Position Scarcity and Dollar Valuation

Back in April when I wrote about Rototimes' Player Rater, there was some discussion amongst my readers as to whether or not the Player Rater used position scarcity to skew values. Brett didn't think so.

I thought I'd take a more detailed look. The values are for games played through yesterday, 13-team N.L.-only 4x4, 70% hitting.

Hanley Ramirez 261 AB 10 HR 42 RBI 10 SB .330 BA $46.46 (Patton $39.59)
Carlos Beltran 241 AB 8 HR 40 RBI 11 SB .336 BA $46.36 (Patton $38.57)

If anything, Rototimes seems to skew a little bit more toward the OF. We know that Patton's valuation system doesn't use position scarcity, so rather than assuming that Rototimes' system skews toward Beltran, I'd have to assume that it doesn't skew but that rather some of the calculations for each individual category are slightly different.

Felipe Lopez 267 AB 4 HR 16 RBI 5 SB .307 BA $22.86 (Patton $19.05)
Derrek Lee 218 AB 11 HR 37 RBI 0 SB ,294 BA $22.63 (Patton $22.09)

It's possible that the Rototimes calculator is skewing toward Lopez now, as there's a whopping $3.81 difference between their value for him and Patton's. However, I suspect that this has more to do with a Patton bias against steals or a Rototimes bias against batting average more than anything else. Let's find someone further down the charts who has very similar stats.

Alfonso Soriano 282 AB 14 HR 30 RBI 7 SB .227 BA -$0.75 (Patton $16.84)
Dan Uggla 247 AB 14 43 RBI 1 SB .223 BA -$0.86 (Patton 14.84)

The scarcity issue is nearly a non-issue as - once again - Rototimes favors an outfielder over a middle infielder. But what's going on with the crazy $17.59 gap between Patton and Rototimes.

Open a window and close a door...or something to that effect. While looking for position scarcity, I found out why the pricing gaps between the two systems are so large: batting average. Or - more likely - qualitative valuation.

Wow. This means that Rototimes' pricing - contrary to Brett's assertion back in April - might be worth paying attention to...even if we still believe that Patton's pricing is superior.