Just kidding! Obviously, I enjoy the spirit and energy of these debates, and I love the fact that I'm engaged in a discussion about John Buck. Mixed leaguers are probably only finding out who John Buck is, and one of the goals of this blog is to have real discussions about what serious Roto players care about.
I do agree with rodger that our opinions about Buck and Butler are similar. One of the reasons I write more about theory and less about player projection is because we have reached the point in this game where the differences in opinion get narrower and narrower every year. More and more, the winning edge comes less from scouting players and gleaning information and more from a tactical and strategic standpoint.
rodger and I agree on Billy Butler's potential. But we don't agree on his value in trade.
(Or maybe we don't agree on his value. rodger has not discussed what he would give up in a dump deal for Butler, so I cannot assume that his views on this are different than mine.)
Every aspect of Rotisserie League Baseball contains some version of risk-versus-reward. We pay $40+ for Alex Rodriguez because the reward is great and the risk is limited. We almost never pay $40+ for starting pitchers because, while the reward is potentially great, the risk is far greater.
When it comes to the auction, the concept of risk versus reward is easiest to understand. Even owners who don't come to the table with a printout of player values for the top 276 or top 299 players have decent intuition on this subject. If Milton Bradley or Rocco Baldelli stays healthy, there's an excellent chance each one will earn $25-30. But there's the rub. The odds of a Bradley or a Baldelli staying healthy are slim. The market recognizes this, and penalizes Bradley and Baldelli. Yes, there's a chance of a large profit. But the chances of a loss are far greater.
When it comes to trading, the concept of risk versus reward gets somewhat hazier. As a result, there are some owners who are simply afraid to trade. Unless an owner is 30 HR or 30 SB ahead of the pack at the All-Star break, an owner won't suffer in one category to gain in another. The smarter owners will, though, if they can visualize how they can gain points. So this is one area where owners can gain an advantage.
A equally significant (but far less examined) area where an owner can gain an advantage in a carryover league is through dump trades or, to put it somewhat more elegantly, this-year-for-next-year trades.
Part of the reason that there is so much to gain (or lose) with these trades is that the owner who is playing for next year is not only getting 50 cents on the dollar, he's putting all of his eggs into fewer baskets. Again, everyone knows this, or at least has some intuition about this fact.
However, what owners fail to understand is not only how dumping affects their freezes, but how it will affect the players they buy at auction the following season. I looked at this phenomenon a few times over the winter. Here is one example.
In the example provided via the link, a $40 Vladimir Guerrero is only worth more than a $12 Jason Bartlett if inflation is 10% or less. However, to really see the impact of this trade, inflation has to be practically nothing.
However, the idea behind dump trades isn't to get the guys like Bartlett who are frozen at $10 and we think will be worth $12. The idea is to get the Billy Butlers of the world. Right?
Let's take a trip back in time to Opening Day 2004. It was a great year for top American League hitting prospects. It was so great that John Sickels handed out five "A" grades to American League hitters.
How did those hitters fare the last three years?
Top 5 American League Prospects 2004
| Player | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | Total |
Joe Mauer | $5 | $18 | $27 | $50 |
| Bobby Crosby | $11 | $8 | $5 | $24 |
| B.J. Upton | $0 | $4 | $4 | |
| Casey Kotchman | $1 | $5 | $2 | $4 |
| Justin Morneau | $12 | $11 | $33 | $56 |
Average | $6 | $8 | $13 | $28 |
The lesson here is clear. Only rebuild using Minnesota Twins!
Again, kidding. But this is not a handpicked list of rookies who failed. These are five American League hitters that three years ago were highly desirable hitters with bright futures ahead of them. Their Rotisserie owners either a) held on to them no matter what or b) demanded on extremely high price in a dump trade. Furthermore, these aren't guys who were in Double-A and then called up to the majors on September 3 for a sip of coffee. Mauer and Crosby were in the majors on Opening Day, and Kotchman (May 9) and Morneau (May 21) were called up for the first time in May. Only Upton was called up somewhat late (August 1), but this hardly dampened enthusiasm for him. In fact, he was frozen at $10 the next year in my A.L.
Actually, all five were kept at $10 in 2005. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Team A packed it in on July 15, 2004 and was somehow able to get all of these players in dump deals. You could argue that a freeze list of Joe Mauer, B.J. Upton, Casey Kotchman, Bobby Crosby and Justin Morneau would have been pretty damn strong, based on expectations. The result, though, would have been less than mediocre. Team A would have returned only $42 on its $50 investment. Assuming 20% inflation, Team A's $210 in the auction only returns $175. Team A's total return is $217, and this team is probably dumping again.
Eventually, the return on all of these players (with the exception of the perpetually disappointing Bobby Crosby) is great. Not seen on the chart is the fact that Casey Kotchman and B.J. Upton are finally putting it together this season.
In the cruel world of Rotisserie League Baseball, though, unless you were willing to give out a two-year contract to any of these players at the start of the 2006 season, you wouldn't own any of these players now. More pertinently, you would have lost in 2005, in all likelihood. And, I don't know about you, but if I'm giving up on this year, I'm trying to win next year. I don't give two shinolas about three years from now.
OK, let's hop back in our time machine and return to 2007.
I love Billy Butler. More than I loved Casey Kotchman, Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer three years ago. Truth be told, B.J. Upton was the only player on that list I had as high an opinion of then that I have of Butler now.
But that's the point. Billy Butler could earn $20 next year. History tells us he could also earn $10. Or $5. Or $0. He's a risk, in other words. A small handful of minor league studs deliver right away. More commonly, it takes 2-3 years for a top prospect to blossom. Once in a while, the potential is never realized.
And this brings me back to my point. Managing your risks must occur not only during the auction, but while you're building your team for next year. The Billy Butlers of the world are important to rebuilding teams. But you need to make sure you get some definitive profit in your rebuilding effort as well. Too many Billy Butlers is ignoring the fact that risk aversion is vital to winning your league.
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this.
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