Patton Values v. Rototimes Values: Part II

Yesterday, I started looking at the Top 10 hitters in the American League and the National League from 2008 using both Alex Patton's valuation system and Rototimes' Player Rater. What I found was intriguing. Rototimes' Top 10 American League hitters were valued considerably higher than Patton's Top 10, but Patton's Top 10 National League hitters were valued slightly higher than Rototimes'.

This is more than a little unusual. If Rototimes believes that the best hitters in the American League are worth more, wouldn't it stand to reason that the best hitters in the National League would be worth more as well?

One way to attempt and find out is to take a look at a group of hitters in the middle.

Rototimes 4x4 A.L. Hitters 2008: 81-90

RT Rank	Player	RT$	AP$	Diff.
81	Alexi Casilla	$11	$12	-1
82	Ben Francisco	$11	$12	-1
83	Marcus Thames	$10	$12	-2
84	Edgar Renteria	$10	$12	-2
85	Hideki Matsui	$10	$11	-1
86	Nick Punto	$10	$11	-1
87	Yuniesky Betancourt	$10	$11	-1
88	Ivan Rodriguez	$10	$10	0
89	Hank Blalock	$9	$10	-1
90	Billy Butler	$9	$11	-2

Technically, these hitters aren't in the middle. Since Patton assigned 70% of his dollars to hitting way back when, the average hitter actually earns $13. I'd probably have to go up to the next group of 10 hitters to find the "average" hitter.

Nevertheless, this is what you'd expect to see at some point when comparing two pricing systems. The break-even point is probably somewhere in the mid 60s to low 70s, but Patton finally starts "outspending" Rototimes. Given that there were 309 American League hitters listed by Rototimes in 2008, Patton would have to start making his gains somewhere at this point in order to "spend" $2184 - or 70% of his money - on hitting.

Rototimes 4x4 N.L. Hitters 2008: 85-94

RT Rank	Player	RT$	AP$	Diff.
85	Aaron Rowand	$11	$14	-3
86	Ray Durham	$11	$13	-2
87	Aaron Miles	$11	$12	-1
88	Michael Bourn	$11	$17	-6
89	Rafael Belliard	$11	$12	-1
90	Jay Bruce	$11	$14	-3
91	Jeff Kent	$11	$13	-2
92	Felipe Lopez	$11	$13	-2
93	Mike Fontenot	$10	$12	-2
94	Rafael Furcal	$10	$11	-1

Uh oh. If you paid Fanball the $12 or so they were charging for their projections this winter, you better have had double checked your dollar values to make sure they added up to $3380 in the National League. The Player Rater undervalues both sets of hitters...at least according to Patton.

And he's probably right. You can argue with him regarding how he distributes his money, but Patton does distribute $3120 of his money in the American League and $3380 in the National League on his retrospective pricing. If Fanball does not, then they have a problem.

The American League looks fine. Reasonable people can argue about whether they'd rather pay more for Josh Hamilton and Dustin Pedroia so that they can avoid Ben Francisco and Edgar Renteria later. In my opinion, there's something to that argument, though it's probably better handled in a future post.

The National League is where I have a problem. I haven't looked at the 300+ hitters who played in the N.L. last year, but I'd be willing to guess that David Wright is to Rafael Furcal is to Jack Wilson in the Rototimes projections as David Wright is to Rafael Furcal is to Jack Wilson in the Patton projections. In other words, the pecking order is probably linear in both sets of projections.

Bad news for the Rototimes Player Rater. It looks like a useful tool in the American League. But in the National League it looks like it's not spending enough money. Which makes it worthless.

Unless, of course, more money is being allocated for certain pitchers. Once again, reasonable people can argue for that.

I'll try and unpeel that onion in my next post.