You Can't Tell the Players Without a (Evaluation) Scorecard

Recently, I was using Google to see if searching by my name would bring up this site first (it did). In the process, I came across an article at another Roto site blasting my 2003 LABR draft.

Mind you, the 2003 N.L. LABR draft was hardly my finest moment. I walked out of the room thinking that I had drafted a middle-of-the-pack team. However, reading this analysis, it's painfully obvious that this writer (I'm not giving him free publicity), doesn't understand the concept of $3120 earnings across a league and thus does not understand earnings. And if you don't understand earnings, your predictions for the season are going to be fundamentally wrong.

First of all, my offense "sucked".

He only spend (sic) more than $9 on five position players, and his $35 Todd Helton, $26 Roberto Alomar, $26 Larry Walker, $21 Ivan Rodriguez, and $18 Moises Alou all will struggle to meet these prices even if they each avoid the DL.

One of the mistakes I did make in LABR that year was spending only $158 on hitting, leaving me with a terrible gap that I wasn't able to overcome. However, with the exception of Alomar (a huge bust, though his 12 SB meant that he wasn't a total washout, the other four hitters did OK. Helton earned $41, Walker earned $20, Pudge earned $24, and Alou earned $21. Far from "struggling", these four turned a $6 profit. Not great, but hardly a "struggle".

However, if you don't give the guys at the top of the earnings pile enough credit, $35 will indeed seem like a long, long way to go for any hitter.

Hitting misperceptions, though often costly, won't kill you. Pitching misperceptions, however, will.

I also see little value among his pitchers as a total of $58 on (Eric) Gagne and (Roy) Oswalt seems rather inflated to me

Amusingly, Gagne alone earned $58 in 2003. Oswalt's $20, though slightly disappointing, gave me a nice backbone with those two combined, and a $20 profit.

I paid $32 for Gagne. Obviously, I wasn't expecting a $26 profit. But I figured I'd make my $32 back pretty easily. If you "see little value" in spending $58 on Gagne/Oswalt in 2003, you probably all also shortchanging pitcher earnings. You will then shortchange your predictions.

Twelve (12) closers earned $32 or more in 2006 across both leagues. Thirteen (13) earned $32 or more in 2005. In other words, a $32 bid isn't out of line for an elite closer. If you believe it is, it's because your bids are too low because your predictions are too low because your earnings are too low.

And you will lose, unless you are extremely lucky. I guarantee it.