The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

Hi everyone,

This past Saturday I covered the 2009 Tout Wars AL-only auction, which took place in midtown Manhattan.  This is a 5×5 league which uses the usual scoring categories (AVG, HR, RBI, R, SB for hitters; W, SV, ERA, WHIP, K for pitchers).  Rosters consist of 14 Hitters (2 Catchers, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 SS, 1 3B, 5 OF, 1 1B/3B, 1 2B/SS, 1 Util) and 9 Pitchers.  Each team had $260 to spend during the auction on their 23-man roster.  The auction was followed by a 4-round reserve draft.

Here are the 12 participants for 2009:

1. Matthew Berry - ESPN.com
2. Jason Collette - OwnersEdge.com
3. Jeff Erickson - RotoWire
4. Jason Grey - ESPN.com
5. Lawr Michaels - CREATiVESPORTS.com
6. Steve Moyer - baseballinfosolutions.com
7. Dean Peterson - STATS LLC
8. Ron Shandler - baseballHQ.com
9. Joe Sheehan - BaseballProspectus.com
10. Mike Siano - mlb.com
11. Sam Walker - Wall Street Journal
12. Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton - Rotoworld.com

Here’s a link to the spreadsheet posted on the Tout Wars’ website that details each team’s roster.

I used the projections from my Fantasy Baseball Sherpa website to predict the standings based on the results of Saturday’s auction.

Projections by Team - Hitting Categories

Owner	AB	AVG	HR	RBI	SB	R
Berry	5,428	.277	205	782	102	754
Collette	5,913	.269	203	816	150	845
Erickson	5,388	.284	170	772	135	833
Grey	6,608	.276	218	946	177	1,014
Michaels	5,657	.277	173	789	126	859
Moyer	6,354	.283	226	972	111	975
Peterson	6,158	.276	228	897	94	943
Shandler	5,786	.281	188	806	129	890
Sheehan	5,485	.277	161	686	153	857
Siano	5,400	.281	170	781	87	851
Walker	6,397	.265	232	907	94	933
Wolf/Colton	5,261	.284	168	749	112	765

 

 

Projections by Team - Pitching Categories

Owner	IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K
Berry	977	58	41	3.96	1.21	935
Collette	1,142	69	40	4.67	1.21	932
Erickson	1,026	63	51	4.64	1.34	853
Grey	823	48	54	3.82	1.30	654
Michaels	1,249	78	38	4.00	1.29	982
Moyer	1,211	77	33	4.42	1.27	949
Peterson	1,040	61	58	4.52	1.29	894
Shandler	956	56	19	4.81	1.33	826
Sheehan	915	56	31	4.45	1.25	806
Siano	1,034	63	46	4.20	1.29	843
Walker	1,013	63	44	4.15	1.33	907
Wolf/Colton	1,028	61	51	3.70	1.29	926

 

 

Projected Standings

Owner	H Pts	P Pts	Total Pts
Grey	47	39	86
Moyer	48	31	79
Peterson	36.5	33.5	70
Walker	34.5	32	66.5
Collette	31	33	64
Michaels	30	33	63
Siano	21.5	40	61.5
Wolf/Colton	22	38	60
Sheehan	29	30.5	59.5
Erickson	29.5	29.5	59
Berry	24	34	58
Shandler	37	16.5	53.5

 

Keep in mind, this is just one man’s opinion, not an “answer key”.  However, I thought this would be of interest since I am an observer rather than a participant.  I’m sure if you asked them,  many, if not all, of the 12 participants would feel that they came out of the auction with the best team.  Such is the nature of the beast.

 

Several other reasons why the actual results are likely to differ from the projected standings above:

 

• At the risk of stating the obvious, players’ actual results may differ from their projected results, sometimes significantly so.  This can be due to a myriad of reasons including injuries, suspensions, role changes (e.g. - bench player becomes a starter, or vice versa), changes in batting order position, trades, Closer changes, etc.
• I did not make any adjustments to the 23-man rosters purchased during the auction.  Of course, when the league is played out, if a player is injured, suspended, benched, sent to the minors, etc., the owner will replace them in their starting lineup.  I chose not to do this because I didn’t want to make judgments re: replacement players that would potentially affect the projected standings.
• Some owners will prove to be more adept (or luckier) than others at making in-season trades, free agent purchases, etc.

Even with the above caveats I’m still confident that the projected standings gives a reasonably accurate picture of the teams’ relative strength coming out of the auction.  Let’s see what happens as the season unwinds!

The Sherpa

FantasyBaseballSherpa.com