Thursday, March 17, 2011

Wiggy, Lewis lead NL-only 'Deep Picks'

Just to re-introduce myself to the blog, my name is Pauly…I infrequently contributed to Advanced Fantasy Baseball during last season. This year, I am planning a weekly feature, “Pauly’s Pickup of the Week,” which will highlight one hitter and one pitcher each week who should (or will become) a universal legit pickup in fantasy baseball.

As I’m sure you know, in-season pickups can be the difference between contending and bringing up the rear. Last year, for instance, I picked up Jose Bautista in week 2 of the season in one league and week 3 of the season in the other. Needless to say, we all know he made a significant impact :) So look for Pauly’s Pickup of the Week every Friday morning once the season starts.

As for your draft prep…I don’t want to contribute to the glut of projections for top-line players out there. You know where to find that stuff. However, most of these draft previews don’t include deep picks.

Deep picks…those of use in “only” leagues are mostly familiar with the concept of trying to find a very cheap end-game player either as the last pick in your draft; the cheapest pick of your draft; or for reserve drafts. If you are in a deep NL-only, this column may be for you…it’s a list of players who will not be in an opening day lineup this season, but will see enough at-bats to contribute to your fantasy team as a cheap plug-in. There may be quite a few teams picking at least one player from this list – mainly every team that drafts Albert Pujols – meaning they are likely using the “Stars & Scrubs” strategy discussed by Jon earlier this week.

Here are my top 10 NL-only deep picks on offense:

1. Tyler Colvin (OF - CHC): OK, Colvin isn't sneaking up on anybody after hitting 20 HR in 135 games last season. But the bottom line is that he is the Cubs' fourth outfielder right now, and barring injury, he will be riding pine when the first pitch is thrown on opening day. The fact that he isn't starting should push his ADP and auction value down (assuming he wasn't kept), and those HR may come at a bargain in 2011. The rest of the players on this list fall more into the endgame.

2. Ty Wigginton (1B 2B 3B – COL): Heading into the season, Wigginton is likely backing up Todd Helton at first base, Jose Lopez at second base and Ian Stewart at third base. Stewart just returned to spring action on Wednesday, but assuming he is OK for opening day, that means Wigginton will be taking on the “super sub” role in Colorado…and that means a lot of at-bats this season. Wiggy has shown over and over that he can produce with ABs (22 HR last season in 581), and besides, is anyone really counting on Helton to stay healthy? One caveat is because of Wigginton’s elevated numbers last season, he may not be an end-game pick, but if your league mates only pay for starting players, you will get a bargain here.

3. Fred Lewis (OF – CIN): Dusty Baker doesn’t have a pure leadoff hitter in his starting lineup. He says he is going to use Drew Stubbs there for the most part, but let’s face it – it’s an experiment. Lewis, the only pure leadoff hitter on the team, happens to back up every OF position in Cincy. That means as soon as Jonny Gomes starts slumping or Jay Bruce hurts a fingernail, Lewis is leading off. That means the potential for an easy 60-plus runs scored and 15-plus stolen bases. He can legitimately challenge for best OF option on this list.

4. Jason Michaels (OF – HOU): The Astros are a bit of a depth chart mess right now because it is hard to predict what is going to happen with Brett Wallace. As it is right now, Michaels is the universal OF backup in Houston. If Wallace struggles like he did during his cup ‘o coffee last season (.222/.296/319), it will open the door for a lot of playing time for Michaels. Carlos Lee would move to first base and Michaels would become the starting left fielder. If that happens, I wouldn’t expect the world from Michaels, but for a dollar I’d take the shot that he can hit 10 HR and live up to his career .270 average.

5. Daniel Murphy (1B – NYM): Murphy is challenging Luis Castillo for the second base job in New York. Assuming he comes up short, Murphy will still be an excellent source of ABs over the course of the season. I mean how many of us can see Castillo (who did nothing in half a season last year) holding down that job for any extended period? Murphy is coming off a torn MCL which forced him to miss last season – and a chance to compete for the 1B job in NY – but he hit 12 HR in 155 ABs in 2009 and should see more ABs than that this season backing up Castillo and Ike Davis at first.

6. Jerry Hairston Jr. (2B SS – WAS): Hairston will back up Danny Espinosa and Ian Desmond up the middle for the Nationals. You have to figure he gets a lot of ABs backing up such a young duo. Last year in San Diego, Hairston put up 10 HR and 9 SB in 430 ABs before suffering a stress fracture in his leg in September. He started 105 games at five different positions (second, short, third, left and right) and six different spots in the batting order. Expect the same in Washington.

7. Jorge Cantu (SD): Cantu backs up both corners (Chase Headley and Brad Hawpe) in San Diego. He has the potential to catch fire and provide you with a month or two of really good production. Just look at his numbers in April last season – he hit .311 with 5 HR and 23 RBI. So the potential is there…the question is, when will it happen? My guess is Cantu will be solid in the first half again this season, and you can expect 10-15 HR over the long haul – not bad for a buck.

8. Jon Jay (OF – STL): Jay was actually a popular late-season pickup last year after posting a .300/.359/.422 line in 105 games. While he hasn’t shown a ton of power or speed, he will hit you a few homers and steal you a few bases – all while keeping his averages respectable. With Lance Berkman in right field for St. Louis, you can expect Jay to see regular action late in games this season.

9 & 10. Mike Fontenot & Mark DeRosa (2B / OF – SF): Both of these guys are coming off down years (which makes them really cheap), and both of them should see a bunch of ABs – at least in the early going – this season. Fontenot will back up all the infield positions in San Francisco outside of catcher; and DeRosa will see plenty of time in the OF and could see time at 3B. With starting second baseman Freddy Sanchez coming off a 111-game season, and Miguel Tejada at SS, there should be plenty of opportunity for Fontenot to thrive in the “super sub” role. He hit 9 HR in back-to-back seasons for Chicago before he struggled last season. DeRosa, who hit 23 HR in 2009 but played in only 26 games last season and had a second wrist surgery – will platoon with Pat Burrell.

Hey I didn’t say these guys didn’t carry any risk :)

See you next week for NL draft day pitching bargains.

-Pauly

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

TENTATIVE FREEZE LISTS AND THE RESERVE DRAFT

This week I'm offering up an idea to help get those last minute trades rolling, plus a look at how to make your post-auction reserve draft a success.

Tentative Freeze Lists. This is an exercise I always try to initiate in any league I am in, at least two to three weeks before freezes are due. You simply invite every owner to post a non-binding list of his anticipated freezes, and you start off by proposing your own. Most owners will respond favorably to this, even if they are not yet certain as to which players they want to freeze.

The exercise doesn’t always provide a great deal of information. If you’ve done your homework you should have already projected most of the freezes. But frequently an owner will list a keeper you didn't expect, or will indicate an intention to drop a certain player who appeals to you. Accordingly, the exercise can serve some very important interests, and create an opportunity to improve your own keeper list, even if you have already gone through the process of predicting everyone‘s freezes.

One benefit is that it tends to get owners active. Even though you may have been studying in earnest since January, there will be some owners who have given their squads very little attention since the end of the previous season. The idea of submitting a tentative freeze list will often spur these owners to get in gear and analyze their rosters.

Perhaps the most important function of the “tentative freeze list” exercise is that it can dramatically increase trade conversations and opportunities. I believe this adds enjoyment to the league, while giving you a chance to improve your freeze list. Owners may realize an area where they are weak, and look for trades to shore up that area. Owners may indicate that they won’t freeze certain players, giving you the sign that these players are available for the right offer. The mere increase in league activity can lead to trades.

The “tentative freeze list” and the trades that it promotes can allow you to establish better relationships with your fellow owners. This can come in very handy during the season when an opportunity arises for you to help each other by a trade.

In summary, it’s a great gambit…fun for all, educational, and helpful in maximizing your freeze lists going into the auction.

The Reserve Draft. Many leagues have a reserve draft after the primary auction, where owners are allowed to fill their reserve rosters in a round-by-round draft, often in a serpentine format. Some leagues have a small reserve roster, maybe five players, while the “ultra” leagues generally have a minimum of seventeen players on their reserve list. How can you best use this reserve draft to your team’s advantage?

Players picked in reserve drafts usually carry the salary of the round in which they are picked. Typically, first round picks have a salary of $15. Rounds 2 through 6 are $10. Rounds 7 through 12 are $5 picks. Rounds 13 to 17 are $2 rounds, but they still hold some treasures if you look closely enough.

My belief is that you should use your first round pick to find someone who can help you right away. Since these players carry a price tag of $15, few owners will use a first round pick to select a minor league prospect. So what should you look for in a first round draft pick?

There are almost always some valuable players who were missed for one reason or another during the auction. If you have kept up carefully with who was taken and not taken in the auction, you’ll have this information at your fingertips. You can sometimes improve your roster substantially, as this overlooked player may be better than one of the players you purchased.

For your picks in rounds 1 through 6, it is a good idea to back up players from your active roster. For example, if you bought Joel Hanrahan as one of your closers in the auction, and Evan Meek is available in Round 2 of the reserve draft, you might do well to add him to your squad. Likewise, if another owner has a shaky closer, you might be wise to use one of these picks to grab the pitcher most likely to pitch the 9th if that closer were to lose his job. Such a player might make a good trading chip, or he might turn into a full time closer.

Rounds 7 through 12 are where you pick up your prize minor leaguers and other prospects with the potential for substantial value in the future. These players will only be $5, so they will start their tenure on your team as a relatively inexpensive commodity. So, grab your favorite minor leaguer here, but know that the other owners will likely have the same game plan.

This is also a good time to pick up an injured player who may miss most or all of the year. You can add that player here without it costing you a roster spot or any budget dollars. Last year, Joe Nathan fit into this category in some leagues. Keep in mind that Round 7 holds the most strategic picks, since this is the first of the $5 rounds and where most owners look for future keepers.

Rounds 13 through 17 can be difficult. Here you can reach way down into the minors and pick up a player with great tools but a long way to go. Often, leagues do not start the clock running on minor leaguer salaries until they are activated, so you may be able to wait a couple of years for these flowers to bloom. In my experience is it noteworthy how many future stars were originally selected as long-shots in rounds 13 through 17.

The reserve draft moves extremely fast. You call a name, you get that player. For this reason, it is absolutely critical that you have a reliable method for keeping up with who was frozen or purchased in the auction, and who is left over for the reserve draft.

Well, that’s this week’s article. If you have any questions about the article, about specific player issues, or just want let me know what you think, please feel free to use the “comments” portion of the page, found below.

Good luck, and have fun!

How to Win: The LIMA Plan

The LIMA (Low Investment Mound Aces) Plan became extremely popular for a while. However, it soon became a less effective strategy for some because the most recommended LIMA pitchers were so hotly desired that they quickly became too expensive to fit within the plan. We zig when they zag, so many of us dropped the strategy. Now, with a few years separating us from the height of the strategy's popularity, it may become a viable strategy again, with a few tweaks.
  1. Go extreme LIMA - Avoid the future closer types and the popular future starter candidates such as Chris Sale and Aroldis Chapman. These guys are too popular to get at a discount. You need to be way ahead of the game to effectively use the LIMA Plan now. The middle relievers you draft should cost you no more than 2-3 bucks each. Here are a few guys to look into that should be pretty cheap: Wilton Lopez, Astros; Joe Thatcher, Padres; Matt Belisle, Rockies; Takashi Saito, Brewers; and James Russell, Cubs.
  2. Screw the Closer - Unless you can get one for dirt cheap, forget about drafting a closer and spend even more on offense. You can trade for a closer later if you don't get lucky on the waiver wire. With offense you should be able to put together, you should have plenty to entice potential trade partners.
  3. Pick Up Young Starters - When you troll the waiver wire look for young starters getting call ups, especially ones being called up after brief demotions. They're usually a lot better the second time around.
You can still win with the LIMA Plan, it just takes a little imagination and stepping away from the guys that everyone else is clamoring after.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

How to Win: The Stars and Scrubs Strategy

Stars and Scrubs is a strategy that a lot of owners use. Essentially an owner will use his available budget to acquire as many star level players as possible. It make s some sense, these arew the players that can often carry a fantasy team for long stretches. The remaining players are the scrubs, very low cost players, the idea is to embrace risk and draft a lot of high upside scubs.

It is a strategy that will often help a team place in the money but not always bring a victory. This is not a weakness of the strategy it is a weakness in the owner's use of it. Here are some tips to make it a more effective strategy.
  1. Scarce Positions - If you're willing to pay top dollar for stars, do it at the positions that will bring you the biggest advantage. This year grabbing the top shortstops is a great strategy. Typically, catcher, and third base are going to be good spots to spend your money as well. I would also grab the top outfielders if you can manage it. Outfield thins out very quickly when 12-13 teams (only leagues) or 15-20 teams (deeper mixed leagues) are grabbing five each.
  2. The Pitchers - I would avoid buying pitchers with my stud money. You should have a pitching budget and a pitching plan that is independent of your offensive plan. Spending 25-plus on pitchers even the best ones is not something I am often willing to do. I personally prefer to have a deep group of $8-15 guys with maybe a $20 "ace" to front things. I always have 2-3 one dollar relief pitchers - even in deep leagues you can manage to grab a few relievers with high strikeout ability for very cheap, you should have a long list of possibilities with you at the draft.
  3. The Scrubs - You also need to have a plan for your scrubs. You don't want to just buy the guys that go cheap. You want specific groups of scrubs. Identify players that will not cost big money that have the potential for career-high at-bat totals, young players with upside and playing time potential. Older veterans with starting roles that fantasy owners are bored with owning. And players returning from long-term disabled list stints. Platoon Players with at least one dominate ability, such as hitting for power or stealing bases. Some ideas: 2B Josh Barfield, Phillies; 3B/OF Alex Gordon, Royals; OF Julio Borbon, Rangers; C Brayan Pena, Royals; OF Jordan Schafer, Braves; 3B Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays; OF Marcus Thames, Dodgers; 2B/OF Ryan Raburn; and SS Jed Lowrie, Red Sox.
Stars and Scrubs is a legit strategy for use in any auction league. Just remember to consider your scrubs just as important as your stars and you can have a championship level auction.

Coming This Week:

Monday Night: How to Win - Still Using the LIMA Plan?

Wednesday Morning: The 2011 All Sleeper League Teams

Friday Night: 2011 Breakout Pitchers

And all sorts of goodness in-between! Don't miss it.

Monday, March 07, 2011

BUILDING YOUR AUCTION BUDGET


This is the time during my auction prep when I typically begin work on my budgets. On the surface, this might seem a fairly simple matter. You have $260. You need 23 players. Pretty straightforward, right? Maybe not. Planning and executing auction budgets seem to be areas which create problems for even the most experienced owners.

Over the years, I listened to owners lament after their auctions “Man, I got so many guys I didn‘t really want“, or “How did I wind up with so little pitching?” These owners mystify me. How could they be surprised? It’s like going to the grocery store, and then being shocked when you get home and open the shopping bags.

A good owner should have a definite idea what his team will look like coming out of the auction, if not the specific players, at least the type of players. How you can accomplish this feat, and why it is important to do so, deserves to be addressed. Most of what follows will be directed toward owners in redraft leagues, but I will illustrate how the lessons can be applied to keeper leagues as well.

Where to Spend Your Money? There is considerable debate over how one should apportion auction dollars between hitters and pitchers. On the one hand, 14 of our 23 roster spots are hitters, while only nine are pitchers. On the other hand, half the points come from pitching. I have seen guys spend $100 on pitching, and I have seen guys spend only $40 on pitching. I have even seen guys attempt the $9 pitching staff strategy. In my experience, none of those approaches find much success. Neither do gambits like Sweeney and Labadini work against experienced owners, unless the goal is simply to finish in the money,

Two things I keep in mind while building a budget:

1) Hitters are as a rule more reliable than pitchers, and therefore safer investments; and

2) In most leagues, as much as 30% of the pitching value comes from pitchers who were not projected to have value when the year started, and who are not reserve picks or free agents purchased during the season.

These things have led me to conclude that the optimal salary allocation for a 5x5 budgets is 70/30: $182 for offense and $78 for pitching. Some will say that in a 5x5, you should allocate more on the pitching side. As I’ll explain later, this is not necessary, and will weaken your offense to an unacceptable degree.

Building the Budget. Okay, we’ve decided upon a 70/30 split for our auction dollars. What’s next? First we have to make certain that the dollar values we are using are realistic. By that I do not mean only individual player’s values, but the value of the player pool in the aggregate.

The math is simple. Assuming a standard 12-team AL-only league, there are $3120 in auction dollars chasing the available talent ($260 x 12 = $3120). Auctions are a zero sum game, so assuming nobody leaves money on the table, $3120 will be spent for the 276 players who will be rostered. The projected values for the 276 players must necessarily add up to $3120. If our projected dollar values do not reflect 276 players at a total of $3120, our calculations are incorrect.

So, working with the 70/30 split we have decided upon, we must decide how we can best spend our $182 and our $78. This is where the process becomes less science and more art.

Hitters. We know what it will take to compete in each scoring category (see last week’s column), so we have to determine which combination of players will produce the numbers we need. We should probably spend big on a 1B, maybe $25, since they normally produce big power numbers and are easier to replace than are some other positions. We should also consider spending a good bit at 3B, since they can also give you good power numbers. (Some people worry that 3B is a scarce position, but we’ll examine that idea a little later.) In the middle infield, I’ll typically allocate less money per position, maybe $15 each for the 2B and SS. Let’s say $5 for the CI and $5 for the MI.

This leaves the catchers, which is one of the most difficult decisions we have to make. Despite much theorizing to the contrary, position scarcity is not an issue in an auction. In fantasy baseball, it doesn’t matter where our production comes from, so long as it happens. So long as we don’t overspend at any one position (particularly ones imagined to be scarce), there should be no problem finding the hitters we need to stock a solid roster. That is because almost every position player in our playing pool will have a positive value. So long as we are spending our money to maximize that positive value, position doesn’t matter (although 1B and OF are generally easier to replace in the event of injury or sudden lack of effectiveness)
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Catchers present a different problem. In standard leagues, we need two catchers, so in our 12-team AL league, we will go 24 players deep at that position. Unlike OF, there are insufficient catchers with positive value for everyone to have two of them. So we must decide how much of your budget you will dedicate to this difficult position. In my AL-only league, owners tend to overspend for catchers, making it nigh impossible to find a bargain. As a consequence, I‘m usually in the “cheap catcher” school. I budget $1 for each catcher. My goal, however, is to find two catchers who will not hurt me - two catchers whose production won’t be well into the red. We can usually find them, even if we are forced to rely upon backup catchers. So, for purposes of building this budget, let’s say $1 each or a total of $92 so far for our offense.

In the outfield, We are usually best off spreading our money around. Typically I’ll go with something like $30, $25, $20, $10, and $4 for the five outfield spot, and then $1 for DH/UT. I like to leave that position open for the end game. Since it is a utility spot, you can take the best offensive player available, regardless of position. That makes $90 for OF and DH/UT. Altogether, our offensive budget now looks like this:

C $1
C $1
1B $25
2B $15
3B $25
SS $15
CI $5
MI $5
OF $30
OF $25
OF $20
OF $10
OF $4
UT $1

TOTAL: $182

Tweaking the Basic Budget. By this point in our auction prep (whether redraft or keeper league), we have an accurate picture of the specific players who will be available for purchase. We have the template for our budget, so we can begin tweaking it to match up with the actual player population. Let’s say there are several 1B we wish to target, but we don’t think we can get one of them for our allotted $25. We simply bump our 1B slot up to $30 and our 3B slot down to $20. This will allow us to acquire the player we need without abandoning our budgetary plan.

Say we need more money for a 2B or SS, and that the most expensive OF we like has a value of $20-$25. We can just shift some OF dollars up to the infield positions. If our particular league has a tendency to overvalue or undervalue any particular position, we can tweak accordingly. Eventually our auction budget will resemble the original template, fine tuned to reflect player availability, league tendencies, etc.

Pitchers. How about our $78 pitching budget? We can start out with a template which looks something like this:

P $20
P $12
P $8
P $7
P $5
P $2
P $2
P $8
P $14

TOTAL: $78

Two things should be very obvious. First, we’re not going to get Felix Hernandez or Roy Halladay. Second, we’re not going to get one of the big name closers. But, that’s fine for us. Recall our assumptions regarding pitching. Even the best pitchers are not always reliable, and this holds especially true for closers. who sometimes have a tenuous hold on their jobs. Moreover, we are mindful of the potential for value in those pitchers who are not purchased in the auction.

Armed with this knowledge, we find a good starter to fill our $20 roster slot and serve as our anchor. If we happen to save a couple of dollars, we’ll increase our $12 starter slot to a $14 slot. We’ll look for starting pitchers (whether five, six or seven total) who have outstanding skills, but maybe lack the hype or the big names. In our remaining slots, we’ll try to cobble together some saves. We might actually get a real closer with our $14 slot, if the cards fall right or if we are in a mixed 5x5 league where some owners undervalue closers. Then we’ll look to fill out our roster with other relievers who have outstanding skills, and, ideally, a chance of stepping into the closer role at some point.

Last year, in my AL-only league, I was able to pick up Jose Valverde for only $14, since he was something of a question mark to AL-league owners. I also gambled by picking up a cheap Kevin Gregg. He was also coming over from the NL, and was serving as a setup man for Jason Frasor, who I considered to be a weak closer. In mid-April, Gregg took the closer job. My third reliever was Brandon League, who is usually available in the end game, usually undervalued and usually returns a nice profit.

We might decide to tweak this budget template as well as well. We may want a more expensive anchor for our rotation, or we may feel the need to buy a more solid closer. We may even decide to punt saves (although I would advise against that, for the reasons set forth in last week’s article.) So long as we know what pitchers are out there, and which ones we can reasonably expect to buy for the money we have allocated, we should be in good shape

Keeper Leagues. For keeper leagues, the process is not difficult. We simply pencil our frozen players into our budget form, placing them in the slot which that most accurately reflects their actual value. For example, if we have a $25 outfielder frozen at $12, then we put that outfielder in the $25 slot. We then take the savings we have accumulated from these frozen players, and use them to upgrade the other positions. This means we can target a $25 shortstop instead of being limited to a $15 player. On the pitching side, we do the same. We pencil in our freezes, and spread the savings among the other pitching slots. Now we put our new budget to work.

Using our Budget in Preparation for the Auction. As I mentioned last week, I don’t do practice auctions. I look at the results from other auctions, such as Tout Wars, but I rely more upon my predictions of what my league will likely pay for various players. Then I do an exercise in which I build roster after roster based upon the budget I have crafted, learning which combination of players will give me the statistics I’ll need to compete. Here’s how that works:

If we have done our draft prep properly to this point, we will have a list of all players likely to be purchased at the auction, and the projected dollar values of those players. Then we think in terms of what prices these players will actually bring in the auction. There will be some guys we believe will be overpriced at the auction, meaning they will go for more than they are worth. On the other hand, there will be players we believe will go for less than their actual value. These players will become targets for us, as will some players who may go for full price, but who we believe will meet expectations and remain healthy.

Making these judgments is generally easier in a league you have played in before, but you can still have a good idea who will be overpriced or under priced based upon hype, team he plays for, etc. For example, Mo Rivera will go for more than Joakim Soria in a lot of leagues, but for the money I would take Soria every time.

Now, having determined those players likely to be overpriced and those likely to be undervalued, and having targeted certain players as potentially good investments, we must identify players a) who are acceptable to us targets, and b) who are likely to be purchased for an amount close to what we have budgeted. In the AL we can forget about Felix Hernandez and Jon Lester, but we very well might land Max Scherzer, Jeremy Hellickson, or Brandon Morrow as our $20 anchor. We continue matching groups of players with each of our budget slots…ideally five or six possibilities at each position…and then do the same with the pitchers. We should consider contingencies as well. If we are shut out on our choices for 2B, can we make up for it by upgrading our SS or MI selections.

The Hard Part. Once we have generated a pool of targeted players for each roster spot, as well as alternatives based upon potentially adverse auction dynamics, we begin to put together different rosters based upon our target player pools and our budget. We tinker with them a bit. We imagine that we get Adrian Beltre early in the auction for only $20 of our $25 budget. We move that extra $5 to 1B, and now we are in the Adrian Gonzalez sweepstakes. We go through this process numerous times, imagining the various scenarios likely to unfold at the auction.

Each time we put together such a practice roster, we calculate the statistics the players would likely produce, based upon our projections. Then we compare those numbers against what it will take for us to compete.

This work is admittedly tedious. I used to do it on paper with a calculator. Now, I can do run these auction scenarios and statistical results using my draft software program. It calculates everything for me, and I can run a dozen different rosters in a couple of hours.

The point of this exercise is not just to get us used to working within our budget; we also become more adept at adapting to changing circumstances and adjusting our budget on the fly when necessary…saving a couple of bucks here and re-allocating it to another slot, or paying a few extra dollars to get someone we need and adjusting one or more slots accordingly. Most importantly, it gives us a realistic idea of how far our money will go and what kind of team we can put together. There is a very good chance, of course, the roster we wind up purchasing at auction will be better than our practice rosters, since there will undoubtedly be be a few bargains that fall our way.

Working the Budget in the Auction. The big day is here, and we’re ready for it. As we expected, the big names are getting tossed out early, and the bidding for them is hot and heavy. What should be be looking for?

One of three things will likely be happening: a) people will be very aggressive, all pumped up and overpaying, in which case we’ll sit back and let them overspend for a while, knowing the bargains will come later; b) owners will be more passive, meaning players could go under value, in which case we’ll wade in and start buying; or c) players will go for about what we think they are worth, in which case we will patiently and calmly execute our budget strategy. And patience is vitally important if we are to get the most out of our hard work and preparation. There have been auctions in which I didn’t buy a player in the first hour or more, only to buy six or seven in one round of nominations.

There shouldn’t be many circumstances in which we will bid substantially more for a player than we have budgeted. If we believe that Carl Crawford is absolutely crucial to our success in 2011, we should already have created a $40 budget slot for him. But, if we get carried away and spend $42 for Crawford when our budget for that slot was only $20, we likely will have caused problems executing the remainder of our budget plan. That’s where the discipline comes in.

On the other hand, what if we have $1 budgeted for a catcher, and we find Mike Napoli about to go for the bargain price of $6? Of course, we have to jump in and get him at $7 if we can. This is where the flexibility comes in. We don’t have to pass up a bargain just because it exceeds our slot allocation, so long as we find a way to allocate other budget dollars around to make up for it.

So, discipline and flexibility are the keys. We don’t want to find ourselves with $60 left late in the auction and nobody to spend it on. Likewise, we don’t want to find ourselves with $8 to spend and eight players to buy. I’ve seen people wind up in both situations, and it isn’t pretty.

Somebody may point out that in keeper leagues, it may be necessary to jump out early and make sure we get our fair share of the valuable players available. This is certainly true, but in a keeper league we will have factored the other owners’ projected freeze lists into our budget planning, and we will know who will be likely be available and have a sound idea of what it should take to acquire them. Then, after the final freeze date, we will have fine-tuned our budget and projections to account for any freezes we didn’t anticipate.

An Actual Keeper League Budget. The $182/$78 budget we worked through above is the actual budget I will use in my upcoming AL-only 5x5 Ultra redraft auction. In addition, I will use a similar budget in my 15-team mixed keeper league. Based upon my current plans for freezes, that keeper league budget will look like this:

C $4
C $4
1B $40
2B $15
3B (frozen $5)
SS (frozen $1)
CI $25
MI $5
OF $35
OF (frozen $33)
OF (frozen $6)
OF (frozen $4)
OF (frozen $3)
UT $2

P $20
P (frozen $5)
P (frozen $2)
P $20
P $15
P $10
P $2
P (frozen $1)
P (frozen $3)

This budget uses the same 70/30 split between hitters and pitchers. As you can see, the relatively low prices of my keepers allows me to allocate substantially more money for the players I will be purchasing. Of course, the specifics of this budget may have to be fine-tuned once final freeze lists are announced.

Inflation in this keeper league will be fairly high. Accordingly, it is important that I find some way to pay less than the inflated prices for the players I want. Otherwise, the profit I have built into my keepers will dissolve.

Let's Do the Twist. I have been using this budget approach since 1991, in keeper leagues and redraft leagues, but with a tactic that I haven’t seen the experts suggest. It may seem counter-intuitive, given what we have talked about so far, but it has worked well for me. If you take little else from this article, you may want to remember this little twist:

Conventional strategy and tactics for using a budget system as I have described ($182/$78) assume that I will actually spend $182 on offense and $78 on pitching. The assumption is that if I save $3 on a starting pitcher, I will add that money to another pitching slot. However, I do it differently, and for a reason.

If I save money on a pitcher, I don’t spread those extra dollars among the other pitching slots. Instead, I move that money to the offensive side of the ledger. Ideally, I will be able to spend at least $200 total on my offense. This strategy is justified by the fact that hitting is more reliable than pitching, and the fact that there is usually a large amount of pitching value left in the player pool after the auction.

Whether we tap into that extra pitching value by a reserve draft or by free agent pickups, it is usually much easier to bolster our pitching after the auction than to improve our offense. And the stronger our offense, the more options we have for improvement through trades and other in-season management techniques.

Well, there is this week’s article. I don’t expect that readers will rush out and copy the approach that I use. But I hope that it did give you some insights as to how you can use a budget to give yourself a competitive edge…and also explain why some of your fellow owners are pulling their hair out after the auction.

Good luck, and have fun.

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

2011 AL-Only Sleeper: Mitch Talbot


Mitch Talbot has been around.

I don't mean to make him sound that half-full container of sour cream in the back of your refrigerator. Just that he has seems to have been floating around baseball for a while before landing with the Indians in 2010. He isn't exactly old, he'll turn 28 at the end of the season. But because he has floated around it becomes easy to label him as a journeyman and dismiss him as a fantasy baseball factor, but that would not be fair. As the champion of fairness in these parts, it is up to me to make a case for Mitch Talbot: 2010 Sleeper!

Talbot has pitched exactly 169 innings in the major leagues. He achieved the bulk of them (159 IP) starting for the Cleveland Indians during the 2010 season. He wasn't an amazing performer but in an AL-only league he was useful. He collected ten wins, a 4.41 era, and 1.49 whip, with peripherals that looked like this: .301 BABIP, 69.4 percent LOB, .73 HR9, 4.97 K9, 3.90 BB9, and a 47.8 percent GB rate. Talbot's overall numbers match his FIP almost exactly. Pretty crappy, eh? Now look at his career minor league numbers:

1.30 whip, 9.05 H9, .62 HR9, 2.64 BB9, and a 7.41 K9 - Nothing amazing there, but consider this. If you throw out a horrible (7.78 era, I usually hate doing that but here it feels right) month of August and his strong finish in September, I think Talbot can help an AL-only pitching staff. He'll also do it for pennies. The Cleveland Indians are going to shock a lot of people in 2010 with their rapid improvement. They have tons of talent and Talbot (and Talbot owners) should benefit.

Plus, he's a warrior who likes to beat on the Red Sox...unbiased Jon

Sunday, February 27, 2011

AUCTION STRATEGY AND TACTICS

I was surprised and honored when Jon asked me to write a piece for Advanced Fantasy Baseball. I’ve never claimed to be an expert, but for the past 25 years, I have spent the better part of January, February and March preparing for fantasy baseball auctions of one type or another. So, I have picked up some ideas about what can increase your odds of having a good auction, and I’m happy to share them.
There are many ideas about what makes for a successful fantasy baseball season. Some say it is having the best projections. Others say it is having the best handle on player values, or doing the best job of in-season management. Some say it‘s a matter of luck. There was a recent survey, however, among the top fantasy experts in which “auction strategy and tactics” was named as the most important factor in winning. So, let’s explore that topic. Bear in mind that my favorite format is single league Ultra, but I think the concepts here will apply to most other formats.

Your Most Effective Eight Hours of Preparation. These are the eight hours of sleep you get the night before your auction. Anything you are likely to fit into your brain the night before the auction is almost certainly outweighed by the benefit or being well rested when the auction begins. It is fine to spend some time going through last minute developments, such as updates on position battles, injuries, etc. But you need that sleep. While it may seem obvious, it should be reiterated that an auction can be a test of endurance, and of your ability to maintain focus for 8 to 10 hours. If you are sleepy, or hung over, you have given your opponents a huge advantage. A good night’s sleep followed by a shower and a light breakfast can tilt the odds in your favor.
On a related issue, sobriety during the auction can be critical as well. I have seen many smart owners screw up their auctions because of too many adult beverages.

In-draft Materials. For years, I would go into auctions with a single sheet of letter sized copy paper, upon which I had written everything I needed to have with me. Other guys would bring notebooks, lists, all kinds of books and magazines, almost more than they could carry and certainly more than they could keep up with in an auction. If you are adequately prepared, the amount of materials you need should be minimal. If you find yourself looking at a book in the middle of the auction to see if you want to go another dollar on a guy, that should be a clue that you didn’t do enough preparation.
Nowadays, I use a laptop and auction software. It can have its advantages, but you must be familiar enough with the software that you can use it while staying in touch with the flow of the auction.

Price Enforcing. Price enforcing, by definition, is bidding up a player you don’t want in order to keep another owner from getting him at a bargain price. However, the reality is that there will be some bargains in the auction, and not all of them will be yours. The danger in price enforcing is that your auction can be seriously damaged by the purchase of a player you don’t want and don’t need. Yet every year I hear owners lament that they were caught price enforcing. Some will rationalize by saying they are happy with the player they bought. Malarkey.
If you wanted the guy at that price, you weren’t price enforcing, you were just bidding. Let someone else be the bargain police if they want to. There is no percentage in it for you.

The auction is not about baseball. The auction is about money management. The auction is about economics, gamesmanship, and brinksmanship. While you are trying to assemble a roster with the most possible projected value, a roomful of other owners are trying to do the same thing by going after the same commodities you have targeted.
But all men (and women) are not created equal when it comes to handling an auction. I have one friend who can walk into an auction completely unprepared, pick up a good sheet of projections and have a great auction. He has the instincts of a gambler, thinks fast on his feet, understands the economics of fantasy baseball, and never loses his cool. Conversely, I have another friend who knows everything about every player on every team, as well as all their farm system. Yet this fellow never has a stellar auction. He cannot translate his knowledge into success at the auction table. He cannot figure the angles when it comes to constructing a winning roster using a limited amount of money. The point? Spend time thinking about the auction. Visualize it. If you have a Plan A, you better have a Plan B and a Plan C. Better, you should have a broad idea of what you want to do, and the awareness to be flexible when necessary to achieve it.
I personally don’t do on-line practice auctions. But I do construct roster after roster based upon my projected auction prices, and compare them to see which combinations will best give me the numbers I will need in order to have a competitive team.

Player Values. This was a lesson hard for me to learn. Projections are not precise, and even if they are, the value they represent is dependent upon many unknowns, including the performance of the other players in the league. So, instead of thinking of someone as a $27 dollar player, think of him as a player in the $25 to $30 range. It will help you as you stratify players in your personal rankings and preparations. It will also give you the confidence to go an extra dollar or two for the guy you really want.

Hold the Cheering. Cold as it may sound, you should not think about the players as individuals, no matter how big a fan you may be. I’m not saying that you should ignore a player’s changing role, new team, or injury situation; those will factor into your preparation. But, in the final analysis, you are not buying names, but the numbers you hope they will produce.
Back in the day, I overspent for my favorite player, Ozzie Smith, every year. I finally saw the light and bought a bobble head doll.
A corollary of this is “don’t be a homer”. A home run in the Bronx doesn’t help you any more than one hit in the Twin Cities.

Early Nominations. A person could write a dissertation on what type of players should or should not be nominated in the early rounds of the auction. I’ll keep it simple: watch carefully what happens. If guys are excited and are overpaying, don’t throw out the name of someone you really want. If guys are laying back a little, nominate one of your targets and you might get him for a buck or two less, especially if you nominate a second tier player while everyone else is thinking about the big stars.
If you just keep throwing out guys you don’t want, while others get them at good prices, it only makes it tough later, when you try to grab the guys that you do want.

Go Against The Flow. It is essential to keep up with the flow of the auction. It is unlikely that the owners, as a group, will consistently pay exactly what players are worth throughout the auction. The auction will ebb and flow, creating inefficiencies which will produce buying opportunities. If owners overpay in early rounds, there will often be a bidding lull, while they sit back and worry about how much money they have spent. You can use this to your advantage. You may not buy a single player the first hour of the auction, and then, when the time is right, buy six or seven players in one round of nominations. Conversely, if the early bidding is yielding bargains, you should wade in and start spending money. The other owners will be disappointed later when they are spending top dollar for second tier players. But, how do you know exactly how the auction is trending at a given time? Some can feel it, almost instinctively. I do it by keeping a simple tally. If a $28 player goes for $35, I’ll mark a +7. If a $23 player goes for $17, I’ll mark a -6. Use this to keep track of whether people are overpaying or underpaying. Eventually, the time of economic reckoning will come.

The Bidding Process. I believe that techniques used in bidding can make a difference over time. I typically bid in an even, almost monotone voice. I try to show no emotion, whether I am nominating someone I don’t really want, or nominating the player who may be the key to my draft. I do this for a couple of reasons. I don’t want to be read by someone who might decide to price enforce on a guy I want. I also don’t want to bid in such a manner as to fire up another owner’s competitive instincts. In fact, I would be perfectly happy if the other owners didn’t even notice me bidding…just so long as the auctioneer does.
There are various bidding gambits that people employ in an effort to gain an advantage. One is the jump bid, where instead of raising the bid by a dollar each time, you jump it up two or three bucks. Sometimes the other fellow is caught a little off guard and won’t come back with another bid.
Another is the plateau bidding. This is where you jump to a bid ending in a “9”, such as $9, $19, $29, $39, etc. The thinking is that the other bidder will be averse to taking the bid into double figures, or to the twenties, thirties, etc.
There are other gambits, and most people have their favorites. In my experience, they can prove effective, provided you do not use them too often, or try them repeatedly against the same owner.

Dumping A Category. Conventional wisdom says it is very hard to dump a category in a 4x4, but that it can work well in a 5x5. Most see dumping a category as a way to ensure a “money finish”, but not a title. Others feel it is next to impossible to employ this strategy successfully in a super-competitive league.
Here‘s a short war story about a fantasy baseball stretch run that may challenge your thinking about if, how and when the decision to dump a category should be made. “Bob” was in a league which was long established and very competitive. Bob was in contention, but well behind the leader. Bob’s starting pitchers had not performed well, and his team was way off the pace in Wins and Strikeouts. Since it was late in the year, Bob calculated that he could easily meet the Minimum Innings requirement. He figured out which other owners had players they could spare in trade. With this information in hand, Bob pulled off a series of trades, almost simultaneously, in which he swapped all of his starting pitchers for closers, short relievers and a couple of select hitters. Bob effectively dumped both Wins and Strikeouts, catching the leaders by surprise. He finished with 57 out of 60 hitting points, and first in Saves. With so many relievers, his ERA and Whip also improved dramatically. Bob won the title by a narrow margin.
The lesson? You can dump a category, but you shouldn’t necessarily go into the auction with the intention of doing so. You can never tell how the season will pan out, and it is impossible to predict what your standing will be in the various categories at a given time. Accordingly, if you are going to dump a category (or two categories, like Bob did successfully), you are better off waiting until the right opportunity presents itself.

The End Game. Long ago, you could squirrel away a little bit of money and then totally dominate the end game, grabbing up bargain after bargain while the other owners were helpless to stop you. Times have changed. Owners are much more sophisticated and, more importantly, patient. There will always be a couple of other guys with money at the end, and one of them will be targeting that very guy you were hoping to snare for next to nothing. So, is the end game irrelevant now? Not at all. It just needs to be played a little differently.
My thinking is that you should go ahead and get the guys you really want or need before the end game. Don’t save a lot of money. One of the worst things you can do is to have $25 at the end and nobody to spend it on. I like to have $8 or $9 in my stack and three or four players to buy. I always try to keep a couple of pitching spots open. In “only” leagues, there will almost always be a valuable middle reliever you can get for a buck who will earn seven or eight dollars. There may also be a couple of sixth starters…young guys in the pen being groomed to eventually join the rotation, and almost always better than whoever the fifth starter is. Make sure you know who is out there, what you need, what the other owners need, and the order of nomination. There can still be money made in the end game.

The Bottom Line. To conclude, it might be wise to think in terms of what you are trying to achieve during the auction. Say you have $260 to spend. Do you want to get your money’s worth? No. If you do, you will finish in the middle of the pack. You have to get more that your money’s worth. Some say you need to come out of the auction with $330 worth of value in order to be in contention. I think this number is a little high in an experienced, competitive league, so I look at it a little differently.
I believe you should strive to accomplish two things. Using your money management and auction skills, you should try to come out of your auction with a final roster, the value of which exceeds its cost by 10%. In a $260 league, that would be $286. More importantly, that roster should be composed of players who have a good chance, as a group, to exceed their projected values by 10%. Those two things would give you a roster with a potential value of $315. With good in-season management, you should have a chance to compete for the top spot in any competitive league.
Obviously, buying a group of players who will outperform their projections is easier said than done. The point is that you should be thinking in terms of players with upside whenever you can, not necessarily picking risky players, but choosing ones who are benefited by circumstances which would enhance their chances of bettering their projections.

In closing, I realize that many members of this site are true experts, and have forgotten more about fantasy baseball than I will ever know. Nonetheless, I hope that some part of the this article will benefit you as you plan strategies and tactics for your 2011 auction. Good luck, and have fun.