...how would someone spend the $3120- to me it could be no other way than by what you think the player will earn. I may think the market will pay $42 for (Jacoby) Ellsbury, but I only project him to earn $35 in salary. There's no way I put a bid price anything other than $35. If he goes more I rejoice. If he's going twice at considerably less I bid. If he's going twice at a little less I make a quick eval of my roster construction and money remaining and bid if it works. If he's on par, I just praise my projection as also matching the market.There are a number of scenarios where I might bid a dollar or two more or less than what I think a player will earn. Today, though, I'm going to focus instead on situations where I would avoid entirely bidding what a player might earn. These aren't universal, but examples of when I would avoid pushing a player to his projected earnings entirely.
While I redistribute some of the middle reliever dollars towards inflation (I've discussed my inflation theories before here), I don't cut salaries or raise them - otherwise the projections would be an extraneous exercise.
1) Speed/bench guys: There are always a few of these guys floating around every auction, and there is just too much variability on what they may or may not do.
Rotoman projected Ryan Freel to finish with a 3/17/19/.265 line in 325 AB, which would have been good for $10 worth of earnings in A.L. 4x4. But there's no way I'm going to pay $10 for a player who might get those 325 AB but who might also disappear entirely. Sure enough, Freel was traded to the National League, came back to the A.L. briefly, but then fell off the map completely. I doubt anyone paid $10 for him, but I wouldn't be surprised if some owners chased him to $7-8 thinking they had a bargain.
This theory holds true with bench players in general. Maybe that 4th OF you own is going to get 300-350 AB and earn $12. But don't bet on it. Bid $4-5 (at most) and hope for it instead. If you're wrong, your fall won't be as hard.
2) Regulars who "move the chains": A player who doesn't hit too many home runs or steal too many bases must rely on his teammates so that he can score runs and drive in runs. If I think a player derives a lot of his value from RBI/runs, I'll knock his bid down a couple of bucks even if the projection tells me that he's going to earn "X" amount. Is David DeJesus going to drive in another 71 runs on the Royals even though he's a weak HR hitter? I have no intention of paying $15 (what he earned in 2009) to find out.
3) Middle relievers: I include this one last, but put these guys at the top of my list of players I won't pay the projected price. There are too many of them floating around and their value fluctuates too much from year to year. Most importantly, why should I pay $10 for a middle reliever when I can pluck one off the free agent pool for a minimal FAAB bid who could very well wind up doing the same thing. Rotoman's $14 projection for Grant Balfour last year was sensible, given what Balfour earned in 2008. Paying $14 for Balfour would not have been sensible...and you would have taken a loss.
There are other examples. But keep in mind that a projection tells you what a player might do, while a bid tells you what you are willing to pay for what a player might do. In the case of established veteran hitters, it's probably a good idea to pay what the projection tells you to pay. But don't get bogged down in the projected value; your own instincts and valuation will do a lot more for you than a projection ever will.
5 comments:
Perhaps I am misinterpreting Eugene, but I read him to say he will NEVER pay more than projected value for a player. In my 12 team AL-only keeper league (usually 14-16 rounds), probably 2/3 of the players in Rounds 1-4 go for more than projected value and only a handful are underbid. Limiting yourself in the earlier rounds to underbid players strikes me as a very passive strategy. You will be limited to a very small pool of players, and basically are completely dependent on the whims of the marketplace to determine your player selections. Persisting in this strategy probably means you get some bargains in the mid-rounds, but you almost certainly will end up with significant unspent money. Obsessing about "overpaying" for players assumes a level of precision in both our forecasting and valuation techniques that simply doesn't exist in reality. Labelling someone a $20 player tells me there is a reasonable chance (say 60%, he will earn within 10% of that amount, say $18 to $22). So, if that player fits into my roster strategy, I have no problems going to $22, and perhaps to $23-$24 if we are dealing with a scarce commodity (SB's) or a shallow position (catcher). Bottom line - in a league where the top players consistently go for more than "fair market value," you might feel smarter than everybody else, but you still need to adjust your bidding strategy accordingly or it will be impossible to construct a competitive team.
You're not really misunderstanding me. My league is very predictable in terms of the pitching/hitting split. We only have 5 keepers, so inflation is relatively low compared to most keeper leagues.
I project all of the players. In those projections I have some quirks which may adjust some of the things MikeG is describing. First, I don't give wins to middle relievers and closers. Those wins are far too unpredictable. I only give wins to starting pitchers and those I project to be swing starters. I also project IP so that the relative value of MR can only be higher at the end of the season. I cap most MR at 50 IP. Ace MR like Scot Shields in the past would get more. Closers get b/w 50-75 IP depending on previous usage pattern for the manager. Four starters per team get a realistic compliment of IP. The 5th starters get less.
I also don't project a lot of ABs for bench players. I never would have given Ryan Freel 300+ ABs. Something like 150 is more likely.
Unlike MikeG, I love players like DeJesus who get a lots of ABs at a solid batting average. I consider them undervalued b/c they don't hit a lot of HR or steal a lot of bases. But, I see them as 5 category accumulators who really fill out a team well.
And, I don't go above my inflationary dollars. If the league is bidding too high on hitters early I see it as an opportunity later. There are a lot of stats to buy in the draft. I love to see crazy bidding early. I consider it Stage 1. In my primary league it never happens anymore. One player here and there will have some disparate valuation, but it's never a few rounds of craziness or absurd bidding for steals or saves. If they're already frozen (SB and Svs), then build a strategy that doesn't require them. Don't chase a commodity that has a specific value by spending a lot more than it's really worth. That will only cost you in the other categories.
And, if I'm in a newer league, I just trust my prices and play Stage 2 to their Stage 1 if I think things are crazy early.
Let me also add that I make sure that every dollar is allocated in my pricing so that $3120 will be spent. This guarantees that when prices are over early, there will be bargains later.
It sounds to me like Eugene is making the adjustments necessary to get fair bid prices out of his projections. (This is something that is fairly easy to do using the Patton $ Online software, because it automatically prorates accumulated stats when you change the AB or IP, and the rate stats when you change the BA or ERA or WHIP.)
Giving no wins to relievers is a pretty sensible way to bring their value down, but I suspect you still end up relievers who are overvalued because of their volatility and the resultant impression everyone has (correctly, I think) that they're replaceable.
In any case, doing your projections that way means that your projected totals don't add up to the league totals, which means that you are using another way of building in an estimate of what prices the league will bear.
Same destination, different routes.
You stole my thunder RotoMan!
In the end, Eugene is tweaking at a different point in the process, so it is a little misleading to say that he never pays more than his value; that value has already been tweaked by tweaking the projection.
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