Top 10 A.L. Hitters/Pitchers

I took a few days off from posting to run my own 2006 values based off of Alex Patton’s formulas, or at least his methodology. I do this every year; it’s a good way to keep my mind on baseball in the off-season and also a good exercise that will improve your auctions.

The table below lists the top 10 American League hitters in 2006, sorted by Patton $. The Rototimes values are from rototimes.com projections page, which is a great free tool Rototimes offers in season. It comes highly recommended from this corner of the blogosphere.

AP Rank	Player	Patton $	Rototimes $	RT Rank
1	Carl Crawford	$45	$45	2
2	Derek Jeter	$44	$46	1
3	Vladimir Guerrero	$40	$44	3
4	Ichiro Suzuki	$39	$38	7
5	Jermaine Dye	$37	$42	4
6	Justin Morneau	$34	$39	6
7	Vernon Wells	$34	$37	8
8	David Ortiz	$34	$39	5
9	Alex Rodriguez	$33	$36	9
10	Miguel Tejada	$32	$36	10

With the absence of Alex’s books from the market, one thing that has been notably missing from Roto analysis has been a comparison of different pricing systems. If anyone out there has access to other “tout” pricing, I’d be glad to add it to the chart above. Looking just at Rototimes, however, I see at least two interesting things at a glance:

·This is the first time I’ve seen a pricing system that actually outspends Alex on the top players. Most pricing systems I’ve seen typically undercut the studs and give the guys in the second tier, or in the middle, raises. Here, in a hypothetical head-to-head draft, Patton would only “buy” Ichiro and Crawford (he wins on decimals). For those of you wondering how Rototimes would be able to field a $319 team of $8 hitters without cheating, keep in mind that Rototimes (and Alex) have $3120 to spend, assuming an A.L. only, 12-team league.

·Rototimes cheats the speed guys with its pricing even more than Alex does with his. Without a doubt, that is where the discrepancy exists in dollar values. If Rototimes’ system had a brain, it would be thinking, “I’d rather not buy Ichiro for $39…but I do want to push Ortiz all the way up to $39…power means that much to me."

Let’s take a look at the pitchers:

AP Rank	Pitcher	Patton $	Rototimes $	RT Rank
1	Johan Santana	$49	$45	1
2	Joe Nathan	$47	$44	2
3	Jon Papelbon	$46	$42	3
4	Francisco Rodriguez	$44	$42	4
5	B.J. Ryan	$44	$40	5
6	Mariano Rivera	$41	$38	6
7	J.J. Putz	$41	$38	7
8	Roy Halladay	$36	$31	9
9	Huston Street	$34	$33	8
10	Chris Ray	$33	$31	10

At least in terms of rank, the pricing wars sure look like they ended a long time ago on the pitching side. Only Halladay and Ray get flip-flopped in the Top 10. Rototimes values saves more than Patton, but not by too much. In the hypothetical, $3120 auction, however, such an analysis is much more problematic. Alex buys every single one of these pitchers, leaving Rototimes with no pitchers.

Despite the boring near-uniformity here, there is a hidden nugget here worth investigating. Alex's split is traditionally a $182/$78 split. Is Rototimes's split higher? Will pitchers stay uniform across the board, or will Rototimes value the next tier of pitchers higher than Alex does? Is not, Rototimes could have a $190/$70 split.

We'll revisit this as the winter rolls along. The pricing wars may not be over.