Rankings Are Coming: My Personal Quirks

Very soon, you will be treated to RotoGraphs’ first round of composite rankings for the 2016 draft season. We’ll be starting with outfield and other positions will trickle out over the next 10 business days. Seven of us contributed to this January round of ranking. Six of us agreed that Mike Trout is the top outfielder.

I can never do things the easy way. While I was adding my ranks, I noticed a couple discrepancies between my ranking process and that of the my colleagues. So I asked some questions. As it turns out, I have some weird quirks when it comes to positional ranking.

At their best, rankings can serve one of two purposes. You can use them to learn when a player should be picked subject to the usual 5×5 roto constraints. Alternatively, many rankers take a purely mathematical approach. Player value is what it is. Under this philosophy, it’s not the ranker’s job to validate if that value is easily accessible. It’s easiest to explain with an example. And we have a really good one in today’s league.

By the numbers, Billy Hamilton is a valuable fantasy player. He’s a 70 stolen base threat. Let’s just say that particular talent is worth $50. He doesn’t hit home runs, drive in runners, or bat for average. Even his run scoring is below average. Let’s say that all adds up to negative $30.

According to my (made up) math, Hamilton is a $20 player. But there’s another layer to the onion. To benefit from those $20, you have to find monster production from other players. Maybe you got lucky last year and landed a discount Bryce Harper. That gives you a composite line of 174/46/127/63/.272 (or 87/23/64/32/.272 per player).

You’re left with two composite players who are something like a poor man’s Ryan Braun or a rich man’s Kevin Pillar. Now here’s an interesting aside. I referred back to Zach Sander’s 2015 actual values. Harper was a $42 player. Hamilton was a $12 player. Braun was worth $28 and Pillar tallied $17. Two Braun’s do equal Harper plus Hamilton. Two Pillars fall $20 short. Remember, our composite man was somewhere between those two players. It looks like value evaporated into the aether.

You can win with Hamilton. It only requires the very best non-steals player in the league. Or a series of power studs. Here’s the tricky part. Let’s say Hamilton’s steals mark him as a top 15 outfielder. If you pick Hamilton, then you’re passing on a slew of guys who hit 30 home runs. You might not get a second chance to nab them. An auction offers more flexibility, but if you free spend for top power bats and Hamilton, you’ll suffer for your profligacy later. Opportunity cost.

It’s for this reason that I make additional adjustments to my rankings beyond the five categories. To take advantage of Hamilton, you almost have to get him (or an elite talent) well below cost. Alternatively, a modest overpay on a balanced five category player is easy to overcome – you just need to find a bargain or two in ANY category. So players like Hamilton are penalized in my rankings while players like Mookie Betts get a slight boost.

There’s another less important quirk in my rankings. Let’s address it now before I get massacred in the comments. Kyle Schwarber is the poster child. He’s the second ranked catcher, and few disagree with that assessment. He’s also an outfielder, and we’ve ranked him as such. He’s 18th on my list. Excluding my valuation, my fellows have produced a composite rank of 38.

When I’m in a draft, I’m picking him between Nelson Cruz and Carlos Gonzalez. He’s not a better fantasy outfielder than Gonzalez. However, his catcher eligibility pushes him ahead of CarGo in my estimation.

Most of my colleagues use a position blind approach when building individual position rankings. I do not. It makes perfect sense to me, it’s just not the process I used.

So, in my top 125 outfielders, you will see multi-position players ranked ahead of better outfielders. Schwarber, Ben Zobrist, Brad Miller, and Danny Valencia are a few of the players who you’ll see ranked unusually high on my list.

This looks weird when evaluating at a position like outfield or first base. Once a Top 300 list is compiled (i.e. the most relevant list for drafting), the rankings will read correctly.

 

 





You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam

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hebrewmember
8 years ago

Considering positional eligibility in a position-restricted list seems counter-intuitive.

If I’m looking at a ranking of Outfielders, what do I care that Ben Zobrist has 2B eligibility?

If you’re using a positional ranking list like this, it’s not to choose between “Kevin Pillar the OF” and “Ben Zobrist the 2B.” You want to know Zobrists standing, as an outfielder, relative to other OF options.

Adding this “quirk,” as you call it, does nothing but muddy up the rankings, especially since you’re admittedly the only guy who does it.

McNulty
8 years ago
Reply to  hebrew

Yeah brad’s in the wrong here. That’s what overall rankings are for

Josh
8 years ago
Reply to  hebrew

you’re saying that if you compare 2 identical OFs, and one has SS eligibility and the other only has OF eligibility, you should be indifferent between the 2 if you’re looking for an OF?

it’s not as if you draft a guy and have to leave him in one spot all season. drafting as if that is the case is very inefficient. positional eligibility is incredibly important in daily leagues.

gbaked
8 years ago
Reply to  Brad Johnson

There is really no good way about going about this. The solution I have found is to have players on the overall rankings at multiple spots.

Zobrist for example. He is a better 2b then an OF in fantasy, so I would prob have zobrist 2b higher on my overall ranking then zobrist OF.

Doctor of Utter Clarification
8 years ago
Reply to  Brad Johnson

Doesn’t it come down to an individual preference, especially for determining positional value? Personally, I prefer rankings/lists by position with the overall rankings noted on each list. That eliminates an overall list to keep up with. Anything to eliminate the draft station clutter is good.

hebrewmember
8 years ago
Reply to  Brad Johnson

I just can’t really wrap my head around this argument, Brad. If you have Posey, then you no longer care about Schwarber’s status on the C board, right? *assuming 1 C league*

So now, you’re really only looking at Schwarber as an OF (since Posey plays almost every day), and so him being “artificially” higher on your list due to his multi-positional eligibility ends up making him look more attractive than some of his OF-only counterparts.

This can mislead someone who’s using the rankings into thinking that Schwarber is a better player (as an OF) than he really is.

It’s all relative, though, so If EVERYONE who did the rankings viewed multi-positional eligibility the same way, it’d be a wash. However, if you’re the ONLY guy in a group of 7 who does it this way, all you’re doing is making your rankings less accurate.

Snarfle
8 years ago
Reply to  hebrew

I see the point, but position flexibility always matters. Sure, you think you are drafting Zobrist as a 2B, but then one of your OFs gets hurt, and you find a nifty 2B on the wire who is better than the remaining OFs. You can organize your guys however it suits you best, but multi eligibility always matters to me.