I've talked earlier about how, in a league that consistently spends the same amount on hitting and pitching, there can be dual inflation rates. Tonight, I'll provide a brief example of how this affected my league.
Due to some absolutely awful freezes (Ryan Gload at $10, Mike Napoli $10, Marco Scutaro $3) and a lot of freezes at par, our league's hitting inflation (assuming every team spends $175) is only at 8%.
Due to some extremely cheap closers (Putz $1, Street $11, Ray $10, Jenks $10, etc.) and some cheap starting pitching, the pitching inflation rate is an insane 49%.
As you might imagine, this extreme difference causes me and my league mates no end of difficulty in trying to determine how to spread the remaining dollars to spend on our league.
Applying an 8% rate across all hitters isn't necessarily a bad thing...but if other owners simply apply the league's flat inflation rate of 18% across all players, hitters and pitchers alike, it will limit my ability to acquire top talent. If I had already locked up most of my roster pre-auction this wouldn't be an issue, but I have a whopping $196 to spend on 16 players. The lower inflation rate (yes, 18% is considerably low for my league) actually works to my advantage, but I still have to figure out how not to overpay on hitting and still hit that 8% sweet spot.
The pitching inflation is even more of a problem. If I have Francisco Rodriguez at $30 pre-inflation, he suddenly jumps up to $45 with inflation. I don't think I've ever paid over $35 for a closer in my life. I'd only pay $45 if my freeze list was so strong that I could lock up whatever reliever I wanted for whatever price I wanted. It isn't, and I won't.
For those of you that don't believe that the dual inflation rate exists, I can tell you it does from experience. Typically, what happens is the league begins by applying a league-wide inflation rate on the first few pitchers. A $28 Matsuzaka would be valued at $33, a $20 Dan Haren would be valued at $24, etc. The losers of those pitchers would then suddenly look at their draft sheets and realize that they weren't buying pitching and, worse, were not going to make innings. It wouldn't be a surprise, then, to see a Boof Bonser go for $18 and a Vicente Padilla for $14, because teams want and need those innings and are scared to death to go into their seasons without at least 4-5 starters. The guy who bought Matsuzaka at $33 would be singing a sweet song after the auction.
The practical solution lies somewhere between these two models. I don't recommend applying the 49% inflation rate to the closers in my auction so I won't. I haven't decided what rate to apply, but it will create a bid limit closer to what I believe K-Rod and Mariano and Nathan are worth. If someone gets them "below" inflation, I don't care...whoever wins the sweepstakes for one of these pitchers will either have trouble filling out his starting rotation or will spend $100+ on pitching, which is a poor formula for winning.
With the extra money that I would have allocated for K-Rod, Mariano and Nathan (and Borowski) using a pure inflation model, I'll then spread it amongst a few players that I'm targeting. I don't want to go crazy; the point of this exercise isn't to give Carl Crawford a $60 bid limit and unrealistically lower all my other prices. What I do want to do is price enforce on a targeted group of players. This is a shift from what I've done in the past; I used to price enforce on almost every player in the room. The result were teams that did well but didn't do well enough to win the last few years.
Part of my shift in philosophy this year also stems from the low hitting inflation. I can bid close to pre-inflation and build a line-up fairly easily.
The last reason I'm shifting gears this year is because I'm beginning to become too predictable. Toz knows what I'm doing, and a few other owners do as well. This is like tying a lead balloon to your leg before you start running the race. The guy who froze Shealy and Napoli at $10 has no clue, but I have to remain competitive by zigging instead of zagging.
I recommend the same thing to all of you, and this is why I recommend playing with your inflation bids after you've figured out raw inflation. If you think $45 for Joe Nathan is silly, bring that price down. And move your dollars around so that you can fill your team's needs, whether they're positional or categorical. Remember, for all my talk of inflation and bidding under par, your goal is to build a winning team in eight statistical categories. You can save all the draft money in the world, but if you draft two closers for $80 and two speed guys for $70 because they're "bargains", you won't win.
And that's what this is all about.
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