How Far Is Too Far? Inflation Edition

People sure piled on last week when I wrote about the CBS Sportsline expert league.

I am in a standard 5X5 AL-only keeper league which usually goes 70/30 between hitters and pitchers. Even with 20% inflation, it would be a stretch for the Arods of the world to go for more than $10 (over par) in our league.

Anonymous caught me off guard. In my venerable A.L.-only league, I normally look at raw values and inflation, not so much at whether or not owners go $10 or more over inflation values.

Does this apply to other seasoned, non-expert leagues as well?

10 Most Expensive Players, 2008 Billy Almon Brown Graduate

Slot	Player	AP Proj. Value	AP Value w/Inf.	Cost	$	+/-	CBS
12	Miguel Cabrera	$34	$41	$42	$33	-9	$46
13	Vladimir Guerrero	$33	$40	$41	$28	-13	$36
2	Erik Bedard	$24	$29	$40	$7	-33	$27
3	Joe Nathan	$33	$40	$40	$40	-0	$22
1	Francisco Rodriguez	$30	$36	$37	$47	+10	$24
15	Mariano Rivera	$31	$37	$37	$48	+9	$22
7	Derek Jeter	$29	$35	$34	$22	-12	$32
9	Bobby Abreu	$27	$33	$33	$34	1	$31
20	Brian Roberts	$27	$33	$33	$33	-0	$26
27	Magglio Ordonez	$28	$34	$33	$28	-5	$25
	Average	$30	$36	$37	$32	-5	$29

For the most part, yes. With the exception of Bedard (who Alex Patton had valued lower than most other touts anyway), our league tended to stay right around inflation value for all of these players.

For those of you new readers, this is what Stage Three is all about. Most of my league doesn't use Patton's values - and a few owners probably only have an inkling of who he is - but they sure have the same idea that he does of what most of these players are worth.

One could argue, though, that my A.L. in 2008 was a bad league to look at, as seven of Alex's Top 10 projected hitters and five of his Top 10 pitchers were frozen in my league. There was no $40+ hitter to look at to see if the league chased to inflation par.

OK...

10 Most Expensive Players, 2007 Billy Almon Brown Graduate

Slot	Player	AP Proj. Value	AP Value w/Inf.	Cost	$	+/-
15	Carl Crawford	$41	$49	$50	$40	-10
1	Joe Nathan	$33	$39	$45	$39	-6
17	Vladimir Guerrero	$37	$44	$44	$32	-12
4	Alex Rodriguez	$37	$44	$42	$53	+11
5	Daisuke Matsuzaka	$25	$30	$40	$13	-27
10	Francisco Rodriguez	$32	$38	$40	$35	-5
22	Ichiro Suzuki	$34	$40	$38	$40	+2
23	David Ortiz	$32	$38	$38	$36	-2
3	Mariano Rivera	$32	$38	$37	$28	-9
11	Bobby Abreu	$32	$38	$37	$28	-9
	Average	$34	$40	$41	$34	-7

Wow, this is definitely more like it. The players here are worth $4 more per player - both with inflation and without - and my league spends $7 more per player with inflation.

Here a couple of players - Nathan and Matsuzaka - crack anonymous' $10+ barrier. But, still, there does seem to be an invisible stopping point, as everyone else falls within $2 of inflation one way or the other.

(In case you're wondering, inflation was about 21% in 2008 and 19% in 2007).

Anonymous' point is backed by the evidence, and leads me to two conclusions:

1) In a league with 20% inflation, it's almost impossible for a player to go for $10+ over his uninflated value. A $40 player with 20% inflation would cost $48 at inflation par. You would need a $50 player to find a player worth pushing to that $10 level, and $50 bid limits are folly in Rotisserie.

2) Anonymous' larger point is that the expert leagues don't seem to have the same price discipline that the regular money leagues do and this is correct. Two of the three bids that were $10+ over inflation came on starting pitchers - a scarce commodity in many keeper leagues, leading a couple of owners into a bidding war to make sure they get an ace. The results in these charts don't endorse the strategy, but it's a strategy employed in my A.L. religiously, and I'll bet a dollar that CC Sabathia goes $10 past his uninflated price in my league in 2009.

Otherwise, you're talking about an incredible amount of discpline in my league. Eighty-five percent of the players in the chart above going within $2 of their inflation par price and 70% matching that price or going within $1 of that price is Stage Three. I'm not as confident as anonymous is that the Sportsline crowd wouldn't be able to compete in a "regular" league, but I'm pretty sure that inflation bidding would be a challenge and that some of the expert owners might blow the budget way too early on two or three top players.