Wonderful Sunrises

Years ago, in one of his books, Alex Patton coined the term "wonderful sunrises" when it came to player valuation at the end of the season. He was referring to the fact that he didn't calculate the formulas for each league until after the season was over and was more concerned with statistics and his team's place in the standings than dollar valuation. Therefore, it wasn't until after the year ended that he figured out what each player was worth. Sometimes, the baselines moved far enough in one direction (more hitting than expected) or in the other (superior pitching), that a top hitter or pitcher's dollar value was very high. Ergo the "wonderful sunrise."

Today, thanks to Rototimes' free in-season value calculator, we don't quite have the same degree of mystery when it comes to in-season values. They aren't 100% aligned with Patton's values, but they're pretty close, especially when it comes to hitters. For some reason, their value calculator overemphasizes wins and saves and deemphasizes ERA and WHIP, especially WHIP. But, as a jumping off point, the value calculator is as good a place as any to take an early look at some of these wonderful sunrises.

In order to provide context, it's worth taking a look back again at last year's Top 10 American League hitters according to Rototimes versus how Patton valued these same hitters.

2006 Top 10 A.L. Hitters: Patton $

AP Rank	Player	Patton $	Rototimes $	RT Rank
1	Carl Crawford	$44	$45	2
2	Derek Jeter	$42	$46	1
3	Vladimir Guerrero	$39	$44	3
4	Ichiro Suzuki	$37	$38	7
5	Jermaine Dye	$36	$42	4
6	David Ortiz	$34	$39	5
7	Justin Morneau	$34	$39	6
8	Vernon Wells	$33	$37	8
9	Alex Rodriguez	$33	$36	9
10	Chone Figgins	$31	$27	25

There are differences worth quibbling about, but nothing radical in terms of dollar values. Rototimes' system values power more or Alex's values it less, depending on which way you look at it. Likewise, Alex values batting average and speed more or Rototimes values it less. Figgins is the only player on this list whose ranking varies greatly from one pricing model to the other, but the $4 difference in price isn't incredibly significant. The point is that Rototimes' values are close enough that it will give us a pretty good clue as to where the 2007 player values will fall out once Alex builds his formulas and once I build mine (based on his system).

So enough about 2006. According to Rototimes, where do the 2007 rate year-to-date?

2007 Top 10 A.L. Hitters: Rototimes $

	Player	$
1	Alex Rodriguez	$60
2	Magglio Ordonez	$51
3	Ichiro Suzuki	$50
4	Carl Crawford	$47
5	Vladimir Guerrero	$40
6	Chone Figgins	$39
7	David Ortiz	$39
8	Torii Hunter	$36
9	Mike Lowell	$36
10	Brian Roberts	$36

Obviously, the first thing that jumps out is A-Rod. A $60 season in Rotisserie is unheard of, and anyone who doesn't look closely at pricing would say that this is reason enough to stop looking.

Yet is it that much of a surprise? A-Rod's 52/142/24/.308 season provides contributions from all four categories; $60 might seem high, but $55, perhaps, is reasonable. Without getting into a masochist's argument, I'd say any pricing system that had him under $53 isn't worth looking at.

What's radical here isn't just A-Rod, it's the top hitters in general.

2006 saw four hitters (Jeter, Crawford, Vlad and Dye) crack $40 in the A.L., according to Rototimes. 2007 saw five hitters crack that amount. So not a big difference, right?

It sure is when your fourth best hitter in 2007 (Crawford) earns $1 more this year than the #1 hitter in the A.L. earned last year.

So this is the wonderful sunrise this year in the A.L. There was less hitting on the whole, so the better hitters were worth more. If you bought A-Rod for $40 (a reasonable price, given his relatively disappointing 2006), you turned a $20 profit.

And got $60 worth of stats.

Notice how quickly the Top 10 fade to normalcy. Brian Roberts, this year's #10 (thus far), earns the same $36 that last year's #10, Miguel Tejada, earned in 2006.

So is it just that the best hitters this year are simply better?

Plug A-Rod's projected 2007 numbers into the Patton $ 2006 formula and he's "only" worth $50. Plug Mike Lowell into that formula and he drops down to $28. So it isn't just that A-Rod was tremendous in the same context as 2006. It's the context that changed tremendously.

As you can see from the first table, it's possible that Patton's formula only puts Lowell at $33. The difference probably won't be as radical as $8 between formulas.

But there is a difference. And, when the final values for 2007 are calculated, there will be some wonderful sunrises.