Mock Draft: Punting Average
I participated in a 12-team mixed mock draft last night hosted by Baseball Digest Daily. I had the 10th pick and my strategy going in was to punt AVG and draft starting pitchers earlier than I normally would. My roster ended up like this:
Tim Lincecum (ADP 12)
Ian Kinsler (15)
Jason Bay (26)
Justin Verlander (44)
Nelson Cruz (64)
Carlos Pena (75)
Matt Wieters (96)
Gordon Beckham (94)
Ubaldo Jimenez (104)
Jay Bruce (118)
Carlos Marmol (139)
Elvis Andrus (158)
Carlos Gonzalez (122)
Scott Baker (155)
Brett Anderson (170)
Julio Borbon (187)
Chad Qualls (220)
Adam LaRoche (231)
Casey McGehee (221)
Mike Gonzalez (188)
Russ Branyan (computer problems and it went to auto pick – 217)
Homer Bailey (279)
Carlos Santana (320)
Punting AVG is something I never do in real drafts and I was pleasantly surprised by the offense I was able to amass. In hindsight I think perhaps I drafted Wieters and Marmol too high but I am pretty happy with the upside that this team possesses. Of course by punting AVG you also run the risk of finishing near the bottom in R, which would probably go a long way to determining the success of the strategy.
For those in the crowd who do punt AVG, please weigh in with your wisdom on what needs to be done to make this strategy successful.
Well, lots of those guys aren’t even necesserily going to hurt your average….other than Carlos Pena I don’t really see anyone who’s a lock to have a bad average…nice draft.
Thanks R M.
While there may not be many anchors, very few of these players project to be average for their position in AVG.
Using the Bill James projections, only two of these players are going to have an AVG over .290 — Wieters and Borbon. Three in the .280s, Six in the .270s, one in the .260s, one in the .240s and one in the .230s.
Some of the young players could certainly improve on these but it wouldn’t surprise me if Wieters didn’t hit .311 or Bobon hit .308, either.
I just don’t think a .275 AVG is going to finish higher than 10-11 in a competitive league.
You absolutely cannot punt categories in roto. finishing last in a category means you need to do more than “marginally” compensate in the other categories. Usually categories are distributed in tiers. You rarely have a 12-way near-tie; the needed gains to jump more than 1-2 spots in a ranking than where you would otherwise be is much harder than “punt and compensate.”
The idea of roto is to create a balanced team and then exploit your advantages; the notion of punting creates such an imbalance that any faulter in another category can be fatal
That is not necessarily true. It depends on how competitive your league is. If you are in a keeper league where lots of teams dump early and you end up with a lot of “haves” and “have nots”, you will have a lot of trouble punting a catagory and winning. But you can do very well in leagues that are very competitive and don’t have as much spread in the standings.
R1 P3 3B Alex Rodriguez, NYY
R2 P10 3B Mark Reynolds, ARI [1B]
R3 P3 SP CC Sabathia, NYY
R4 P10 OF Josh Hamilton, TEX
R5 P3 2B Dan Uggla, FLA
R6 P10 1B Carlos Pena, TB
R7 P3 OF Michael Bourn, HOU
R8 P10 SP Tommy Hanson, ATL
R9 P3 RP Francisco Cordero, CIN
R10 P10 OF Carlos Gonzalez, COL
R11 P3 3B Ian Stewart, COL [2B]
R12 P10 RP Carlos Marmol, CHC
R13 P3 C Geovany Soto, CHC
R14 P10 SP David Price, TB
R15 P3 1B Todd Helton, COL
R16 P10 SS Elvis Andrus, TEX
R17 P3 SP Joba Chamberlain, NYY
R18 P10 OF Julio Borbon, TEX
R19 P3 RP Kerry Wood, CLE
R20 P10 SP Ricky Romero, TOR
R21 P3 RP Octavio Dotel, PIT
R22 P10 C Buster Posey, SF
R23 P3 SP Madison Bumgarner, SF
I did that one over at mockdraftcentral.com with this same strategy a few days ago. I had the 3rd pick. Scoring was Yahoo style, 12 teams, 9P, CI, MI. I really like how it turned out.
Yahoo’s ranking system is messed up. As much as I love me some Julio Bourbon, he’s ranked #113. Thats a top 10 pick. Wayyyy to high
Same w/ Andrus, actually. Yahoo is Chris Davising them
And Chris Davis is going undrafted or drafted by me in the last round of almost all of the Yahoo drafts I do. Their ranks are very poor.
Some closers with the starting job (Jenks) are going undrafted too because they are so low on the rankings.
Agreed. Anyone know where to get the full Y! rankings? I’ve got ESPN’s top 200, but can’t find the comparable in a composite list on yahoo. I’m trying to compare MDC-Y!-ESPN rankings by ADP
I don’t think there is an easy download for Y! rankings. I was hoping someone would do an MDC/Y!/ESPN analysis to see where the large scale points of divergence are. You might need to copy/paste hitters and pitchers into an Excel doc and resort.
I’ve made fun of Y!’s rankings for some time now, it always seemed like it was four or five guys chomping cigars arbitrarily making them up. But the 2010 numbers are surprisingly good, several of my unsexy projected quasi-sleepers are ranked well by their system, much to my frustration. Andrew McCutchen at 60 is crazy though.
Just finished doing this for Yahoo and MDC. The results will shock you. Does anyone here want the results? I will be posting them on our blog March 10, after both of my money leagues draft.
Until then, email jegross2@gmail.com with the subject “Draft Rankings” (so i know it isnt spam) and I will email you the Y!/MDC/ESPN rankings and comparisons. I have the top 300 for yahoo and MDC, but only top 200 for ESPN.
My comparisons use MDC as the “free market baseline” and MDC rankings are from monday, Feb. 15.
On a side note, god bless excel for this function which lets you pirate non-excel charts from websites. It made doing this so much more tolerable
Punting Average won’t hurt your runs if you’re nabbing a bunch of high OBP, low AVG guys like ryan howard, adam dunn, etc.
By punting AVE you also wind up without many steals. I know, elvis and julio are fast and everyone loves those guys (why is elvis getting drafted but everth isnt, btw?) , but you would need more speed than two unproven guys. Nelson Cruz and CarGo can swipe 20 each, but youl need at least one speed demon to pair with that to get better than your league’s average steals per team. By punting ave, you may be indirectly punting R’s and SB’s as well.
Yahoo will update their rankings every week or so. So dont get wound up in early seaon ranks – their mock draft has only been up less than a week. Keep Chris Davis low so I can take him late I say.
Thanks Max.
Ian Kinsler stole 31 bases last year and even Jason Bay had 13. This team won’t win SB but it should be above average if Borbon plays a full season.
I think people are more excited about Elvis Andrus because he had a better reputation in the minors. Plus, it’s hard to ignore that Andrus might hit double digit HRs while Cabrera will be lucky to get five. Finally, I think the jury is still out if Cabrera can hit on a consistent basis. He played full time in three months last year and hit .236 .290 and .217, respectively, the final three months of the year.
And it’s not like we can judge what he did in the minors – he has only 29 PA above A ball.
He’s very interesting but there’s not a lot of history there, plus he has to play in Petco while Andrus is in a much better ball park.
What I like about the mindset this approach leads you away from “projecting average.” While you can safely say Borbon will do better than Pena…average is far less predictable than other categories, and should probably influence draft picks less than it does in a typical draft strategy. A lot of people will wait on a guy like Cruz because of the horrible average—to a point there can be great value.
For that strategy I’m okay targeting a couple ‘average savers.’ If you went Ichiro instead of Bay, is that going to make your team weak in power? Weak-ER for sure…but that’s a potential gain of .070 points in average. If you upgraded one other position by even half that (say Yunel or Asdrubal instead of Andrus), your overal team profile doesn’t change *too* much but the impact would be taking a .275 team BA up to .281. That might mean a loss of a dozen HR, with more runs and better chance at points without punting at all.
Aside from Ichiro, I think there are a lot of quality hitters who can provide sneaky value in the middle rounds. Yunel, Asdrubal, Span, Aybar, even Jorge Cantu are guys who don’t stand out in counting stats but still contribute average/above average production in them, while being fairly good bets to help in BA.
As much as average is undervalued from slightly above average players, it isn’t the category I’d choose to punt. You can get it “cheap.” Saves, on the other hand, I do plan on punting.
Thanks Jimbo
I’d feel better about this if we had a better idea how good Ichiro was going to be in AVG. If he hits .350, I could see it working. But five of his nine seasons have been .322 or lower. That’s still very good, but it’s not quite the 70 point upgrade we would want. Also, Bay’s got a good chance of hitting 20 more HR than Ichiro. Last year he had 36 compared to Ichiro’s 11. Over the past five years (including his poor year in 2007), Bay has averaged 31 HR. Over the same span (which includes his career high in homers in 2005), Ichiro has averaged a little over 9 Hr per season.
But, I didn’t reach for Dunn because I had Bay. If I had Ichiro then I could make more of an effort to get Dunn and perhaps have the best of both worlds. Definitely something to think about.
Yeah, I’ve gone back and forth on Ichiro. He’s one of the few guys you truly expect to be well over .300. But the cost is pretty steep if you’re going for power and pitching. Still, he’s almost always a top-20 producer who (in my league) is available 40-50 picks into the draft.
This year, I’m basically going to take your approach for the first 1/3 of my draft. I’ll favor a Reynolds over Youkilis, Dunn over Butler, and so on. Next 1/3 of the draft is where I expect to get the sneaky value…lower sexy stats like HR/SB, but a lot of help in avg/rbi/runs. Specifically, guys who contribute across the board and are undervalued because of it.
Case study: Victorino is going 4 rounds ahead of Span mostly due to perception I think.
SV had double digit HR, DS did not.
SV eclipsed 100 runs, DS did not.
SV had more steals and only 6 fewer rbi, while hitting over .290.
Sounds like a good pitch doesn’t it? But 8 hr vs 10 and 97 runs vs 102 and 23 sb vs 25 doesn’t add up to a world of difference. The .311 average vs .292 IS a big difference. Given their age and trends, I’d say Span is the better pick straight up…but 3-4 rounds later? No brainer. (The missing key being one’s evaluation of each hitter in the avg category. I love Span’s peripherals.)
Sure, I might nab Pedroia in round 4 should things go a certain way. And I’m hoping to land Chris Davis during the late middle rounds. In general I think it will make the most of my league’s inefficiencies. Adding just one or two targets in the mold of Span/Yunel/Asdrubal can balance a power-first team in a hurry. Adding three or four can put a team in contention there, while still projecting first-place power.
I agree with the albino (Dave E.) that punting average is a bad move. All punts require exceptional scoring in other categories and that’s near impossible to pull off. You could definitely trade power and speed for AVG at some point but that’s a tricky proposition (traded Uggla for Votto last year and their AVG wasn’t too far off from that point after about a .130 difference at the time of the trade).
But it’s an interesting exercise.
If I had to punt a category, I’d probably punt SBs or Saves and draft a token SB guy or closer to nab a couple points. But I never punt categories. If I really felt outmatched in a league and wanted to do a high-risk maneuver, I’d probably copy some of what you did by grabbing 2 of the top 5 or 6 starters in Rounds 1-4 to gain an advantage in W/ERA/WHIP/Ks and gamble on offensive upside + timely pickups to gain points in the other categories…
Thanks Rudy
What I’ve found is that for punting to work, it has to be a competitive league from top to bottom. If you have three owners who are goofballs (or for Grey should I say schmohawks) and don’t have good drafts, then you don’t even have a chance to cash, much less win.
Otherwise, I think punting makes it more likely to cash but less likely to win. That is of course if another owner isn’t punting the same category. Then you’re screwed all the way around.
Regarding whether punting can ever succeed: in a 12-team “Yahoo Style” draft at Mock Draft Central yesterday, I was the projected winner, EVEN THOUGH I had lowest projected score in HR AND RBI. Wasn’t really TRYING to punt; that’s just how I tend to draft (in part because I play in a league that counts R, SB, AVG, AND OBP). Still, suggests that punting COULD work.
My league does have a certain group of guys who simply hope for lightning in a bottle each year. By August 1, there are probably 3-4 teams each year that throw in the towel. Makes it difficult to dominate while punting saves, but I have to think that winning 7 of 10 categories would be a good start.
Formula goes:
Win all 5 offense categories, even if it means drafting 14 bats in a row.
Draft 10 non-elite starting pitchers, hope some work out and be fast on WW picks.
Dominate wins and k’s, punt on saves, manage pitchers well enough to finish middle-of-the-pack in era/whip.
The pitching side worked to perfection last year. Offense was poorly drafted. First time I’d tried it, and if it doesn’t work this year I’ll scrap the concept altogether. It was more fun than I thought it would be to try something different–and that is why we do this in the end eh?
The way I look at it, standings for wins and saves almost always show an inverse relationship. Tough to finish top 3 in both (at least in my league). If you do? Probably don’t have an all-star offense. K’s are more in line with wins than saves as well.
It takes as much luck as skill to be strong in all three at once. Going into the season, I already know I’m getting 25 points from those three categories (12+12+1)…or an average of 8 points. Not bad for a 12-team league with no pitchers drafted in the first 10-14 rounds!
Now, because I’m getting those points on the cheap…I should be able to load up on offense and still beat enough teams in era/whip to have a decent amount of points from pitching. It’s a sound approach for my league, just have to execute. And because it is a league-specific strategy, formulated over 12 seasons of familiarity, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.
True on Kinsler….
As far as Elvis v. Everth: My deal with the disparity in their ADPs is that these guys are the same type of player for fantasy purposes. They each have the potential to be + in R, and SB (the most sought after category in a 5X5) and may not be great in BA.
Yes, Arlington is a much better hitting environment than Petco, but for this type of player – that should hardly come into thought. Is Chone Figgins dropping down draft boards because he moved to a pitcher friendly park? His value is in his 3 + categories, none of which are power related. Everth might be lucky to hit 5 in petco over a year, but holding Elvis higher because he may hit 8-10 dingers and have a 10-20 point edge in BA over Everth is like saying Elvis is the more handsome Marx Brother. Consider these points when Elvis is taken in round 12-14 and Everth can probably be had at the end of the draft, if he is drafted at all.
Elvis will likely open the season hitting 9th, Everth will hit leadoff. May change, but thats whats in pencil so far.
Also remember that last year Elvis had an ESPN cover story about him just before the season started (right around fantasy draft time) that has helped keep him in the thoughts of fantasy players ever since.
While Elvis may be the more desirable player if you simply ask “A or B” due to his experience and track record, Everth may be the value of the two on draft day.
I just used the Compare Player tool for Elvis vs Everth. Crazy how aligned they are…couple categories they overlap perfectly and I didn’t see any where there was a large difference.
Also didn’t see too much from their time in the minors to project them differently. The only thing I’d consider favoring Andrus is he’s a couple years younger…and you could argue his ceiling is higher.
When you point out Elvis is slated to hit 9th and Cabrera leadoff, I wasn’t sure who it favored–given their surrounding lineup. 😉
I am very much thinking of punting BA this year. Last year I finished a very close 2nd in a 10 team NL league and finished last in BA. I lost first by 1 save. A good friend also finished last in BA and 2nd in a similar league. This year I have the 8th pick in my NL 10 teamer and if I can draft Ryan Howard with my 8th pick and Mark Reynolds with the 13th pick, I would for sure pursue this strategy…targeting Dunn, Werth, McLouth, Ian Stewart, Everth Carbrera, etc.
and avoid Wright, Votto, Lees (C. D.), etc.
One of the advantages is that finding starting hitters is very tough toward the end of the draft…except for catchers. No one wants to draft a .240 hitting catcher even though he’s a regular. So you can pick up a couple of extra R’s and RBI’s with this strategy.
If you are going to punt average you should go the extra mile and get some added value from guys who won’t even get drafted.
Someone like Chris Young can produce in 4 categories but probably won’t get drafted in many leagues. Others like Jack Cust, Nick Swisher, and Drew Stubbs can all also be very valuable.
I wouldn’t consider this strategy unless you are really planning on getting value out of guys like this. Obviously you should still target some of the other offensive players, but you’ll get a lot more out of it if you can pick up the real deep guys.
I agree that Chris Young and Drew Stubbs would make my list especially in my NL only league…these two guys along with others clearly show that you can score points in SB’s with this strategy.
BTW…Im in a NL only league where I have the third pick. Ill choose Braun as Pujols and HRam will be gone…so I wont pursue this strategy…as Braun starts me out with 600 AB’s with a .310 average mas o menos.
Complete tangent of the convo here…but what about in-season trading? I’ve found that if/when I punt, I end up reach for a few guys where I could draft best available and trade them later….get the guy I wanted and acquire additional upgrades along the way.
For instance, in a league just drafted, I landed 5th pick and took Braun. Most times I would build around that, but I wanted to be a little different this year. I ended up trading Braun, Aram, Butler for Reynolds, Howard, McClouth….which I feel gives me a lot more value than what I would have gotten with straight drafting. This is supplemental to other sneaky value picks because of the punting.
Hah, I have an R4, and honestly, I can’t be bothered to pirate, it’s not that I don’t know how, it’s just that I can’t find any game that’s good enough to pirate, but not good enough to pay for,