Valuing a Player – Win a FanGraphs Fantasy Team!
We’ve been dissecting ottoneu one – the flagship league that spawned the FanGraphs fantasy game – and it seems we’ve been having fun doing it. Oh, and of course, someone usually ends up with a free team for the inaugural year. That might have something to do with why people find it fun.
One of the reasons that the game has resonated with so many players is the mix of valuation and keeping. Go into the auction like many have done before, go home with a value player as anybody worth their salt in auction leagues is capable of doing, and then at the end of the year, you are faced with salary inflation and arbitration. Now you have a new set of issues to ponder.
Was that player, who was a value at $x, worth $x+2 after a year of aging? Or does the risk put forward by his extra year of age eliminate that surplus value? You’re a general manager at the winter meetings pondering trade ideas. You’re examining your projections, and valuing the projected numbers. The advantage you have over your real-life GM is the fact that you, at any moment, can cut a player you don’t feel is performing up to his cost.
So we come to the keeper decisions made in ottoneu one – you can keep anyone you like, provided the price is right. Remember, the guys in this league are all FanGraphs readers like you, so let’s not get too snarky. They’ll be watching, and they’re all just trying to win their leagues like the rest of us. But, it’s still worth a discussion.
For a year of a free ottoneu/FanGraphs fantasy team, argue which hitter and which pitcher of the following actual keepers was the worst decision of this current offseason. Best argument wins.
Oh, and for context, I’ve added screenshots of the most expensive players in ottoneu one – this way you get to see how sweet the leaderboard looks, too. Pick one hitter and one pitcher in your comment:
Miguel Cabrera ($52)
Mark Teixeira ($46)
Jay Bruce ($30)
Andre Ethier ($26)
Justin Verlander ($44)
Johan Santana ($37)
Chad Billingsley ($28)
Ted Lilly ($17)
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
One thing I’ve always found frustrating with auction keeper leagues that use a generic +$X salary bump is that it leads to great players in their prime to almost always go year-to-year. Wouldn’t it be interesting if instead of the flat increase we used bumps that more closely mirrored real life?
What if we based keeper increase based on age to model a standing aging performance curve?
By Age
Age 24, +4
25 or 26, +3
27 or 28, +2
29 or 30, +1
31 or 32, No change
33 or 34, -1
35 or 36, -2
37 or older, -3
Or maybe you do it by regressing to a different number based on their WAR? Either way, the system shouldn’t result in Pujols or Hanley Ramirez hitting FA every year since they always go for top dollar.
The benefit of this is that it helps competitive balance. Just a simple counter-point.
The worst pitcher decision was clearly Johan Santana at $37. Johan is going to miss the start of the season, and shoulder injuries often have more difficult recoveries than elbow injuries. Paying Johan like a top 40 pitcher going into 2010 would be a mistake, so $37 is pure folly.
There isn’t an obvious choice on the hitting side, so I’m going with Mark Teixeira. Teixeira has seen a steady decline in his HR/FB rate since its 2004 peak. He has largely been able to mask that trend by increasing his FB%, but now he has reached a point where his HR are in danger of falling below 30 and his elevated FB% is severely cutting into his overall production, as seen by his .256 AVG and .365 OBP, his lowest marks since his rookie season. Teixeira was able to keep his counting stats up with a career high 712 PAs in the powerful Yankee lineup, but it might be time to accept the fact that this is a player whose skills are in decline. Teixeira at 31 is not the slugger he was in his peak and it is time for his fantasy managers to adjust his value accordingly.
Teixeira is probably the choice as the most overvalued hitter here. If you’re taking him this year at $x+2 but are you going to keep him at $x+4 at age 32? Even if he does rebound to his more typical numbers, he is looking an expensive and increasingly risky proposition to keep in coming years. He could end up crippling your efforts elsewhere. There’s a decent amount of depth at First Base at this time and if we consider the original ottoneu categories (OBP,SLG,HR,R) Then Uggla and Bruce (who are also on his team) already offer quality numbers in those, with a chance, in Bruce’s case to continue improving.
Santana has to be the worst choice at pitcher. His production has been steady, but steadily decreasing since his move over to the Mets, and with his recent injury and questions over his return, I may actually be inclined to take Billingsley or Lilly over Santana even at the same price. Verlander is about as reliable as they come. Okay, so he’s actually slightly overvalued (costs more than Halladay and Felix?), but he has little risk to him, as far as pitchers are concerned, and you probably wouldn’t mind keeping him for a little longer after the season too. Going year to year with pitchers is such an advantage in this format, and I’d use that advantage to jettison Santana.
just a quick clear-up, these players were kept by different teams. That doesn’t invalidate your response, just wanted to explain that.
I kept both Bruce and Teixiera… so half true, Eno 🙂 Also, stop picking on my team!
I realize the players were kept by different teams, but I checked the screenshot and saw that the ‘Negative EV’ team owned Tex, but also owned Uggla and Bruce, I was attempting to make a guess on how well the owner of Tex was suited to losing him, as it could affect the decision on how good/bad it was to keep him in the first place.
Or are the teams in the screenshots not the teams in question who had to make the keeper decisions in the first place?
no you understand correctly, my bad
Oooo… interesting question.
The question is very easy after careful thought.
The worst keepers are the most expensive players on the list:
Miguel Cabrera, $52
Justin Verlander, $44
Explanation for Miguel Cabrera:
Looking closely at the owner, he has about 32% of his payroll going to three players, Miggy, Adrian Gonzalez, and King Felix. Is that really smart? I believe once a player goes over the 10% mark of payroll they should be considered for auction because Miguel Cabrera could possibly be re-attained at a discount. Worst case scenario, you stick a much more expensive price tag on some other team.
Explanation for Justin Verlander:
The most expensive pitcher keeper?! Yes, he Ks about 200+ batters, has great WHIP, and is a top 10 HR/9 last year. His ERA last year was his best ever in a season at 3.37. $44 is a lot of money for a player that isn’t near the top 5 rankings for pitchers. You give me an extra $44 and if I don’t land Verlander again for $30 – $40, I can do a lot of damage in the auction draft with filling out my roster.
Again, I would just like to stress my point that once a player hits the 10% of payroll mark ($40), with the exception of Pujols, Hanley, and Halladay… Fantasy GMs should really consider trying to lower their payroll by letting them enter the auction again. You might risk paying a few dollars extra for them or losing them altogether, but look at the upside. Losing Miguel Cabrera would give you an extra $52 of artillery. Pretty powerful.
Santana and Tex. I know I’m not the only person to suggest this.
Santana is clearly the most overpaid pitching keeper. There are numerous trends that suggests regression/decline (in addition to aging that suggests his decline). 4-year decline in K/BB, sharp decline in GB% (which coupled with lower K% suggests regression), 6% HR/FB, increasing contact % (problematic for a traditionally strikeout pitcher). Although he has a declining fastball speed, Santana has maintained a solid 10mph difference in FB/CH velocity, which is the only area for hope. And then you have his injury, which can hinder productivity for 2011. If we are looking at 4×4 classic, regression suggests an increase in HR/9, which will also increase WHIP and ERA. A continuing decline in K/9 suggests that all 4 categories will likely get worse in the next year. Verlander is a stud, and while he isn’t necessarily worth more than Halladay or Felix, he is in their class fantasy-wise. Lilly is the worst pitcher of the 4, but he is not $20 worse than Santana. Billingsley also has a super low HR/FB due for regression, and a slightly higher walk rate, but will K more than Santana, and is also on the right side of the aging curve. I’d take that $10 difference for a guy with more upside.
As far as hitters go, Cabrera is likely worth every penny as he is one of the top producers in baseball. I think it would be unfair to bring up the drinking issue as these keepers were likely selected prior to that incident. Even then, he should be fine. The next thing to address is whether or not Jay Bruce is worth $4 more than Ethier. I would go with maybe. Both play the same position so they are easier to compare. When looking at the projections, they are comparable across the board. The one compelling argument that I can see for Ethier is that he strikes out far less than Bruce. The high K% could hurt Bruce. However, I see the Reds lineup as stronger than the Dodgers, which will increase Bruce’s chance to score runs while on base. Additionally, Bruce is 4 years younger, so there is a better chance that he can still improve. We have likely seen Ethier’s ceiling. So if that $4 is worth the upside, I really can’t argue.
Now we get to Tex. When looking at his value, we need to ask several questions: Is he worth $6 less than Cabrera? What would his value be on the redraft? Is he worth $16-20 more than the outfielders. The Yankees lineup, unlike their pitching staff, is still potent and Tex should see high run totals again. Also, he posted a career-low BABIP. But thats all that I see going for him. Last year saw a large drop in SLG/ISO (even larger than his drop in AVG), and his OBP has decreased the past two years. Tex will be 31 this year, suggesting some decline. I just can’t see him being worth within $6 of Cabrera. Similarly, I can’t see him being worth $16-20 more than Bruce/Ethier. Bruce/Youk (even as a 1B) is far more valuable than Tex and a $12 RF. And now we get to the redraft value. Chances are you can get him back for $46. So why keep him? He isn’t one of the top 10-15 players in baseball, especially since he plays a deep position.
Btw, does anyone else find it cool that these 4 offensive players have birthdays within 2 weeks or so of each other…makes age comparisons even easier. 🙂
Andre Ethier and Johan Santana are the worst keepers of the bunch.
The batting side was much harder to determine, but Ethier gets knocked off for the worst combination of upside and risk. You can be as sure about getting top quality production from both Cabrera and Teixeira as you can be of anybody outside of Pujols. It’s possible they won’t be quite worth the money, but they’re both going to be very productive players. If a player is really good, which these two definitely will be, he won’t kill your team even if he is pretty expensive, and these guys both have legitimate shots at being some of if not the best players in the league. Jay Bruce simply has a lot more upside than Ethier, and no more risk. He plays in a better ballpark, has not nearly tapped his power potential (and still hit more home runs than Ethier last year), is 5 years younger, has no recent injury history, and has a lineup that led the National League in runs last season. Ethier is easily the biggest risk of this bunch. He was hurt last season, has only one really good year to his name despite having 5 years on Bruce, and has less upside than all the other players. He is the cheapest, but do not let that fool you into thinking he is cheap. 26 dollars is a lot. Paying a slight premium to get elite, low-risk talent like Teixeira and Cabrera does not kill your team. Spending 29 dollars on Jason Bay last season and 25 the year before on Garret Atkins does. Obviously you can never predict who will take a nosedive or who will improve, but spend big bucks only on sure things. And Ethier is easily the highest risk of the bunch while still costing a whole lot. I’d rather Miguel Cabrera and a one dollar high-upside unproven player over two Ethiers any day.
I am a Mets fan so it pains me to say this, but Johan Santana is the easy choice for worst keeper of the pitchers. Ted Lilly is the cheapest and has been quite consistent and good recently. Billingsley has also been consistently good despite his young age, and he has had no worrisome injuries the last few seasons. He is also the second cheapest, costing 9 dollars less than Santana. Verlander is the most expensive, but also is a legitimate Cy Young candidate. He’s a workhorse who will pile on the innings and strikeouts with top notch ratios. He’s probably too expensive, but he’s only 7 dollars more than Santana. Johan has just had major shoulder surgery, and the recovery history of similarly injured players is quite discouraging (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5571173). He is a huge risk to never pitch at a good, not to mention elite, level ever again. And he’s nearly the most expensive. And best case scenario you have him for half a season. This is absolutely a no brainer. All the other pitchers offer really good arguments they can be very good for the whole season. Johan has a tough argument to make that he will be very good for even half a season.
(I spent 29 on Bay and 25 on Atkins the last two seasons, respectively, because I didn’t make it clear. It was horrific.)
How do you pronounce ottoneu?
auto-new
At least, that is how I have always pronounced it.
I’ll join the chorus of Santana/Teixeira, but I’ll argue a little bit differently.
For the hitters, I figured to use the available data to find out the going rate in the league for offensive production. Rather than use WAR, which would account for defensive statistics that aren’t valued in the scoring system, I went quick and dirty with wRC+. I debated using wRAA, but since they’re both more or less dependent on wOBA, I didn’t think it’d make a huge difference (correct me if I’m wrong). Since we’re paying for elite production here, I figured out the value for each wRC+ point over 100 for the players kept in the screenshot, which came out to $0.87.
Here are the four players’ figures:
Cabrera: $0.74
Ethier: $0.89
Bruce: $1.36
Teixeira: $1.70
Not particularly close. It would be interesting if one of the outfielders had the highest number, because then I’d have to get into a scarcity argument (5OF, considerably less depth at OF than at 1B), but this is a slam dunk.
For the pitchers, I just used WAR. Again, maybe not the best measure, but it gives us some idea.
Each Win Above Replacement: $5.85
Billingsley: $6.08
Verlander: $6.98
Lilly: $7.39
Santana: $10.57
Again, not too close. They all turned in a “complete season” of innings, so it’s apples to apples.
I guess maybe I should have calculated the $/wRC+ and $/WAR values having excluded each player, since Santana’s $10.57/win value is driving it up for the rest, etc., but I don’t have that kind of time. I think it’s close enough.
Also, be nice. It’s my first post.
Hitter – Mark Teixeira
Out of the 2 first basemen, I’d much rather have Cabrera even after the offseason issues as he will likely put up better numbers in pretty much all offensive categories by a sizable margin. While last year looked like a down year for Teixeira and we should not discount the advantage of hitting in the Yankees lineup with the new Yankee stadium as his new park, Teixeira will be 31 next season and it is possible that his down year last year was the beginning stages of a decline.
While I expect Teixeira to put up better offensive numbers than the outfielders, they are both significantly cheaper and play a more valuable position for fantasy purposes thus providing greater value for their respective prices. Bruce came into his own last year in the second half and I expect that strong performance to carry over into 2011 meaning I expect his stats will not be that far off of Teixeira’s. Ethier, while not quite the hitter of Teixeira, is $20 cheaper which, when combined with the difference in position, is a large enough difference to compensate for the weaker offensive numbers (also Mattingly has said he will hit 3rd with Kemp behind him which should help with R’s and RBI’s).
One final thing to note is the dynamic element to this type of keeper league. When choosing to keep a player for this coming season, one must consider the possibility that you will keep them again after the season meaning there is value to guys who may be more valuable than their contract + $2 in 2012. Given the respective ages of these players (Teixeira is the oldest of the 4 by at least 2 years) he is the least likely to have value as a keeper after the 2011 season.
Pitcher – Johan Santana
This is an easier decision than the hitter’s case. If Santana was healthy, this may be a more difficult decision, but it sounds like he will not be ready to return until around the all-star game, at the earliest. As a result, he is the least valuable of any of the pitchers listed, all of whom should post good strikeout numbers with at least decent win totals. Santana might post good rate statistics upon his return, but he is giving a half season’s worth of stats at best and his stuff has regressed in recent years (with his FB velocity dropping substantially) and it is unclear what it will be like if/when he returns. As a result, I don’t see how you can keep him over any of the other three pitchers, all of whom look poised to have productive seasons.
I also realize that this assumes the production of each player to be static, which isn’t ideal. All of the hitters are within spitting distance of their primes. Teixeira had a down year, but he’s also the oldest of the hitters under consideration, so maybe that balances out. If I had more time, I might use projections (Bill James?) or use a running three-year average, but again, quick and dirty is the name of the game.
on the screen shots do the lists only show players that were kept?
or all of the most expensive players overall?
im seeing some $$ values that look way out of place to me.
what year was the orignal draft?
Screenshots, so far as I can tell, are only guys who as of now are being kept in the league – original draft was held in 2006, I believe.
I’m assuming the scoring categories are the same as they were in your “Evolution of Fantasy” article. 4×4 ottoneu (OBP, SLG, HR, R / ERA, WHIP, K, HR/9)
I think it’s pretty clear that Santana is the worst keeper option of both hitters and pitchers due to his injury concerns for this year as well as the future. Keeping someone who is going to miss at least half of the year only make sense if they were underpriced which would enable them to be kept at a discount in future years. Unfortunately, Johan is priced as if he were healthy. This being his age 32 season, and coming off 3 straight injury shortened seasons, Johan should have been tossed back into the auction pool.
For hitters, the decision boils down to Teixeira and Ethier. Ethier, at age 29, doesn’t have the upside of the 24 year old Bruce while producing similar numbers and costing only $4 less. Teixeira and Cabrera are both elite in all 4 categories but Teixeira appears to have passed his hitting prime which has been somewhat disguised by the talented Yankees lineup. So we come to the question of can a $20 price gap between Teixeira and Ethier be justified? Teixeira has a long track record of health with higher OBP and SLG compared to Ethier and a significant advantage in runs and home runs. With that being said, Ethier is above average in all 4 categories and doesn’t handcuff the owner to cheaper options in the auction. It’s a close call in my eyes but Teixeira is the worst hitter keeper for his pricetag.
These comments all discuss interesting methods of valuation and reason. I was expecting more people to use a more traditional Z-Score approach to their answer.
I have to agree with the masses here and say Johan Santana is the worst pitcher (overall) keeper on the list. If he were never injured, than I think it would be close with him and Lilly, but he’s out three months, probably more. The Metros are not getting any better, and the rest of the division seems to be on the rise (Pirates can’t get too much worse). You can never really count on a pitcher to come back from shoulder issues either. Injury makes it a slam dunk.
On the batter side its a bit harder to tell, but I’m going to have to say Jay Bruce. Everyone in the world seems to think more is coming (especially on fangraphs). I’m not sold. Most of the reds lineup had career years last year. The BABIP looks unsustainable. I could see him hitting 30 HRs and .240 or 20 HRs and .280, not both. He ethier has to continue to reduce his fly balls or become a HR or K guy. Ethier was awesome prior to the pinkie injury and is in my opinion a better fantasy play (regardless of the price difference). That’s just Miggy being Miggy, the only player that can hold a candle to Albert with the bat. Big Tex will bounce back, the Yankees still have a stacked offense, BABIP bounce back could put him as third best 1B in the game.
Rankings (best to worst)
1. Migguel Cabrera
2. Andre Ethier
3. Mark Texiera
4. Chad Billingsly
5. Justin Verlander
6. Jay Bruce
7. Ted Lilly
8. Johan Santana
DELETE: Pirates jab, I’m an idiot.
I expected to say that Teixeira was the worst hitter, but after looking at it more closely I think that it was Miguel Cabrera. Comparing the two directly: in general, we should expect regression towards past performance from both, and that means better numbers for Teixeira and worse numbers from Cabrera. There’s nothing in Teixeira’s stat line to suggest that his .268 BABIP (33 points below his career average) was anything other than bad luck. His line drive percentage was the same, and while his fly ball percentage was up slightly, a BABIP close to .300 going forward is completely reasonable. Combined with his consistently high walk rate, a .380+ OBP should be expected. While Cabrera destroyed that last year, given his career walk rates, I expect his OBP to be similar, if perhaps a bit higher. Teixeira’s career ISO advantage offsets Cabrera’s batting average advantage, leaving them pretty much a wash for slugging percentage. Cabrera again has a tiny advantage in home runs, but 8 home runs in 4 years is not big. I’d say this is again, close to a wash. In runs, it’s close again, but this time because of his lineup Teixeira has the advantage. Even with his career year last year, Cabrera still had 2 less runs than Teixeira. Overall, it’s probably a small advantage for Cabrera. However, going forward we need to consider what we expect from the two players. Though it hasn’t slowed him down yet, Cabrera weight and alcohol issues should make us a bit less comfortable with him. Meanwhile, the Red Sox and Yankees felt comfortable giving Teixeira a contract that extends into his late 30s because of his commitment to fitness. Perhaps most importantly, though is the opportunity cost of that $6. While it’s not as big as the difference between these two and the two outfielders, $6 will certainly have an impact on auction day.
Comparing Cabrera to Bruce and Ethier we’ll start with the opportunity cost. $22 and $26 is a huge difference. Cabrera would have to blow the others away to be worth that. It’s even harder for him to do that because first base is so deep: with Votto, Pujols, Adrian Gonzalez, Teixeira, Youkilis, and Fielder all breathing down Cabrera’s neck (or ahead of him), his numbers don’t influence the game the way they would at another position. Both Bruce and Ethier walk enough and hit enough to easily put them easily in the second tier of outfielders. That is true in each category, HR, R, and slugging percentage. This was true last year, yet Ethier has shown himself capable of even more, and Bruce certainly has the potential for more. And again, unlike at first base, there are only a handful of outfielders we can expect to outperform these two. And of course, both were kept for less than Cabrera was total.
The pitchers are a much more flawed group. Verlander’s only flaw at this point is spending $44 on a pitcher, though. Billingsley and Lilly are easy to compare: Billingsley strikes out more and walks a few more, but gets a good number of ground balls while Lilly is one of the most fly ball heavy pitchers in the game. As a result, Billingsley kills Lilly in HR/9, and has had FIPs significantly lower than Lilly’s two of the last three years. Billingsley’s also showed improved control–if that continues to come down, he’ll also catch up with Lilly in WHIP. Finally, Lilly fly ball tendencies are likely to hurt him with the Dodgers’ outfield defense, and we should expect his low BABIPs to rise. However, neither Billingsley nor Lilly compares to Santana. Costing $9 or $20 more, Santana strikes out significantly fewer than either at this point in his career. Never a ground ball pitcher, he’s tended towards Lilly with his exceedingly low GB rates the last two years. The only thing keeping his ERA low has been low HR/FB rates. At his peak, as the best pitcher in baseball, he could not keep balls in the park like this. Other than luck, there is no reason to expect him to be able to do that now. With a rising HR/FB rate, we’ll also see a rising ERA. Of course, this is all moot given that Santana is now expected to pitch just about half the season, making him easily the worst pitching keeper.
You can’t begin to analyze the value of keepers without a better understanding of the rest of your roster. If I have built a roster that seems built to contend, then I select keepers with the paramount concern of winning this year. That means value — expected performance less the cost of that player’s performance — is everything.
But not everyone has a roster each year with a chance to contend. When you’re building for future years, you shouldn’t be only concerned with value as I defined already but value in another sense: trade value. Paying a premium for a stud can pay off if you then trade that stud during the season. Once the auction is done, the salary of a player becomes irrelevant for that season — what a trade partner wants is absolute value by which I mean the value of the actual performance. If I’m in this sort of position, Ted Lilly is the worst keeper as a pitcher and by a longshot. As for the hitters, it comes down to either Eithier or Bruce, and while the latter has more upside because of his age and home park, Eithier is the safer choice to have a good season and retain trade value, so that leaves Bruce as the odd man out.
Now Eno, I know you asked to pick just one hitter and one pitcher, but I think it would be helpful to explain my view on what a team who is expected to contend would do.
Among the pitchers the choice for me is Santana, though the choice isn’t easy since all four are such bad keepers at their respective prices. I play in auction keeper leagues and typically devote less than one-third of my budget to pitching because performance among pitchers is less dependable as a whole than for hitters. Paying more than $35 for a starting pitcher is criminal but especially on an aging pitcher with a recent history of injuries and a dramatically declining k-rate. , Verlander won’t deliver $44 of value but his floor is so much higher than Sanatana’s.
Among the hitters, I start with the understanding in a traditional roto league with five outfielders and three corners that outfielders are far more scarce — my 12-team AL only league selects 60 outfielders compared to 42 full-time equivalent starters; for corner 36 are selected from a pool of 28 starters. If your league is a deep one than Either is priced well and Bruce not all that badly. That leave a choice of Cabrera and Teixeira, and of the two, Cabrera is the riskier and therefore worse choice. The drinking scandal won’t likely delay the start of his season but it creates a risk that doesn’t exist for Teixeira. Absent that risk, the spread in their prices is a good reflection of past performance, so the risk created by another alcohol relapse tips the scales — Cabrera is the worst keeper.
In a vacuum I would say the two worst are Jay Bruce for $30 and Johan Santana for $37.
Why Jay Bruce?
According to my price sheet for this year (based on Marcel and Cairo, for an ottoneu 4×4 league) this is how the hitters price out:
Cabrara: $49 (-3)
Tex: $42 (-4)
Bruce: $18 (-12)
Either: $25 (-1)
Bruce is young, so that should bump his value up some, but it’s not like the rest are entering their decline or anything so even considering age, Jay Bruce is not worth keeping at $30.
Why Johan Santana?
Again according to my price sheet this is how the pitchers come out.
Verlander: $32 (-12)
Santana: $21 (-16)
Billingsley: $21 (-7)
Lilly: $12 (-5)
Both Verlander and Santana are overpriced, but due to where each is in their respective careers, it’s clear that Verlander will have more value going forward, especially considering we don’t even know when Santana will pitch this year.
The worst keeper of the pitchers is Ted Lilly, regardless of the price. Lilly’s K rate is underwhelming, and the Dodgers’ defense still features the abominable outfield combination of Kemp and Ethier, and Lilly gives up over 52.6% flyballs. If it’s hit in the gap between Kemp and Ethier, it’s getting down pretty often. He had an impossibly low .247 BABIP against last year, something that will not be repeated. Oh, and he’s 35.
The worst keeper among the hitters is Cabrera. Even with Martinez in Detroit, he doesn’t have significant protection around him, and he hits in a terrible park for a power hitter. Add in his legal issues, and he’s not a good keeper for a greater price than the other three.
I apologize if this is something I should know already, but how many teams are in the league? And what is the roster size? Is there a link that would answer these queries?
Lewis – The answer is 12 teams and 40 man rosters (with 23 starting spots). See here for the answers to most of your questions: http://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/support
Many thanks.
That so many of the above arguments convince while having different answers shows why we should all wish we had the intelligence of a monkey … i.e. MARCEL. When we use Tango’s most basic of all projection systems as the basis for predicting z-scores, the answer for the hitters is clear as day: Bruce is the greatest overpay, followed by Tex, Ethier, and the often-here maligned Miggy is actually the best buy. This is the case for both standard 5×5 and Ottoneu Classic versions, which is kind of interesting and only makes me more comfortable with my apeish friend (as it should … it did just as well as many other more complex systems one can find out there on the interweb). In the former (5×5) format, he is only overvalued by $1 (assuming that monkey’s want to win now and so spend all but 17 bucks on their 23 rostered players, and leave just a buck for the reserves), while actually being an underpay for the latter scoring system. (One other interesting facet to these two formats with these four players is that they all improved about six dollars when advanced stats were introduced…)
And even monkeys who don’t know anything about current injuries know that Johan is a bad buy … seventeen dollars-worth bad in 5×5, in fact, even assuming a full-ish season. But of course he doesn’t assume a full season, since he factors in recent tendencies to miss games, so give the ape some credit! But perhaps Marcel can actually open our eyes to something crucial here in the fact that we weren’t told which of the scoring formats we are supposed to be judging under: the 2nd worst 5×5 buy (Billingsly) is the best buy in the O.Classic version, while the best in the former (Lilly) is the worst in the latter. Considering that the only significant change here is swapping wins for H/9 (yet leads to Lilly plunging from +10 to -12 and Billingsly soaring 12 bucks closer to fair value), we see how important it is that one first analyze just what a particular contest is asking us to value. And sometimes, I fear, some dumb-ole monkey is better at that than we are…
These responses are great. It’s a good example of all the various ways to get to a sound conclusion when evaluating these players. I especially like that we have interesting arguments to each of the 4 hitters being a tough keep.
I can tell you from being a participant in this league (as you might have guessed) that every single one of these hitters was a tough keep for their respective owners, as were the 3 pitchers that you have collectively pointed towards here.
Tulo for 26$???!!!! What a steal
You know what? We have a tie. TonyAngelo was first, but William was wittier. Come on down, email me at enosarris at hotmail once you’ve signed up so you can get reimbursed!
Davisinc, hang around and you’ll win one I bet. Good response. We’ll do this another couple of times.
All of the answers were great, and my initial feeling was Teix and Santana, but I’m glad to see good arguments about Bruce. Thanks guys!!
I know the contest is over but I spent 5 min writing the response before I scrolled down to see the contest was over…
At first glance one might look at these lists and pick the 2 most expensive players, because in keepers, there are always cheaper players with similar stats. One might also pick the two oldest/overrated players and espouse the virtues of youth.
Looking at the teams in context and the choices made, I will use neither of these arguments. I think Cabrera and Verlander are good keepers because they are expensive for a reason. Verlander, specifically, is a solid K/9 innings machine with a respectable ERA for the AL.
Santana was part of a good rotation for his fantasy team and worth the risk, in context. Tex was a fine keeper for the team he is on because there isn’t likely to be that kind of production available at 1B if he cuts him.
Tex and Bruce were on the same team and this leads me to my answer to the question. Jay Bruce was the worst keeper of the hitters. In the OF, 25 HR and 70 RBI are stats for the $20 range, at best. Compound that with the fact that he is coming off a career year for a team of guys coming off career years. It is not likely he’ll hold this production. Negative EV’s money could be better spent on multiple players of similar calibur in the OF while retaining the youth Bruce offers.
Negative EV gets the ‘Worst Keeper’ award on the pitching side as well. In the context of their team, Lilly is not a good value considering age and already owning Lester and Lee. There are far better uses for the money Lilly uses and going cheap and young will benefit this staff as it is already anchored with two aces.
Upon looking at the screen shots I wonder why Kelly Johnson wasn’t offerd as a choice instead of Ethier. Of all the choices made [that we can see] KJ for $26 is mind numbing.