Archive for Fantasy Value Above Replacement

Earlier this week, Jeff Zimmerman presented Early 2015 Hitter Projections using Steamer and/or ZIPS averaged ROS projections. The main contingency at this time: all values are set to 600 plate appearances. If I had all the time in the world, I would go through the list and manually adjust the PA based on lineup position, career PA/G, etc, but I’m not that much of a Mensch.

The next day, Mike Podhorzer highlighted some of the surprises ranked in the top 30. Again the 600 PA contingency is clear as Rajai Davis, Jarrod Dyson and Corey Dickerson make the list although if Dickerson doesn’t get platooned, I (and Mike) think he’ll surpass expectations. His splits page tells us there is no good reason to platoon him.

In Mike’s intro, he also referenced that there is no adjustment for position in Jeff’s SGP rankings. That’s where this post comes in.

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As we make our way through these rankings, let me just add in one thing.  While relative value is something we have left for you to ultimately decide, there are certain players whom I consider keeper worthy and those that aren’t in spite of things like the Fantasy Value Above Replacement spreadsheet that we have been using.  Sure, Yadier Molina may have outproduced Wilson Ramos according to our 2011 retro value, but am I keeping a catcher who is moving into his ninth season and will turn 30 years old at the All Star break because suddenly, out of the blue, he doubled his home run production last year?  Probably not.  It’s very difficult for me to think that a player who put up near identical numbers for his first seven seasons, suddenly can double his ISO mark in his eighth year and maintain that as his future level of production.  I see it more as a statistical anomaly than anything else.  Therefore, like each and every year prior, I would not even consider keeping Molina and subsequently must leave him off these rankings.

So today, I’ll throw out a few names of players to continue what we’ve done and tomorrow will finish it off with a few honorable mentions.  There will be some players left off this list, but again, we’re calling them keeper rankings and not every player is worth keeping.

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Now that the 2011 fantasy season is all but over (don’t forget to play ottoneu Pick Six during the postseason!), we have an opportunity to look back and see which players did what, and where each player should have been drafted if we knew exactly what was going to happen this year. With that in mind, it’s time to produce some retrospective values and rankings for you to enjoy and reflect on.

Earlier this morning, I outlined changes made to the FVARz system that I introduced in February, and that system is what was used to produce these rankings. Please be aware that these are retroactive values only, and while you are free to use them for predictive purposes without adjustment, I wouldn’t recommend it. So, without further ado, let’s do this thing.

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You may remember that earlier this year I put together a series of three posts outlining a system for objective fantasy player rankings and valuation. The system was (and still is) titled Fantasy Value Above Replacement, or FVARz for short. Some flaws were pointed out in Februrary, and it’s about time I recognized them and corrected the system to allow it to be even better and more accurate.

The major flaw that was pointed out was the way I was adjusting for position. A players’ raw stats were only being compared to others at his position, instead of the entire player pool as a whole. After the changes to the FVARz system, this is no longer the case. Players raw stats are now compared to the entire player pool, while hitters and pitchers are separated for obvious reasons.

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