The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

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 American League Pitchers who are good buy-low candidates for a league using the standard 5 Pitching categories (Wins, Saves, Strikeouts, ERA, & WHIP) based on stats through games of Sun 6/21/09:

1. John Lackey, SP, LAA (1.74 Remainder-of-Season Total Sherpa Points - 0.00 Year-to-Date Total Sherpa Points = +1.74)
2. CC Sabathia, SP, NYY (3.20 - 1.86 = +1.34)
3. Joakim Soria, RP, KC (2.08 - 0.83 =+1.25)
4. Ervin Santana, SP, LAA (0.70 - -0.42 = +1.12)
5. Scott Kazmir, SP, TB (0.45 - -0.45 = +0.90)
6. Rich Hill, SP, Bal (1.15 - 0.29 = +0.86)
7. Francisco Liriano, SP, Min (0.83 - 0.02 = +0.81)
8. Jonathan Papelbon, RP, Bos (2.31 - 1.51 = +0.80)
9. Mariano Rivera, RP, NYY (2.21 - 1.43 = +0.78)
10. Joba Chamberlain, SP, NYY (1.59 - 0.86 = +0.73)

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

1. Edwin Jackson, SP, Det (1.21 - 2.50 = -1.29)
2. Kevin Millwood, SP, Tex (1.38 - 2.30 = -0.92)
3. Justin Verlander, SP, Det (2.00 - 2.58 = -0.58)
4. Scott Richmond, SP, Tor (0.80 - 1.36 = -0.56)
5. Jason Vargas, SP, Sea (0.32 - 0.88 = -0.56)
6. Drew Bailey, RP, Oak (1.35 - 1.90 = -0.55)
7. David Aardsma, RP, Sea (1.26 - 1.79 = -0.53)
8. J.P. Howell, RP, TB (0.79 - 1.30 = -0.51)
9. Scott Feldman, SP, Tex (0.61 - 1.12 = -0.51)
10. Josh Outman, SP, Oak (0.87 - 1.34 = -0.47)

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.

I’ll take a look at NL Pitchers in my next post.

Until then,

The Sherpa

Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa’s Blog

@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter

Hard to believe, but we’re into the final three weeks of the baseball season! If you’re in a head-to-head league, you’re either in the middle of your league’s playoff schedule or just about to start it. For those of you in rotisserie leagues there isn’t as much change in the daily standings as there was earlier in the season, but there’s still time to maximize your team’s point total and climb in the standings.

One often overlooked way to accomplish just that is through the use of Set-up men & Middle Relievers. For the most part I’m referring to set-up man, although there are several teams with pitchers in both roles who can help your team down the stretch (e.g. - the Chicago White Sox’ Octavio Dotel and Matt Thornton).

Such a strategy requires tradeoffs. Using a Set-up man or Middle Reliever instead of a Starting Pitcher will reduce your ability to accumulate Wins, although substituting a Set-up man or Middle Reliever from a good team for a Starting Pitcher on a bad team will often mitigate this impact. One of the two Starting Pitchers receives the victory in approximately 70% of all games, which leaves Long Relievers, Middle Relievers, Set-up men, and Closers to fight over the other 30%. Since they typically pitch 30-40% of the number of innings as Starting Pitchers, Middle Relievers and Set-up men also rack up fewer Strikeouts, although their strikeout rates per inning (or 9 innings, if you prefer) are often higher than those for Starting Pitchers.

The biggest advantage in using above average Set-up men & Middle Relievers over mediocre to sub-par Starting Pitchers comes in the ERA and WHIP categories, which are often overlooked, if not outright ignored by fantasy owners. Unlike the counting categories such as Wins and Strikeouts, a fantasy team’s ERA and WHIP can move in either direction. Obviously, you have little or no control over other owners’ lineup decisions, but I’ve found that at this point in the season, owners will often make questionable decisions with respect to Starting Pitchers in an effort to maximize Wins. These questionable decisions often come back to haunt the owners who make them - the Starting Pitcher fails to win the game and does long-term damage to his owner’s ERA and WHIP in the process.

While it may be tempting to go with a highly-touted September call-up as a Starting Pitcher (particularly if he has two starts in a given week), you’ll usually be better off going with a top-flight Set-up man or Middle Reliever if your goal is to improve your place in the standings. Just be aware of your league’s Minimum Innings Pitched requirement (if any) and make sure you’re likely to satisfy it before you decide to employ this strategy.

Here’s a list of some Set-up men and Middle Relievers who may be currently available in your league:

NL: Jon Rauch, Will Ohman, Carlos Marmol, Jeff Samardzija, Jared Burton, Joe Nelson, Arthur Rhodes, Hong-Chih Kuo, Brian Stokes, Joe Smith, J.C. Romero, and Heath Bell.

AL: Scot Shields, Jose Arredondo, Hideki Okajima, Octavio Dotel, Matt Thornton, Rafael Perez, Ramon Ramirez, Joba Chamberlain, Edwar Ramirez, Huston Street, Dan Wheeler, Grant Balfour, and Scott Downs.

Until next time,

The Sherpa