This is where sas4 and I left off.
Maybe its like this: You spend $260 to get $260 in stats. By virtue of the players in your reserves, it is impossible to get $260 in stats unless you have more overachievement than underachievement. Then add in injuries, having the wrong player active one week, and things start going astray.In actuality, each Rotisserie league spends $3120 (for a 12-team league) to get $3120 in stats. Players on your reserve list, farm system, or free agent pool don't count toward your league's $3120 in value. Not only is it possible for a team to get $260 in stats, but it is likely that the top four or five teams in a Rotisserie League will top $260. Having a $260 team requires an equal amount of overachieving and underachieving, to borrow sas4's phrasing.
Once the season starts, any time a player is added to a team's roster who was not on one of the original draft roster, his earnings do not count toward the $3120 spent by the league in the auction. Similarly, a player who is drafted, jettisoned early and never sees the light of a Roto roster for the rest of the season still accrues statistics toward the $3120 of "drafted" statistics. This commonly happens with pitchers. Sidney Ponson was the first casuality of the year in my league; his owner waived him on April 16 after Ponson threw up 11 awful innings (18 H, 6 BB, 10 ER, 8.18 ERA, 2.18 WHIP, 1 win). Ponson managed to hang around for another 26 1/3 IP before the Twins finally cut bait. Predictably, no one else in my league rolled the dice on Ponson.
As a result, the $3120 baseline is based on a league drafting 12 teams and then doing nothing the rest of the year. Since teams strive to improve all season long, each league is going to earn more than $3120, not less.
I understand what you are saying about SBs or HRs changing each year depending upon how many are achieved, but I have a feeling there is more to it that that. But intuition tells me that we never get what we pay for.In fact, we get exactly what we pay for. Each league spends $3120 on 276 players. Those 276 players earn $3120 to the last $1. By the end of the year, the league will surpass that $3120, because almost every team in the league will constantly tinker to pick up superior players.
Here is what I am curious about: if you added up all the values based on each team in the league, what would the Patton total be. In other words, was the total value of all teams earnings in your league 12 X 260 = 3120 using Patton values. Maybe this is not relevant. I have to think about this some more. Not trying to make work for you but I am curious.The answer to this question depends on what you are measuring. If you are talking about the draft rosters of a league and nothing more, then the total earnings of your league will be equal to $3120. As will the total earnings of my league. And rodger's league. And Mike Fenger's league. This assumes, of course, that all of you play in 12-team leagues with a $260 budget per team.
However, once you start bringing players into the pool that weren't initially included, then all earnings rise. Bobby Abreu's $13 worth of stats aren't part of the draft statistics. We are not measuring $3120 based on all of the stats accrued by a league including all pickups. The measurement is based on drafted teams alone.
If you want to take all American League or National League statistics and use $3120 as a baseline, then you are going to come up with a radically different set of values. If you see a publication or a website that listed Johan Santana's 2006 season as being worth somewhere between $30-35, this is most likely the method that publication or website is using. Actually, this method that devalues Santana so much probably takes the top 108 pitchers in the league and combines their stats. This is a problem for two reasons:
1) We can't identify who these players are before the season starts. In some cases, we aren't even permitted to buy these players. Boof Bonser earned $8 last year, but in most leagues you weren't allowed to buy him.
2) You're not comparing apples to apples when you use $3120 across all players in the A.L. or N.L. universe. The $3120 you spend applies to your auction universe only. Once the season starts, you are using FAAB, waivers, or your reserve list to add players, and you are no longer operating within the same closed economy of the auction. There is no consistent yardstick to measure value anymore. Assigning $3120 to the A.L. or N.L. universe is no longer logical but is now an arbitrary exercise.
If I had to guess, I'd say that each league adds an extra $300 to $400 of value by the end of the season. Perhaps in my next post I'll actually go through what sas4 correctly identifies as a time-consuming exercise.
2 comments:
Mike:
I think something is missing. Lets take two leagues, A and B. They both have identical auctions and starting rosters. The entire season the oweners in both leagues make no roster changes except that Team #6 in League A aquires and activates R. Braun and releases Counsel. Team #6 stands pat.
It seems to me that as Counsel and Braun proceed through the season to have a different numberof AB, runs, RBIs. etc. They each have a different value AND they change the value of every player in their respective leagues. If the rest o fthe season Braun hits 9 more HRs than Counsel, that changes the number of HRs produced and that in turn changes the value of every offensive players' value.
Someone like Alex can calculate the value of all players based on an assumption of ttoal output by all players, active and fantasy. That projection can be fairly accurate. But the real value actually changes every AB in every fantasy league as different owners have different players up and different players down.
What does this have to do with anything? I am not sure - I am not enough of a mathematician but I think it has somethimg to do with roster spots.
Players A and B each get 300 AB, score 50 runs, drive in 60, hit 20 HR, and steal 10 bases. PLayer C gets 600 AB, scores 100 runs, drives in 120, hots 40 HR, and steals 20 bases. Player C is much more than twice as valuable as the total of players A and B. Why? -- because he takes only one roster spot to accomplish that output (I left out BA because it makes the example too complicated. I think the BA for all three players should be the same.)
It takes me back to the notion that we really do not get full value from players in that some are not active and the output is not just a function of the raw numbers but also taking up roster spots.
Hey Guys -
First off, Mike, thanks for all the posts on trading. One other thing I realized is that it might be possible to trade a keeper for a keeper at this point, which opens up the possibilities a little more.
As for this valuation discussion - this too is one of my favorite subjects (though admittedly I've been a bit out of it for the past few years). I agree with most of what's been said before. At the start of the season, we all predict who the top 276 players will be, and undoubtedly assign them auction values totalling $3120.
We also know that the actual values will not total that - they will almost certainly be less. Some pitchers will be worth -$30, some $40 players will get hurt and be worth $3, etc. Leagues are pretty efficient in that at any time, the 276 active players are a decent approximation of the 276 players who are likely to have the most value from that point on (so in effect the league as a whole is constantly improving).
Also, at any time, we can tell who the top 276 players are - their values must add up to $3120 also. Just as the 300th best player before the season starts (based on our projections) has a negative value, so does the 300th best player at any time.
So basically I don't really understand the points of contention here. At any point - before the season starts, one week into the season, or after it's over, we can get the players' values.
As for players who are acquired mid-season, sure they don't count toward the $3120 spent at the auction, but of course they count towards your team's value. It's easy to compute their value after the season's over. Ryan Braun will be worth more than Craig Counsel, but only after a certain date (I don't know, I guess pretty soon, since Counsell has been so bad and is probably only worth a couple bucks so far).
I aree with sas4 that every HR Braun hits changes every other players value. If you're talking about two different universes (not leagues, but say two different parallel NLs), identicle but one with Braun and one with Counsell, the differences between those two players WILL affect every other value. In the spreadsheets I create pre-season, I can see this effect easily - compute all the values to 4 decimal places, add one HR to Pujols, and he'll go up a bit (50 cents?) and everyone else will go down a fraction of a penny. Pujols now has a higher percentage of above-replacement HR hit in the league, and of course it makes sense that he's worth more. And his value has to come from somewhere, so every other hitter's value decreases a tiny bit.
As for sas4's comment: "Players A and B each get 300 AB, score 50 runs, drive in 60, hit 20 HR, and steal 10 bases. Player C gets 600 AB, scores 100 runs, drives in 120, hots 40 HR, and steals 20 bases. Player C is much more than twice as valuable as the total of players A and B." - I'm on Mike's side here. Player C isn't worth "much more than twice the total" - unless I'm misunderstanding, it seems like you're saying if A & B are worth $20 each, then C should be worth "much more than $80" which of course is wrong.
I think you mean much more than $40, which I still disagree with. Basically they're worth just about the same. Assume A & B cost $20, and C costs $40. With A & B you're paying $40 for $40. With C you're paying $41 for C and a replacement-level player. Now, of course the $1 player has a better chance of turning a profit (and if he doesn't he can easily be replaced by someone who does, yet another advantage), but in theory, assuming your projections are 100% correct (which you must assume, going into the auction), you're getting $41 worth of value for $41 - exactly the same.
Sorry this is so long, hope I didn't confuse (or misunderstand) the situation much - this is just how I see it...
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