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Quick Tip: Keep Your DL Spots Occupied

Quick Tip: Keep Your DL Spots Occupied

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Awhile back I wrote about “The Extra 2%” by Jonah Keri, in which he outlines many little strategies implemented by the Tampa Bay Rays that helped the team gain a competitive advantage and allowed them to turn around the struggling franchise.

The key in that sentence is the phrase “little strategies”.  “Big strategies” are obvious.  They work for a short period of time and soon enough everyone catches on.  But a conglomeration of “little strategies”, unlikely to be noticed or deemed worthwhile, can also make a tangible difference over time.

Enter a very simple tactic I always try to employ, but rarely see others use.  In a league with a specified number of DL spots, I always keep my DL spots filled.  This means actively monitoring free agents on the disabled list (ESPN has a handy feature that lets you see free agents on the DL).

DL

Who To Carry

There are almost always interesting names available.  This could be a struggling player off to an extremely slow start that went on the DL or a pitcher not expected to return from Tommy John surgery until August.  It doesn’t matter.

Try to target someone with potential.  Or someone who might be able to be traded later.  Or someone that fits a specific need on your team.  And if another more intriguing injured player comes along, grab that flavor of the month and stash him.

Why?

Why not?  If you’ve got a DL spot you might as well use it.  You can often hold a player in the DL spot even after they’ve returned from their injury, until you need to make another acquisition.  This can give you a week or so to monitor the player’s performance upon returning from the DL and weighing if they’re worth hanging onto.

It might not pan out.  You may simply end up cutting them in the end.  Or a legitimate player on your roster may end up needing to occupy the DL spot.  But this will give you the first chance to acquire the player.  You won’t be battling with others in the league, using waiver priority, or using FAAB to acquire someone.

It’s worth the risk.  There’s nothing to lose.

Go Check Your Waiver Wire

You might see names like Paul Konerko, Mike Morse, Lance Berkman, Brandon Morrow, Scott Baker, Colby Lewis, or Cory Luebke.  Stash them and see what happens.

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Reader Question: I Only Have Several Hours A Week To Devote, What Resources Should I Use?

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I recently received a great question from one of the SFBB readers.  So great, that I thought I’d answer in the form of a blog post:

We hit the waiver wire only once a week in our league.  You certainly have given me great tools, but if you have my three or four hours a week to devote, with what and who do you suggest I spend this time? For instance since reading your thoughts, I really believe Olney is a must read.

~ Eddie

This seemingly simple question became complicated for me to answer.  I wasn’t sure if Eddie just wanted to know who my most trusted resources are.  Or if he wanted an outline of a specific process and prioritization I would use to fill three hours a week.

So I’ll take a stab at both.  If you’re looking for my list of most trusted fantasy baseball resources, skip down to the bottom of this post.  If you’re curious about the specific process I would employ to get the most “bang for your buck” by making the most of those three hours each week, keep moving along.

A lot of the thoughts below are just common sense.  This is certainly not the most technical article I’ve ever written.  But hopefully breaking down the process will make us all think more critically about how we conduct player research and how we could more efficiently use our time.

Eye Opening

I didn’t have an immediate answer to Eddie’s question.  At first I laughed, thinking to myself that Eddie only has a few precious hours each week and here I sit posting 20 minute videos and 1,000 word blog posts, sucking up his valuable time.  My next realization was that I don’t even have my own formal system of prioritization in place.  I fly by the seat of my pants, but that’s certainly not “smart”.  Maybe it’s time to think about one.

To design an effective process one must understand the exact problem.  If I had to simplify the fantasy baseball problems I’m trying to address, I would summarize them as “Understanding My Team”, “Identifying Talent”, and “Learning”.

UnderStanding My Team

Before I can reap any benefit from an expert’s advice, I’ve got to have a strong understanding of my team and its place in the standings.  This means:

  1. Assessing my team’s weaknesses and strengths (by roto category)
  2. Assessing my team’s position in the standings and those teams around me
  3. Determining players that are expendable, that I can consider dropping

Items one and two above don’t need to be done every week.  They’re not really time consuming chores, but they must be done to give context to your player research.  I can quickly filter through expert recommendations of sneaky stolen base specialists if I already lead that category.

I probably give a thorough look over the league standings once every two weeks or so.  The standings don’t change rapidly at this point in the season, and it’s going to take time to chisel away at a 20 RBI deficit.  So every couple of weeks I’ll give a good look over my situation and identify areas for improvement.  Then that analysis sticks with me for the next several weeks and becomes the focus of any transactions I’ll make and the player research I’ll conduct.

Item three can’t be done in isolation.  I need to have potential free agents in mind in order to conclude on who is expendable, but I always like to have an idea of who my most expendable player is.  Whether it’s the least talented player on my roster or someone that is talented but simply doesn’t fit current needs, it always helps to know who’s droppable.

Identifying Talent / Player Research

The exercise above of understanding your situation and knowing the approximate value of the player I can drop will allow me to more efficiently conduct player research (and make better use of the few hours I have so I can get back to writing blog posts).   To illustrate, let’s assume I’m looking to gain standings points in home runs and RBI.  After looking over my roster I conclude the player I’m most likely to drop is a struggling corner infielder expected to finish the season with 20 HR and 75 RBI.

With this in mind I can do my own basic research or I begin looking for expert advice on possible pickups.  To do my own research, I start with simple sorting of the free agent list to look for the following:

  • Best overall players available (best preseason rank but struggling)
  • Best categorical players available, year-to-date (which corner infielders have the most HR and RBI)
  • Best categorical players available, last month (which corner infielders have the most HR and RBI in the last month, this might turn up players getting more playing time in the last month than earlier in the season)
  • Which corner infielders are getting at bats over the last two weeks and which of them offer HR and RBI
  • Which corner infielders are most frequently picked up (most major fantasy providers have ways of researching the hottest pickups)

With those results in mind, I can turn to the “experts”.  I can pull up the SFBB Fantasy Baseball Expert Twitter List and scroll through the many “Weekly Pickup” columns that will surely be available.  But now that I’m armed with a sense of my team, the league, and the free agents available, I’ll be able to quickly hone in on the advice and player names that make sense for my team.  If an article clearly misses the mark of addressing my needs or is not consistent with the free agents available in my league, I can move along to the next piece.

I don’t have any “appointment reading” where I visit specific websites daily or weekly.  I let Twitter accumulate the listings of fantasy baseball advice and I’ll scroll through the feed looking for articles that pique my interest.  Similarly, podcasts are a favorite medium of mine, because I too have limited time to devote to research.  But podcasts let me make productive use of time in the car or when I’m going for a jog.

Learning

One of my main goals is to learn along the way and gain exposure to new ideas, new strategies, and new lines of thinking.  The benefit here is twofold.  First, the more I learn, the more likely I am to win and be competitive.  Second, learning is a way for me to garner enjoyment from fake baseball even if I’m not winning.

Allocating Time Between the Categories

The allocation between these three categories will fluctuate throughout the season.  If you haven’t done a thorough review of your team and the league standings in a few weeks, you’ve got to allocate time to this exercise.  I haven’t analyzed this, but I think it’s a safe bet that player research early in the season is more important than later in the season because acquisitions have the opportunity to affect your team for longer and accumulate more stats.  It’s also the time when we know the least about playing time and batting orders.  As the season progresses, if you happen to find yourself out of the running, more time can be devoted to learning about new ideas and new strategies to employ, or for expanding the horizon of your player research (looking more long-term if you’re in keeper/dynasty leagues).

My Most Trusted Fantasy BaseBall Resources

These are my personal favorites.  This is not to suggest there aren’t loads of other great, or maybe even superior, analysts out there.  But based upon their analytic mindsets, their ability to work strategy into their discussions, their insight, and my personal experience with them (they nailed a couple of players that really helped me out), these are the individuals I have grown to trust the most.  I also find many of them funny and pleasant.  I’m not a big fan of brash over-confident fantasy guy.  And they’re out there.

I’m certain you won’t enjoy all of these folks.  Or they just won’t “click” with you.  But maybe there are one or two here that you will connect with.

Name Twitter ID Description
Todd Zola Zola regularly states he would rather teach you something than manage your team for you. That’s a rarity.  I love his stuff.
Jason Collette
Paul Sporer
I group these two together because while a lot of their fantasy work is done independent of each other, I mostly consume their advice via the Baseball Prospectus “Towers of Power Fantasy Hour” podcast these two do weekly.  It’s my favorite fantasy baseball podcast.
Tristan Cockroft A lot of the content on ESPN is targeted for the masses.  Advanced statistics, tables, and deep analysis scare the masses.  But Tristan puts a lot of deep analysis and number crunching into his work.
Buster Olney He’s not a fantasy writer.  But I really enjoy his work and it’s important to think about regular baseball at times and not just focus on fake baseball.  He is on top of everything that happens in the game.  And a lot of what happens has a fantasy impact but won’t necessarily be written about by the fantasy community.
Stephania Bell ESPN’s injury expert.  I don’t track her success rate, but it seems high. If she’s worried about a player, despite the positive news from the team or player, she’s usually right.  If I have an injured player or I’m considering acquiring one, I want to know her thoughts.
Corey Schwartz Corey is a cohost of the MLB.com Fantasy 411’s podcast.  He works a lot of great strategy talk into the podcast.
Eric Karabell Karabell has an analytical approach to the game and a very conservative approach to his play/advice (give me the solid aging veteran over the sexy rookie hype machine).  I like his work.
Mike Podhorzer Mike hosts Fangraphs’ podcast “The Sleeper and The Bust” and is very active elsewhere in the fantasy baseball world.  He uses a lot of advanced statistics and other metrics, like batted ball distance, to identify potential value.
Ron Shandler He’s one of the legends of the industry.  Perhaps the father of the analytical approach to this game.  He doesn’t do much player analysis, but when he speaks, it’s worth listening to.

Do Share

Who are your most trusted resources?  Do you have a formal strategy of how to manage your time?  I had never formally thought about it, but I guess there’s some semblance of thought in my practices.

Thanks.  Make smart choices.

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Case Study: Ron Shandler's Monthly League

Case Study: Ron Shandler’s Monthly League

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If you’re not familiar with the name Ron Shandler, he’s been a legendary figure in the game of fantasy baseball.  He was one of the first writers to begin applying sabermetric-type thinking to fantasy baseball, he created the LIMA plan, founded BaseballHQ.com, and started the Tout Wars expert league.

And He’s At It Again

Shandler is experimenting with a new monthly league format.  One of the big selling points of the format is the ability to draft (or select) a new team each month.  Giancarlo Stanton, Curtis Granderson, Troy Tulowitzki, or Matt Kemp ruining your season?  The monthly format alleviates those concerns.  Multiple “draft days” during the season?  Sign me up.  Find a happy medium between the luck of weekly head-to-head formats and the marathon of a 162-game rotisserie format?  Perfect.

The Rules

Because of the All-Star break the contest will span five weeks.  Rotisserie scoring.  Players are selected based on a salary cap system in which salaries are assigned based upon production during the season to this point.

  • 30-team league
  • 30-man rosters made of 23 active players and 7 reserves.
  • Traditional rotisserie rosters – 2 C, 1B, 3B, Corner IF, 2B, SS, Middle IF, 5 OF, UT, 9 pitchers
  • 7 reserves can be any position
  • Salary cap is $300 for all 30 players
  • Players can be owned by multiple teams
  • 4×4 rotisserie scoring with the offensive categories of HR, SB, OBP, Runs Produced (R+RBI-HR, subtracting out HR removes “double counting” of RBI and R that occur on a home run) and pitching categories of W, Sv+Hld, K, ERA
  • No free agent pickups
  • Intra-roster moves (reserve-to-active and active-to-reserve) can be made twice weekly

The Player List

If you’re interested, the list of player salaries can be viewed here.

Thinking Through The Strategy

Because of the 30-team format, punting any category seems out of the question.  Stress needs to be put on forming a balanced team.  Being unable to pick up free agents means your team has to be constructed to absorb injuries that may arise during the month.

The ability to make moves twice a week looks like an opportunity to implement a pitching strategy.  You can’t gain much of an advantage in games played offensively, but it seems like carrying additional pitchers would allow for squeezing out a few extra starts over the month.  Alternatively, if one were to carry extra relievers with Save and Hold opportunities, you could implement a strategy of going after the Sv+Hld category while still being competitive in K and ERA.

After reviewing the rules, my strategy was to focus on building an offense with positional flexibility (to minimize the hitters necessary on my roster) and then use a volume strategy for accumulating pitching stats (more pitchers = more K and more Wins or Sv+Hld).

Finding The Value

In looking through the list of players, a number of “values” jumped out.  Players that have been injured or severely underperformed to this point in the season have extremely low values (Aaron Hill, Hanley Ramirez, etc.).

Realizing this, I needed a way to ensure I could identify all of the valuable players.  Simply combing through the list of 500+ hitters and 500+ pitchers isn’t reasonable.  I would surely miss someone valuable.

Building a Projection Tool

I used many of the principles and tactics outlined in the “Create Your Own Rankings” series.   (more…)

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Use PITCH f/x Data To Identify Potential Breakout Pitchers (Part III)

Use PITCH f/x Data To Identify Potential Breakout Pitchers (Part III)

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If you’ve made it to Part III in the search to identify potential breakout pitchers, congratulations.  If you missed them, you can find Part I here and Part II here.

Enough Talk, Where Is This List Of Potential Breakout Pitchers?

I’ve uploaded an Excel file to Microsoft Sky Drive.  You can edit, view, or download the file for your own uses.  It’s mostly the same data from the YouTube video, but I added a lot of bells and whistles.  A red cell indicates a pitch that has declined in use from 2012 to 2013.  A green cell indicates a pitch with more usage.  The color intensity indicates the magnitude of the change.  The links to the right take you directly to that specific player’s page on BrooksBaseball.net.

PitchClass14
Click on the image to be taken to the editable file (you can edit or download for your own use).

Disclaimer #1

Keep in mind, I started this analysis on June 24th, 2013.  So if you’re finding this information after that time, you may want to double-check the usage graphs for any pitcher you’re researching.  But I’ve tried to document the approach to doing this research in the video and other parts of this series.  You can perform this research at any time (it would be great if we could get monthly usage reports from Fangraphs, then we could do this in the offseason to identify pitchers who started to change their mix late in the season).

Disclaimer #2

You saw from Part II of this series that these changes in mix have to be taken with a grain of salt.  And even after you’ve verified that there is indeed a change in pitch mix, you still need to go review the effectiveness of the pitches being used more frequently.  I wish I could go through each of these pitchers and break them down for you.  But it’s just not practical (my two-year old and four-year old don’t find PITCH f/x research very entertaining).  Hopefully I’ve equipped you with the tools you need to go analyze these pitchers more closely.

For pitchers on your team, check them out.  If you’re thinking of picking up a free agent, check him out.  If your pitching staff is terrible and you need to find the next big ace, check them all out.

Conclusion

Granted, it’s a small sample size.  But I’ve done a deep look in this fashion for Edward Mujica, Max Scherzer, and Alexi Ogando.  And all show promising results.  There will certainly be pitchers that change their mix and it has little effect on their end results.  But this seems like a promising exercise.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK Or If You Have Questions

I realize this is quite involved.  It’s certainly more difficult than reading the weekly pickups columns that are out there.  But anyone can read those and snag players just as easily as you can.  This process will put you ahead of the curve, give you players to monitor, and give you first crack at picking them up.

Thanks and be smart.

 

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Use PITCH f/x Data To Identify Potential Breakout Pitchers (Part II)

Use PITCH f/x Data To Identify Potential Breakout Pitchers (Part II)

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Picking up where we left off in the post “Use PITCH f/x Data to Identify Potential Breakout Pitchers“, now that we’ve identified the potential pitchers (link to pitchers with differences) who have added a new pitch or that have significantly adjusted their pitch usage mix in 2013, we need to determine if the new or more heavily used pitch is successful.

Before We Go Any Further

I think it’s important you read the article The Internet Cried A Little When You Wrote That On It, by Mike Fast (follow Mike on Twitter).  The whole article will be helpful if you’re trying to improve you understanding of PITCH f/x, but at least read bullet #1.

My takeaway from that piece is that significant changes in pitch mix, especially within the fastball classifications (FA, FT, FC, FS, SI), are most likely to be changes in the algorithm used to classify the pitch.

Take for instance, Jake Peavy.  The PITCH f/x data I downloaded from Fangraphs and manipulated to identify “potentially” new pitches, shows the following for Peavy:

PitchClass2

Interpreting that chart, from 2012 to 2013, the Fangraphs data shows a decrease in the fastball (FA) of 19.9% and increase in the two-seam fastball (FT) of 26.7%.  That sounds interesting on the surface, no?  Decrease one pitch 20% and increase another?

From Mike Fast’s article we know that we can’t necessarily trust the pitch classifications.  So let’s look at the 2012 velocity and spin on Peavy’s pitches:

PitchClass4
Click image to be taken to this page at BrooksBaseball.net

And the same for 2013:

PitchClass3
Click image to be taken to this page at BrooksBaseball.net

From these two charts you can see Peavy’s throwing the same pitches in 2013 that he was throwing in 2012.  The clusters are in the same general vicinity on the chart.  But more importantly, you can see there is very little difference between the fourseam (FA) and the sinker (BrooksBaseball calls the two-seam fastball a sinker (FT)).     So a 20% transfer from one classification to another is likely a change in the algorithm, as we were warned.

Give Me Someone Else to Look At

Alright, Alexi Ogando, although injured recently, has been intriguing.  The raw data shows a sharp decline in fastball usage and an increase in the changeup.  This probably isn’t just a case of an algorithm change (fastballs wouldn’t likely be misclassified as changeups).

PitchClass10

Let’s look at his 2012: (more…)

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Video: Use PITCH f/x Data To Identify Potential Breakout Pitchers (Part I)

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I’ve talked before about the amazing tool we have at our fingertips in PITCH f/x.  I’ve also had two (Scherzer and Mujica) instances this season where I came across seemingly small anecdotes about a specific pitcher adding a new pitch, and the pitcher in question has gone on to have a “breakout” season thus far.  So I thought to myself…

Why Not Look For More Pitchers Who’ve Added A New Pitch

And rather than just share the results with you, I thought it might be more beneficial to share the method I used to do my search.  You know, the whole “teach a man to fish” proverb.

While there is a lot of great PITCH f/x data available at sites like Fangraphs and BrooksBaseball.net, I have not been able to locate a resource that allows me to do a year-to-year comparison of the data across a large pool of players (BrooksBaseball can show you great comparisons for a specific player).  So to identify these pitchers who have developed a new pitch, I had to download sets of data for 2012 and 2013 and apply some functions in Microsoft Excel.

I recognize that some of my posts get a bit lengthy and this process may have pushed the limits, so I’m trying something new and have put together my first YouTube video (if you’re interested in being notified of future videos, click here to subscribe to the SFBB YouTube channel).

About The Video

The video is approximately 15 minutes long, and takes you through a step-by-step process to download PITCH f/x pitch usage data from Fangraphs.com, pull the data into Excel, match up 2012 and 2013 pitch usages, calculate a difference in pitch usage, use the calculated difference to target players that are most likely throwing a new pitch in 2013, and how to use BrooksBaseball.net to conduct further research on individual pitchers.

Coming Soon

I’ll polish up the results and post an Excel file, containing pitchers to keep an eye on, for you to analyze.

Thanks for reading… and watching.  Stay smart.

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A Deep Look Into Hitter Strikeout Rate (K%)

A Deep Look Into Hitter Strikeout Rate (K%)

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Read any fantasy baseball analysis and you’re bound to encounter the hitter strikeout rate (or K-percentage) statistic.  “Player A’s strikeout rate has increased from 18% last year to 22% so far this year”.  I understand K-percentage is, it’s not complicated to calculate.  But I’ve never been able to locate a good explanation of why strikeout rate is inherently bad or what it indicates.  So I set out to answer some of these questions.

My goal in this post is to take a deep look into what strikeout rate is and what effect it has on batting average.  If you’re not much for reading, skip to the spreadsheet illustrating the effect of strikeout rate on batting average.

What Is Strikeout Rate?

This is simply the percentage of plate appearances that result in a strikeout.  Fangraphs has a good, brief discussion of the statistic and what represents an Awful-to-Excellent rate.

Strikeout Rate = Strikeouts / Plate Appearances

What Does This Mean? Why Do We Care?

After quite a bit of scouring the internet, I am still unable to locate anything more than the basic definition of the term strikeout rate (if you know of a great explanation, please leave a comment or Tweet me the link).  The Fangraphs article mentions the more a player strikes out, the more difficult it is to maintain a high batting average, but it’s short on specifics.  I found a nice article at Beyond the Box Score about how to predict strikeout rate.  But that seems like a pointless exercise until I understand more about the statistic (why predict something I don’t fully understand!).

Since I can’t find a great resource, I’m left to speculate and make an educated guess.  It’s pretty clear that a strikeout is a missed opportunity to put the ball in play.  It’s certainly an out.  So it inherently is detrimental to a players batting average (the ball is not put into play, so the AB cannot result in a hit).  Further, it can’t lead to a run, HR, or RBI.

While we know it’s bad for batting average, it’s very important to keep in mind that there is also a trade off.  Watch enough baseball and you know that striking out is related to power.  And it’s been proven that this is the case.  So we know that striking out negatively affects batting average, but it is positively related to hitting for power.  Meaning there’s likely some point at which you could optimize a hitters ability to hit for average and still hit for power.  That seems like a different article for a different day.

The Effect On Batting Average

How much does strikeout rate affect batting average?   (more…)

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Book Review – ‘The Extra 2%’ by Jonah Keri

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In addition to my typical fantasy and regular baseball readings around the web, I have decided to start reading books that I think can help build my analysis skills and baseball knowledge.  Afterwards, I’ll give a review of the book and apply some takeaways.

Leading Off

The book I chose to read first is The Extra 2%:  How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First. I chose the book for two main reasons:

  1. I’m a fan of Jonah Keri’s work elsewhere on the web.
  2. The title screams to me that there are surely strategies and mindsets that can be borrowed from the book and applied to fantasy baseball.

About the Author

I first became aware of Jonah Keri when I stumbled upon his podcast a couple years back.  Unfortunately he no longer produces new episodes, but I found him smart and entertaining, and he had great baseball guests like Rickey Henderson, Rob Neyer, and R.A. Dickey on the show.  Jonah has since made it big, appearing on Baseball Tonight occasionally and writing regularly for Grantland.com.

Please note that I only recommend resources that I think are extremely valuable and that I use myself.  The link to The Extra 2% above are affiliate links, through which I earn a small commission if you were to purchase the book. The book will cost you the same if you directly go to Amazon and search for it or if you click an affiliate link. Think of this as a small way to support the site if you find SmartFantasyBaseball valuable.  Or if you prefer a generic link through which I receive no benefit, use this.

The Extra 2%

The backdrop of the book is a look into the history of the Tampa Bay Rays franchise, from the beginning battles the Tampa area fought to win a team to the inception of the franchise, its initial struggles, and then an ownership change in 2005 that gave the team  new life. On top of that historical account of the Rays franchise, Keri highlights the strategic and analytical approach the new leadership team brought with it in 2005.  As the title of the book indicates, the Rays turned to a team of Wall Street experienced businessmen and analysts with little or no formal baseball experience.  But it was the analytical and value-driven approaches learned on Wall Street that helped the Rays turn things around.

How They Did It

The book is full of specific stories and examples of how the Rays went about this transformation and the decisions they made.  From the stories, I observed three main themes the team applied to improve the Rays organization (and that you could apply to become a smarter fantasy baseball mind):

  • Strive for continuous improvement
  • Apply a consistent, methodical, and analytic process
  • Identify and take advantage of market inefficiencies (more…)
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Young Players and Your Push For the Championship

Young Players and Your Push For the Championship

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Up until now, I’ve been led to believe that the reason Wil Myers hasn’t been called up to play for the Tampa Bay Rays is simply because of service time concerns and an attempt to maximize the Rays’ control of Myers before he can become a free agent (delaying a call up until after a certain point of the season may allow a team one more year of control over a player before free agency).

I’ve even heard it said that it seems like the Rays are willing to sacrifice an opportunity to win now, while they still have David Price (who will be a free agent after the season), just to get this extra year of service out of Myers.

But maybe It’s not Really About Service Time

On the June 12th edition of his Baseball Tonight podcast, Buster Olney interviewed Rays GM Andrew Friedman about Wil Myers’ development and the range of time when Myers’ could be called up, and here’s an excerpt of the response (the Friedman interview starts at about the 24 minute mark, the comments on Myers are around 33:40):

As much as we can continue that development while he’s there (in the minors) and not affecting us as we’re trying to win games is good. And that goes for any young player, I think. While we’re competitive it’s a little bit different in how we view our young players, and if we weren’t competitive we’d probably bring them up a little bit earlier. But it’s challenging in that we can’t just bring them up to the major league level to let them finish their development. ~ Andrew Friedman – General Manager, Tampa Bay Rays

(more…)
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Does It Make Sense To Carry Three Catchers?

Does It Make Sense To Carry Three Catchers?

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ThreeCatchers1
Yahoo! Games Played Tracker does a great job of projecting your games played by position

I play in a couple mixed leagues that use the standard rotisserie lineup configuration (if there is such a “standard” any longer) of 2 C, 1B, 3B, CI, 2B, SS, MI, 5 OF, and one UTIL/DH.  In these two catcher leagues, I perpetually leave games played on the table because no catcher plays 162 games in a season.  But in a league with games played limits, you’re given 324 games to be played by catchers during the season (162 games * 2 catchers).

ThreeCatchers2
2012 Catcher leaders in games played courtesy of Fangraphs. Click the image to view this information at Fangraphs.com.

If  you only carry two catchers all year, by the time you reach the end of the season you could easily be looking at coming up 60+ games short of the allotted 324.  To illustrate, look at the catcher leaders in games played for 2012 (Note:  these are not necessarily the top 24 fantasy catchers, just MLB games played leaders).

Some of the top fantasy options like Buster Posey and Joe Mauer play a lot of games (approaching 150).  But when you start to account for the fact that 24 catchers must be started in a 12-team two-catcher league, you can see how many games will be left on the table (many don’t even get to 120 games).  And each one of those games is a missed opportunity for counting stats like runs, home runs, and RBI.

I hate the idea of using a coveted bench spot to hold the 25th best catcher.  What kind of stat line does such a player have?  But missing out on 60-80 games played seems like a huge missed opportunity.  So let’s get to the bottom of this. (more…)

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