The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

With the season reaching the halfway point I figured it would be fun to take a look back to see who have been the most valuable fantasy baseball performers so far.  Justin Verlander and Matt Kemp have been two players grabbing a lot of headlines this season with their play, so it should come as little to no surprise that they rank first and second in the standard 5×5 mixed league format through yesterday’s games.  Here are the lists of the top ten hitters and pitchers through the games of Saturday, July 2nd (Total Sherpa Points based on a max of 5.00, which would be a player’s score if he led the league in all five hitting or pitching categories):

Top 10 Hitters

1. Matt Kemp (3.81) - 293 AB, .331 AVG, 22 HR, 63 RBI, 22 SB, 52 R
2. Adrian Gonzalez (3.42) - 327 AB, .352 AVG, 16 HR, 71 RBI, 1 SB, 56 R
3. Ryan Braun (3.42) - 299 AB, .321 AVG, 16 HR, 60 RBI, 19 SB, 57 R
4. Jose Reyes (3.38) - 344 AB, .352 AVG, 3 HR, 32 RBI, 30 SB, 65 R
5. Jose Bautista (3.24) - 261 AB, .326 AVG, 24 HR, 52 RBI, 5 SB, 61 R
6. Curtis Granderson (3.14) - 294 AB, .276 AVG, 21 HR, 56 RBI, 14 SB, 70 R
7. Miguel Cabrera (2.99) - 280 AB, .332 AVG, 17 HR, 56 RBI, 1 SB, 60 R
8. Prince Fielder (2.86) - 285 AB, .302 AVG, 21 HR, 69 RBI, 0 SB, 49 R
9. Paul Konerko (2.84) - 293 AB, .321 AVG, 21 HR, 61 RBI, 1 SB, 39 R
10. Jacoby Ellsbury (2.83) - 323 AB, .300 AVG, 9 HR, 40 RBI, 25 SB, 55 R

Granderson, Konerko, and (to a lesser extent) Ellsbury are the biggest surprises on this list - before the season you would have expected to see some combination of Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramirez, Carlos Gonzalez, Joey Votto, Troy Tulowitzki, and David Wright taking up three of the spots in a season-to-date top ten list.  It will be interesting to see how much Jose Reyes’ latest injury affects both his fantasy value and his real-life trade value.

Top 10 Pitchers

1. Justin Verlander (3.93) - 135.2 IP, 11 W, 0 SV, 2.32 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 130 K
2. Jared Weaver (3.42) - 123.1 IP, 9 W, 0 SV, 1.97 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 106 K
3. Roy Halladay (3.33) - 127.1 IP, 10 W, 0 SV, 2.40 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 123 K
4. James Shields (3.27) - 128.2 IP, 8 W, 0 SV, 2.45 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 127 K
5. Cole Hamels (3.15) - 116.0 IP, 9 W, 0 SV, 2.41 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 110 K
6. Cliff Lee (2.97) - 122.0 IP, 9 W, 0 SV, 2.66 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 119 K
7. Clayton Kershaw (2.84) - 116.2 IP, 8 W, 0 SV, 2.93 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 128 K
8. CC Sabathia (2.67) - 129.2 IP, 11 W, 0 SV, 3.05 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 106 K
9. Dan Haren (2.65) - 116.2 IP, 8 W, 0 SV, 2.85 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 98 K
10. David Price (2.52) - 118.0 IP, 8 W, 0 SV, 3.43 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 116 K

Can’t say that any of the names on the pitchers’ list are a surprise except for James Shields.  Most people thought he would bounce back from a 2010 season that wasn’t as bad as his fantasy stats would indicate, but I don’t think anyone (or at least not anyone I know) predicted he would be a top ten pitcher at this point, much less a top five pitcher.  And fear not, Phillie fans - even without Roy Oswalt, your team still has plenty of pitching left to run away with the NL East and beat any team in either league in a playoff series.

Hope you’re enjoying your 4th of July holiday weekend!

The Sherpa

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This time of year many fantasy baseball team owners look to trades in an effort to improve their place in the standings.  Of course, everyone’s ideal is to trade away players who will perform worse over the remainder of the season than they have year-to-date, while simultaneously trading for players who will perform better over the remainder of the season than they have year-to-date.

How should you assess a player’s year-to-date value vs. his forecasted remainder-of season value?  Using Fantasy Baseball Sherpa’s In-season Updates tool, an owner can quantify both of these values in an effort to identify players who are currently undervalued and overvalued.  Fantasy Baseball Sherpa assigns a score of 1.00 Sherpa Points to the league leader in each category.  All other players are assigned a score for that category based on their result relative to the league leader’s result.

For example, if the league leader has hit 26 HRs year-to-date, then a player who has hit 13 HRs year-to-date would be assigned a scoreof 0.50 Sherpa Points.  For ratio categories (e.g.- AVG, ERA) a proxy statistic is used.  A player’s scores in each category can be added up to determine the player’s Total Sherpa Points.  A player’s maximum score is equal to the number of categories used (note:  this maximum score will be different for Hitters and Pitchers if your league uses a different number of categories for Hitters and Pitchers).

Here are 10 National League Hitters who are good buy-low candidates for a league using the standard 5 Hitting categories (AVG, Home Runs, RBI, Stolen Bases, & Runs Scored) based on stats through games of Sun 6/21/09:

1. Alfonso Soriano, OF, ChC (2.79 Remainder-of-Season Total Sherpa Points - 1.50 Year-to-Date Total Sherpa Points = +1.29)
2. Carlos Gonzalez, OF, Col (1.33 - 0.20 = +1.13)
3. Jimmy Rollins, SS, Phi (2.18 - 1.06 =+1.12)
4. Geovany Soto, C, ChC (1.55 - 0.50 = +1.05)
5. Chris Coghlan, 3B/OF, Fla (1.81 - 0.77 = +1.04)
6. Lance Berkman, 1B, Hou (2.53 - 1.55 = +0.98)
7. Andrew McCutchen, OF, Pit (1.68 - 0.72 = +0.96)
8. Ryan Ludwick, OF, StL (2.17 - 1.22 = +0.95)
9. Brian Giles, OF, SD (1.04 - 0.10 = +0.94)
10. Everth Cabrera, SS, SD (1.05 - 0.15 = +0.90)

Here are 10 National League Hitters who are good sell-high candidates for a league using the standard 5 Hitting categories based on stats through games of Sun 6/21/09:

1. Orlando Hudson, 2B, LAD (1.41 - 2.18 = -0.77)
2. Raul Ibanez, OF, Phi (2.49 - 3.21 = -0.72)
3. Justin Upton, OF, Ari (2.00 - 2.65 = -0.65)
4. Todd Helton, 1B, Col (1.80 - 2.26 = -0.46)
5. Clint Barmes, 2B/SS, Col (1.50 - 1.90 = -0.40)
6. Pablo Sandoval, C/1B/3B, SF (1.67 - 2.03 = -0.36)
7. Gary Sheffield, OF, NYM (1.14 - 1.40 = -26)
8. Mark Reynolds, 1B/3B, Ari (2.38 - 2.62 = -0.24)
9. Nick Johnson, 1B, Was (1.59 - 1.82 = -0.23)
10. Michael Bourn, OF, Hou (1.86 - 2.08 = -0.22)

Of course, there are a number of reasons why a player’s performance over the remainder of the season may vary significantly from his performance year-to-date, including normal variation in results, injuries, changes in roles, etc.  By attempting to quantify both a player’s year-to-date and remainder-of-season results, we can take at least some of the guesswork out of identifying buy-low and sell-high candidates.

Until next time,

The Sherpa

Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

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