One Reason Why Leagues Keep Too Many Players
On occasion, I start to comment on a post and realize “hey, I could get paid for this.” That’s happening right now. Last Friday, Joe Douglas wrote about ottoneu owners keeping too many players. He breaks down some basic maths to show his work, concluding that, on average, teams keep five extra players. This includes generous allowances for inflation, one-year “rentals,” and prospects. A strong case could be made that we keep more than five extra players.
His point is pretty clear – we should keep fewer players. And he’s probably right. The endowment effect causes us to overvalue things we already own. It’s tough to stay objective when we’ve invested so much time and energy into acquiring some of these players.
There’s just one fly in the ointment – information asymmetry ensures that too many players should be kept. Especially since ottoneu allows for trading right up to the keep/cut deadline.
That last statement was jargony and unclear, right? I’ll explain with an example. I have a sim league – we’re currently slow drafting in preparation for the 2006 season. This league uses actual 2006 performance to model one fantasy season. I know that Nomar Garciaparra has a 1.020 OPS in 100 plate appearances versus left-handed pitching. It’s his last hurrah. I can very predictably recover that production. In this case, I have perfect information.
Now, let’s fast forward to the present. Steamer projects Eric Thames for a .864 OPS. That’s a top 15 OPS projection. His ability to play to that projection is extremely uncertain. I knew Garciaparra’s exact true talent in 2006. I have a fuzzy guess as to what Thames might provide. The information at my disposal is uncertain. Two analysts could come to two very different conclusions.
There is no one source of “correct” projections. There are many ways to project player performance including some non-statistical methodologies (i.e. scouting). Changes in performance are often chunky too. When Jose Bautista went from 26th man to superstar, it’s because his bat spontaneously improved from a 100 wRC+ (with no defense) to a 165 wRC+. Predicting these types of breakouts are part of the fun of keeper leagues. It also means you’ll be keeping some guys the projections say you should cut.
Sometimes the projections smell sour. Jason Kipnis posted a 124 wRC+ in 2015 and a 117 wRC+ last season. Steamer projects him for only a 104 wRC+ in 2017. While it is his age 30 season (shocking, right?), that seems like a sharp decline. Steamer is seeing high-ish BABIPs and an outlier power season.
Kipnis made real strides at the plate last season. He tidied up his swing to provide more consistent loft. With more fly balls, lots of pulled contact in a lefty friendly home park, and a spike in hard hit rate, I’ll happily take the over on 14 projected home runs. In ottoneu, I have the option to keep Kipnis for $21. If you go by the projections, he’s about a $12 player. I have him up in the $25-$30 range.
To drive home an earlier point, offseason trading ensures that players will flow to the owners who believe in them. I traded some good players I would have cut for a $5 Robert Gsellman because I believe in his home run prevention ability. I also trust he’ll get 100 innings out of the rotation even if he starts in the bullpen. Perhaps six or nine or 11 of my rivals wouldn’t even consider keeping Gsellman. I see a high floor depth piece with breakout upside. And that’s why I’ll keep him even though the projections say I shouldn’t.
Gsellman checks another box too. In his column, Joe Douglas allowed that some prospects should be kept. Many of the highest ceiling prospects cost at least $5. While some players enter the majors playing at their absolute peak, many take years of adjustments before they finally reach their potential.
Catching Edwin Encarnacion’s 2012 breakout was possible. Let’s say you picked up a $2 Encarnacion off waivers before the offseason. In ottoneu, he’d cost $4 to keep. Between his obvious untapped power and the Blue Jays willingness to play him, it’s not a stretch to think he was a better “prospect” than someone like Lewis Brinson. A contender might not have the flexibility to keep an Encarnacion, but a rebuilder sure could have cashed in.
Joe also noted that inflation increases the number of players owners should be willing to keep. Let’s say you own a $20 quality player for $22. His inflation adjusted value might be $24, meaning he’s a $2 surplus instead of a $2 deficit. That doesn’t mean you should automatically keep him. Do you really need the player in question? Let’s say the referenced player is Kipnis and I also own a $7 DJ LeMahieu. Sure, it’s nice to have a $21 middle infielder, but the opportunity cost might point me towards cutting Kipnis even though he’s keepably priced.
I also recommend only applying the inflation adjustment to high priced players. Let’s say you own a $7 Melky Cabrera and you’re thinking about keeping him because his inflation adjusted value is $8. Cabrera’s a solid role player, but he isn’t winning anybody a championship. Cut Cabrera and take some $1 properties. Last year, I took Odubel Herrera, Ender Inciarte, Delino DeShields, and Mike Napoli as $1 outfielders. Two of them spiked well beyond Melky’s capacity.
Similar to how I recommend treating inflation, it should be noted that a projection is a numerical representation of a wide range of possible outcomes. Your degree of need should inform your willingness to accept valuations above or below the listed projection.
So, how do you decide when to keep or cut a marginal player? You have to be as objective as possible. Step away from your endowment effect and review your roster dispassionately. Be careful when dismissing pessimistic projections. Remember that injuries and other forms of decline should be baked in too. While it’s true that a projection-driven approach will almost always tell you that you’re keeping too many players, sometimes it’s going to be right. We walk a thin tightrope.
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This is exactly why I’m keeping Baez. Not saying he’s gonna go full MVP in my OBP keeper, but he’s bottom dollar and worth gambling on in the short term. Great article Brad.
I think your opportunity cost examples with LeMahieu and Melky are great. Best takeaway from the article. It can’t just be, “I have him at a bargain, I need to keep him.”
What else could you do with that salary cap freedom? And I really love the idea of cutting a solid $7 player and taking 3-5 flyers on $1-$2 players… assuming you have roster spots for them.
Were Inciarte, Napoli, and especially DeShields $1 players in the draft? Don’t think so
There are always more viable $1 gambles than there are rostered players. Ottoneu just isn’t that deep at only 480 players rostered. So even if Napoli and others weren’t available at $1 in your league, somebody else like him was.
And if you’re saying I didn’t get those players for $1, you’d be wrong.
I agree that there are always plenty of $1 gambles. But I’d argue that most of them won’t be there on auction day itself but will show up afterwards and during the season. And mentally, it is much easier to take advantage of those players via a $3 ‘keeper’/dropper who you knew going into auction is replaceable vs a $1 ‘undervalued sleeper’ guy you picked up at auction.
The endowment effect cuts both ways – and it is stronger when combined with a ‘recency’ effect. Even more so when the player is a ‘prospect’ or young (who most players WAY overvalue and can never drop and are a major reason for league inflation)
tbh, I do tend to find myself pursuing both types of low cost player. $1 players can become so valuable (as Odubel has for me), especially when protected by shinier bargains. So I try to make a point of rostering 10 of them. The downside in ottoneu is that their cost often never clears if they need to be cut.
there was a great article on BP a few years back about prospect theory and how it relates to this. specifically, your example of tossing melky back and gambling on $1 players is an example- people love chasing upside at a low cost even when the expected outcomes aren’t much different.
as always, its very context dependent.
Agree that information asymmetry causes owners to keep more players than projections say they should. I’ve acknowledged several times that teams should take gambles on players they feel strong convictions on. (For example, I am higher on Dexter Fowler than Steamer.) However, even acknowledging that, I do not believe that information asymmetry justifies the number of players that are currently kept within ottoneu leagues. Not really sure that there’s a disagreement here, and certainly no model is perfect. However, I do think owners tend to be more endowment driven than projection fascist as a whole.
my basic rule on keepers is to keep players who are well under projected value or top-tier players (elite closers, starters, hitters) who or near/at market value; the rest get thrown back as the money and available roster spots is more valuable.
It seems like I tend to value the roster slot more so than the money, good point here. Having the ability to speculate on bargains and breakouts is essential to both rebuilding teams and contenders looking for those career years (Napoli, Villar, etc) to put them over the top.
I play in a roto, AL-Only league that requires that you “keep” 7 players. I usually stick to 7 unless I picked up a real bargain in the previous season.
It’s my observation, that many owners that keep 10+ players tend not to be as competitive as they miss out on value during the auction/draft.
I mentioned this once in another comment thread but it’s worth mentioning here as well. Modeling inflation as a curve is pretty darn easy and may be worth it in some leagues (I do it for my 12 team mixed dynasty roto). I find inflation to be pretty exponential in the leagues I play in due to perceived or real smaller standard deviations on the outputs of the elite or bigger name players.
I concur that teams still keep too many players, and it does feel like you have some aspect of the “I don’t want to see MY sleeper pan out for the other guy”, right?
Borrowed from the DeLeon/Forsythe article: Andrew Friedman: “If you’re always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent.”