ASK ROTOMAN
Rotoman:
My long-time 12-team, NL-only league is going fully re-draft this year after being a keeper league for its whole existence and I am trying to anticipate the best way to be ready for this and take advantage of the changeover.
My league is traditional 5x5 but with OBP instead of BA and Innings Pitched instead of Wins. We use 13 hitters (including 2 catchers) and 10 pitchers (including at least 4 relief pitchers based on prior season usage). The traditional league-wide pitcher spend, out of $260, is about $85. However, I have typically tried to limit my spend to $75 as I have had good success with buying low-cost, but skilled, 6th/7th starters and set-up guys at low dollars and believe in bullying offense.
We will auction the day after the MLB season starts and our league rules permit only guys on the opening day roster and those on the major league IL to be purchased at auction; i.e. no minor leaguers. Further, the league is a skilled one with at least 2/3 of the owners being players who have won in the past.
Do the specs I have provided allow you to make any general comments about what you would do auctioning from scratch in a league like this that for the first time in 30 years?
“Back to Basics”
Dear Basics,
Congratulations on your jubilee. That’s the biblical tradition (apparently Leviticus 25-26) of releasing those in prison or enslaved for debt, restoring lands lost because of debt, and a reordering of debt, prices, and ownership in advance of the next Jubilee. The goal of this ancient tradition is to forgive those who made mistakes, both debtors (who borrowed too much) and creditors (who loaned too much to those unable to pay), and give everyone a fresh start.
The same is true in a fantasy baseball league. For a year, teams get to play as if keepers don’t matter, and then the next March/April everyone auctions with the exact same chance of success. Here are some notes for navigating a Jubilee.
You have to call it in advance. Teams in keeper leagues have long-term plans and declaring a Jubilee too soon can undermine those. Depending on how long your contracts are, the Jubilee should be declared so that no current contracts are affected.
Get used to normal player prices. Playing in a keeper league means navigating the inflation curve each auction. A $20 player in a league with 20-percent inflation has a par price of $24. With 40-percent inflation, $28. As a longtime player in such a league you have a feel for where the extra inflated dollars are going to flow. In a startup league, which your league will be this year, you know somthing more precise. You know that $3120 is going to go to 168, whoops, scratch that, 156 hitters, and 120 pitchers (your league has one fewer hitter than most and one more pitcher). These are on scale with the prices I use here in the Guide. When you auction you want your price lists to have $3120 assigned to 276 players. That’s what I’m working on here as well.
Your “traditional 5x5” league uses OBP instead of BA and IP instead of Wins, making it not exactly traditional. But it isn’t that revolutionary either. I don’t value future Wins highly because usually Wins regress to the mean. They’re random enough that this year’s 20-game winner is likely to be next year’s 16-game winner. Or 14-game winner. And the guys who win games in relief are random from year to year. So the only change in pitcher values is that good pitchers on bad teams get a small bump up and modest innings pitched starters on good teams get docked a notch. On the other hand, OBP is a skill that is repeatable, once you take BA out of it. So when I’m making my OBP price lists I bump up guys who walk a lot a dollar or two, and the guys who don’t walk much down a dollar or two.
Don’t make too big an OBP adjustment. You’ll be tempted to bump up the best OBP guys more, but fight that urge. You want to finish near the top in OBP but you don’t want to overshoot because it’s hard to deal OBP for other hitting. Also, as this comparison between BA and OBP prices for 2022 shows, at the top end of production even hitters with high OBP lose money with the category change, because they have so many counting stats. Down in the middle ranks and below the best OBP guys gain in value, which doesn’t mean pay more for them. If you just stay away from the low OBP guys up and down your list you’ll do okay.
Your pitching budget helps define your strategy. I’m with you that spending less on pitching gives you an edge, if you can pick off good cheap pitchers. This doesn’t always work, but you can mitigate against making bad choices by making more of them. Load up on $1, $2, and reserve starters and you’ll have more chances to be lucky. Your skills will take you the rest of the way.
Not being allowed to draft minor leaguers makes budgets more stable. I prefer being able to spend my budget where I think it will do the most good, so I like being able to draft regardless of whether they’re starting in the majors or not. In the ADL, to buy a player who isn’t on the major league roster, bidding has to start at $10. That increases the challenge, as Spencer Torkelson owners learned last year. Not having that temptation means you can better define the 156 hitters and 120 pitchers your league uses.
Your price list is king. In the end, in a startup, your pricelist will help you remember how much you think each guy is worth. It will also help you track whether the room is running ahead of your budget, is it spending more than you expected, and if it isn’t then you should be buying. So spend the days leading up to your auction fine-tuning your list, identifying who you want to take, and allocating money from those you want to avoid to those, going back to the language of the bible, you covet.
Hope these points help. In the ADL we stopped having Jubilee years because having no keepers made the auction take quite a bit longer, and it also stole a little fun from the year before Jubilee by eliminating two-year strategies. But getting back to basic values is a good way to remind your league how inflation changes everything.
Sincerely,
ERA LEADERS
As we start Pitching Week let’s look at those pitchers we haven’t profiled yet who had the best ERAs in 2022:
Dylan Cease, White Sox: Ranked third in ERA last year. Ranked fourth in xERA. xERA is Statcast’s way of guesstimating what your ERA would be if all the balls in play that should have been fielded were, and those that should have been out of reach fell in. So he’s for real. Cease turned his career around in 2021 by throwing more strikes and keeping the ball in the park, and he improved on his numbers last year by allowing fewer homers on fly balls, fewer hits on balls in play, and leaving more runners stranded. That triple good fortune is a reason not to downgrade Cease but to expect some regression back towards his 2021 performance, when he outpitched his ERA according to xERA. PAN
Shohei Ohtani, Angels: Correction alert. For some reason he didn’t get a price in Rotoman’s Sheet for 2022. That was a mistake and has now been fixed. He’s earned $16 and $18 the last two years and earned every cent. He doesn’t make as many starts as other top pitchers, but the mixture of strikeout oomph, ground ball induction, and excellent control might yet earn him a Cy Young if he gets a few more starts. But he won’t because he’s too valuable to the Angels as a hitter. Depending on league rules, he may get a discount where he qualifies only as a pitcher because of injury risk (or the risk the Angels pull him before he gets hurt). PICK
Photo: TheRealOne523
Max Fried, Braves: He’s not a big strikeout guy, though he does okay for himself and his team, and he’s coming off three consecutive fine seasons. You win without the big strikeout pitch by pounding the zone, giving away few free passes, and keeping the ball in the park. As long as he’s healthy this is a totally repeatable profile. PICK
Shane McClanahan, Rays: He’s going 33 picks before Max Fried, though he’s only had one excellent season, because he struck out 10.5 per9 while Fried only struck out 8.26 per 9. McClanahan also throws lots of grounders. That makes McClanahan a bonafide ace, though not quite top tier yet. Let’s see him do it again. A risky PICK, but worth going for it.
Framber Valdez, Astros: It took him a while to find his control, which was important because he doesn’t overpower anyone but instead throws ground ball after ground ball. After ground ball. His main approach is sinker/cutter with an occasional change or slider. He’s beaten his xERA each of the last three seasons, which happens, and he’s got a unique enough profile to suggest that means at least a little something. On the other hand, it only takes a little slippage for him to get in trouble. He’s a pick to click and a pick to bust. MEH
HOUSEKEEPING
Only two more days until camps!
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Peter
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