I had the opportunity to make a guest appearance on two of my favorite podcasts in the last several months. Read below for details and links to listen.
Baseball HQ Radio with Patrick Davitt (September 16, 2022)
I discuss this a little during the interview with Patrick, but when I first started this website and was trying to immerse myself in different opinions and tactics for playing rotisserie, Baseball HQ Radio was a huge help in learning and improving. I went so far as to listen to all the old interviews as far back as my podcast player would go. I believe the format of the podcast has change slightly over the years, but the guest interviews with teachers and unique thinkers like Ron Shandler, Gene McCaffrey, Triston Cockroft, Mike Gianella, Todd Zola, and many others were helpful at forming my approach.
Even though the podcast took place while the 2022 season was still ongoing, as with much of my content, I try to keep things pretty evergreen and always relevant. We discuss a lot of strategy and fantasy baseball philosophy, along with some break down and conclusions from the 2022 season.
It was an honor to make an appearance on this show. HQ Radio is legendary and one of the longest running podcasts around.
The episode runs over three hours, but my segments all fall within the first half of the show.
PullHitter Fantasy Baseball with Rob DiPietro (January 13, 2022)
Welp. If you thought the HQ podcast was eventful, this may have topped it. Rob (2020 NFBC Draft Champions winner) lined up to have me, Jeff Zimmerman, Steve Weimer (2nd and 6th overall in 2022 NFBC Main Event), Phil Dussault (2021 NFBC Main Event, NFBC Auction Championship winner and 2021 Online Championship runner up), and Toby Guevin (multiple time NFBC Main Event and high stakes league winner). I don’t think this much NFBC success has been on one podcast before.
This conversation covered a wide range of topics and interesting discussions, ranging from The Process to how the group is handling the MLB rule changes, as well as some very interesting strategy and process discussions about topics like aggregating projections and how managers should best spend their time
I will note that I really enjoy listening to Rob’s podcast and how he takes the individual interviews with fantasy managers to the next level of depth. Some folks object to very lengthy podcasts, but I think that’s the beauty of the medium. There’s no way to uncover a lot of the details that Rob is able to by forcing an interview to fit within a tight window. The conversation here does ramble at time, but then there are some truly valuable nuggets and discussions that wouldn’t have surfaced if we had followed a more structured format.
Below you’ll find the link to the podcast as well as a snippet Rob created from some of my commentary.
I heard this on a podcast recently. Can’t remember which one. So, I can’t give credit. It’s also not the first time I’ve heard the phrase. Maybe I shouldn’t worry too much about it.
I agree with this statement. But since I’m a natural contrarian (ask my wife) my knee-jerk response is, “Yeah, but there aren’t an infinite number of ways to win.”
I think about this a lot. Probably too much. Maybe the thoughts that follow are obvious. Or maybe I have some unique insight to share. So here goes. Besides, I haven’t written a true blog post in a long time. Buckle up.
Seeing this Tweet is what ultimately pushed me over the edge to write this:
We think a lot about those black lines, forgetting that it’s all still in our hands. pic.twitter.com/RSZ1d3W642
I’ll agree with the author here. In life we think a lot about those black lines. We tend to be backwards looking. Either relishing in the past or wallowing in it. The Stoics would want us looking at the green path into the future and all the possibilities that exist. But we like to be crippled by bad decisions and feel sorry for ourselves.
I may well be wrong, but I get the impression that most of us are the opposite in playing fantasy baseball. We have to be inherently forward looking. The stats accumulated in the standings can’t be changed. They are what they are. We have no choice but to pull up the free agent listing and plan for the future.
We talk about the future all the time. We are always “preparing”. Projections, prognostications, adding players for the future, dynasty leagues, pursuing a championship. It’s all forward looking.
Maybe that’s why we like this game? Is it inherently optimistic?
Anyways, we fake baseball players tend to forget our past decisions. I’m here to be negative and bring us back to all of our horrible decisions!!!
That’s not really my intent. Some good retrospection and review is good at the end of the season. But I’m not proposing we start looking in the rotisserie rearview mirror any more than that.
I do think the image is insightful and helpful at demonstrating a key bit of strategy I try to always bring myself back to… Stay balanced.
I’ll go as far as to say this is my guiding principle in playing rotisserie (it’s not so relevant for points leagues). I use it any time I’m struggling with a decision. Should I take a pitcher or a hitter? Should I take speed or power? Do I take my third outfielder or my first catcher?
We discuss the topic in The Process but don’t beat the reader over the head with it. I’m about to beat you over the head with it.
Stay balanced!
The phrase is purposely ambiguous. It can mean so many things, all of them helpful. Here are some examples:
Don’t allow yourself to get backed into a corner. Keep your team balanced in both pitching and hitting. Keep a balance across statistical categories. Avoid putting yourself in a situation where you can’t take advantage of good fortunes that come your way. If you are out of balance, needing pitching, and an amazing hitter falls in the draft your decision point becomes getting even further out of balance or passing up the opportunity.
Balance the risk and uncertainty on your roster. Don’t be too risky. Don’t be too conservative or risk averse (BTW, if you say “risk adverse” and you’re a podcaster, I have shaken my fist at you before). You don’t want to be the manager rostering Oneil Cruz, Adalberto Mondesi, and Justin Verlander. You also don’t want a team full of Randal Grichuks and Mark Canhas. There is value in pursuing upside and floor. Both serve a purpose.
I’ve been getting out of my comfort zone of late and have recorded several podcasts since the 2021 season ended. Read below for details on the various podcasts and how to listen.
Justin Mason’s TGFBI Podcast (October 5, 2021)
I was lucky and fortunate enough to win the TGFBI overall championship, out of 435 fantasy baseball analysts. Justin guides me through an interview breaking down my draft, in-season moves, and strategies I used to win the prize.
Launch Angle Podcast with Jeff Zimmerman, Rob Silver, and Van Lee (December 11, 2021)
I joined Jeff, Rob, and Van to discuss the release of the 2022 edition of The Process, as well as to do some ADP player analysis. You’ll get a little peak into my brain and how I go about analyzing a player’s draft price.
On the Wire Podcast with Adam Howe, Kevin Hastings, and Jeff Zimmerman (December 26, 2021)
This was a fun one. We spend much more time talking about The Process, strategy, advice, and how I think about topics like SGP, using projections, and analyzing late-late-late-round players in a format like the NFBC Draft Champions.
I recently participated in my The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) draft, which, if you’re a Twitter user and follow anyone in the fantasy baseball landscape, you could not have avoided. I do want to share with you some observations I had during the draft, but similar to my other writings, the goal here is to give some actionable advice (even if you’re reading this in the future) and not get too hung up on my team and specific players.
The Context
The invitational is made of 13 separate 15-team leagues. Each of these leagues will compete like any traditional rotisserie league and crown a champion within that league. The twist is that there is also an overall competition across the 13 leagues, whereby all 195 teams are competing in one massive rotisserie competition to crown an overall champion (similar to how the NFBC works). The one person that emerges atop 194 other experts can surely claim to be one of the best fantasy baseball players around.
This is the inaugural year of the competition, but it’s such an innovative idea that there’s no shortage of well-known folks competing. You can see the full list of participants here.
I’m participating in League #13. I happen to be the last name on the roster of the last league! What does that tell you, ha! You can see the draft results here. I was picking from the fifth spot.
My Feelings Going Into the Draft
While I’m obsessed with fantasy baseball, I really don’t view myself as anything special in this arena. Sure, I’ve MacGyver’ed up some neat spreadsheet tools over the years. But I don’t view my preparation process as anything special. I DON’T DO ANYTHING YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF BEFORE. I’m not holding back any secret tricks of the trade.
And because I don’t do anything special, I was nervous as hell heading into this draft. I joked a few paragraphs back about being the last name on the last league. I don’t really know if that’s indicative of anything, but even if it is, I get it! I don’t even think I’ve written five legitimate articles in the past two years. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the lowest output of any participant involved. Meanwhile, many of the others are busting their backs to write articles and create podcasts on an aggressive and regular schedule.
These guys and gals are painstakingly combing over StatCast data, spin rates, hard hit rates, launch angles, swinging strike rates, and more… Meanwhile, I pretty much just let them do the work, read their articles, listen to their podcasts, plop some projections into a spreadsheet, make some manual adjustments, and I’m ready to rock with a comprehensive list of players and expected earnings dollar values.
Alright. Enough about me. Let’s try to make this useful. I apologize if some of what follows comes across as inflammatory or soap-boxy. Not everything can be sugar-coated. Here are my top lessons learned and observations after participating in this draft.
#1 – Exploit the League Rules
I really, really, really didn’t want to start with this one. It’s what EVERY SINGLE introduction to fantasy sports article ever written in the history of the world has started with.
So you would have expected that every one of the 195 participants would have done this, right?
But guess what??? I’m speculating, but I’d bet less than half of the TGFBI participants gave the rules a worthwhile look (I do realize saying “the TGFBI” is probably redundant, but it looks too weird not to do it). They probably assumed we were playing by prototypical standard rules and just checked to determine if we were using batting average or on-base percentage. But there are two rules we are playing by that are not exactly “standard” and each was something that I think needed to be known going into the draft. These two rules should have affected your behavior in the draft, and possibly in a significant way. Those two rules are:
Starting rosters include only one catcher but two utility spots
Rosters allow for five reserves and up to five DL spots for injured players
Why does this matter? In a 15-team league, I show the effect of going from two starting catchers to one as having around a $10 swing in value! That is an ENORMOUS detail (Note: the values in the image reflect the change from 2 C & 1 UTIL to 1 C & 2 UTIL, not just the move to 1 C).
The fact that this change is so significant surprises some people. But these are the same objective calculations that tell me Mike Trout, Trea Turner, Jose Altuve, Chris Sale, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer should be the highest valued players for the 2018 season. This isn’t speculation or “feel” about how to adjust for position scarcity. If you want to read more about the reason for this, here’s an illustrated example I put together from a few years ago.
As some of the faster drafting leagues started to get into the second and third rounds, we saw the big name catchers start to go. Then word quickly spread over Twitter, “This is a one-catcher league.” The effect quickly kicked in and the catchers starting plummeting. I’m a little disappointed this had to spread like a juicy rumor. I’d have expected everyone to know this going in.
I also suspect that many folks were worried the rules allowed for five reserve spots and no recourse for injured players. I believe this is how NFBC leagues and Fantrax leagues that allow for transactions operate (e.g. NFBC Main Event). I don’t have hard evidence to support this claim, but it just seemed like injured players like Michael Brantley, Michael Conforto, Jimmy Nelson, and Alex Reyes were going later than they should have been. My guess is they’d have been pushed up draft boards aggressively had everyone known this.
Small tip here. I don’t mind pushing up these injured players when you have a realistic way of replacing them that won’t burden you (force you to keep dead weight on your roster). Not only do you secure a talented player at a discount, you get the added benefit of being able to take chances on the waiver wire early in the season, when the odds are higher that you’ll be able to find a hidden gem.
My takeaway here is to not take anything in the rules for granted. Comb over them. Think about what the wrinkles in the rules might allow or incentivize you to do. Tailor your rankings and calculate your dollar values with these rules in mind. And don’t assume your enemies are doing the same. This can be an edge.
#2 – Use Dollar Values Tailored to Those League Rules to Make Decisions
My stance on this is simple and straightforward. If you’re not drafting with a set of projection-based dollar values in mind, you can do better.
I don’t care if you calculate them yourself, if you use the Fangraphs auction value calculator or the Rotowire custom dollar values, or if you buy a piece of software that does it for you… You’re not optimizing your chances of winning if you’re not drafting from values. You need a framework for comparing two hitters to each other, for comparing a hitter to a pitcher, and for making educated decisions. This is what dollar values do! Without dollar values, you’re being subjective. You’re letting biases creep into your decision making.
I don’t know exactly how every analyst drafts, but based on following folks on Twitter, reading certain sites, and discussions I’ve had with people, I’m pretty certain these folks all do value-based drafting:
If you just happened to stumble upon this site (hopefully a Google search for fantasy baseball spreadsheet brought you here), you’re probably thinking to yourself, “How can I trust a fantasy baseball website that has only published one article since January 2016?”.
And that’s a fair question.
Instead of going it alone, as I’ve done the last three years (has it really been that long already???), I’m now writing at the Rotographs section of Fangraphs. For the near future, you should be able to find a new article there, from me, every Friday morning. You can see an archive of what I’ve already written here.
Is SFBB Shutting Down?
No! While it will be difficult for me to continue posting here at the same pace, the site isn’t going anywhere. I do hope to add more spreadsheet tips and analysis here, and you will also be able to find that in my writing at Rotographs.
I’ve already snuck in a couple of Excel pieces over there and haven’t gotten fired yet!
SmartFantasyBaseball will also be my home for the tools, spreadsheets, and guides that I create. The Player ID map and any serious “how to” lengthy series (like my standings gain points and points league series) will be here.
One major benefit of the Rotographs shift is that I will be publishing something EVERY WEEK! I used to aim for only twice a month.
My Work So Far at Rotographs
Here’s a short summary of the pieces I’ve already published over there:
A Look at 2015 NL-Only Standings Data – OnRoto provided the data for 51 different 12-team NL-only leagues. I converted that information into category targets to shoot for, SGP calculations, and average stats required from each hitter and pitcher. This one also includes a link to an Excel file and a Google Sheet of the raw standings information.
Why You Should Aim for Third Place – This sounds rather defeatist, but I took 30 NFBC leagues’ standings data and charted out all of the results. What I found is that aiming to finish in third place in each rotisserie category looks to be the optimal use of your resources during the draft.
Making Simple Edits to Projections for R, RBI, and PA – Have you ever wondered what the effect of hitting in different spots in the lineup has on runs and RBI? Well what if the player is in the AL? Does that matter? Or what if he’s on a team projected to score 650 runs? What if he’s traded to a team that will score 750? This post comes with a series of handy charts that can help you quickly answer questions like these.
Properly Valuing Hitters with Injury Risk – Follow along as I attempt to value players, like Giancarlo Stanton, perceived to have a large amount of injury risk associated with them. What is the proper way to make this adjustment? How big of an affect does it really have?
How Does Batting Order Affect Stolen Bases – A closer look at how stolen base attempts are affected by where a player hits in the lineup. Do you need to worry if your speedster is being moved to third in the lineup? Can you expect a slow base runner to steal more if he’s moved into the leadoff spot? Answers to these questions and more!
How to Add Player Page Links to Your Draft Spreadsheet – Another handy feature to add to your draft spreadsheet. Adding these clickable links to your file will help you look up players on Fangraphs quickly and easily during the pressure-filled draft.
Tanner Bell’s 10 Bold Predictions for 2016 – Making player predictions and going out on a limb for guys is not my M.O. But it was fun participating in one of my favorite annual Fangraphs traditions. Gerardo Parra, Jose Altuve, Marcell Ozuna, Lorenzo Cain, and more (some good, some bad)!
Stay Smart
Best of luck this season. Be sure to follow me on Twitter so we can keep in touch and so you can be kept up-to-date on new tools and articles.
Think of players like Ben Zobrist, Martin Prado, and Matt Carpenter.
In recent seasons, players like these have been eligible to play multiple positions. The big question is, “All else equal, should you pay more for a multi-eligible player than a player only eligible at one position?”.
I think there’s a clear answer to this question. And it might surprise you.
The Argument That They Are Not Worth More
Would you pay $2 more for Player A because he’s also second base eligible?
Player A (2B / SS): .272, 10 HR, 83 R, 52 RBI, 10 SB
Player B (SS): .275, 11 HR, 78 R, 55 RBI, 8 SB
Some very intelligent fantasy baseball minds will tell you that a player with multi-position eligibility is not worth more. For instance:
However, since playing more than one position doesn’t mean the player will produce any extra stats, he doesn’t have any greater an actual dollar value than someone who plays only one position.
If you haven’t read Schechter’s book, you need to. It is loaded with very clear and well-reasoned thoughts and strategies like this one.
When you read the book, it becomes clear that Larry has a very bottom line approach. If a possible decision ends up adding dollar value to your team, you choose that option. If there is no measurable benefit in dollar value, you don’t.
I love the approach. That’s why I think everyone should create their own rankings. Attaching dollar values to players makes all decisions systematically easier to make. You no longer have to agonize over decisions like, “Should I drop player X and add player Y from the waiver wire?”. It’s a lot easier to simply look at each player’s projected dollar value for the rest of the season and decide.
With that said, I think it’s a little short-sighted to only look at the dollar value of a player at a given point in time.
Let’s Play Cards
My wife says my analogies are horrible, but I’m going to try a few on you anyways. Before we get into specific scenarios involving fantasy baseball, let’s first consider a couple of card game examples.
Blackjack
We can probably agree that the ace is the most powerful card in blackjack. A big reason for this is that it’s a gateway to reaching the total of 21. Without an ace you need a combination of two cards to get to 11 or 21 (2 & 9, 3 & 8, etc.). But the ace gets you there in one card.
Another huge power of the ace is its ability to act as two different cards, a 1 or an 11. It’s an insurance policy. You can behave as if it’s an 11 and quickly change it to a 1 if you bust. It lets you take risks you wouldn’t otherwise take. Keep this in mind.
I’ll end the blackjack example with a question. Assume an 8 in blackjack could be used as an 8 or a 3. You get to decide. Would that make the card more valuable to you than a card that could only be used as an 8?
Poker
I’m not a poker guru but I played my share of Texas Hold’em games in the early 2000’s just like everyone else.
In my mind, a huge decision-making factor in poker is the number of helpful cards (or “outs”) left in the deck.
For example, if you have a pair of 9s, we know there are only two helpful cards remaining (the other two 9s) to help you make three of a kind.
Or maybe you have an open-ended straight like a 4, 5, 6, and 7. In this case there are four 3s and four 8s that would finish of your straight, for a total of eight “outs”.
If an average hitter is bumped from the sixth spot in the batting order to the two-hole, how much of a bump in performance can we expect?
I’ve written a little about this before. Mostly just suggesting that this is something to keep in mind when you’re looking for hidden value. And I always had in the back of my mind that when I finally got around to downloading all the retrosheet game logs for each season AND learned SQL that I could figure out exactly how much of a benefit this would represent.
Then my five-year old daughter starts playing soccer and is bringing homework back from kindergarten, my sister and twin sister-in-laws all decide to get married in a two-year period, work gets in the way… and before I know it those plans of teaching myself how to process game logs are out the window!
I have taken the 2014 data from Baseball Reference tweaked it some. You will first see a series of charts depicting the batting order splits for 2014. Then after the charts you will see tables showing the MLB, AL-only, and NL-only data.
I’ve added calculations for Plate Appearances per Game, Runs per Plate Appearance, and RBI per Plate Appearance.
These measures are all important inputs when I’m projecting a player’s performance (side note, if you are interested in projecting stats here is the approach I use). Knowing (or estimating) where a player will bat in the order affects the number of times they’ll come to the plate during the season. That spot in the order also affects their run scoring and run driving productivity. You’re more likely to score batting in front of the 3- and 4-hitter than you are batting seventh.
Plate Appearances
The graph below shows that for every spot a player drops in the lineup, they can expect to see about 0.10 or 0.11 fewer plate appearances per game. Over the course of a 162 game season that is about 16 plate appearances. Fall from second in the order to 7th, you’re looking at 80 less plate appearances.
Notice that there’s really not much of a difference between the AL and NL in terms of plate appearances for any spot in the lineup.
I probably spend four to six hours commuting to work each week, so I’ve become a huge fan of podcasts as a medium to keep up-to-date on my MLB and fantasy news. Then I recently came across the OverDrive Media Console app which allows me to check out audio books from my local library for free.
After browsing the selection of available books, I was unable to find anything sabermetrically inclined. Nothing by Bill James. Nothing even baseball-related.
But I did come across the book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman (that’s an affiliate link).It sounded like something I could potentially apply to fantasy baseball, so I gave it a shot.
What It’s About
Turns out there were a lot of connections I could draw to this silly game we play. Our brains have two main thought patterns; fast and slow. Or an instinctual center (System #1) that makes fast assessments and decisions, and a more powerful and deliberate thought center (System #2) capable of in-depth analysis. This video does a great job of explaining the differences between the two systems and even illustrates, if we’re not aware, how the fast thinking system can make incorrect decisions and assessments.
Lesson #1 – We Often Make Very Important Decisions Using Only System #1
One of the anecdotes Kahneman offers is that of a CEO of a large investment company that explained his investment in Ford Motor Company because he, “liked the cars”. Nothing about company earnings, the cost of the stock, quality of leadership, or competitive advantage.
That doesn’t sound like a thorough decision-making process if you were just buying a car for yourself, let alone investing millions of dollars.
We do this in fantasy baseball. We might pick up a player based only on surface stats, without looking at underlying stats like strike out rates, HR/FB, or BABIP.
Or we might drop a valuable player for just the opposite reasons. Making only snap judgements using system #1 and not thoroughly analyzing factors that could make a player’s current stats deceiving or without looking at what a future projection looks like in spite of past performance.
Lesson #2 – System #1 Cannot Be Shut Off. But You Can Control It With Awareness.
Think of the popular optical illusion shown here. (more…)
This topic came up recently and a number of well-respected fantasy experts discussed and debated the topic. I’m not here to rehash what they said, but hopefully to offer some points I didn’t see made in the discussions.
If you want to catch up on exactly what has previously been said:
I believe Sarris got the idea for the post from a Twitter conversation between Steve Gardner (USA Today Fantasy Sports), Christopher Liss (Rotowire), Mike Gianella (Baseball Prospectus Fantasy), and Jeff Erickson (Rotowire). You can see that conversation at this link (scroll up and down to see full conversation).
Before Twitter, we didn’t have this kind of access into theoretical discussions about fantasy baseball. It’s great to see this kind of back-and-forth and hashing out of ideas from a knowledgeable and respected group of fantasy writers. So what can I offer to this?
Cherry Picking
I will pull two specific tweets out of the discussion. Let’s start with this one from Kreutzer:
A lot of explanations were thrown out to explain the popular 70-30 hitter allocation, but I think this makes the most sense. Kreutzer gives very specific figures in Part 1 of his explanation of this topic, and specifically mentions that the average return on investment for all hitters in expert leagues was 88% (or a loss of 12%). For pitchers the return was 32% (or a loss of 68%). Keep this in mind. We’ll come back to these figures later.
In Part 2 he discusses the concept of “free loot”, or valuable fantasy stats that were not drafted but find their way onto rosters in your league during the year.
Alright, I’m starting to understand the reason for hitters to be allocated more money. Why try to buy pitching stats during the draft if value from pitchers is difficult to predict accurately and if I can just wait until the season starts to pick up valuable players on from the free agent pool anyways.
You are in the middle of the pack in the league standings, with your biggest opportunity to gain rotisserie points being in HR and RBI. Your other offensive categories are solid, but you recognize that the batting average category is tightly contested. If your team batting average were to drop a few points it would cause you to plummet in the category.
You have received this trade offer:
You Give Player A: projected for .290 BA, 80 R, 16 HR, 65 RBI, 15 SB
You Get Player B: projected for .245 BA, 80 R, 26 HR, 85 RBI, 5 SB
Trades like this are difficult to evaluate. Are the additional 10 HR and 20 RBI worth the 45 point decline in BA?
The proposed deal looks great from a HR and RBI perspective. But you have concerns about the batting average aspect. You believe the points you will gain in HR and RBI will be canceled out by the loss in batting average.
So you reject the deal.
Framing
Enter the concept of framing, or the lens through which you view and evaluate decisions. In the scenario above, this decision was made strictly under the assumption that this was a one-for-one trade.
While the offer was a one-for-one trade, you should not treat it that way. This is a narrow point of view. Your decision making can improve dramatically if you widen your frame.
Back To The Example
It’s short sighted to believe that this would be the only transaction you would make to solve your HR and RBI problem. Whether you accept this trade offer or not, your next step is probably to evaluate your bench players against the free agent list and take action there to add HR and RBI potential or to protect yourself in BA.
You’re not going to cut Player A. It will be someone else on the chopping block. Someone like Bench Player X.
Bench Player X: projected for .260, 60 R, 18 HR, 65 RBI, 5 SB
And let’s assume there are two interesting free agent candidates available:
“The Process”, My Latest Book, with Jeff Zimmerman
The 2024 edition of The Process, by Jeff Zimmerman and Tanner Bell, is now available! Click here to read what folks like John Pausma, Phil Dussault, Eno Sarris, Clay Link, Rob Silver, Rudy Gamble, and others have to say about the book.
The Process is your one-stop resource for better drafting, in-season management, and developing strategies to become a better manager. The book is loaded with unique studies, tips, and strategies you won't find anywhere else. Click here for more details.