shoresie has been enjoying my analysis of expert league auctions and prices this winter, but thinks that in some ways it falls short:
I agree that its useful to review the expert league prices as a tool to valuations in our own roto leagues. However, the utility is lost to a great degree by the fact they are not keeper leagues (which, I'd imagine, the large majority of us readers are participating in).
There may be a worthwhile post in trying to assess how to read the expert league prices in light of that fact. (i.e., no inflation and lower than expected pricing on prospects (though, most can't be nominated in keeper roto-leagues).
I agree emphatically with shoresie's first point. The primary reason I started this blog and continue this work is because there isn't enough keeper league analysis out there. But the expert leagues are useful to write about because they do provide a valid baseline for keeper league analysis.
Before diving into the second half of shorsie's comment, I thought I'd first take a look at a non-expert, non-keeper league that I participated in last year and see where we spent more or less than the experts. This was a National League-only, 13-team, start-up league.
Ten Most Favored Home League N.L. Hitters, 2010
| # | Player | CBS | LABR | Tout | Sal | Home | $ | H+ |
| 1 | Jason Heyward | $6 | $14 | $14 | $11 | $25 | $22 | +14 |
| 2 | Placido Polanco | $11 | $16 | $16 | $14 | $22 | $17 | +8 |
| 3 | Martin Prado | $13 | $16 | $16 | $15 | $22 | $24 | +7 |
| 4 | Jose Reyes | $36 | $26 | $23 | $28 | $35 | $25 | +7 |
| 5 | Garrett Jones | $14 | $16 | $14 | $15 | $21 | $17 | +6 |
| 6 | Ian Desmond | $4 | $5 | $10 | $6 | $12 | $18 | +6 |
| 7 | Ryan Doumit | $7 | $11 | $11 | $10 | $15 | $9 | +5 |
| | Drew Stubbs | $13 | $14 | $14 | $14 | $19 | $27 | +5 |
| 9 | Scott Rolen | $5 | $9 | $10 | $8 | $13 | $19 | +5 |
| 10 | Michael Bourn | $21 | $22 | $21 | $21 | $26 | $26 | +5 |
| | Rafael Furcal | $4 | $15 | $15 | $11 | $16 | $21 | +5 |
| | Average | $12 | $15 | $15 | $14 | $21 | $20 | +6 |
The prices above are from the 2010 CBS, LABR, and Tout Wars expert league auctions. The "Sal" column is the average salary from those three leagues. "Home" is what my non-expert league paid for these players in early April, "$" is what these players earned by my reckoning, and the "HL+" column represents the difference between what my home league paid and what the average expert league price was.
Do you see a pattern here?
I certainly don't. Heyward and Desmond's prices certainly jumped up once it was established that they would be playing every day, but veterans dominate this list. CBS's lack of love for the players in the middle rounds like Polanco, Rolen, Doumit and especially Furcal drove down their prices, but with the exception of Furcal don't have a significant impact on the fact that the home league wanted these guys more. There is definitely some affinity in the home league for middle infielders and speed compared to the expert leagues.
I would have expected that the same "prospect upside" shorsie mentioned above to impact the prices more on the chart above. Certainly, Heyward's price would have been lower in a one-and-done league, but I think playing time had more impact on his price than the speculative nature of keeper leagues. The same applies to Desmond. The prices spiked because they had jobs when my home league convened in early April, not because these prices made them appealing as keeps (they do not).
Ten Least Favored Home League N.L. Hitters, 2010
| # | Player | CBS | LABR | Tout | Sal | Home | $ | HL- |
| 1 | Stephen Drew | $19 | $23 | $22 | $21 | $14 | $20 | -7 |
| 2 | Skip Schumaker | $13 | $10 | $9 | $11 | $4 | $11 | -7 |
| 3 | Orlando Cabrera | $14 | $14 | $15 | $14 | $8 | $12 | -6 |
| 4 | Corey Hart | $17 | $19 | $17 | $18 | $12 | $28 | -6 |
| | Nate Schierholtz | $1 | $9 | $10 | $7 | $1 | $5 | -6 |
| 6 | Daniel Murphy | $8 | $10 | $8 | $9 | $4 | | -5 |
| 7 | Will Venable | $3 | $7 | $15 | $8 | $4 | $19 | -4 |
| 8 | Freddy Sanchez | $1 | $9 | $10 | $7 | $3 | $14 | -4 |
| | Xavier Nady | $4 | $7 | $3 | $5 | $1 | $6 | -4 |
| | Akinori Iwamura | $3 | $13 | $10 | $9 | $5 | -$0 | -4 |
| | Average | $8 | $12 | $12 | $11 | $6 | $12 | -5 |
The dip in prices here has less to do with position and more to do with when these guys came up in the auction. Hart was the only guy to come up in the first 10 rounds (9); everyone else came up in the 12th round or later. Drew and Cabrera came up in the 12th round, then there was a sweet spot during rounds 14-17 where five of these relative bargains came up. My home league spent more like CBS and less like LABR and Tout Wars on the top players; the result was a $6 bargain per player on the chart above where LABR/Tout Wars bid par. Even CBS was more aggressive with this bunch, bidding $8 per player.
For the purposes of this exercise, I did not include players who were ineligible to be purchased at auction in my home league who were bought by the experts. Elijah Dukes does not sit for this portrait, even though he had an average salary of $8 in the expert leagues. He's the only hitter who would have made the cut, though. Jermaine Dye and Buster Posey had an average salary of $3 and would not have been included here.
Ten Most Favored Home League N.L. Pitchers, 2010
| # | Player | CBS | LABR | Tout | Sal | Home | $ | H+ |
| 1 | Roy Halladay | $34 | $29 | $30 | $31 | $40 | $38 | +9 |
| 2 | Johan Santana | $27 | $22 | $25 | $25 | $32 | $20 | +7 |
| 3 | Matt Cain | $23 | $19 | $19 | $20 | $27 | $25 | +7 |
| 4 | Dan Haren | $33 | $25 | $28 | $29 | $35 | $6 | +6 |
| 5 | Bronson Arroyo | $4 | $3 | $8 | $5 | $11 | $19 | +6 |
| 6 | Carlos Marmol | $18 | $14 | $15 | $16 | $21 | $22 | +5 |
| | Brad Penny | $6 | $4 | $4 | $5 | $10 | $4 | +5 |
| | Chris Carpenter | $27 | $20 | $21 | $23 | $28 | $24 | +5 |
| 9 | Jamie Garcia | $1 | $1 | $4 | $2 | $6 | $17 | +5 |
| 10 | Octavio Dotel | $10 | $13 | $11 | $11 | $17 | $10 | +5 |
| | Average | $18 | $15 | $17 | $17 | $23 | $19 | +6 |
One area where my home league spent big money was on the top pitchers. Four of the expert leagues' 10 most expensive pitcher prices were blown out of the water by my home league; even CBS's relatively aggressive pricing on Halladay, Cain, Santana, and Carpenter came up short. Tim Lincecum and Adam Wainwright just missed making the chart by an average price of 33 cents; if one owner in any of the three expert leagues hadn't gone that extra dollar, Lincecum and/or Wainwright would be tied with Dotel.
Arroyo and Penny reflect my league's desire to buy innings even if they might be bad. Dotel and Marmol are the examples of higher closer prices across the board in my home league. The expert leagues have been pinching their pennies on closers for years now; the non-experts don't quite feel the same way. My home league spent an average of $17 on the 16 projected A.L. closers. Once again, CBS in this case behaved more like my home league than the LABR or Tout Wars in this instance. CBS spent $16.80 per closer, LABR $15.50, and Tout Wars a mere $15 per closer.
Ten Least Favored Home League N.L. Pitchers, 2010
| # | Player | CBS | LABR | Tout | Sal | Home | $ | HL+ |
| 1 | Brandon Webb | $20 | $12 | $9 | $14 | $7 | | -7 |
| 2 | Joe Blanton | $8 | $10 | $11 | $10 | $4 | $4 | -7 |
| 3 | Ted Lilly | $15 | $11 | $12 | $13 | $8 | $20 | -6 |
| 4 | Brandon Lyon | $3 | $9 | $6 | $6 | $2 | $13 | -6 |
| 5 | Jason Hammel | $2 | $5 | $7 | $5 | $1 | $5 | -6 |
| | Ian Kennedy | $7 | $4 | $6 | $6 | $2 | $15 | -5 |
| 7 | Huston Street | $19 | $17 | $9 | $15 | $12 | $12 | -4 |
| 8 | Oliver Perez | $3 | $2 | $3 | $3 | | -$8 | -4 |
| 9 | Takashi Saito | $4 | $4 | $3 | $4 | $1 | $8 | -4 |
| 10 | Jeff Francis | $5 | $4 | $1 | $3 | $1 | $1 | -4 |
| | Kris Medlen | $1 | $6 | $3 | $3 | $1 | $9 | -4 |
| | Jason Motte | $4 | $3 | $3 | $3 | $1 | $9 | -4 |
| | Bud Norris | $3 | $3 | $4 | $3 | $1 | $4 | -4 |
| | Clayton Richard | $4 | $8 | $4 | $5 | $3 | $12 | -4 |
| | Average | $7 | $7 | $6 | $7 | $3 | $7 | -4 |
Just like with the cheap hitter prices, the cheap hitter prices in my home league are mostly due to the fact that we spend more aggressively at the beginning and simply don't have any money left at the end. Lilly, Webb and Street's prices dip due to injury concerns that in Webb's case weren't fully digested until after the regular season started and in Street's case didn't begin to have an impact until Tout Wars convened. But the Lilly injury news was old news even when CBS convened. Lyon's price dipped because Matt Lindstrom had the job on Opening Day, a situation that clearly didn't last long.
The pitchers we skimp on don't include a number of examples like Dukes who weren't eligible for the auction according to our rules. Stephen Strasburg, Ardolis Chapman, and Madison Bumgarner all would have made the list above if I chose to include them based on salary differential. The home league doesn't push this money to the pitchers at the bottom of the heap, but rather to the pitchers at the top.
For all of the grousing about the expert prices in non-expert circles, the experts wind up closer to the true value of these groupings in every case except with the hitters that the home league prefers. I'll review the difference inflation makes in a future post.
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