League Depth Affects Prospect Value
This winter, I’ve gotten in the habit of running polls about interesting trades in my patron dynasty league DTBNL. It’s a 25-team, keep-30 format. It’s a certified “deep league.” There are deeper leagues of the 30-team variety, but they are rare. By virtue of these polls, I’ve noticed some apparent misconceptions about prospect value in ultra-deep settings.
Yesterday, for an unknown league, Shelly Verougstraete ran a poll pitting Trevor Bauer against Jeter Downs, Taylor Trammell, and Josiah Gray.
Who would you rather have?
— Shelly 'First Rate' Verougstraete (@ShellyV_643) January 30, 2020
UPDATE: Shelly reminded me that this is what the Reds actually traded for Bauer. So a 30-team, extra-mega-deep format.
I asked for more context, but it wasn’t offered. In my opinion, I’ll take Bauer 10 times out of 10 in a 12-team or shallower format. Equilibrium is probably around 14 or 16 teams. Add any more competitors and I’d start to increasingly prefer the prospect side of the equation.
These are opinions rather than exact science, and there are ways to torture those league types into shapes where my initial reactions would not hold true even just for myself. I might as well admit now, I can’t conceptualize how to form the math required to definitively prove a given prospect gains value relative to major league players as league depth increases. This is just a belief I have chosen to accept into my heart.
So I ran my own follow-up poll.
Doing a poll about a poll. How deep does a dynasty league need to be for Trevor Bauer = Jeter Downs, Taylor Trammell, and Joe Gray?
— Brad Johnson (@BaseballATeam) January 31, 2020
Curiously, the early results seem to indicate a strikingly wide range of opinions. I’ll offer a very generalized version of my thought process.
In a shallow format, prospects are a dime a dozen. Even elite guys like Vladito, Wander Franco, Julio Rodriguez, and Jasson Dominguez pop up at a rate of at least one per season. Further, the pop-up types who go on to be useful major league players tend to be entirely overlooked. In short, the massive supply of prospect depth makes me willing to trade any number of Jeter Downses for a major leaguer I covet.
As we start to ponder the deeper 14- and 16-team variants – i.e. leagues that run a 30-man or more minor league roster – we’re getting to a point where there is at least some challenge to printing prospects on a yearly basis.
This becomes legitimately difficult by the time we reach the 20-team plateau. The larger number of teams means the black hole gravity of rebuilding is all the stronger. More participants fill their roster nearly entirely with uncouth children playing in whatever passes for sandlots in 2020. This effect grows as more teams are added to the league.
In short, prospect supply becomes scarce. Demand is extreme. Apply your knowledge of economics to the previous two statements.
Meanwhile, I tend to find that unless a league is carefully designed to prevent this, the major league player pool is basically unaffected by league depth after around 16- or 18-teams. Nearly every additional rostered player is a prospect. Sure, you might find the odd Ivan Nova shift from permanent waiver fodder to occasional streamer, but they’re the exception rather than the rule.
What I’ve found while running the aforementioned polls is that at least a loud minority of respondents do not adjust their thinking to account for league depth. Tell them a prospects-for-MLBer trade happened in a 25-team league, and they’ll still hit you with their best 12-team-adjusted take.
There’s a corollary to this. If prospect value spikes as league depth increases, then it follows that ordinary, young major leaguers should also receive a blast of value. I’m looking at you 24-year-old Willy Adames.
Who was the worst young regular in the league these last few years? Probably Orlando Arcia. He’s been a nice little core performer for deep dynasty purposes just by virtue of volume and the promise of a long career. His is a worst case scenario outcome for this asset class. And would anybody really be surprised if he turned into a passable performer at his next stop. He’s still younger than half the 2019 rookie class.
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It’s a really interesting article.
I play in a 20-team, 25-keeper h2h league (with 30 roster spots, 5 IL spots, and 5 NA/minors spots). I’ve done pretty well to this point, but I’m still not 100% confident in my approach to the yearly redraft and weighing trade offers for the reasons you stated.
I’m pretty sure she was referring to Josiah Gray, not Joe Gray.
Also, aren’t SP a fickle position and fluctuate a ton? You can find a ton of value waiting on SP in drafts that will out perform Bauer, or Bauer could repeat last season and be bad again. But I agree those prospects in 12 tm or smaller are useless unless roster size is massive.
FWIW, I thought Shelly was referring to real life value when she posted the question, not fantasy. I vote prospects 10 out of 10 in that context.
Yes, that is who I meant fwiw.
Good article, really like the premise agnostic of the particulars.
Would love to see two extra options on future polls like this though, to weed out some noise-voters on either end. “I would never give up X for these prospects.” and “I would never give up prospects for X.” They’re both wrong, but at least they don’t pollute the results by dumping them into legitimate buckets.
Twitter limits it to 4 choices and that’s not enough buckets.
20 tm 45 man vs. 20 tm 30MLB/40MILB plays so differently
So does Mookie Betts = Julio Rodriguez, Jordyn Adams, Alex Thomas, Tyler Freeman and Xavier Edwards?
Well… how deep is the league?
40 man keep forever. 14 teams
I would say yes to the prospect side, assuming it’s 50 man roster or more. Also, depending on cost. Assume the vet costs more?
10 team, full dynasty (no salaries). 40 MLB players…80 minor leaguers, incl amateurs.
The x factor here is that prospects are unknown quantities. In every prospect oriented league (of variable sizes) I’ve been a part of there’s always a contingent that overvalues prospects because they *could* be great, regardless of real life metrics.
So in your Wily Adames example, let’s say you offer to trade for a prospect who grades out as equal or even lesser value. Most managers would never make that trade because their prospect could still turn out to be better than expected, while Adames has supposedly shown what he’s capable of.
This is a misconception I try to capitalize on whenever possible. For example, someone didn’t keep Jorge Soler last season and he got passed over for a good two rounds before I happily snagged him. I’d argue that those prospect busts have so little to no perceived value add that they are the biggest market inefficiency in these leagues.
The other key factor in prospect valuation is the state of a team. If you’re years away from contention, even fringe prospects can seem more valuable than a quality player who’ll either fade or retire by the time your window hits. Other managers recognize this and it severely deflates your trade power if you’re stuck with some rebuilding years in your future.
I only play “extra-mega-deep” at this point. I’m in a 30-teamer and two 28-teamers (28 because no interleague), all HTH with salary caps, assigned arb contracts, and roughly 1800-2500 players “rostered”. I’d been playing fantasy baseball dating back to the old 4×4 roto days but after three decades of 10-16 team leagues, I went “extra-mega-deep” and haven’t gone back.
In my leagues, roughly 23-25 teams would have preferred the spec side. The only teams that would have preferred the Bauer side are those that are in win-now mode. If you have legitimate expectations of being in the LCS, Bauer is the choice. Because you only get one of those years every 7 or 8 seasons, and you’ve got to make them count. When you’re in leagues where you can expect to make the World Series three times in your adult life, you push in the chips. Rest of the time, specs all the way.