are worth the grab, but guys like Desmond aren’t. And if you’re doing an auction system, remember that Desmond produced less value than Werth (ADP 31.4 vs 85.4). So perhaps instead of focusing on replacement level players for positions and factoring scarcities, we should just be looking at what numbers we should be looking to beat and how to get there in the most efficient way possible.
I was posting my response before I saw yours and agree.
You’ve described the strategy perfectly in your last paragraph. BTW: I’ve played almost every format and usually finish 1st or 2nd. This will be my 20th year of fantasy baseball.
When I started back into fantasy baseball, I went with positional scarcity, but I also grabbed the very top talent at those positions. Now, with injuries and ineffectiveness killing me at C, 2B, 3B, and SS, not having a strong 1B and a injuries to my stud OF meant I had to shake somethings up in order to remain competitive. That meant trading away some of my favorite players, taking gambles on other guys with flexibility, and buying low on guys who were previously top players at their positions to try to stay in it. It helped, but I still finished poorly overall in stats. In H2H I just have to be better than the other team in a given week, and I was able to make it to the postseason for the fifth straight year since I joined the league. I’m hoping that bounce backs and improved health will be able to see my offensive numbers improve greatly over last year, but probably about as many question marks as I did going into last year.
isn’t the whole purpose of projected dollar values to say that a $20 1B and $15 SS will produce the same value as a $34 1B and $1 SS? If it doesn’t, then the dollar values aren’t correct.
Well, when I looked at costs for Lucroy and Davis vs Duda and Gattis (Duda and Gattis were about $1 more than Posey and Jones), Duda and Gattis look like they’re coming out slight winners by producing 13 more HR’s vs 23 R, the remaining differences are negligible. Then by looking at top SS, replacement 1B combo vs top 1B vs replacement SS, again the top 1B/replacement SS combo comes out slightly ahead. To account for the earnings difference between V-Mart and Desmond (31.47 vs 23.56), I looked at those guys by ADP, and the V-Mart, Lowrie/Bogaerts (because Jeter retired) are going later than Desmond/Mauer. But, if we did go by straight dollars earned, you could have Pujols (38.5 ADP) or Adrian Gonzalez (45.3) as your 1B, both beat out Desmond in every category but SB, and I’m confident that they could repeat their performances better than Desmond. In an environment where speed is often found on waivers and power is at a premium, Desmond’s 24 SB’s can be replaced by spot starting/platooning guys like Bonafacio to generate more overall value than Desmond can contribute on his own.
This is in part due to positions getting boosts due to positional scarcity. BTW, your question would end up being E5 and HanRam ($20.46 and $15.03) vs V-Mart and JJ Hardy ($31.47 and $3.57), or 47 HR, 139 R, 169 RBI, 16 SB .261 AVG vs 41 HR, 143 R, 155 RBI, 3 SB, .303 AVG or +6 HR, -4 R, +14 RBI, +13 SB, -.042 AVG for $.45 more, or about the difference between Billy Hamilton and Marcel Ozuna last year.
yes, if you use the ‘replacement’ level player that he’s talking about above. What the article discusses though is that perhaps the drop off in replacement level player is so great at certain positions that a further bump in value is warranted since if your SS goes down you may not get the exact replacement level player you may have to go down 3 or 4 notches which is much worse than taking the 4th or 5th replacement level OF.
Bill: There are around 3 or 4 guys on the replacement level chart for SS who all earned negative dollar value that either should go undrafted or could be picked up late in the draft and carry some fantasy upside. So while yes, it looks ugly from last year, there is some reason to be optimistic about some of those guys. We know that Ruteledge can be good, and that he’ll get playing time. Brad Miller has some upside, so does Cabrera if he gets a full time gig and sees his BABIP return to the .330’s, and Simmons has had pop in his bat as recently as two years ago. So, if one of Lowrie or Bogaerts goes down, there is some upside if you have to go digging around on waivers.
I think I’d prefer to have to deal with these guys than to have to deal with a Joe Mauer, Billy Butler, or Garrett Jones as my primary 1B, because if you can get enough elite or near elite talent at 1B, the three OF spots, and your UTIL spots, and don’t entirely flop on 2B and 3B, you should be able to get away with a one category producer as your SS or even a guy who can add some counting stats, just not a lot. Which makes reaching for a SS that isn’t going to produce absolutely elite numbers when compared to the best hitters in the game not really worth it.
EXACTLY. Raw numbers count. Period. That’s why systems that perseverate on distributions will lead people astray.
this is why z-score, or whatever moniker zach plagiarized it into is not a useful method for valuation.
It is a dilemma….and shortstop is a black hole.
Postional scarcity is a big deal, but whether or not you make a decision to give up a $20 outfielder for a $17 shortstop depends on the rest of your roster, who may be available as free agents/prospects near MLB ready, how long you can keep a player, the age and injury history, etc.
What is the value of the SS currently owned? I don’t think it’s as simple as $20 vs. $17 especially in a keeper/dynasty league.
I tanked shortstop (by choice) in our initial keeper draft based on our league’s scoring and rules. The results of my projection system built for our league concluded after you got past the players in the top 2 tiers (a short list and often injured) you could put the rest of the names in a bag and most likely get similar results. I didn’t spend a lot on catchers either for the same reason. Instead, I put the money into the other infield positions and OF and nailed it.
That said, $3 is not a big gap to make up particularly with the plethora of OF’s and I would give serious consideration to a trade depending on some of the factors mentioned above.
I’ve used Zach Sander’s method to produce my fantasy rankings and values for the past couple of years. By his method, a positional adjustment is used to identify replacement level (the last player picked) at each position. As I understand it, this means positional scarcity, or depth, is built into the dollar values.
To me I don’t think another adjustment is necessary, but I do have to sit down and figure out a strategy including a number of situational factors, including depth. To me this just comes down to draft strategy and I haven’t figured out a good way to bake it into the numbers. Given the choice between a $20 OF with many good options left on the board and a $17 SS with few options left on the board, I’d usually choose the SS, but there are a lot of other things to weigh, including what I know of my league mates and how they draft.
If I understand this article correctly, I think its right that valuation methods don’t spit out an ideal draft strategy based on positional depth, they simply value players based league settings. This is where draft strategy comes in to help make sense of the numbers. I know some who try to change player values to account for their draft strategy, which is maybe what the article is getting at, but I usually don’t do this since I like knowing exactly where I value players in the draft room.
Does anyone here change pre-season player values based on situational factors, or draft strategy? How do you do it?
To answer your questions: Yes. Manually.
I’ll arbitrarily change a couple player values (i.e. Carrasco) based on something I see rather than relying on projections. Often, that applies to platoonable, back of the roster types. The other scenario is with players like Zobrist or Harrison. It’s hugely valuable to be able to replace an injury with the best position player on the wire rather than focusing on one position.
75 OF to 24 SS seems like an unrealistic ratio. I just did a 15 team NFBC auction where there were 94 OF’s drafted and 24 SS’s. That seems more reasonable.
The OF depth is thinned out by the fact that some have dual eligibility and are used in IF spots (Trumbo, Moss, Harrison, Zimmerman, Pearce, Morse, Alcantara) and some are used in UTIL spots. Whereas not a single SS is used in the OF (even if they’re eligible there, like Zobrist and Santana), and it’s extremely rare for a SS to be used at UTIL.
Among the top 25 replacement players by dollar value for the aforementioned 15 team league, there are 6 OFs and 7 SSs. I only add a positional adjustment for catcher, so this is just a raw value comparison for SS and OF. Also you have to figure the chances of a team having an OF being injured are almost 5 times as great as a team’s SS being injured since there are 5 times as many roster spots that require OF eligibility.
So really, there is amply supply of replacement shortstops that are every bit as good as the replacement OFs. And typically, a lot more replacement OFs will be needed. This is league dependent, and in shallower leagues like standard ESPN 10 teamers, or in leageus that don’t use any utility spots, then yes, SS might need a value boost. But it’s just not the case in standard 12 or 15 team leagues.
The willingness to trade a $20 outfielder for a $17 does not necessarily mean the valuations of the players are wrong. The $3 is more could be “convenience fee” to not have to deal with the SS situation. Is the extra money spent worth it?
I view the question somewhat differently than it is framed in either the article or previous comments, in that I don’t think it’s unique to replacement level.
Replacement level valuation systems poorly account for distribution at any point in the value spectrum. Intuitively, it seems there must be a difference between a position where values (pre- or post-positional adjustments) are bell-curve shaped, top-heavy or bottom-heavy. Specifically (albeit hypothetically), if a replacement-level 2B and SS are worth the same amount, but 2B has 11 elite options and one dreg while SS has one superstar and 11 dregs, you would be better off drafting the elite SS instead of one of the elite 2Bs. Replacement-level valuations don’t capture this intuition.
That said, I’ve been stumped for years as to how to capture this into valuations. It seems like some incorporation of a positional average should do the trick; happy to hear any ideas out there…
What if the first 10 picks are the elite 2B? Obviously you have to take a look at what is actually available when you make your pick. I like to have a list showing the best players available at each position, then first to fourth or fifth order drop offs (depending on league size). Makes it fairly easy to decide, you can generally be confident that no more than 3 guys will be taken from a single position in a single round in a 10 team draft.
What do you mean by “account for distribution at any point in the value spectrum”?? I see the argument sometimes along the lines of, “there’s a dropoff after the top 4 shortstops, so you need to grab one of those” and those types of arguments just make no sense to me. The distribution within the positive player pool is really irrelevant. For replacement players, yeah like you said, the distribution matters, but to me, it’s only minimal. Chances that a) my SS will get injured, b) the replacement shortstops in my valuation are the actual ones that are on waivers are both very unlikely to happen at the same time. In reality, others value players differently than me, and a few guys I think should have been drafted are on waivers, and a few scrubs I don’t like at all get drafted. And I likely will not need a replacement shortstop, anyway, and if I do it’s for a short period of time that really is of little consequence.
Lets look at how much value I can get from a replacement shortstop: Maybe I have a 1 in 3 chance of my SS going on the DL. How many replacement games will I need? If it’s a 30 day DL stint, that’s around 27 games. What’s the value difference between the #1 replacement SS and say, a scrubby 5th best replacement shortstop? $5 in value maybe between those two? So: (0.33 odds for needing replacement) x (27 games / 162 games) x ($0 – -$5) = $0.28. So in that case, a $0 value replacement player is realistically worth 28 cents more to me than a -$5 replacement player. Those numbers are all made up, but I think it’s safe to say the value doesn’t even get close to $3 in any situation.
So, we have uncertainty that the players we predict will be the ones available for replacement purposes, and even if we could predict it, we’d only be getting 28 cents of value on average. There’s just not much reason to worry too much about replacement player distribution. The way I do it, is I don’t even look at the actual replacement players. I just bump up the value of each position until there are enough for every lineup slot in the positive player pool, and the last guy is worth a buck. I don’t do replacement level by stats individually, I do every player’s dollar value above the last player picked. Almost always, that just means adding value to catchers and leaving everybody else as-is. The CI/MI/UTIL spots do a very good job of buffering positional scarcity to the point that it doesn’t exist, and that the replacement players at each position are relatively equal.
Let’s look at what you are actually giving up.
Average line from the outfielders:
10.2 HR, 45.3 R, 41.9 RBI, 7.2 SB, .254 AVG
Average line from the SS:
5.4 HR, 40.9 R, 33.9 RBI, 8 SB, .243 AVG
So, the average replacement level SS costs you 4.8 HR, 4.4 R, 8 RBI, and .011 AVG, while gaining you 0.8 SB.
I don’t think it is enough of a difference to worry about.
And that’s if you use the replacement player for an entire season, rather than the 2-3 weeks they are usually needed to fill in during a DL stint.
Exactly. And that you don’t use SOME strategy in selecting a player to shore up weak categories.
Unfortunately, the roster to begin a season is not the one we have at the end. Players get injured or disappoint. What then? Who is on the waiver wire?
If you have a ton invested in Tulo and he goes down, you cannot replace that value at SS. You paid the “great SS premium” and are burned, right?
On the other hand, you invest in a solid OF, and he goes down. You may be able to replace most of his value off of the waiver wire. The “good OF premium” is pretty small. This was not a catastrophe.
Rule 1: don’t allocate your money to anybody that is brittle. Stick with a record of health – combined with consistent solid numbers.
Rule 2: to avoid paying a large premium that is wasted by injury, only do so for positions where good quality replacements are readily available. In other words, get a steady, young middle IF with upside potential. Take a cheap gamble here and be vigilant to notice who else emerges as better cheap production. If you invest small, you can only lose small, but if you are smart/lucky, still can win big. Take the 2B/SS savings and bet on sure things.
If you grab the SS early:
1. Replacement level OF will have more of an impact on your total teams stats.
2. OF has more options so you can better select a player that fits your team
i.e. Need power – grab Trumbo Need speed grab Bonafacio
3. It is easier to platoon OF as opposed to SS
If you wait on SS:
1. Less reliant on a replacement player for total stats.
2. Less risk if the SS gets hurts.
3 More reward if you find the right player.
You run into scarcity in the oddest places. Last year, in my NL only league, I spent $10 on Yonder Alonso at the draft. When he got hurt early, I could find no replacements (I had a 3B only in my CI spot) – Travis Ishikawa spent a lot of time on my time getting no PT.
When he went down at the end of the year, my 1B because DJ Lemahieu, who had been dropped by someone who couldn’t change in SB.
I wouldn’t have guessed that replacement level for 1B in my league was an empty roster spot…
Once you cross the zero value point for any scoring category, then the math should change – esp for the ratio categories.
A player with negative value in a category needs to be compared not to some ‘replacement’ player – but to leaving the slot unfilled. For some positions like SS where most players are 4 or 5 category suck, this tends to lead to ‘targeting’ anti-playing time guys – utility guys, pinch runners, late-inning defensive replacements.
A surprising number of them do have scarce position eligibility. And while you may lose ground in counting stats, it will at least partially be offset by ground you don’t lose in ratio stats. Far more important, since these draftees have absolutely no value to anyone who’s looking at projections based on playing time, you can dump them easily for the new hot thang on the waiver wire and pick them back up a week later if need be. That in-season flexibility does have some serious league winning value since few/no competitive leagues are won on draft day.
I’ve never had the guts to actually punt the entire position of SS (in part because I do assign big position scarcity value to the rare ones who have positive value), but I may do it some time (maybe in a league with MI slot) just to experiment
I dont know if there is a league where I’d ever punt a SS if one was available. The BA hit will be minimal, especially if it’s not a full time player, and the counting stats probably outweigh it
I agree OT, the potential of contributing SOMETHING to four out of the five typical fantasy cats is much more beneficial than trying to negate any loss to your AVG. For pitchers, I can see getting MR’s to fill in for SP’s when needed as they typically have decent rate stats and can add some K’s, the odd W, and maybe a SV here and there.
i think variance plays a much bigger role than anyone has talked about. you can go with either strategy, but if one of the guys gets hurt in either scenario, your plan is foiled. they don’t even need to get hurt, they could simply under-perform or be struck down by the BABIP gods.
This is why position flexibility is HUGE. A guy like Zobrist might not be the best play, or even a great play, at the all of the positions that he’s eligible for, but he can sure as hell save your team when the injury bug strikes. This started to kill me last year when I didn’t have enough depth to cover the variety of injuries and generally ineffective players that I had to deal with and it forced me to make some big time trades to try to keep up.
Well, huge insomuch as it may get you an extra 50 cents or $1 profit over the course of a year. It’s not a deal breaker. But it’s a nice convenience.
Skni Blues, I think you may be ignoring some pretty substantial opportunity costs. I typically have extra outfield depth. If I lose an infielder, I’ll usually drop an outfielder or cut my pitcher streaming spot. In one league, the outfielder on the chop block was Charlie Blackmon (early April edition). If I had been able to keep him by repurposing somebody like Zobrist, I would have made a tidy profit on the trade market in May.
I saw someone briefly mention it before, but I use an average of the bottom 4 guys to consider “replacement level”. Between eligibility and the non-precise nature of determining replacement level anyway I figure its better to hedge my bets with an average of the bottom 15-18 in each category (if 16 SS are rostered in my league). If there are 4 guys that all provide similar value (as in the OF) then replacement level will reflect that. If there is a huge cliff as soon as we move past the rosterable crowd, that will also be reflected here.
Probably not the high tech statistical answer people are looking for, but for me at least it passes the eye test.