6X6: A Practical Example

I addressed the 6x6 format from a theoretical standpoint, in a recent post. I still can't completely address the format using holds, since Alex Patton doesn't have any existing formulas for 6x6, but I thought I could take a look at another valuation system to see if that would help.

Rototimes' free player rater provides a menu of 20 hitting and 21 pitching categories that you can use for player valuation. While their values don't 100% match Patton's, a cursory investigation last year found that their 4x4 prices are similar to Patton's, if not exact.

Unfortunately, Rototimes does not offer holds as one of their 21 choices on the pitching side. I'll use quality starts instead to see what the general effect of adding a category is.

Top 10 N.L. Pitchers: 6x6 w/ Quality Starts

Rank	Pitcher	6x6$	5x5$	5x5 Rank
1	Jake Peavy	$46	$48	1
2	Brandon Webb	$35	$36	2
3	John Smoltz	$33	$31	6
4	Aaron Harang	$32	$32	4
5	Tim Hudson	$29	$25	11
6	Brad Penny	$29	$24	15
7	Ted Lilly	$28	$27	10
8	Cole Hamels	$27	$29	7
9	Roy Oswalt	$25	$22	19
10	Chris Young	$25	$24	14

One major problem right off the bat is that something happened between 2006 and 2007 that skewed the Rototimes formulas greatly. In Patton's 5x5 formulas, Peavy's a $37 pitcher, Webb's at $29, and Harang's at $27. It looks like the top players are skewed too far up, with the correction finally nearing when you get down to the bottom of this list (Young $22, Oswalt $20). For the moment, try to ignore the pricing discrepancies and instead focus on the price differences in the chart above.

These were some of the best starting pitchers in the National League last year, so you would expect them to get a huge boost by adding quality starts. But they don't. Three of the 10 take mild pay cuts, while Harang stays flat. Adding a sixth category adheres to general pricing theory: it levels off every quantitative statistic, and makes it more difficult for each player to climb up the ladder.

Top 10 N.L. Hitters: 6x6 w/2B + 3B

Rank	Pitcher	6x6$	5x5$	5x5 Rank
1	Hanley Ramirez	$49	$53	1
2	Matt Holliday	$46	$49	2
3	Jimmy Rollins	$45	$46	4
4	David Wright	$42	$47	3
5	Jose Reyes	$40	$43	5
6	Chase Utley	$36	$36	13
7	Chipper Jones	$35	$37	8
8	Eric Byrnes	$35	$39	6
9	Carlos Lee	$34	$36	14
10	Miguel Cabrera	$33	$36	11

For the hitters, the drop-off in a 6x6 format is almost linear. Utley keeps all of his value, but everyone else loses a little money across the board. It doesn't matter that you're adding a category that helps all of these hitters; they are penalized enough in the other five categories that they all wind up sliding backwards.

I recognize that this doesn't answer anonymous' original question about holds in a 6x6 league. Intuitively, I'd guess that the value of starting pitchers and closers would drop a few dollars. Middle relievers would take most of that budget back, but keep in mind that they, too, will lose value in the other five categories that they contribute in.