Sunday, February 03, 2013

End of the Line


I have been offered and accepted a position at Baseball Prospectus as a Senior Writer with their Fantasy Department. BP will be announcing their new fantasy schedule during the week of February 11-17, but I have already engaged in discussions with Joe Hamrahi, Jason Collette and Paul Sporer on the direction of the fantasy side of things and am extremely excited just to be part of the team.

The other part of this news is probably obvious, but while I hope Roto Think Tank doesn't become a complete thing of the past, it simply won't be possible to provide the quality and quantity of content that I have been providing since I started this blog in 2007 - and wouldn't be fair to either BP or to my readers in this space to try and do so. I haven't thought too far ahead yet, but the most likely use of this space will be for the extremely esoteric piece that doesn't belong at BP (think: stuff about my home leagues).

It's a shopworn cliché, but while I'm ecstatic to be joining Baseball Prospectus, I'm sad that this is the end of Roto Think Tank as we know it. When I started this blog, all I really wanted out of it was an outlet for a decade's worth of thoughts that I had about my primary home league and some ideas that I had put together on auction theory, strategy, tactics, etc. I didn't spend too much time thinking about readers or what my audience would look like. If no one read Roto Think Tank or had any interest, then so be it.

Not only did people come, but they stayed. The audience grew, then started speaking up, and the blog evolved from a personal sounding board into a forum worthy of the smart, savvy readers who blew me away almost every day I did this. More often than not, you were the ones that drove the content. The FAAB log - one of the most popular pieces on the site - was created because of a reader's request. The blog became much more of a conversation than a monologue and listening to your feedback made me into a better writer. I started this project in part because I thought that I was better than a lot of the experts out there. I found out quickly how difficult it is to generate high quality content day after day, week after week, and month after month. It's easy to sit back and say other people suck. It's hard to go out and actually do it.

Another cliché is you look back at your writing at the beginning of a project and think, "man, some of my early stuff was bad." Every winter when I have time to catch my breath I go back and look at my early pieces and can't believe I got there from here. It took practice, practice, practice, but without you guys as a sounding board I wouldn't have made the progress that I did.

This isn't the first opportunity I have had in the industry, but most of those prior opportunities revolved primarily around the idea of adding someone with expert cachet to the staff to churn out the kind of generic stuff that I have always avoided. While the opportunity to make a little money was tempting, I never would have walked away or compromised this space in exchange for easy money.

This is obviously different. I would never leave this blog behind simply for money or to make a bigger name for myself; this is far too important to me to ever do that. I'm obviously going to gain more exposure joining Baseball Prospectus, but Paul and Jason put out terrific content, know what they're talking about, and are excellent fantasy players. I don't know Josh Shepardson as well, but enjoy his work. When you have an opportunity where you're hoping to live up to the people you're about to work with - as well as the history that's a pretty great opportunity.

I can't thank you all enough for reading, responding, and making this blog what it has been the last six years. I hope to see you all over at Baseball Prospectus and on Twitter at MikeGianella.

Happy trails everyone.


Thursday, January 31, 2013

Scouting Your Opponents


Travis asks:
What kind of information would you want to know about your opponents?
This is a question I seldom if ever address in this space. Most of what I've written over the years has focused on what you can do to improve your level of play. For the most part, I believe this course of action is correct. Nearly everything your opponents do is outside your realm of control. To take this a step further, obsessing over what your opponents are doing will probably damage your own chances of winning, particularly during the auction.

All of this being said, there are certain areas where competitive intelligence can be helpful. While you don't want to lean too heavily on the advice below, here are a few ways that you can scout your opponents to gain an edge:

Auction Tendencies
For years, I've been keeping what I call a round-by-round record of my home league auctions. This list tracks:
  • The team that nominated the player
  • My raw bid
  • My inflation bid
  • The actual auction price
  • Who bought the player
  • Who had the next-to-last bid on the player
These data give me a pretty decent picture of what my opponents' auction tendencies are. There is an owner in my league who almost always goes Stars and Scrubs. If he has money, I know I can probably relax in the first round and let him bid the big names up. Another owner philosophically likes to have strong players at catcher and middle infield. If he needs to fill those slots, I know I had better add a dollar or two up to certain players in the middle if I have a need as well. Another owner absolutely has to compete in saves every year and will spend whatever it takes to get a closer. This tells me that there will be $15-20 extra in the auction to spend and I might get a bargain later. Knowing these tendencies makes my Auction Day a little easier and a little more successful. If you have the time to do it, track your auction round-by-round...and study it later. You won't be sorry.

Roster Philosophy
Every owner has different ideas about the best way to build his team. Some owners refuse to dump categories no matter what. Other owners will never pay for saves under any circumstances. Some owners like to build teams centered around power hitters and worry about everything else later. Other owners will push to buy an ace pitcher at any cost.

If you are familiar with these tendencies, you can use them to your advantage both at your auction and in trades. If you know someone absolutely has to have an ace starting pitcher, you can either stick him at the auction or buy an ace and hold up him later on in trade. Knowing that someone is closer averse means that you can shave a few dollars here and there off of closers and more smartly budget. Some owners play the way I do and are Rotisserie chameleons: adjusting their strategy from season to season and based on their roster. But some owners play almost the same way every year. Use this information to your advantage.

Trading Philosophy
In keeper leagues, there are owners who will hold on to their future prospects for dear life. Some owners will only make dump deals in-season, while others are willing to make category-for-category trades. Some owners won't make fair value trades for pitching because they don't trust pitching. Some owners don't trade that much at all.

There are too many examples to list here, but every league has a cast of characters. Figuring out an owner's trading strengths and weaknesses is probably one of the biggest things you can do work the angles against other owners. It's also worth knowing these things so you can save time and/or shop an offer around to get maximum value. When I'm looking to make a certain type of deal, at this point I know exactly where to go, what to ask, and how to approach my potential trading partner.

There's a lot more to this, but hopefully you get the general idea. There is a lot of information to mine about your competitors. As I said at the beginning, you don't want to go overboard with this type of analysis, but you do want to be aware of these tendencies before you step into the fantasy ring.

Monday, January 28, 2013

How Deep Do You Want Your League to Be?


Another day, another mailbag question, this time from Matt.
I have received tons of requests from friends of current members to join our league, which has made me think about expanding each league from 8 teams to 10. ... should I shrink the roster size of each team or keep it because everyone will be in the same boat?
Matt's league isn't just expanding from eight to 10 teams, but from 16 to 20. His H2H league has an eight team American League pool and an eight-team National League pool right now.

So is a 20-team mixed league too deep for H2H?

Matt's league uses a standard 14 hitter, nine pitcher set-up...with the exception of lopping off one catcher. There are then three bench spots.

So how would Matt's modest proposal alter his H2H leagues?

American League
2012
2013
Slots
# of AL Starters
%
Slots
# of AL Starters
%
C
8
14
57%
10
15
67%
1B
12
14
86%
15
15
100%
2B
12
14
86%
15
15
100%
SS
12
14
86%
15
15
100%
3B
12
14
86%
15
15
100%
OF
40
42
95%
50
45
111%
UT
8
14
57%
10
15
67%
104
126
83%
130
135
96%

National League
2012
2013
Slots
# of NL Starters
%
Slots
# of NL Starters
%
C
8
16
50%
10
15
67%
1B
12
16
75%
15
15
100%
2B
12
16
75%
15
15
100%
SS
12
16
75%
15
15
100%
3B
12
16
75%
15
15
100%
OF
40
48
83%
50
45
111%
UT
8
16
50%
10
15
67%
104
144
72%
130
135
96%

Something Matt and his league mates might want to consider is what the shift of the Astros will do to the player population in the National League. Both the A.L. and the N.L. would see a thinner talent pool as a result of Matt's proposal, but the N.L. is already getting thinner with the Astros leaving. The owners in the N.L. side of the pool would have already been impacted if there had been no changes, but adding two teams to the N.L. and coping with the Astros migration might be a culture shock to some.

As far as whether or not Matt's league should shrink the rosters, my answer is it's up to his league. I prefer deeper formats, but I can see how going from 16 to 20 teams might be a little much even for a deeper H2H league. There would be impact of carrying a handful of bench players/fringe starters, but in a league that is this deep, my guess is that there were probably already some Major League starters active in weekly lineups that aren't very good.

The pitching impact would be interesting, depending upon the league's rules on whether or not there is an innings maximum or start limit.

American League
2012
2013
Slots
# of AL Starters/
Closers
%
Slots
# of AL Starters/ 
Closers
%
P
72
84
85.7%
90
90
100%

National League
2012
2013
Slots
# of NL Starters/
Closers
%
Slots
# of NL Starters/ 
 Closers
%
P
72
96
75%
90
90
100%

If it wanted to, Matt's league could make all starting pitchers and closers active. However, even in the accumulation-oriented world of H2H, running bottom of the barrel starting pitchers out there every week is still a recipe for failure. More teams probably means more relievers. With the overall percentage of pitchers being used moving from 44 to 50 percent, the number of relievers available should still be plentiful.


In the end, whether or not Matt's league wants to make a change is up to Matt. As a Rotisserie guy, I'm a proponent of deeper leagues, fewer every day players, and greater opportunities to pursue strategy. It is possible that there will be some days where most teams are off due to a light schedule. But baseball isn't football. There aren't bye weeks, so to address Matt's point above; everyone will be in the same boat from week to week.