Players ottoneu Loved (and Hated): 1B Edition

Bright and early Monday morning, Zach Sanders dropped the first of his End of Season Rankings, looking at how first basemen fared during the 2012 fantasy season. The rankings are based on what actually happened on the field and use the traditional 5×5 roto categories to establish values for the production of each player.

While some of you ottoneuvians are playing a 5×5 format, many more are using the FanGraphs Points scoring system, and that type of linear weights scoring (as well as other OBP-based systems, particularly those that lower the weight on stolen bases) does not always value the same players that 5×5 leagues do. So each week, after Zach posts his rankings, I will follow with a look at where ottoneu FanGraphs Points rankings differed.

As with Zach’s rankings, this is purely a look back at what happened – we don’t cut Joey Votto any slack because he clearly would have produced more had he stayed healthy, nor do we penalize Miguel Cabrera for leading the league in “Just Enough” home runs. All we are looking at is exactly how many points each 1B eligible player produced.

You can see Zach’s valuation at the link above, and the table at the end of this article shows 1B players’ total ottoneu points, rank in ottoneu and rank in Zach’s system. But let’s get right to the names worth calling out.

ottoneu’s True Loves
Partial season or no, ottoneu* has nothing but love for Joey Votto. Ranked 20th in the original rankings, Votto was the number nine 1B in the ottoneu world, outproducing players like Adrian Gonzalez, Corey Hart, Paul Goldschmidt, and Adam Dunn, despite accruing at least 140 fewer at-bats than any of them. Why? ottoneu hates outs. Hates’em. They are the worst. And Joey Votto doesn’t make outs. His .474 OBP is neither a typo nor is it even in the same realm as any of the other top 1B. Gonzalez, for example, ranked 10th in ottoneu and 11th in 5×5. He had 4 more HR, than Votto, 16 more runs, and 52 more RBI, thanks to 209 more PA. But 199 of those extra PA ended in outs (calculated as PA-hits-BB-HBP). Want to win ottoneu? Don’t make outs. ottoneu also loves non-HR extra base hits in a way that 5×5 doesn’t, and Votto managed to crank 44 doubles – 3rd most among 1B – even in his limited playing time.

Paul Konerko sits one spot ahead of Votto in the 5×5 rankings (19) but jumps up to #12 on the ottoneu list. Using Gonzalez as a foil again, Konerko ranked so far behind him in 5×5 due to R (9 fewer) and RBI (33 fewer). When you take away those, and swap out batting average for the ability to get on base, Konerko looks much better. Gonzo and Paulie hit .299 and .298, respectively, but Konerko walked far more and ended up with a .371 OBP, compared to Gonzalez’s .344. Again – if you don’t make outs, ottoneu will be your friend. Konerko’s poor running (6th worst base runner among 1B according to UBR) cost him some runs in 5×5 and probably cost him some extra base hits in ottoneu, which kept him from cracking the top 10, but the linear weights scoring downplayed that weakness and accented his strength – getting on base.

So I think it’s been made clear that ottoneu likes it when you don’t make outs, so it should be no surprise that Nick Swisher moved from 17th in Zach’s rankings to just outside the top 12 (13th) in ottoneu. Sure enough, if you look at the players he leap-frogged (Paul Goldschmidt, Adam Dunn, Freddie Freeman, Allen Craig, Mark Trumbo, Chris Davis), none had a higher OBP than Swisher. Similarly, Joe Mauer’s low power output may have hampered his 5×5 ranking (12th), but he became a nearly first-division starter (7th) in ottoneu thanks to a .416 OBP and 35 non-HR XBH.

ottoneu’s Worst Enemies
Paul Goldschmidt’s 18 SB had a lot to do with his top-flight ranking in 5×5 leagues – he led all 1B in that category – but ottoneu does not care for the stolen base (at least not like a 5×5 league does). In a typical 5×5 league, most (all?) teams will hit more HR than they steal bases, meaning that, on the margins, a SB has more value than a HR. In ottoneu, a HR is worth 14 points (5.6 for a hit, 9.4 more for that hit being a HR, and -1.0 for the AB), while a SB nets 1.9 points. Plus, a caught stealing costs you 2.8 points, an even larger penalty than simply getting out, because the cost to your team is greater (if you strike out, you failed to reach base; if you get caught stealing you have actually taken a player off the bases). That seriously hampers the value of those SB compared to the power numbers put up by other 1B, so Goldschmidt’s 20 HR and 18 SB end up ranked 14th in ottoneu.

ottoneu was no fan of Allen Craig and, to be honest, I am not 100% sure why. After missing much of the early season, Craig came back with a vengeance and put up the 10th ranked season from a 5×5 1B. Yet in ottoneu, he was ranked 17th. This isn’t a case of huge numbers of outs (he posted a .354 OBP, which is maybe not great, but is plenty good), nor did he lack in extra base hits (both formats view his 22 HR roughly equally, and he managed to finish with the 11th most doubles among 1B despite limited playing time). It seems to me that rather than ottoneu not giving Craig enough love, he benefited from his teammates to the tune of 92 RBI, which boosted his 5×5 ranking without helping him in ottoneu.

Finally, Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo sat 13 and 14, respectively, in the 5×5 ranks, but were 19 and 18 in ottoneu. These are big bats (32 HR for Trumbo, 33 for Davis) with big holes (153 K for Trumbo, 169 for Davis), that built up big counting stats (161 RBI+R for Trumbo, 160 for Davis), while making big outs (400 in 586 PA for Trumbo and 379 in 562 for Davis). Neither hit many non-HR XBH (22 for Trumbo, 20 for Davis), and while each added a sprinkling of SB (4 for Trumbo, 2 for Davis), each was CS more than they successfully swiped (5 for Trumbo, 3 for Davis). Basically, these guys both excelled (relatively) at everything 5×5 values without having the underlying performance that ottoneu values. High K% + low BB% can work in 5×5, but will be exposed in the ottoneu FanGraphs Points leagues.

A couple final notes:

– Billy Butler didn’t make Zach’s original list, but would have been 6th in 5×5, creating $19 of value. He was 5th in ottoneu.
– Yonder Alonso was 42nd in 5×5 and 24th in ottoneu. He wasn’t a fantasy starter this year, even in ottoneu, but when you start eliminating guys in front of him who you likely didn’t use at 1B (Buster Posey, Joe Mauer, Adrian Gonzalez once he hit OF eligibility, Corey Hart, Nick Swisher, Allen Craig, Mark Trumbo, Chris Davis, Carlos Santana, Garrett Jones) he was closer than you think.
– Pro-rating everyone to 650 PA, Joey Votto is your top dog, with a theoretical 1217 points, followed by David Ortiz, with 1205. Allen Craig jumps to 8th, Goldschmidt to 10th, Tyler Colvin to 13th. These stats don’t mean a whole lot (although you could make an argument for Votto being the best 1B if he plays a full year), but they are kind of fun, right?

ottoneu Rank	5×5 Rank	Diff	Name	ottoneu Points	PA	Pro-rated to 650 PA
1	1		Miguel Cabrera	1267	697	1182
2	3	1	Prince Fielder	1130	690	1064
3	2	-1	Edwin Encarnacion	1075	644	1085
4	5	1	Buster Posey	1023	610	1090
5	6	1	Billy Butler	1016	679	973
6	4	-2	Albert Pujols	972	670	943
7	12	5	Joe Mauer	916	641	929
8	9	1	Adam LaRoche	915	647	919
9	20	11	Joey Votto	889	475	1217
10	11	1	Adrian Gonzalez	880	684	836
11	8	-3	Corey Hart	870	622	909
12	19	7	Paul Konerko	855	598	929
13	17	4	Nick Swisher	849	624	884
14	7	-7	Paul Goldschmidt	845	587	936
15	16	1	Adam Dunn	837	649	838
16	15	-1	Freddie Freeman	784	620	822
17	10	-7	Allen Craig	761	514	962
18	14	-4	Mark Trumbo	760	586	843
19	13	-6	Chris Davis	759	562	878
20	26	6	Carlos Santana	742	609	792
21	N/A	N/A	David Ortiz	710	383	1205
22	18	-4	Garrett Jones	708	515	894
23	22	-1	Ike Davis	698	584	777
24	42	18	Yonder Alonso	689	619	724
25	27	2	Justin Morneau	683	570	779
26	23	-3	Mark Teixeira	675	524	837
27	28	1	Daniel Murphy	673	612	715
28	24	-4	Kendrys Morales	645	522	803
29	21	-8	Tyler Colvin	642	452	923
30	36	6	Mark Reynolds	631	538	762
31	25	-6	Howie Kendrick	629	594	688
32	30	-2	Todd Frazier	627	465	876
33	38	5	Carlos Lee	613	615	648
34	29	-5	Michael Young	606	651	605
35.5	40	4.5	Brandon Belt	588	472	810
35.5	34	-1.5	Jordan Pacheco	588	505	757
37	44	7	Carlos Pena	587	600	636
38	37	-1	Kevin Youkilis	576	509	736
39	32	-7	Eric Hosmer	568	598	617
40	43	3	Mike Napoli	550	417	857
41	33	-8	Dustin Ackley	542	668	527
42	31	-11	Michael Morse	536	430	810
43	39	-4	Jeff Keppinger	535	418	832
44	35	-9	Michael Cuddyer	514	394	848
45	48	3	Lucas Duda	488	459	691
46	49	3	Justin Smoak	476	535	578
47.5	41	-6.5	Anthony Rizzo	475	368	839
47.5	47	-0.5	John Mayberry	475	479	645
49	46	-3	Bryan LaHair	472	380	807
50	45	-5	Mitch Moreland	441	357	803
51	50	-1	Casey Kotchman	383	500	498
52	51	-1	Adam Lind	381	353	702
53	53		James Loney	361	465	505
54	52	-2	Ty Wigginton	354	360	639
55	54	-1	Casey McGehee	297	352	548

*In these articles, I am going to use “ottoneu” as the designation for the ottoneu FanGraphs Points system. I think these ranks pretty accurately reflect both the points leagues and 4×4 leagues.