Hi everyone,
Just wanted to let all of you out there in Sherpaville know that I’ll be appearing on The Bob Cudmore Show this morning on WVTL (1570 AM) in Amsterdam, NY. I’m scheduled to be on with Bob at 6:10 am.
Hope you’re able to tune in!
The Sherpa
So it’s finally happened. Jay Bruce, who is less than half Barack Obama’s age and less than one-third of John McCain’s age, but has seemingly generated more conversation in 2008 (at least among fantasy baseball enthusiasts) than Obama and McCain combined, has finally landed in Cincinnati.
Stripping away the hype, what does this mean for those with the foresight to stash Bruce at the beginning of the season or the waiver wire priority to claim him during the season? Will he make the immediate impact that rookies Ryan Braun and Hunter Pence did after the call-ups during the 2007 season? Will he disappoint the way that Alex Gordon did during his rookie season (also 2007)? Or, as the cliche goes, does the true answer lie somewhere in the middle?
Based on his minor league rate stats, with a few subjective adjustments, here’s what I think you can realistically expect from Bruce for the rest of this season:
So, where would these results place Bruce among his more established peers? The Sherpa Point scale assigns a score of 1.00 to the player with the top score in each category; all other players’ scores in that category are based on their result in that category compared to the league leader’s. For example, if the league leader is projected to hit 50 HRs, a batter projected to hit 40 HRs would receive 0.80 Sherpa HR pts, a batter projected to hit 25 HRs would receive 0.50 Sherpa HR pts, etc. For average-based categories such as AVG, OBP, SLG, and OPS, a proxy statistic is used. Thus, if you play in a league that uses 5 offensive categories, the maximum Hitter’s Sherpa Points score would be 5.00.
Pro-rating my Preseason Projections for all Hitters, I project that in a league using the 5 standard offensive categories (AVG, HR, RBI, SB, and R) Bruce would score 2.38 Sherpa Points. This would place Bruce roughly 20th overall, comparable to the projected Sherpa Point scores for fellow Outfielders Chris Young and B.J. Upton. Obviously, their Sherpa Point scores will vary by category (in some cases quite a bit), but on an overall basis, that’s where I believe Bruce’s value will fall. For the sake of comparison, the Top 3 Outfielders (based on Preseason Projected Sherpa Points) were Matt Holliday (3.56), Carl Crawford (3.19), and Vlad Guerrero (3.08).
So while Bruce should be a strong contributor to your fantasy team if you’re fortunate enough to have him, he will not carry you to your league’s championship by himself. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he’s eventually a Top 5 Outfielder from a fantasy perspective, but that’s highly unlikely to happen in 2008. As long as you temper your expectations, you will not be disappointed.
Until next time,
The Sherpa
Many fantasy baseball team owners engage in the practice of streaming - i.e. - identifying and placing players in their lineups who have favorable match-ups for the next scoring period rather than going with the same lineup each week. While streaming can be used for hitters, it is used most often with starting pitchers, especially with those who have two starts scheduled during the upcoming week.
Some owners are content to go enter the season with a staff of mediocre starting pitchers; these owners make a decision to spend most of their auction dollars or early-round draft picks on hitters. For these owners streaming their starting pitchers is a deliberate strategy. However, many owners are forced to stream, either due to injuries or the trade of a pitcher out of the AL or NL in an “only” league.
Either way, owners who stream at least one of their starting pitching spots are seeking to optimize the production from that spot. How should you go about doing this? Obviously, the underlying ability of the available pitchers is one key criterion, but depending on how deep your league is, there often isn’t much to choose from on the free agent list/waiver wire.
The second criterion, which doesn’t get as much attention as it should, and typically varies much more than the ability of the available starting pitchers, is the underlying ability of a pitcher’s upcoming opponents. Owners often make quick, qualitative stabs in this direction (e.g. - “Great! This pitcher has two starts this week, and they’re against Kansas City and Seattle!”), but rarely do owners actually seek to quantify their intuition.
One method to rank teams’ offenses involves identifying key offensive categories, such as Runs Scored (R), Home Runs (HR), Stolen Bases (SB), On Base Percentage (OBP), and Strikeouts (K), then seeing how the 30 teams compare in each of these categories and in aggregate. The Sherpa Points system involves assigning each team a score between 0 and 1.00 in each category, then summing across categories to get an overall score. I prefer to weight the categories evenly, but you could easily modify this method to give the categories varying weights.
The calculations are straightforward for the “counting categories” such as HR, R, and SB: the team with the highest total in each category receives a score of 1.00; a team with 75% of the leading team’s total would receive a score of .75, a team with 50% of the leading team’s total would receive a score of .50, etc. For counting categories such as Ks (where lower scores are better) or average-based categories such as OBP, a proxy statistic must be used. I realize that there is a fair amount of overlap among the 5 categories I’ve chosen, but I have not made any adjustments to correct for these correlations.
I performed the year-to-date rankings based on this system for the 30 teams through the games of Saturday, 5/24/08. If you’re trying to find the best teams to stream a starting pitcher against, you want the teams with the lowest total scores. Here are the results of my study (ranked from most favorable team to pitch against to least favorable):
There are a number of surprises on this list, but generally, it can serve as a fairly informative guide if you’re looking to select a starting pitcher to stream for the coming week or two. The results can be used to guide your decisions in points-based leagues as well as roto-style leagues.
I’ll update this analysis several times during the course of the season, and as promised in my previous post, during the coming week I will begin forecasting remainder of season stats for a number of players off to surprisingly good/bad starts.
Enjoy your holiday weekend!
The Sherpa
In my previous post I ranked the Top 10 Year-to-Date 5×5 Mixed League Hitters for the first quarter of the season. In this post I’ll do the same for Pitchers. The Sherpa Point system gives each Pitcher a score ranging from 0 to 1.00 in each of the 5 standard pitching categories (W, SV, K, ERA, WHIP). Essentially, the league leader in each category is given a score of 1.00, while all other Pitchers’ scores in that category are calculated as the ratio of their result to the league leader’s result.
For example, if Brandon Webb leads the league with 9 Wins, he gets a Sherpa Point score of 1.00 in the Wins category; a Pitcher with 6 Wins gets a score of 0.67; a Hitter with 3 Wins gets a score of 0.33, etc. A proxy statistic is used for average-based categories (e.g. - ERA, WHIP, K/BB, K/9).
The maximum Pitchers’ score is equal to the number of pitching categories. Statistics are taken from games through Tues 5/20/08.
Without further delay, here’s the list of the Top 10 Year-to-Date 5×5 Mixed League Pitchers:
Yes, it’s early, but even at this stage in the season it’s obvious that my Preseason Projections for Cliff Lee (50 IP, 3 Wins, 4.68 ERA, and 1.43 WHIP) were just a bit off. The Innings Pitched projection is obviously the driver - based on his performance the last 3 years, I didn’t believe he’d stick in the Indians’ rotation this year. Live and learn!
Webb and Hamels were in my Preseason Top 10, while Zambrano (13th), Matsuzaka (29th), and Lincecum (41st) all made my Preseason Top 50. However, the other 5 Pitchers on this list can all safely be termed “surprises”; I’ll venture a guess that if you have 2 or more of them on your roster (entirely possible), you’re probably sitting near the top of your league’s pitching standings.
Many notable names are missing from this list: Johan Santana (2.17 vs. Preseason Projection of 4.00); Jake Peavy (2.13 vs. 3.62); C.C. Sabathia (0.76 vs. 3.14); Roy Oswalt (0.61 vs 2.93); John Smoltz (1.41 vs. 2.70); Dan Haren (2.24 vs. 2.62); Aaron Harang (1.96 vs. 2.53); Erik Bedard (1.30 vs. 2.47). Just in case you’re curious, Jonathan Papelbon (1.89 vs 2.27), who ranks 24th Year-to-Date is the highest-ranked Closer; J.J. Putz (0.49 vs 2.32) was the highest-rated Closer (15th) in my Preseason Projections.
There is still plenty of time left for the Cliff Lees and the Ryan Dempsters to regress towards their expected values, and there’s plenty of time left for the C.C. Sabathias and Roy Oswalts to pitch the way most experts expected them to. I’ll be updating these rankings and comparisons for both Hitters and Pitchers periodically throughout the season.
Of course, lists like these are all well and good, but they don’t answer the obvious follow-up question: what should you expect these Hitters and Pitchers to do for the rest of the season?
I’ll begin to answer that question in a series of posts beginning early next week.
Until then,
The Sherpa
With just over 25% of the 2008 season already in the books many experts are now putting forth their “Biggest Surprises” and “Biggest Disappointments” lists. I will do something similar in this post, but I will also give you the actual impact these players have had year-to-date in a league that uses the standard 5×5 scoring categories.
Let’s look at Hitters first. The Sherpa Point system gives each Hitter a score ranging from 0 to 1.00 in each of the 5 standard hitting categories (AVG, HR, RBI, SB, R). Essentially, the league leader in each category is given a score of 1.00, while all other Hitters’ scores in that category are calculated as the ratio of their result to the league leader’s result.
For example, if Lance Berkman leads the league with 16 HRs, he gets a Sherpa Point score of 1.00 in the HR category; a Hitter with 8 HRs gets a score of 0.50; a Hitter with 4 HRs gets a score of 0.25, etc. A proxy statistic is used for average-based categories (e.g. - AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS)
The maximum Hitters’ score is equal to the number of hitting categories, and the maximum Pitchers’ score is equal to the number of pitching categories. Statistics are taken from games through Tues 5/20/08.
Without further ado, here’s the list of the Top 10 Year-to-Date 5×5 Mixed League Hitters:
Berkman is obviously outperforming his projections by the largest amount so far (and will likely come back down to earth in short order), but Dan Uggla, Josh Hamilton, and Nate McLouth have probably offered the greatest value so far relative to where they were picked in drafts and the amount paid for them in auctions. Of the Top 10 shown here, only three (Utley, Ramirez, and Pujols) were among the Preseason Top 10 Hitters.
Many others who went in the first round of many drafts have not fared well in the early stages of the season. Consensus top-pick Alex Rodriguez (1.01 Year-to-Date vs. 3.84 Preseason Projection) and reigning NL MVP Jimmy Rollins (1.22 vs. 3.05) have missed significant time due to injuries. Other highly touted players who have disappointed their owners so far: Jose Reyes (1.73 vs. 2.98), David Wright (2.11 vs. 3.40), Ryan Braun (2.29 vs. 2.82), Miguel Cabrera (1.51 vs. 3.40), David Ortiz (1.88 vs. 3.44), Matt Holliday (2.17 vs. 3.56), Carl Crawford (2.18 vs. 3.19), Vladimir Guerrero (1.17 vs. 3.08), and Ryan Howard (1.08 vs. 3.07).
The discrepancy between a player’s Year-to-Date Sherpa Point score vs. his Preseason Projected Sherpa Point score can also be used as an indicator for constructing trade proposals. If you have a player on your team who is outperforming his projection by half a point or more, and you have several glaring weaknesses elsewhere on your roster, I would definitely be looking to sell high on that player. Conversely, if some of these players have disappointed other owners in your league, it may be worth inquiring about the possibility of buying low. If you can flip an overperforming player for an underperforming one, you have mastered the art of trading!
I’ll put together a similar list for Pitchers in my next post.
Until then,
The Sherpa
In a season such as this one, when it seems as though established players are landing on the DL with disturbing frequency, it becomes more important than ever to monitor your league’s free agent/waiver list for potential replacements. I’ve assembled a list of players who may be available in your league, depending on how deep your league is and how actively your league’s owners make roster adjustments. The list is presented by position, then by league (for those of you who play in “only” leagues). You’re not going to find this year’s MVPs or Cy Young Award winners lurking on these lists, but you will find some serviceable replacements with the potential to help your team a lot more than a string of zeroes would.
Catchers
NL: Chris Iannetta, Brian Schneider, Ronny Paulino, Carlos Ruiz, Jesus Flores.
AL: Miguel Olivo, Rod Barajas, Shawn Riggans
First Basemen
NL: Carlos Delgado, Adam LaRoche, John Bowker, Dmitri Young
AL: Kevin Millar, Ross Gload, Daric Barton, Chris Shelton
Second Basemen
NL: Tad Iguchi, Jeff Baker, Ray Durham
AL: Maicer Izturis, Mark Grudzielanek, Brendan Harris, Asdrubal Cabrera
Shortstops
NL: Chin-Lung Hu, Omar Vizquel, Brendan Ryan
AL: Brendan Harris, Maicer Izturis, Asdrubal Cabrera, Freddie Bynum, Marco Scutaro
Third Basemen
NL: Jose Bautista, Jose Castillo
AL: Maicer Izturis, Marco Scutaro, Jack Hannahan, Matt Brown
Outfielders
NL: John Bowker, Ryan Freel, Cody Ross, Jayson Werth, Scott Hairston, Jody Gerut, Elijah Dukes, Austin Kearns, Randy Winn, Mark Kotsay.
AL: Franklin Gutierrez, Ben Francisco, Matt Joyce, Jose Guillen, Jonny Gomes, Kevin Mench, Mark Teahen, Cliff Floyd.
Starting Pitchers
NL: Tom Glavine, Bronson Arroyo, Carlos Villanueva, Zach Duke, Shawn Hill
AL: Garrett Olson, Jeremy Guthrie, Gil Meche, Paul Byrd, Edwin Jackson, Nick Blackburn, Luke Hochevar.
Relief Pitchers
NL: Tony Pena, Manny Acosta, Will Ohman, Justin Miller, Matt Lindstrom, Russ Springer, Joe Smith, Tom Gordon.
AL: Scot Shields, Octavio Dotel, Aquilino Lopez, Ramon Ramirez, Scott Downs, Joey Devine, Brandon Morrow, Dan Wheeler, Frank Francisco, Joaquin Benoit, Juan Rincon, Masa Kobayashi, Rafael Perez.
Until next time,
The Sherpa
On Wednesday, April 9th, I appeared as the guest on The Sporting Life with Jay Cruz on HealthyLife.net discussing fantasy baseball.
To hear my interview with Jay, click on the link above to go to HealthyLife’s homepage. Look for the “Archives” button near the top of the page, then click on it. Scroll about halfway down the page to the “Sports and Conscious Business” section, then click on the link for Jay Cruz’ show, The Sporting Life. You’ll find my interview listed by its air date (4/9).
Enjoy!
The Sherpa
Every fantasy baseball owner dreams of “discovering” the next Johan Santana or Jake Peavy before the rest of their leaguemates. However, many owners forget that for every Cole Hamels who bursts onto the fantasy scene and makes an immediate and lasting impact, there are many more pitchers like Homer Bailey and Phil Hughes, who disappoint their owners when their initial successes are tempered, if not outweighed altogether, by their struggles.
This season has been no exception. Johnny Cueto looked like the second coming of Bob Gibson in his first two starts; lately, he has looked more like the second coming of Kei Igawa, serving up in-game batting practice for his opponents’ hitting pleasure. Cueto will most likely be sent back to the minors shortly to gain some much-needed experience. Nick Adenhart has already been banished back to the minors after just three awful starts.
Meanwhile, this year’s early-season pitching surprises include below-the-radar types such as Edinson Volquez, Greg Smith, Dana Eveland, John Danks, Garrett Olson, and Vicente Padilla. What, if anything, do they all have in common? All except for Smith had MLB experience prior to this year. All except for Olson have switched organizations at least once in their career. All of them have made at least 10 starts in AAA. All of them are 23-24 years old, except for Padilla, who is 30.
Which of the pitchers in this group have the best chance at sustaining their success over the course of the season? I looked at Year-to-Date stats for all MLB starting pitchers, searching for those who have started at least 3 games, have a K/9 rate of at least 6, and a K/BB ratio of at least 2. I also looked at Batting Average Against on Balls in Play (BAABIP) to see whether “luck” played a factor in a pitcher’s success (or lack thereof). These screening criteria suggest that Volquez and Danks have the best chance at remaining successful, with Olson also being a possibility.
These criteria also turned up some veteran pitchers who may still be available in your league. Bronson Arroyo is off to an atrocious start due to a combination of bad luck (a .357 BAABIP) and a severe case of gopheritis (1.8 HRs allowed per 9 innings pitched). However, his 3-year averages suggest that he is a much better pitcher than that - if you have space on your bench, I would definitely take a flier on Arroyo rather than burn my waiver priority or Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB) dollars on Clayton Kershaw, who has not pitched even a single game at the AAA level yet. If you’re going to gamble on an unproven pitcher currently in the minors, you’re far better off betting on Homer Bailey (the sequel) than you are putting your fantasy chips on Kershaw.
Other veterans who should do more for your fantasy staff than the likes of Darrell Rasner, Aaron Laffey, et. al. - Chad Gaudin (when, not if, he rejoins Oakland’s rotation); Wandy Rodriguez, Jason Schmidt, Kevin Milwood, and Curt Schilling (when they return from the DL). I’d also take a chance on Hong-Chih Kuo if he joins the Dodgers’ rotation. Shawn Hill and Jose Contreras are two other options to consider if you currently have holes in your pitching staff. Don’t get me wrong - none of the pitchers on this list will be receiving Cy Young votes this season, but they all have the potential to be serviceable starters at the back of your fantasy team’s rotation.
However, keep in mind that experience is not always an advantage - if you want to add Livan Hernandez, Matt Chico, or Sidney Ponson to your fantasy pitching staff, you do so at your own peril - they are definitely the fantasy baseball equivalents of the Trojan horse, and you will get no sympathy from me if you choose to add any of them!
Until next time,
The Sherpa
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to let all of you out there in Sherpaville know that I’ll be appearing on Jeff Erickson’s “Fantasy Focus” show tomorrow (Wed 5/14) beginning at 12:05 pm Eastern/9:05 am Pacific. You can catch Jeff’s show on the MLB Home Plate channel (XM radio channel 175).
Hope you’re able to tune in!
The Sherpa
When deciding which hitters to add to your team via trade or free agency, one overlooked and underappreciated factor that should influence your decision is where the hitter bats in his team’s batting order.
Your first reaction might be that this is an insignificant factor, but let me assure you, over the course of the season it’s not. In theory it’s possible for a team to win a 9-inning game by sending just 25 men to the plate (e.g. - home team wins the game 1-0 with their only hit being a home run). However, for all intents and purposes let’s assume that a team must send at least 27 men to the plate during a 9-inning game, meaning that each position in the batting order will come up at least 3 times.
Further, let’s assume that the batting order position that makes a team’s final out for the game is totally random (i.e. - it can be any of the nine positions in the batting order with equal probability). Over the course of a 162-game season this assumption suggests that the first hitter will make the final out 18 times, the second hitter will make the final out 18 times, etc. So, the first spot in the order is expected to get 18 more plate appearances than the second spot in the order, which is expected to get 18 more plate appearances than the third spot in the order, etc. Within a team, this suggests that the first spot in the order will come up 144 times more than the ninth spot in the order over the course of a season!
Of course, not every player plays every inning of every game, but even so, hitters at the top of a team’s batting order can easily accumulate 100 more plate appearances during the season than those at the bottom of a team’s batting order. Even without considering possible differences in RBI and Runs Scored opportunities, it should be apparent that if Luis Castillo is on your fantasy team, you should be rooting for the Mets to bat him second rather than eighth.
You may be wondering how much plate appearances for a given batting order position vary from team to team. Here’s an example for a top-shelf offense, an average offense, and a poor offense.
Top Offense (Total of 6,444 plate appearances for the season)
Average Offense (Total of 6,192 plate appearances for the season)
Poor Offense (6,012 plate appearances for the season)
You can see from this example that for a given batting order position, hitters on a top offensive team will make roughly 50 more plate appearances over the course of a season than hitters on a poor offensive team. This is barely a third of the difference between the number of plate appearances for first hitter and the ninth hitter in the batting order for a given team.
So, the next time you’re trying to decide between two (or more) hitters for a spot on your roster, pay less attention to which team they play for, and pay more attention to where they hit in their team’s batting order.
Until next time,
The Sherpa