Game Theory

ESPN Player Universe: Depth, Averages and Visualization

The staff at ESPN generally puts together a solid ratings set, but because they only give us batting average rather than hits and at-bats; it’s hard to gauge the actual batting average value.

I ended up using the ESPN rankings along with the AB that CHONE projects to come up with a value for each batting average category.  Ie.  ESPN-HITS = CHONE-AB x ESPN-Batting-Average.  Same thing went for ERA and WHIP on the pitcher’s side of things.

Each of the 12 teams had a catcher, first basemen, second basemen, shortstop, third basemen, three outfielders, a UTIL spot, and a bench spot on offense.  For the UTIL and BENCH spots, the *Best* players were used.  On the pitching side of things, the roster was 2xSP, 2xRP and 3xP plus 3 more bench spots.  It worked out like 7 SP and 3 RP.  I think this is a fair guestimation of the average roster in an active league.

If you don’t know how to read a boxplot, let me take it from the top.  Each position has it’s own graph, as you can see at the bottom.  In the center, there’s the reference plot containing all of the potential players used in our fantasy universe.

The boxes in the center of the graphs are split up into 3 distinct sections.  The line in the middle represents the average or mean.  Of all the usable first basemen and this includes an extra 15 players that would be optimally used in a UTIL or BENCH role, the average score you’ll get is 281 Points.

Both above and below the median are two boxes of various sizes.  They represent 25% of the population above and below the median, respectively.  So the entire box combined, obviously represents 50% of the usable first base population.

The lines ranging up from the boxes have markers at the top and bottom.  These markers represent the most and fewest points a position will give you (according to espn.)  In certain graphs, there are circles above the graphs that represent values that are outliers.  In terms of fantasy, we love outliers because they don’t fit with the normal distribution because they’re that damn good.

Ryan Braun is that much better than the outfielders and Tim Lincecum is that much better than the SP.  Albert Pujols, well, he’s a God.

About 25 percent of the population fall between the top of the box and the market at the top (and the same for the bottom.)

Hopefully this helps you visualize player distribution.

The Fantasy Baseball Perfect Point System: Making It Work.

So, we’ve established the point system for batters and pitchers.

Now, we’ll put it together.

SB = 1.75
HR = 2.23
RBI = 0.75
R = 0.84
AB = -0.16
H = 0.962

W = 5.21
K = 0.43
SV = 2.23
IP = 1.85
BB or H = -0.5
ER = -1.5

Which presents us with these statistics for 2009 (100 pitchers / 100 hitters):

NAME	Points
Albert Pujols	425.03
Zack Greinke	406.19
Felix Hernandez	399.33
Tim Lincecum	396.25
Justin Verlander	379.66
Ryan Braun	379.34
Adam Wainwright	378.2
Roy Halladay	374.66
Ryan Howard	374.15
Prince Fielder	373.03
Javier Vazquez	368.76
Hanley Ramirez	361.45
Danny Haren	358.1
Carl Crawford	350.14
Matt Kemp	349.94
Mark Reynolds	349.78
C.C. Sabathia	348.2
Jacoby Ellsbury	344.38
Mark Teixeira	341.26
Chris Carpenter	337.92
Miguel Cabrera	335.97
Aaron Hill	335.74
Chase Utley	335.61
Derek Jeter	333.45
Jason Bay	329.41
Troy Tulowitzki	327.19
Jayson Werth	326.7
Ryan Zimmerman	321.53
Evan Longoria	321.42
Adam Lind	320.77
Joe Mauer	319.52
Ian Kinsler	318.72
Matt Cain	315.65
Josh Johnson	313.43
Jair Jurrjens	312.55
Bobby Abreu	311.53
Jon Lester	310.57
Derrek Lee	310.27
Brian Roberts	309.81
Kendry Morales	309.32
Robinson Cano	308.07
Ubaldo Jimenez	306.59
Wandy Rodriguez	305.41
Josh Beckett	303.96

Looks okay from here, but would you really want Josh Johnson over Joe Mauer?  Of course not, unless your league doesn’t have any position requirements.

That’s what we’ll get into next.

I currently have three sets of projections to work with:  ESPN, CHONE, and MARCEL.  Each of these has it’s strengths and weaknesses.  For the most part, ESPN gets on the hype-train while CHONE and MARCEL heavily favour previous performance.   If you mix ‘em all up, you end up with a nice balance of hype and history.

There’s one glaring problem, though (other than the fact that ESPN doesn’t chart H/AB, but rather just AVG).  It’s impossible to predict the worth of any given player without knowing exactly how many teams are playing in your fantasy league and the roster and line-up requirements for those teams.

Unless there’s a huge drop-off, the difference between 10 and 12 team leagues isn’t going to be huge.  However, the difference between 10 and 16 team leagues makes the majority of the adjusted statistics worthless.  Secondly, if you’re in a 10 team league that requires 2 of each position players with 6 OF; this’ll be of very little use, as well.

So here’s how it’s going to go down from this point forward:

1.  Make Our Universe ( C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF x 3, UTIL, SP x 2, RP x 2, P x 3) with 12 different teams.

2.  Calculate the means, standard deviations, and distribution for players in OUR universe.  Currently fangraphs and various other sites offer plenty of information regarding replacement level players.  That’s all well and dandy, but those calculations don’t account for our position limitations.

3.  Calculate a modifier for each position, relative to the overall points system.

4.  Put everything in simple, human readable, graphs so that our retarded half-cousins can even understand it.

Our Problems, ahead of time:

There’s going to be absolutely no accounting for the fact that people do weird shit.  Maybe someone only drafts 2 SP and 10 RP — That’s something we can’t account for.  Also, while it makes sense to have your UTIL and BENCH spots filled with the highest output players; even though one-category players sit on benches.  I can’t account for someone stashing Rajai Davis or Nyjer Morgan in their UTIL or BENCH spots because their team lacks speed across the board.

In all cases, we’re going to assume optimal strategy for your standard Yahoo League.  The Bench will contain almost all starting pitchers except for maybe a handful of hitters.

…and that’s that, for now.

The Fantasy Baseball Perfect Point System: Pitchers

Yesterday, we cycled through the hitters on our way to creating the perfect point system.  Everything worked out dandy, so it’s onto the pitchers today.

A Quick Note: these rankings do not take into account scarcity, which we’ll get into when I rank the players.  Simply applying the formula by itself to rank players will give you the best players, but you’ll end up with 10 SP and no RP.

Wins:

	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
TOP-10	16.4	17.6	17.3	16.5	17.2
TOP-5	18.6	20.4	19.2	18	20.4
MAX	19	22	20	19	22

This is probably the easiest to predict because it remains pretty static from year to year.

Weighted Average: 19.2 Wins

TOTAL POINTS FOR ONE WIN:  5.21

Strike-Outs:

	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
TOP-10	211.7	197.5	199.65	191.3	195.1
TOP-5	247	224.4	230.6	219.4	217.2
MAX	269	265	240	245	238

Weighted Average: 233

TOTAL POINTS FOR ONE STRIKE-OUT:  0.43

Saves:

	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
TOP-10	36.1	35.4	36.5	35.5	38.55
TOP-5	44	46	43.6	42.4	44.6
MAX	48	62	47	47	47

Weighted Average: 44.2

Small Adjustment for K-Rod’s ridiculous 2008 season.

TOTAL POINTS FOR ONE SV:  2.23

IP:

This is where we end up with a bit of a head-ache, at least in terms of explaining it.  IP is used in both WHIP and ERA, and will be split up like this, although it doesn’t really matter.

One Inning Pitched when calculating WHIP = 0.95

One Inning Pitched when calculating ERA = 0.90

One Inning Pitched is worth 1.85

Walks and Hits:

Now we have to start penalizing the things we don’t like.  Walks and Hits are equal when it comes to WHIP in Roto & H2H; so they’re equal here too.

One Walk or Hit is Worth: NEGATIVE 0.5

Earned Runs:

Earned runs follow the same pattern as WHIP and show just how dominant Zach Greinke’s was in the 2009 season.  Not only did he have a 2.16 ERA, but he did it over 230 IP.  It’s almost exactly on par with Roger Clemens’ 1.87 ERA over 211 IP in 2005.

One Earned Run  is Worth: NEGATIVE 1.5

2005 Perfect Pitcher Results

2006 Perfect Pitcher Results

2007 Perfect Pitcher Results

2008 Perfect Pitcher Results

2009 Perfect Pitcher Results

The Fantasy Baseball Perfect Point System

Pitching System Available Here

Personally, I love playing fantasy baseball with a point system. It allows you to tailor your fantasy game to just about any taste. Head-to-Head and Rotisserie leagues bind you to a static value on any category that’s added, which isn’t optimal in most cases. If you want to place a negative value on a strike-out, but don’t want to make it equal to a category like HRs or SB, you’re pretty stuck — Unless of course, you embrace the point system!

Points system’s allow me to rank and compare players quite a bit easier as well. So, before I start spitting out rankings, I’ll share with you the method behind the madness. We’ll start with the hitters and get to the pitchers tomorrow or the next day.

The first problem with a points system is variance in any given year. Jacoby Ellsbury had 70 SB in 2009, but Jose Reyes had 78 SB two years earlier. Albert Pujols ended up hitting 47 HR last year, but Ryan Howard bested that mark by 11 in 2006. So how do we deal with this?

First, we have to admit that there’s no way to perfectly assign each category a static 100% value in a points system. This isn’t something we want to do anyways because very rarely are the accomplishments equal. If someone leads the league and sets records with 90 SB that should be worth more than someone that leads the league with a paltry 48 HR.

Using the Top-10 and Top-5 League Leaders (final quartile of usable fantasy players) from the previous five years, we’ll create an average for each year, with which we’ll create a weighted average. We’ll give the greatest importance to the most recent sets of data and descend from there. We’ll then normalize that to a hundred points for ease of use(feel free to use base ten multipliers if you don’t like decimal points).

Then we pray. We pray hard. We pray that the Maximum value attained over the previous five years doesn’t fall outside 30% of our hundred points. Thankfully, as much as stolen bases, homeruns and batting average varies — we’re good to go.

Stolen Bases:

	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
TOP-10	44.5	46.7	49.5	50.3	48
TOP-5	55	53	58.6	56.6	56.8
MAX	70	68	78	65	62

.

Weighted Average: 55.6 SB

Small 2007 Jose Reyes Adjustment.

TOTAL POINTS FOR ONE STOLEN BASE:  1.75

Home Runs

	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
TOP-10	41	37.5	41.1	46.2	44
TOP-5	44.4	39.4	47.4	50.4	47.4
MAX	47	48	54	58	51

.

Weighted Average: 44.9 HR

TOTAL POINTS FOR ONE HOME RUN  2.23

Runs Batted In:

	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
TOP-10	121.8	123.4	129.1	130.2	128.9
TOP-5	131.6	131.2	138.6	137.8	138.8
MAX	141	146	156	149	148

.

Weighted Average: 134.3

TOTAL POINTS FOR ONE RBI  0.75

Runs Scored:

	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
TOP-10	111.7	114.6	124.2	123.5	118.5
TOP-5	115.6	117.6	130.4	128.2	122.8
MAX	124	125	143	134	129

.

Weighted Average: 120.9

TOTAL POINTS FOR ONE RUNS SCORED  0.83

Batting Average

This one’s by far the toughest to get through, but here goes –

An At-Bat is worth NEGATIVE 0.16

A HIT is worth 0.962

or, a hit is worth roughly 6 times as much as an AB.

That’ll give us a Maximum of 120 (Ichiro in 2007) and a minimum of 100 (Dustin Pedroia in 2008).

For Data From The Previous 4 Years

2009 Data Using Point System

2008 Data Using Point System

2007 Data Using Point System

2006 Data Using Point System

2005 Data Using Point System

Batting Average Assumptions For 2010

When it comes to hitters, the only standard rate-statistic is batting average. Pitchers, well, they get their ERA and WHIP, so I’ll deal with those in an upcoming article. Today, I’ll try to primarily focus on quite possibly the most difficult to quantify of all the statistics in your standard roto-league.

First, we’ll have to suspend disbelief, unless you’re a Twins fan, I suppose. Joe Mauer probably isn’t going to duplicate his .365 Batting Average in 2010, but for the purpose of this example; We’ll just assume he does.

So Let’s take these Five BA Leaders and take a deeper look inside their numbers:

Name	AB	H	AVG
Joe Mauer	523	191	0.365
Ichiro Suzuki	639	225	0.352
Hanley Ramirez	576	197	0.342
Derek Jeter	634	212	0.334
Pablo Sandoval	572	189	0.330
Albert Pujols	568	186	0.327
Todd Helton	544	177	0.325
Miguel Cabrera	611	198	0.324

All great hitters and if you’re drafting any of ‘em, you’re going to get a nice little bump in the Batting Average category.  However, just how valuable is Joe Mauer’s .365 compared to Ichiro’s .352 or Jeter’s .344?

Well, the easiest way for me to quantify their value is to just add ‘em to everyone’s favourite three-outcome player: Adam Dunn.  In 2009, Dunn had 146 Hits in 546 AB — good for a .267 Batting Average.  Ideally, we’d compare them to the replacement level BA player on your roster, but using Dunn provides a tangible example.

Name	AB	H	AVG	+DUNN’s AB	+DUNN’s H	Total BA
Joe Mauer	523	191	0.365	1069	337	0.315
Ichiro Suzuki	639	225	0.352	1185	371	0.313
Hanley Ramirez	576	197	0.342	1122	343	0.306
Derek Jeter	634	212	0.334	1180	358	0.303
Pablo Sandoval	572	189	0.330	1118	335	0.300
Albert Pujols	568	186	0.327	1114	332	0.298
Todd Helton	544	177	0.325	1090	323	0.296
Miguel Cabrera	611	198	0.324	1157	344	0.297

You’ll notice the batting average decrease is disproportional, as expected.   Suffices to say, hitting .365 over 523 ABs is an astounding achievement but it looks a lot better than it actually contributes to the BA category. Ichiro’s extra 100 at-bats almost completely negates Joe Mauer’s original 13pt advantage.

The easiest way to view batting average without putting too much thought into it is to subtract a single point for every 25 (or so) ABs below 600 and to add a point for every 25 or so above that number.  This is just a rough work-around and the effect will decrease as you get closer to your team’s average BA.

Here are some of the players that are overvalued based on limited ABs:

1. Chris Coghlan, .321 AVG  — 504 ABs
2. Jason Bartlett, .320 AVG — 500 AB
3. Erick Aybar, .312 AVG — 504 AB
4. Magglio Ordonez, .310 AVG — 465 AB

…and the undervalued players:

1. Ichiro Suzuki, .352 — 649 AB
2. Robbie Cano, .320 — 637 AB
3. Braun, Jeter, and Miguel Cabrera as well.

Obviously, this doesn’t take into account WHY a player missed his AB, just that he missed them.  In some cases, players miss AB due to their position in the line-up or even the line-up itself.  A catcher will generally take more off-days than a fielder and a lead-off hitter will get more ABs than someone in the 9-hole.  In other cases, players just refuse to take a walk.  These variables stay pretty constant from year to year, though.  Ichiro’s Batting Average is consistently over a larger number of ABs because of the previous reasons.  If a player posted a solid batting average in 2009, but missed the 600 AB mark due to injury; it’s best to just look at his historical ABs, assuming that he hasn’t changed teams.

Your best bet is to focus on good hitters that bat in the top-3 of a good offensive line-up while converting his plate appearances into hits rather than walks.

Also keep in mind that the reverse is true:  Jimmy Rollins’ .250 Batting Average over 672 at-bats hurts a lot more than Russell Martin’s .250 Batting Average over 505 at-bats.

The worst case scenario is to both overvalue Joe Mauer’s .365 batting average while undervaluing the impact of Jimmy Rollins’ .250 Batting Average.

Say you drafted Joe Mauer’s .365 BA and Jimmy Rollins’ .250 Batting Average.  At first glance (a straight average) would give you a .308 Batting Average which makes for a solid draft-strategy.  However, if you factor in the number ABs the averages were achieved over, you’ll end up with a .300 BA — Not nearly as impressive.

A Caveat:

It’s almost impossible to predict a players Batting Average within 10 points, so if you’re feeling a certain player for a break-out year — Go ahead and take ‘em.

Alexei Ramirez, CWS: Getting What You Paid For…

I consider myself an expert in fantasy baseball yet I still feel obliged to provide detailed background information and a step-by-step analysis to help you understand how I’ve come to this particular conclusion.  Unfortunately, people don’t want to read incredibly verbose ramblings — they just want to know who to pick up and who to drop.
Read more

Understanding Your Waiver Wire

With your draft complete, and the first week of the season all but over, it’s time to shake it up. Some fantasy baseball experts advise you against making claims early in the season, and while I agree, that’s not the point. I’m not someone who preaches abstinence, I preach knowledge!

In the majority of leagues, your waiver-wire priority doesn’t matter; you can use the waiver-wire like an extended bench, simply picking-up and dropping players as you see fit.

If you’re going to employ this strategy, which is almost always a good one, you have to understand your waiver-wire.

Tips To Understanding Your Waiver Wire

1. Look at your roster, and identify the first pitcher and batter you’ll drop. Mentally update these names every time you set your roster.
2. Fill out this list with 2 more hitters, and 2 more pitchers.  Ideally, you’d like 1 INF, 1 OF, 1 UTIL and 1 SP, 1 RP and 1 P. Doing this now will save you time down the road.
3. Examine the waiver-wire depth and place it in tiers the same way you did your original pre-rankings. I cannot stress the importance of this, you need to know your back-up plan.
4. If you’re dropping a HITTER, always drop the player who belongs to the largest tier or the player that is the *most* replaceable.
5. If you’re dropping a PITCHER, and you can’t decide between two, always drop the player who’s furthest away from his next start. Most players will stay on waivers for 2 to 3 days, and you’d like him to clear waivers before he gets a chance to pitch — just in case he puts up a gem and you want him back. REMEMBER: If you drop a player, you cannot pick him up until he’s cleared waivers.
6. Understand what your opponents NEED.  Is the player you’re dropping better than a player they are starting?
7. Which leads to, SHOP THE PLAYER FIRST.  If the pick-up isn’t time sensitive, it can never hurt to shop the player first.
8. Before you click the + button, CHECK OUT THEIR SCHEDULE.  Sure, you may be getting a steal in the long run, but if they’re pitching in Colorado, Philly and then Milwaukee — Do you really want to pick them up now?  You can count right? Fire up his team’s schedule and start counting to 5…

I really cannot stress tiering your waiver-wire enough. If there are 8 other first basemen that fall into the 70/20/70/.270 category, it’s okay to drop your bench first baseman, even if he’s not your worst player.

Don’t fall in love with your players, and simply view them as statistics.

If you’re in a shallow league, it’s beneficial to use the waiver-wire as extra bench spots.

Keeper League Mentality

My favourite time of the year is coming up, Keeper-League Time! It’s actually some variety of a dynasty league, that’s been around for about 10 years now. The scoring system is fundamentally sound, and it’s a point system rather than a roto or head-to-head league.  Many hours were spent examining statistics from previous years, and creating a fair scoring system. Barry Bonds and his ridiculous walk totals lead us to undervalue walks.

We keep around half of our roster, and the league is about as deep as it gets.  In order to keep a player, he must have appeared on the Yahoo Player List at the start of the year.  This is generally pretty hit-and-miss, because someone like Longoria showed up on the player list without ever having played a game but as a general rule, a player only appears on the Player List if he’s assured a roster spot or has played previously.

How To Master A Dynasty League

Life Expectancy

Most Keeper and Dynasty Leagues are bound to fail. It’s almost impossible to get 6 guys together every year, let alone 12.  This is why the first thing you should do when joining or creating a Dynasty or Keeper league is examine it’s potential staying power.  Nothing will impact your draft more than how long you think the league will stick around for.

In order to start taking chancing on prospects and young guns who haven’t started producing, you’re league is going to have to have a really good shot of at least making it to the five year mark.  If your league doesn’t have potential of making it to the five year mark, realistically there’s no player that you can’t draft.  Even 28 and 29-year old players will continue to produce at a very high-level until they’re 34 or 35 years old.  With anyone under 30 keeping their value, is there really a point of drafting Justin Upton over Ryan Braun? Upton’s almost 4 year’s younger than Braun, but he hasn’t shown high-level talent yet, so is it really worth the risk?

It is if you think you’re league is going to be around for another 10 to 12 years, but for 5 years, 7 years? Nope, there’s probably no benefit, at all, to selecting Justin Upton over Ryan Braun.

Staggering

If you’re doing an initial draft and you expect it to last a while, the key to winning consistently is staggering your talent by age.  In the post-steroid era, players will undoubtedly revert to the typical age-determined production patterns.  Players hit their prime around 26 or 27 and play at a high level for a couple years before they begin a somewhat predictable decline.

Refusing to stagger your talent will result in a championship or two, but it will not breed consistency.  Older players will slide down draft boards further than they should, especially players on the end of  their prime.  You can draft an entire team of 28-to-30 year olds, and dominate your league for a couple of years.  Unfortunately, when they start falling off you’re going to have to spend 5 years rebuilding your talent.

Drafting a young team is incredibly dangerous.  The players could all develop into what the scouts see them as, but more often than not, they end up underwhelming.  For every Mark Texiera there’s a Hank Blalock, and for every Tim Lincecum there are infinite amounts of top-100 pitching prospects that fail and fail hard.  If your team does come together, you’ll dominate for a very, very, long time.  You’ve got a 1% chance of that happening, though.

So for every Gordon Beckham you draft, it makes sense to draft someone like Michael Young.  Michael Young will do a fine job for the two years you’ll have to wait for Gordon Beckham to become rosterable.

When you do your prospecting, scour the internet for their ETA.  Many prospect lists will combine all levels of MiLB into one big list.  You’ll get players from A ball being ranked much higher than someone who’s slated to open the year in AAA.  The further away from the majors they are, the more that can go wrong. Matt Bush was once an elite prospect, remember?

This will also help you find a decent stop-gap.  If you only need a year or two for your prospect to step up, Miguel Tejada is a perfectly fine replacement.  Almost no one is going to look at Tejada as anything more than a last-round pick, considering his age and his production.

Realistically, you’d like your infield to look like something like this:

1B: 29-Year Old Kevin Youkilis

2B: 26-Year Old Ian Kinsler

SS: 35-Year Old Jimmy Rollins

3B: 23-Year Old Evan Longoria

Each year you’ll have to worry about a different spot, and it’ll be fairly clear what you need to pick up.  With this line-up, you know you’ll have a year or so more out of Rollins, 3 years out of Youkilis, 6 years out of Kinsler, and 9 years out of Longoria.

Yah Dig?

Players Get Moved

Understand contracts, and understand who’s locked up and who’s not.  A players value largely depends on the ballpark and the line-up.  Kinsler in Texas is a lot different than Kinsler in San Diego.  This is just common sense, but I figured I’d point it out.

More importantly, never pay too much for position eligibility.  Ryan Braun and Miguel Cabrera are great examples of this.  Both were first round picks as third basemen due to position scarcity.  They then got moved to your typical smash-killing positions of OF and 1B, and ended up losing at least a couple bucks off their price tag.

B.J. Upton was never going to be a second basemen, and everyone knew that one day Alfonso Soriano would be moved to the outfield.  These two middle infielders lose the most value when they get shifted away from SS or 2B.

Most Importantly: Hitters are about 1000x more predictable than Pitchers.  Prospect for Hitters, Draft Pitchers. All the standard fantasy baseball caveats apply.  Pitchers get hurt a lot more than hitters, and drafting someone like Mark Prior over Joe Mauer has probably cost you quite a few championships.

Anyways, I wrote this up because I need to prepare my keeper sheets in the next couple days — and I’ll share them.  I wont be justifying ridiculous selections, or doing a write up for every player.

Out of Options: Thank You mlbtraderumors.com

Thank you very much mlbtraderumors, this means a lot. I’ll give you all the credit in the world for doing the work that I couldn’t bring myself to do:

Players that are out of options, and under 5 years MLB-service:

The full url: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/02/out-of-options.html

Athletics
Mike Wuertz, Santiago Casilla, Rob Bowen

Braves
Josh Anderson, Blaine Boyer, Anthony Lerew, Phil Stockman

Brewers
Tony Gwynn Jr.

Cardinals
Skip Schumaker, Ryan Ludwick

Cubs
Angel Guzman, Chad Gaudin, Joey Gathright

Dodgers
Hong-Chih Kuo, Delwyn Young

Giants
Travis Ishikawa, Fred Lewis, Nate Schierholtz

Indians
Andy Marte, Anthony Reyes

Mariners
Ronny Cedeno, Franklin Gutierrez, Mike Morse, Wladimir Balentien, David Aardsma

Marlins
Robert Andino, Leo Nunez

Mets
Brian Stokes

Nationals
Joel Hanrahan

Orioles
David Pauley, Hayden Penn, Dennis Sarfate, Scott Moore, Felix Pie, Jeremy Guthrie, Rich Hill

Padres
Cha Seung Baek

Pirates
Phil Dumatrait, Sean Burnett, Craig Hansen, Tyler Yates, Andy LaRoche, Brandon Moss

Rangers
Joaquin Benoit, Marlon Byrd, Nelson Cruz, Frank Francisco, Josh Rupe, Dustin Nippert

Rays
Jeff Niemann, Jason Hammel, Lance Cormier, Grant Balfour, Gabe Gross, Willy Aybar

Reds
Jeff Keppinger

Red Sox
Javier Lopez, Ramon Ramirez, Manny Delcarmen, Wes Littleton, George Kottaras

Rockies
Jeff Baker, Clint Barmes, Jorge de la Rosa

Royals
Esteban German, Ross Gload, Tony Pena Jr.

Tigers
Bobby Seay, Edwin Jackson, Macay McBride, Ramon Santiago, Mike Hessman, Marcus Thames

Twins
Boof Bonser, Philip Humber

White Sox
Jerry Owens, Gavin Floyd, Wilson Betemit

Yankees
Melky Cabrera

So, how does this impact a fantasy squad?

This information is generally most useful when dealing with “1-category” guys.  If Player X plays, he’ll steal bases. If Player Z pitches, he’ll get strike-outs.  A talented player being out of options generally makes sure he gets more than a fair shot of playing, and therefore stealing bases or striking batters out.

A Quick Glance at the Notables:

Rich Hill should be interesting, although if he does fail — he might clear waivers. The Orioles also snagged Felix Pie from the Cubs — If Pie’s on your sleeper list, it’s just an extra blanket of security.

Mike Wuertz of the Athletics came over from the Cubs.

Josh Anderson of the Braves has speed and could steal 30+ bases if he snags the CF job.

Philip Humber used to have boat-loads of potential, or hype?

Anthony Reyes, or *gasp* Andy Marte were both once top-prospects.

Andy LaRoche is here to stay, but i’ll list him anyways. He’s also one of my favourite sleepers. Same goes for Nelson Cruz of the Rangers.

Everyone listed under the Cubs.

Anyways, there’s a quick glance.

Trading In Fantasy Baseball: When Losing is Winning

There’s one problem, one gigantic problem, that I experience every year in fantasy baseball.  I’m sure it plagues your league as well, and it’s awful.  You might just be guilty of it:

Refusing to “LOSE” a trade.  All but one guy loses the league every year, but no one wants  to lose a trade.  This is why the majority of leagues really don’t have that much action aside from the waiver-wire.

An Example: The stage is set for a monster trade, you need steals and he needs home-runs.  You have depth at first, and he has depth at short.  For simplicities sake, you have Albert Pujols and he has Hanley Ramirez.  No Injuries, nothing. It’s a perfect trade, that just doesn’t get done.

Why? Both owners are terrified that once they trade away their player, he’ll get hot and they’ll look like an idiot.

This is a problem in pretty much every league, and gets magnified when the conditions aren’t as perfect as mentioned above. Once you start throwing variables like age, injury risk, pitching/hitting, into the mix — the trade is bound to fail.

Solution: Lose the Trade.

First off, this only really applies to stubborn leagues.  Float some trades out there and if you can win the trade, go ahead and do so.  If after a couple of weeks you’re still plowing through details, go ahead and lose the trade. Everyone wants a grand-theft roto, so give it to ‘em.

Caveat 1: Only do this with teams that can’t beat you. Even if they’re ahead of you in the standings, give ‘em an honest look and figure out if they can realistically beat you over the rest of the season and into the playoffs.

Caveat 2: By losing the trade, you’re putting more value into the hands of your trading partner.  It’s generally best to lose a trade right at the trading deadline so he can’t go and peddle his new-found value off to another owner, an owner that CAN beat you.

If you’re trading before the Deadline, make sure he’s one stubborn son-of-a-bitch.  Make sure that once you give him this hidden value, that he’ll demand MORE value from anyone he trades with.  It’s easy to tell who the stubborn ones are as even the perfectly rational trades get shot-down.

So Why Am I Giving Up More Than I’m Getting?

Because you need it, or you want it. If you’ve managed to draft the perfectly balanced team, and pick up a few complimentary pieces from the waiver-wire, good on yah. Otherwise, you’re going to have some holes to fill.

Generally by the trading dead-line, you know where you stand in each of the categories. The plan is to trade away depth, and turn those 4-pointers into 7-pointers while only losing 1 point off your league leading 12-pts in HR. In Head to Head terms, win HR by 4 each week instead of 8 while giving yourself a 50/50 shot of winning the steals category.

Examine The Waiver Wire:

The best way to lose a trade, is to give up two players for one.  I’m not talking typical fantasy strategy where you trade two lesser players for a superstar. That’s probably not going to work unless you’re playing with idiots. What I’m saying is to trade a player of equal value, and then go ahead and toss in another player.

Eg. I’ll trade you Pujols for Ramirez, and I’ll throw in Player X.

Ideally, you’re going to want to have an immediate waiver-wire pick-up in mind when you throw in player X.  Obviously, Player X has to be “better” than the player the other team is dropping and presumably better than anyone he can find on the waiver wire.  When you lose a trade, you obviously want to lose it by as little as possible to still get the deal done.

What I’ve found, is that Player X doesn’t always have to be “better” than the players on the waiver wire Player X just has to be safer, or more consistant.  Sometimes you end up winning the trade because the high-risk player you snagged off the waiver-wire ends up panning out.  If he doesn’t, you wash, rinse, and repeat and just keep picking up filler until one pans out.

When to LOSE a trade?

The best times to lose a trade is at the trade deadline, as I mentioned earlier. This minimizes the risk of the fool you’re trading with from turning around and trading the value you gave up to your competition.

Another time, is right after the draft or as early in the season as possible.  You’re not going to get everyone you want in the draft, that’s a given.  After you examine your roster, it may make sense to trade someone you drafted in the 6th round for someone that was drafted in the late 7th round.

This has the added benefit of allowing you to snag an early waiver-wire gem to fill the void if you end up pulling a 2-for-1.

In the end, you’ll win some and you’ll lose some.  You can’t plan for injuries, and you definitely can’t plan for unexpected break-outs.

There’s a reason why the Green Packers traded Brett Favre to the New York Jets rather than the Minnesota Vikings.  Trading with people who you don’t play or “cant beat you” makes the most sense.  If you can be as  clever as the Packers and somehow work in a claus that limits your trading partner from trading Favre to the rival Vikings — You’re Golden.

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