I always stay away from cheap power and cheap speed unless they are truly cheap. I would rather add the money to a stud or plateau player and leave the roster spot empty.In the context of the 80% hitting, 20% pitching team, sas4's idea is to keep pumping additional value into the top hitters or, barring that, the top guys in a category. If you have Alfonso Soriano with a raw bid limit of $38, in an 80% hitting context, he'd be worth $45 without inflation. But if you're not making a linear adjustment, you might add $2-3 to his value. On the other hand, if your bid limit on Adam Kennedy was $10, his bid limit would jump to $12 in a league that spent 80% on hitting. But you might just leave Kennedy at $10.
For those of you getting sick of me touting my league, I'll use the American Dreams League instead.
Top 10 Most Expensive Hitters, American Dreams League 2006
Player | AP | AP Inf . | Cost | Earned | +/- |
| Vladimir Guerrero | $37 | $40 | $43 | $39 | -4 |
| Manny Ramirez | $33 | $35 | $39 | $28 | -11 |
| Ichiro Suzuki | $35 | $37 | $38 | $37 | -1 |
| Travis Hafner | $27 | $29 | $33 | $30 | -3 |
| Gary Sheffield | $25 | $26 | $32 | $8 | -24 |
| Richie Sexson | $25 | $26 | $31 | $20 | -11 |
| Vernon Wells | $25 | $28 | $30 | $34 | +4 |
| Derek Jeter | $29 | $31 | $29 | $42 | +13 |
| Johnny Damon | $27 | $28 | $28 | $28 | 0 |
| Hideki Matsui | $26 | $27 | $28 | $8 | -20 |
| Average | $29 | $31 | $33 | $27 | -6 |
With inflation, the Top 10 hitters in any auction are almost inevitably going to be a failure-oriented group. But, looking at this group, despite the $6 average loss, is it?
Half the hitters listed here fall somewhere between -4 and +4. Obviously, I don't want to take a $4 loss on stats. But getting a 91% rate of return on my $43 investment isn't necessarily a bad thing. Add Derek Jeter's amazingly profitable year to the list, and you have a 60% chance of not buying a bust and finding yourself behind the 8-ball.
Overall, this group brings back 82 cents on the dollar.
How do the next 10 hitters fare?
11-20 Most Expensive Hitters, American Dreams League 2006
Player | AP | AP Inf . | Cost | Earned | +/- |
| Eric Chavez | $22 | $23 | $28 | $11 | -17 |
| Torii Hunter | $24 | $25 | $27 | $26 | -1 |
| Scott Podsednik | $25 | $27 | $26 | $21 | -5 |
| Aubrey Huff | $21 | $20 | $26 | $6 | -20 |
| Brad Wilkerson | $16 | $21 | $26 | $5 | -21 |
| Jim Thome | $15 | $27 | $26 | $26 | 0 |
| Hank Blalock | $23 | $27 | $25 | $13 | -12 |
| Troy Glaus | $23 | $25 | $25 | $20 | -5 |
| Melvin Mora | $23 | $26 | $25 | $18 | -7 |
| Adrian Beltre | $19 | $20 | $25 | $20 | -5 |
| Average | $21 | $24 | $26 | $17 | -9 |
Now these guys are bums!
Seriously, though, the only players here you can feel that good about are Thome and Hunter. Beltre, Glaus and Pods are what I call "inflation par." With inflation, the price is about right. Sucking $25 into your roster for par value, though, isn't going to win you your league.
And this isn't just $3 more lost per player. It's a 65% (17/26) rate of return, as opposed to the 82% rate (27/33) on the top tier hitters. That's an important distinction. Inflation isn't linear.
Next.
21-30 Most Expensive Hitters, American Dreams League 2006
Player | AP | AP Inf . | Cost | Earned | +/- |
| Victor Martinez | $22 | $24 | $24 | $21 | -3 |
| Justin Morneau | $18 | $23 | $24 | $33 | +9 |
| Raul Ibanez | $16 | $17 | $23 | $26 | +3 |
| Brian Roberts | $21 | $25 | $21 | $26 | +5 |
| Milton Bradley | $18 | $21 | $21 | $14 | -7 |
| Placido Polanco | $15 | $17 | $21 | $9 | -12 |
| Reggie Sanders | $16 | $19 | $19 | $9 | -10 |
| Tadahito Iguchi | $17 | $17 | $18 | $18 | 0 |
| Shea Hillenbrand | $15 | $18 | $18 | $11 | -7 |
| Dmitri Young | $15 | $16 | $18 | $4 | -14 |
| Average | $17 | $20 | $21 | $17 | -4 |
Unlike the first two groups, this group is all over the map. Getting Morneau, Roberts or Ibanez would have made you pretty happy; getting Sanders, Polanco or Young probably wrecked your season.
One more group
31-40 Most Expensive Hitters, American Dreams League 2006
Player | AP | AP Inf . | Cost | Earned | +/- |
| Rocco Baldelli | $14 | $15 | $18 | $18 | 0 |
| Corey Patterson | $12 | $11 | $18 | $31 | +13 |
| Robinson Cano | $9 | $17 | $18 | $24 | +6 |
| Chris Shelton | $17 | $18 | $17 | $10 | -7 |
| Javy Lopez | $15 | $17 | $17 | $5 | -12 |
| Ramon Hernandez | $12 | $15 | $17 | $17 | 0 |
| Lyle Overbay | $12 | $16 | $17 | $24 | +7 |
| Jeremy Reed | $9 | $11 | $17 | $1 | -16 |
| Garret Anderson | $18 | $18 | $16 | $15 | -1 |
| Mark Kotsay | $16 | $17 | $16 | $11 | -5 |
| Average | $13 | $16 | $17 | $16 | -2 |
Now doesn't this look like the sweet spot!
$16 earned for every $17 spent, for a 94% rate of return. In an auction with inflation, that's practically like making money in the auction. So maybe sas4 is wrong? Could spending $17 per offensive player be the winning formula?
It's not out of the question. What sas4 and I probably agree on is that it's better to spend $31 on $20 of value (Richie Sexson) than it is to pay $17 for a $5 player (Javy Lopez). Sexson is an $11 loss and Lopez is a $12 loss, but you're at least getting $20 worth of stats from Sexson. You're getting next to nothing from Lopez.
Where I suppose we would part ways is how much to spend on those studs. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is a tipping point. Spending $43 on Vlad to get $39 of stats is acceptable. Spending $60 on Vlad is a waste. Worse yet, it hampers your ability to fill out the rest of your roster.
As we move down the list in descending order of price, we see more and more profit in individual cases on offense. If we stray too far past Vlad's potential value, we don't win. We own Vlad for two or three months and then dump him to a superior owner.
Stars and scrubs can work very well. But past a certain point, paying for a star for the sake of getting a star puts you back to Stage 1, where everyone overpaid for the name players and a smart owner could wait 5-7 rounds and just clean up. Even in a league that spends 80% on hitting, there is a breaking point.
2 comments:
Mike:
I just want to focus on two short paragraphs:
Seriously, though, the only players here you can feel that good about are Thome and Hunter. Beltre, Glaus and Pods are what I call "inflation par." With inflation, the price is about right. Sucking $25 into your roster for par value, though, isn't going to win you your league.
And this isn't just $3 more lost per player. It's a 65% (17/26) rate of return, as opposed to the 82% rate (27/33) on the top tier hitters. That's an important distinction. Inflation isn't linear.
First, I recall reading somewhere that the stats of 80% of all players decline from year to year. It would be interesting to see how much performance in terms of $ it takes to win the average stage 2 or 3 league. $280?, $260? $240? or how about more like $220 which is my guess. No one expects to made a profit on a stud. You want last years stats - thats the most you can reasonably hope for with injuries and all.
(That gets us to the question of 'Where are you most likely to make a profit?' which is another discussion.).
As for inflation: you are so right. I am convincesd it is expodential, not linear. Which is why Rob Deer can hit 40 HR and be a drag on your team.
I do not have the raw numbers in front of me, but I can guess from my experience that a $220 team is not going to win any league, average or otherwise. At $220 performance, you are $40 short of your paid salary. You cannot win with that type of performance.
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