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How Much Do Current Season Stats Matter?

How Much Do Current Season Stats Matter?

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Every major fantasy league hosting site (Yahoo, CBS, ESPN) allows you to look at recent history (e.g. the last 7 days or the last 14 days).  It’s also very easy to see the year-to-date stats any player has accumulated to this point in the season.

Yahoo_Stats
The Yahoo! free agent list allows you to look at the last 7, 14, and 30 days.

And now that we’re nearly half way through the current season, how much do those current year stats mean?  If you’re trying to add a free agent, should you be looking at the last 7 days?  Is the last month OK to use?  How much can we expect production from the first half of the season to continue into the second half?

CBS_Stats
CBS allows you to look at 7, 14, 21, and 28 days, as well as 3 year averages.

Let’s Take A Quiz

Before we get to the answers to those question, let’s put you to the test with some very specific questions.  I’ll lay out a series of “story problem” (remember middle school math?) questions for you .  Place yourself in each situation and make what you think is the best fantasy baseball decision.

Question #1

Your team recently suffered an injury and you must go out to the free agent list and find a replacement.  Which of these measures is the best method of identifying the player who will perform the best for the rest of the season?

  1. Looking at the statistics for free agents in the last 7 days
  2. Looking at the statistics for free agents in the last 14 days
  3. Looking at the statistics for free agents in the last 28 days
  4. Looking at the statistics the free agents have accumulated to this point in the season (season-to-date stats)
  5. Looking at the projected statistics for free agents for the remainder of the season  (like Steamer or Zips rest-of season projections)

Question #2

Which model(s) above do you actually use to make decisions?

Question #3

Which player would you rather have the remainder of the season given these levels of production so far?

Current production (as of 6/22/2014):

Player PA R HR RBI AVG
Nelson Cruz 306 45 23 60 .299
Chris Davis 252 32 12 37 .220

Question #4

Which player would you rather have the remainder of the season given these levels of production and the Steamer RoS projections below?

Current production (as of 6/22/2014):

Player PA R HR RBI AVG
Nelson Cruz 306 45 23 60 .299
Chris Davis 252 32 12 37 .220

Steamer RoS Projections (as of 6/22/14):

Player PA R HR RBI AVG
Nelson Cruz 320 41 17 47 .261
Chris Davis 341 46 20 52 .261

Question #5

Similar scenario to question four above…  But now imagine that we’re five full months into the season instead of at roughly the half way point.  Who would you rather have in the final month of the season?

  • The player who was incredibly hot for the first five months but that projections say will cool off towards his career averages or
  • The player that has struggled for the first five months but is projected to improve and perform closer to his higher level of career averages over the final month of the season?

Question #6

Which player would you rather have the remainder of the season given these levels of production and the Steamer RoS projections below?

Player IP K/9 ERA WHIP
Andrew Cashner 76.1 6.96 2.36 1.19
Homer Bailey 90.0 8.07 4.68 1.45

Steamer RoS Projections (as of 6/22/14):

Player IP K/9 ERA WHIP
Andrew Cashner 103.0 7.29 3.85 1.27
Homer Bailey 95.0 7.99 3.80 1.22

The Research

The information that follows (more…)

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Tool Review - FantasyBaseballAlerts.com

Tool Review – FantasyBaseballAlerts.com

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I’m in four leagues this season.  Only one of which has weekly lineups. So that leaves me with three teams with daily rosters to manage.

I’m also trying to dip my toes into the strategy of platooning hitters to gain a slight edge on the competition, by employing players like Adam Lind and Seth Smith.

The problem with this strategy is that Lind and Smith are out of the lineup a handful of days each week because their Major League teams are also platooning them.

I usually start my day by setting my lineup, putting anyone without a game on the bench and moving starting pitchers into the lineup.  But I don’t really take the time to check if the Blue Jays or Padres are facing a lefty. This leaves me with a problem.  The advantage I could get by running a platoon is more than offset if I don’t even have a guy in the lineup on a given night.

One Solution

I’ve written previously about the very helpful “My Lineup” tool at BaseballPress.com. As far as I know, they’ve still got the earliest and most accurate lineups available.  They also provide weather information, recent relief pitcher usage information (look at Betances below), and batting lineup info (Allen Craig is batting 4th today). BaseballPressMyLineup That information is second to none.  I love this tool.  But I often leave work at 5:30 PM and don’t get home until 6:30 PM, where I’m greeted by the chaos of my beautiful three and four-year old daughters.  So pulling up Baseball Press before the 7:05 starts is not top of mind.

Another Solution

Right around the time the 2014 season started, I received an e-mail from one of the guys that runs FantasyBaseballAlerts.com.  They wanted to know if I’d be interested in trying out their service (more about that in a minute) for free.

I get a number of requests from sites wanting to run ads here or that want me to put links to their site, and I don’t usually act.  I could probably make a few bucks by running ads, but one of the principles I use in guiding this site is that I’ll only promote or link to services I use, books that I’ve read, or ideas I believe in.

With this in mind, the idea behind FantasyBaseballAlerts.com really seemed beneficial to me.  So I signed up to test it out.

What The Service Does

It’s very similar to BaseballPress, but the information comes to you.  You don’t have to seek it out.

Simply put, you get an e-mail or text message sent to you when a player on your fantasy team is not in the starting lineup for their Major League team that day.

You can also choose to receive either e-mail or text message alerts containing player news, DL information, and more.

Here’s a full list of the types of alerts you can have sent to you:FantasyBaseballAlerts2

Example E-mails

Here’s an example notice about Adam Lind being benched.  Notice that the alert e-mail was sent at 11:52 AM for a 1:07 PM start time.  A pretty solid amount of time to notice the e-mail and make the roster change. FantasyBaseballAlertsAdamLind (more…)

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