The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

Hi everyone,

Last night the draft for the inaugural Bloomberg Fantasy Baseball Challenge was held on RealTime Sports’ website.  This is a 5×5 league which includes 6 fantasy baseball enthusiasts, who were chosen from among ~300 applicants, and 6 industry experts.  The league uses the usual 5×5 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), 9 pitchers, and a 5-player Bench. 

Here are the 12 participants for 2010 in the order they drafted (affiliation noted for industry experts):

1. Lawr Michaels - Mastersball.com
2. Ron Shandler - BaseballHQ.com
3. Martha Mitchell
4. Rob Reed
5. Harold Reynolds - MLB Network
6. Tim Heaney - KFFL.com
7. Jonathan Levey
8. David Roher
9. Paul Farrell
10. Derek VanRiper - Rotowire.com
11. Satoshi Kii
12. Steve Gardner - USA Today

Here’s a link to the RealTime Fantasy Sports website’s league page that details each team’s roster.

I used the 2010 projections from my Fantasy Baseball Sherpa website to predict the standings based on the results of last night’s draft:

Projections by Team (in draft order) - Hitting Categories

Owner	AB	AVG	HR	RBI	SB	R
Michaels	7,846	.288	261	1,145	194	1,238
Shandler	7,626	.285	270	1,080	195	1,189
Mitchell	7,399	.278	292	1,092	198	1,114
Reed	7,986	.283	286	1,126	227	1,214
Reynolds	7.665	.276	292	1,126	142	1,150
Heaney	7,618	.284	296	1,167	219	1,211
Levey	7,630	.288	280	1,172	227	1,207
Roher	7,558	.288	265	1,106	194	1,182
Farrell	7,748	.278	312	1,211	139	1,175
VanRiper	7,622	.285	272	1,142	179	1,198
Kii	7,086	.281	273	1,079	201	1,097
Gardner	7,506	.282	257	1,059	188	1,144

  
Projections by Team (in draft order) - Pitching Categories

Owner	IP	W	SV	ERA	WHIP	K
Michaels	1,369	83	98	3.62	1.20	1,167
Shandler	1,336	83	36	3.98	1.26	1,314
Mitchell	1,312	80	90	3.72	1.27	1,244
Reed	1,221	73	88	3.55	1.21	1,179
Reynolds	1,310	80	81	3.76	1.30	1,067
Heaney	1,409	82	59	3.79	1.26	1,201
Levey	1,485	90	68	3.81	1.23	1,185
Roher	1,400	84	71	3.70	1.23	1,293
Farrell	1,370	85	76	3.60	1.22	1,217
VanRiper	1,469	90	66	4.07	1.30	1,238
Kii	1,312	77	62	3.57	1.25	1,239
Gardner	1,406	89	58	3.75	1.24	1,161

 

 

Projected Standings (in order of finish)

Owner	H Pts	P Pts	Total Pts
Levey	49	33	82
Michaels	38	42	80
Reed	42	38	80
Farrell	33	44	77
Roher	31	43	74
Heaney	48	23	71
VanRiper	32	27	59
Mitchell	25	34	59
Shandler	30	25	55
Kii	22	32	54
Gardner	14	27	41
Reynolds	22	19	41

 

 

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 independent observer rather than a participant.  Hopefully, all 12 of the participants came out of the draft feeling good about their team.  Hope springs eternal before the actual games begin.

 

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.

• There appeared to be a glitch in the draft software.  Occasionally, a drafted player seemingly destined for a given team’s bench was placed in the starting lineup over a player with greater fantasy value.  Apparently, these decisions were based on alphabetical order or something equally irrelevant (e.g. - just a hunch, but I doubt Tim Heaney would choose to start Kelly Shoppach at Utility and keep Jayson Werth on the bench).  I did my best to account for these discrepancies in order to optimize each team’s expected results.

• Some participants, especially Reed, Kii, and Mitchell, took more chances than others in drafting talented players who are either injured or likely to start the season in the minors.  Of course, in the actual contest, the owners will replace the players in the lineup, which will improve their results in at least the counting stat categories, but I did not attempt to adjust for this factor.  Thus, my projected results for these owners may be a bit conservative.

• Some owners will prove to be more adept (or luckier) than others at making in-season trades (if the league decides to allow them), free agent pickups, 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 last night’s draft.  Let’s see what happens as the season unwinds - good luck to all the participants!

The Sherpa

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