The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

Hi everyone,

Here are the Top 10 performers through April for an NL-only 5×5 format.  The leader in each category is given 1.00 Sherpa Points; all other players’ scores in that category are based on their results relative to the category leader’s (e.g. - if the league-leader has hit 9 HR, then a player with 3 HR would be given a score of 0.33 Sherpa Points).  The maximum Total Sherpa Points is equal to the number of categories (i.e. - 5.00).

1. Albert Pujols (StL, 1B) - 83 AB, 8 HR, 28 RBI, 4 SB, .337 AVG, 22 R, 3.95 Total Sherpa Points
2. Johan Santana (NYM, SP) - 32.2 IP, 3 W, 0 SV, 1.10 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 44 K, 3.38 Total Sherpa Points
3. Raul Ibanez (Phi, OF) - 78 AB, 7 HR, 17 RBI, 3 SB, .359 AVG, 20 R, 3.38 Total Sherpa Points
4. Adrian Gonzalez (SD, 1B) - 81 AB, 9 HR, 20 RBI, 1 SB, .333 AVG, 19 R, 3.26 Total Sherpa Points
5. Dan Haren (Ari, SP) - 35.0 IP, 2 W, 0 SV, 1.54 ERA, 0.74 WHIP, 36 K, 3.24 Total Sherpa Points
6. Chase Utley (Phi, 2B) - 73 AB, 7 HR, 20 RBI, 2 SB, .342 AVG, 18 R, 3.12 Total Sherpa Points
7. Jorge Cantu (Fla, 1B/3B) - 63 AB, 7 HR, 22 RBI, 1 SB, .365 AVG, 15 R, 3.01 Total Sherpa Points
8. Chad Billingsley (LAD, SP) - 33.2 IP, 4 W, 0 SV, 2.14 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 34 K, 3.00 Total Sherpa Points
9. Alfonso Soriano (ChC, OF) - 88 AB, 7 HR, 14 RBI, 4 SB, .284 AVG, 21 R, 2.86 Total Sherpa Points
10. Manny Ramirez (LAD, OF) - 78 AB, 5 HR, 15 RBI, 0 SB, .372 AVG, 19 R, 2.81 Total Sherpa Points

If you’re interested in more details, here’s a description of our In-season Updates to Player Projections & Rankings.  These are the only rankings in the industry that are updated daily throughout the season - our Remainder-of-Season rankings reflect injuries, minor league call-ups, and role changes (e.g.- new Closers)! If you’d like to see the top performers by position, change the scoring categories, or change the league type, here’s a demo of our In-season Updates to Player Projections & Rankings.

Enjoy!

The Sherpa

FantasyBaseballSherpa.com

Hi everyone,

Here’s a link to an interview I did last week on Barry Moltz’ Business Insanity Show on Blog Talk Radio.  My interview is the second one on the show, and it goes from 7:20 to 12:35 in.

Enjoy!

The Sherpa

FantasyBaseballSherpa.com

Hi everyone,

Saturday I covered the 2009 Tout Wars Mixed League 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 17 participants for 2009:

1. Andy Behrens - Yahoo.com
2. Will Carroll - BaseballProspectus.com
3. Alex Cushing - mlb.com
4. Doug Dennis -BaseballHQ.com
5. David Gonos - OpenSports.com
6. John Hoyos - rotojunkie.com
7. Eric Karabell - ESPN.com
8. J.P. Kastner - CREATiVESPORTS.com
9. Chris Liss - Rotowire.com
10. Eric Mack - CBSSPORTS.com
11. Alex Patton - pattonandco.com
12. Paul Petera - BaseballHQ.com
13. Jason Pliml - MockDraftCentral.com
14. Brendan Roberts - ESPN.com
15. Michael Salfino - SNY.tv
16. Larry Schechter - SandlotShrink.com
17. Perry Van Hook - FantasyBaseball.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

Projections by Team - Pitching Categories

Projected Standings

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 17 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 give 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

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I covered the 2009 Tout Wars NL-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 13 participants for 2009:

1. Tristan Cockcroft - ESPN.com
2. Phil Hertz - baseballHQ.com
3. Peter Kreutzer - askrotoman.com
4. Rob Leibowitz - Fanball.com
5. Michael Lombardo - WiseGuyBaseball.com
6. Lenny Melnick & Paul Greco - FantasyPros911.com
7. Scott Pianowski - Yahoo.com
8. Nate Ravitz - ESPN.com
9. Cory Schwartz - mlb.com
10. Brian Walton - CREATiVESPORTS.com
11. Scott Wilderman - The Owners Edge
12. Rick Wilton - Baseball-Injury-Report.com
13. Todd Zola - mastersball.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 Sunday’s auction.

Projections by Team - Hitting Categories

Projections by Team - Pitching Categories

Projected Standings

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 13 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

Towards the end of the 1983 classic Return of the Jedi Emperor Palpatine tells Luke Skywalker “I can feel your anger” as he implores Luke to join the Dark Side of the Force.  Yes, by making a Star Wars reference I’m dating myself, but as a friend of mine used to say, somebody’s got to do it.

Much like the Emperor Palpatine, I can feel the anger directed towards Alex Rodriguez by baseball fans in the wake of his recent admission that he used steroids from 2001-2003 while a member of the Texas Rangers.  What impact did A-Rod’s steroid use have on his fantasy baseball value?  Surprisingly, the answer is “not much”.

On my website FantasyBaseballSherpa.com I’ve created a method of evaluating players’ fantasy baseball impact called the Sherpa Points system.  For counting stats such as home runs, RBI, etc., the league leader in the category is assigned a Sherpa Points score of 1.00.  A player with half the league leader’s total in that category would receive a 0.50 Sherpa Points, a player with a quarter of the league leader’s total in that category would receive 0.25 Sherpa Points, etc. 

For rate stats such as batting average a proxy statistic can be used.  To get a player’s Total Sherpa Points across all fantasy categories, you simply add up his Sherpa Points in each individual category.  If your fantasy league uses n hitting categories, then the maximum Total Sherpa Points would be n.  Thus, we have a straightforward method of evaluating a player’s overall fantasy impact.  The same method can be used to evaluate pitchers.

For the standard five hitting categories (AVG, HR, RBI, SB, R) here are Alex Rodriguez’ Total Sherpa Points scores by year since he became a full-time player in 1996 (max possible score is 5.00):

• 1996:  3.70
• 1997:  2.37
• 1998:  3.63
• 1999:  2.57
• 2000:  3.29
• 2001:  3.35
• 2002:  3.67
• 2003:  3.34
• 2004:  2.87
• 2005:  3.89
• 2006:  2.77
• 2007:  3.80
• 2008:  2.92

The preceding makes it clear that while Rodriguez may have been more consistent from 2001-2003 than over any other three-year period of his career, he definitely did not perform at a higher level relative to his peers during those years.  In fact, his best year during his “Steroid Period” (2002) stacks up as only the fourth-best fantasy season of his career, trailing 2005, 2007, and even 1996!

Perhaps you despise Rodriguez because you don’t like his personality, you think he doesn’t come through during the playoffs, you believe he’s still taking illegal substances, you hate the Yankees, or you get tired of reading about his off-the-field antics in the tabloids.  Whatever the reason, if you want to maximize your chances for fantasy baseball success in 2009, you need to set that all aside and take him this year if he’s available when it’s your turn to draft.

I project the following stats for Rodriguez for 2009:  .302 AVG, 44 HR, 133 RBI, 21 SB, 128 R, 3.65 Total Sherpa Points.  When you factor in Position Scarcity (the drop-off between the top-rated options and the mediocre options at each position), you could make an argument that Hanley Ramirez (3.44 projected Total Sherpa Points) should be the top overall pick.  However, given the relative uncertainty surrounding Ramirez (e.g. – will he be batting leadoff or third?  will his supporting cast be weaker this year than in the past?), I would argue strongly for Rodriguez as the first overall pick.

Let go of your anger – it will not serve you well.

Until next time,

The Sherpa