Daily Projections

Unfortunately, I've let this blog go dormant...but the good news is that there's a great new fantasy baseball website that I'd consider the 'spiritual descendant' of The Waiver Wire. I definitely recommend checking out Daily Projections!

James & Valverde

For a starting pitcher pick for today I like Chuck James at home against Washington. Pretty good pitcher at home against really bad offense is always a nice formula. Honorable mention to Dave Bush against Florida.

For a reliever, I'll go with Jose Valverde who is somehow still available in slightly more than 50% of Yahoo leagues according to the player ranker. Are there leagues that don't count saves or something?

And I'll try to get a day ahead for the first time this season. There's really slim pickings tomorrows, and I'd go without a rotating starting pitcher. Pat Neshek at home against Tampa Bay is a good relief pick up.

Apologies

Apologies for the lack of recent posts. Real life collided with blogging in a big way between getting very busy at work and getting really sick for a couple days. I'll start posting regularly again in the next day or two.

First priority - Walter, whoever and wherever you are, please send me an email at zelvin30@hotmail.com so I know what email address to send the calculator to!

El Duque and Benitez

For today's starter, I'll take El Duque (who I like as long as he maintains his typically good K/9) and since Benitez is just below 50% on the Yahoo player ranker, I'll take him. Note that I like Valverde a lot more, but since he pitched yesterday, he's about 50% less likely to get a save today. If these closers stay under 50% for long, I may change my threshhold to 45% to make things tougher for myself.

First Day of Picks

I didn't make any picks for the Mets/Cards game, so today will be my first day of picks. I really am not a Carl Pavano fan, but at home, with the Yankees offense behind him against Tampa Bay, he's worth picking up. On the relief side, there are a number of closers still less than 50% owned. I don't expect that to continue, so I'll take the chance to pitch Jose Valverde today. He's at Colorado, which is a minus, but not as big a deal as it used to be, and I think he's good enough to make it worthwhile. Ryan Dempster at Cinn. would have been a good choice too.

For now, I'll be picking players who are less than 50% owned in the Yahoo 'Player Rater' at the time of the pick. I will 'allow myself' to make picks for future days if I want, and if I haven't specified my pick for a given day, then by default its the same players as the prewious day. I'll update my stats at least once a week, but probably more.

I Take it Back

Due to some strong complaints, I will stick with my original intention of identifying one undervalued starter and one undervalued reliever every day. I'll identify the criteria for 'undervalued' between now and Sunday.

Also, I've been saying that Rotohog sign-ups were ending this week. It turns out that isn't true. They will remain open thoughout the season. Late entrants just won't get to participate in a draft, and obviously they won't have much chance of winning the overall competition. But there will be monthly and/or weekly contents that they'll be eligible for.

Heath Bell

I knew that Heath Bell was a pitcher who has had a lot of success in the minor leagues, but was somewhat unfairly criticized for his lack of success in the majors, but didn't realize to what an extent this was true, until I looked up his stats after reading a short comment about him at Rotoauthority this morning.

Bell has an ERA of 4.92 in 108 innings pitched, and that's the kind of number that tends to scare people off. On the other hand, he's struck out 105 and walked only 30 in those 108 innings, so his K/9 and K/BB are both excellent. In addition he induces plenty of ground balls (over 50% in 2 of his 3 major league seasons), so it appears that his bad ERA has been mostly the result of bad luck.

Even more encouraging are the numbers Bell has put up in the minors over parts of the past few years. In 35 AAA innings last year, he struck out 56 and walked only 8 in 35 innings. That's truly exceptional, and Bell should be able to put up an ERA about 2 full runs below his major league total so far. I will be using him as a big part of my middle reliever rotation.

Some Changes

I've decided to slightly change the 'mission' of this blog. Originally I pictured most of my posts focusing on which pitchers to pick up off the waiver wire in daily transaction leagues. I've come to realize that I can still address that, while broadening the focus to include all sorts of discussion of how to make adjustments to your team during the season. Most fantasy baseball advice focuses too heavily on preparation for the season and the draft, and there's not enough information out there and how to make evaluations and adjustments once the season begins. For daily transaction leagues in particular, the in-season adjustments are critical, but they make a big difference in weekly transaction leagues as well. I was leaning towards this change in focus already, and then realized I had to do something to change the blog's stated mission, when I noticed that Yahoo doesn't list what percentage of leagues a player is owned in...making my original goal of recommending players who are less than 50% owned in Yahoo leagues impossible. So instead, I'll be explaining the transactions I make on my own Yahoo team, showing the statistical results of those transactions, and giving advice on how to manage your teams during the season. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestion regarding this change, feel free to email me or leave a comment.

Since the last update on my Yahoo team, I've made one transaction. After Julio was traded to Florida, I picked him up as a free agent and dropped Owens. This solved the last big problem I felt I had coming out of my draft - needing a 3rd closer. I actually expect to use Owens as part of my rotating middle relievers strategy, but not need to fill up a roster spot with him now...I should be able to pick him (or someone like him) up whenever I need. Julio should be a decent closer and I think he's likely to hold onto the role no matter how well Owens and the other Florida relievers pitch.

Closer Usage Patterns

I just did some really basic 'back of napkin' research on closer usage patters. I looked at data for three of the top closer - Joe Nathan, Mariano Rivera, and Francisco Rodriguez. Altogether there were 197 games where they had pitched the previous day. Out of those 197 games, they were used in a total of 51 games, and picked up 42 wins or saves. There were 289 games where they had not pitched the previous day. Out of those 289 games, they were used in a total of 145 games. So in games where they pitched the previous day they picked up a win or save 21% of the time, while in games where they did not pitch the previous day, they picked up a win or save 31% of the time. And they actually appeared in games almost twice as often following a day off. Note that the results would have been even more extreme if I had eliminated games where a player missed time for an injury, since these periods obviously consisted only of days off, followed by games where they did not pitch.

Why does this matter? Well, in many leagues, it doesn't. But in leagues where there's a possibility of rotating closers...for example a salary cap league with daily transactions, this is huge. Closers are going to be AT LEAST 50% more valuable in games where they didn't pitch the previous day.

Last Week for Rotohog Sign-ups

This is the last week for Rotohog sign-ups. The last drafts are on Thursday, and trading begins Friday morning. For those who don't know, this is a FREE, fantasy baseball game with a $100K FIRST PRIZE! Other twists to the game include a 37 minute draft (teams make picks each round simultaneously) and 'open market' style trading like a stock exchange. If you haven't already registered, please use my referral code 'waiverwire' (without the quotes) when you sign up at Rotohog.

Keys to Winning at Fantasy Baseball

This is a slightly revised version of a guest article I wrote a few days ago for Fantasy Baseball Guy...

Yes, I’m aware that at least three other bloggers have written about this very same topic in the past few days. But I have a slightly different take on what the keys to winning at fantasy baseball are, and I’d like to share them. Obviously there are a lot of different things that can impact your results in a fantasy baseball league, but I believe that these three are the ones that most frequently separate the winners from the also rans.

Exploit Your Edge:
One of the keys to winning is having a plan. You need to know where your edge is going to come from and you need to have a strategy that allows you to maximize the benefit you’ll gain from that edge. It’s not enough to just draft the best players possible and hope for the best. If you do that, you’ll do ok if you value players well, but you’ll get beaten out by someone with a real plan for how to win the league.

For example, I believe that my edge comes from an understanding of how to project pitching performance. My understanding of which stats are good predictors of future performance and which aren’t has consistently allowed me to do a better job than most people of picking up undervalued pitchers and steering clear of overvalued ones. My strategy to exploit that edge is that I focus very heavily on hitting during the most drafts, confident that I can put together an ok staff of undervalued pitchers in the later rounds of the draft, and gradually improve my staff over the course of the season. Another reasonable strategy for someone with my edge would be to focus a little more on pitchers who I thought were good values even if they went relatively early in the draft (ie…pick Peavy if he’s there in the 4th round) with the intention of trading some of my pitching away once everyone else recognizes just how good my pitchers are…but obviously that will only work in a league where teams are so active that I can be sure I’ll find someone to trade with. My experience has been that that’s rarely the case.

Another example of an edge that someone might have is that they spend so much time online and watching baseball that they’re almost always the first one to know about injuries. For that person, it might be reasonable to draft only one closer, since they’ll almost certainly be able to pick up closers during the season when somebody gets hurt.

Know The Rules:
Its really important to know the rules of your league. Not just the obvious stuff like what the scoring system is, but every little detail. Is there an innings pitched maximum? An innings pitched minimum? Games played maximums at each position for hitters? What time is the transaction deadline? Are you allowed to draft an invalid roster? What are the requirements for position eligibility? Is there a disabled list? When do trading, waivers, and free agency begin? Are there limits to the number of transactions you can make? In a keeper league, what exactly are the keeper rules? Each of these (and many more) rules should play a part in the strategies that you consider using during the season. For example, a low enough innings pitched maximum might make middle relievers have some value, even in a shallow league where they normally wouldn’t. In league where you can draft an invalid roster, instead of drafting a replacement level hitter at your last open position, maybe you draft someone with an outside shot of winning the role as their team’s closer before the season starts. There are so many of these tricks and adjustments to be made, but if you don’t know the league’s rules really well, you’re not going to be able to properly take advantage of them.

Be Willing to Drop Players:
This was probably the toughest and most important lesson that I learned on the way from being a mediocre fantasy baseball player to being a good one. You simply can’t get too attached to your players. Lots of people advise this, but they’re usually talking about being willing to give up something good to get what you need in trades. While that is true, I think a willingness to drop ‘good’ players when its necessary is tougher, and more important too. In leagues with shallow benches, don’t kill your chances by carrying too manyh injured stars…at some point you may need to drop one to pick up someone who will play. In leagues with daily transactions, don’t hesitate to drop the 3-5 weakest players on your team, even if they’re pretty good. You’ll b e able to get much better production by rotating players in favorable situations….even if someone picks up the guy you just dropped. And never, ever sacrifice current production because you’re carrying a useless player for their ‘trade value’. You could wait a long time before someone is willing to trade for them.


Be Relentless:
While you can certainly lose the season with a bad enough draft, you can’t win it with a good draft. You’re going to need to check on your team and make adjustments throughout the season to have a chance of winning. Most leagues I’ve been in have been won by the person who did the best job of this, not the one with the best draft. Don’t underestimate how much ground you can make up by staying on top of things day in, day out, for the full six month season.

Tony Sipp

I decided to do some research on Tony Sipp after somebody posted on Rotojunkie that along with Fernando Cabrera, he's a possibility to take over as the Cleveland closer if Joe Borowski is injured or ineffective. I hadn't heard Sipp's name before, so I had to look up his minor league stats. I'm not actually sure that Sipp is even going to have a place in the Cleveland bullpen , but the poster was right about one thing - he should be immediately effective (although a little wild) when he gets his chance in the majors. At Akron last year (AA) he struck out 80 and walked 21 in 60.1 innings. Those are the statistics of an excellent prospect, and even if you assume that skipping AAA would lead to a relatively large drop in his K/9 rate and an increase in his BB/9, both should remain good enough for Sipp to hold his own against major league competition.

Reminder

Just a reminder that by buying from the advertisers on this site you'll be helping a great cause in . If you're going to sign up for a free Yahoo Fantasy Baseball account, please click on the Yahoo ad at the top of the blog to do so. If you're going to buy any books, DVDs, or anything else from Amazon, click on one of their ads at the side of the page (I'll get credit even if the ad is for a different item than you're buying). If you're buying baseball tickets, check out the StubHub ad, and take a look at the links and information on referral codes to GameDayDraft (free daily fantasy baseball contests with cash prizes) and Home Run Mania on the right side of the page. If you haven't already signed up for Rotohog (free, 4100K first prize) and are interested in it, visit my other blog, The Rotohog Blog where you'll find instructions. Signing up for or buying any of these great products will help me earn money for Save The Children. And if you're interested in getting updates on my progress, send me an email letting me know that you'd like to be on my mailing list.

Tampa Closer Situation

This is an updated version of a guest article I wrote for Fake Teams last week.

Last week, Joe Maddon was quoted as saying that he was far from having his mind made up about having Seth McClung act as the closer for Tampa Bay to start the season. Well, I’ts about time! Up until then, we’d been hearing that because he throws hard (or something like that) McClung was going to be given the closer’s role. Whoever had decided this apparently was overlooking one important fact…Seth McClung is a terrible pitcher. Last year he walked more batters than he stuck out (68 to 59)! That’s awful. And that was in 103 innings, so its not like he showed signs that he could be a superstar if he just improved his control. McClung hasn’t pitched well at any level above high A ball. Pitching in relief after the All-Star break last year, he wasn’t much better than as a starter in the first half of the season. While his K/9 rate went up substantially, so did his BB/9. You can’t success as a major league pitcher walking a batter every inning.

The amazing thing about how long they’d clung to the idea of using McClung as their starter is that Tampa Bay has a number of superior options.

I’ve talked about Chad Orvella before here. While he’s certainly a high risk choice, he’s got TONS of upside potential (unlike McClung who has very little chance of excelling in the majors despite the speed of his fastball), and the potential downside isn’t much worse than what McClung has done so far in his career.

A safer choice among young, unproven pitchers would be Juan Salas. I have to confess that I didn’t know much about him until recently, when somebody told me he might have a shot at the Tampa Bay closer job. I took a look at his stats, and I like what I saw: Combined 2006 stats at AA, AAA, and 10 major league innings were 93 strikeouts and 28 walks in 73.1 innings. If Salas wins the job, he should do a perfectly adequate job…far, far better than anything they could hope for out of Seth McClung.

An even better choice would be Al Reyes. He’s not young, but he’s been pretty good over the course of his major league career, with a K/9 rate close to 9 and better than a 2:1 strikeout to walk ratio. And it appears that he’s been getting better over the years as his K/9 and K/BB have been substantially better since 2002. The main question with Reyes is whether he will pitch effectively after missing all of 2006. So far in Spring Training, he looks ok with 4 strikeouts and 1 walk in 6 innings pitched.

Why they would consider handing the closer’s job to a marginal major leaguer like McClung over a proven pitcher like Reyes is beyond me. But given their questionable decision making so far, Tampa Bay fans should be afraid…very afraid. Because one of the alternatives that has been mentioned is to make Ruddy Lugo the closer…and he may be even worse than McClung based on last year’s 48K/37BB in 85IP performance.

One last contender for the role of closer on Tampa Bay has emerged in the past week. Brian Stokes is a 27 year old with unexceptional minor league stats. Maddon has announced that he’ll be moved to the bullpen and is in the mix for the closer job. At AAA last year he had 103K/49BB in 133.2 inning pitched. In 24 major league innings, he had 15K/9BB. The relatively low K/9 and K/BB in AAA (and his limited time in Tampa) suggest performance similar to what I’d expect from McClung or Lugo, but he does have one thing in his favor. He’ll be moving from a role as a starter to being a reliever, and many pitchers are significantly better as relievers.

So far, it seems that only McClung has likely pitched himself out of the role, and even that isn’t definite. If Orvella, Reyes, Salas, or Stokes can win the job, I think they have a reasonable chance of pitching well enough to keep it. If McClung or Lugo win the job, I’d expect them to struggle to hold onto it.

DIPS, K/9, K/BB, and more

I realized that I talk a lot about how important ratios like K/9 and K/BB are in predicting future performance, but I've never really presented the evidence for that belief in this blog. Here's a link to a 2004 Article in Futility Infielder that summarizes a lot of the information and provides links to virtually all the important research that had been done on the topic up until then.

In addition, there are two books that devote at least a chapter to the topic and have tons of other great baseball research if you're into this stuff. I've read 'Baseball Between the Numbers' (which is by the staff of Baseball Prospectus) and although I haven't read 'The Book' yet, the authors (Tom Tango and Mitchel Lichtman) have published a lot of great work online, so I'm looking forward to having the time to read it. Don't be fooled by it's current lack of availability...it is completed, and just looks like the hardcover version is out of print so they're taking pre-orders on the paperback.

Innings Limits & Platooning

I got the following questions in an email from a reader yesterday:

1. Do you run into problems with the max innings pitched and max games played?
I'm having problems with my fantasy basketball team cause I've maxed out the games played at various positions already.

2. Do you run platoons?
I've loaded my team with lefties and I plan to utilize my bench spots by platooning a lot of positions (3b, OF, 1b, util). Unfortunately, if you platoon like this you'll have less roster spots available for waiver wire transactions, which I'm supposing is the basis of your whole strategy.

These are great questions, and I'll try to answer both of them. Obviously the answers are going to depend on the type of league you're in. But assuming that there is an innings pitched limit, then that plays a large factor in my strategy. In a daily transactions league (which I assume is what the reader was asking about) I'm going to be rotating middle relievers and starters in and out of my lineup on a daily basis. The middle relievers are in there to allow me to lower my ERA and WHIP. The starters are basically just innings eaters, in their to make sure I get enough innings pitched to be competitive in strikeouts and wins. If I'm able to draft enough good starters, then I might not rotate any starters during the season, but I generally am going to focus on hitting during the draft, so typically one or more of the starters I draft aren't good enough to outperform rotated starters I get off the waiver wire when they're in good pitchers parks and facing weak lineups.

I typically don't run lefty/righty platoons, although there's definitely some merit to doing so. If I rotate hitters at all (which I do a lot less than with pitchers) I'm typically looking for players going in good hitters parks and against pitchers with low strikeout rates. Either way, the key here is that I'm mostly doing this with the players at the 'bottom' of my roster, so I just drop whoever I'm not using. Unless you have a very large bench in your league, you're going to sometimes have to drop some pretty decent players to maximize the advantages you can get from rotating players.

More on My Yahoo Team

In the comments section on my 2nd post about my Yahoo team, Nimrod (his name for himself...not mine) said that he doesn't think my pitching looks that good. He's not the first one to say that, and that's usually the case for my teams. I still believe that I will be able to win or come close to winning most of the pitching categories. First of all, I like the pitchers I got...I suspect that they're generally going to outperform most people's expectations and make this at least a middle of the pack pitching staff. But the real reason I'll excel in the pitching categories is that I'm allowed to make transactions and this is a daily league. You can expect me to drop several of my lesser pitchers (and hitters on my bench) and rotate through top middle relievers in favorable situations (at home against weak opponents) as well as possible rotating some 'spot starters' in especially favorable situations. This will let me lower my ERA and WHIP substantially (because of the middle relievers) while accumulating a ton of Ks and Ws. Because I'll be making so many transactions during the season, I'm going to spend most of my time with one of the lower waiver priorities...its just not worth delaying my pick-ups to keep a high selection. With that in mind, I solved my problem of having only 3B on my bench by using my #1 waiver priority to drop Alex Gordon and pick up Delmon Young who had just been dropped. Now all I need is another closer (assuming Owens doesn't win the role in Florida), but there's plenty of time to pick one up.

I think it's worth discussing the general lessons here - tailor your team to the strategy you plan to use, and come up with a strategy that takes advantage of the type of league you're in. In leagues, but especially those with daily transactions, there are TONS of opportunities to tinker with your rosters and gain many, many small edges over your opponents over the course of the season. Those edges add up to an extremely high likelihood of winning your league. Ulimately, I think that's what this blog is about. Other blogs are almost entirely focused on preparing for your draft, and then keeping up to date on the news during the season. The Waiver Wire will be focused on finding opportunities to gain the upper hand throughout the season.

Park Factors

I was looking for a site with good park factors, and discovered that ESPN has great park factor data. Instead of the usual runs and home runs, their data includes specific park factors for HR, H, 2B, 3B, and BB as well. Also, they have the data for each of the past 5 seasons. And it looks like they'll be updating the 2007 data on a daily basis once the MLB season starts.

I think most of us probably underutilize park factors. Sure, when a player switches teams we make some kind of adjustment based on the ballpark he's moving from and the ballpark he's moving to...but do we actually figure out the impact on each of his component stats and how that affects his valuation?

And even fewer of us are using park factors as a major factor in our determination of who to play each week (or each day in a daily transaction league). We may take a quick glance at where our pitchers are scheduled to play, but in theory we should be making park-based adjustments to our projections for all players each week or each day and recalculating their value based on that before we decide who to play each week. The bottom part of our roster (especially in daily transaction leagues) should probably be a rotating door of players facing especially favorable situation (both park and opponent) rather than us using a 'buy and hold' type strategy with mediocre players.

I'm going to have a LOT more to say on this topic over the coming weeks and months.

Fantasy Game Day

Some how when I was originally looking for other useful fantasy baseball blogs, I missed this one. Fantasy Game Day is definitely worth visiting. They've got lots of great stuff, starting with their ADP (Average Draft Position) data, which is really valuable in helping plan out your draft strategy and avoid wasting a high pick on a favorit player when you can get the same player much later in most drafts.

Home Run Mania

You may have noticed the description of and link to another fantasy baseball game on the right side of the screen. This one is called Home Run Mania, and while it lacks some of the intricacy of other games, it's ideal for those who don't have the time to devote to preparation, lengthy drafts, and in-season transactions. Basically the idea is that you choose a team of 8 players who hit a total of less than 200 home runs last year, and your score is the number of home runs that those players hit over the course of the 2007 season. At least 80% of the entry money will be distributed in monthly and season long prizes to the highest finishers, which compares favorably with sites such as CBS Sportsline whose public leagues give out barely 50% of entry fees in prize money.

Three announcements that are somewhat related to Home Run Mania:
1. If you register to play it, please let them know I sent you, either by selecting 'The Waiver Wire' in the drop down that indicates where you heard about the game, or by letting me know you signed up with them, or by putting waiverwire as your referral code. Here is the link to play Home Run Mania.

2. If you send me an email to be included on my mailing list, I'll send you what I think is the optimal selection of players for the game.

3. I'm going to be taking entries for the first contest I've run here. Sort of a mini-Home Run Mania. Entry is free. Pick any 3 hitters who totaled a maximum of 50 home runs in the major leagues in 2006. Email me your picks. Unless you specify otherwise, I'll add you to my mailing list, and I will be sending out standings to members of the list periodically throughout the season. At the end of the season, I'll announce the winner. In addition to bragging rights, the winner will receive the choice of either writing a guest article on the topic of their choice (anything non-offensive or controversial to me) or of having me write an article on the topic of their choice (again, within reason, but doesn't have to baseball related). You can use this as an opportunity to promote a web site of your own, advertise a commerical venture you're involved in, look for a job, help a charity...whatever you want.