Competitive Advantage - Moving Players

6/25/2008	Team Name	Points		Waiver	Moves
1	O.N. Thugs	107.5	1.5	11	50
2	IStillSuckCurveballs	103.5	0.5	8	9
3	IamJabrone	98	2.5	12	38
4	TheJimmyDixLongballs	97.5	-0.5	9	8
5	Black Sox	96.5	-1.5	7	20
6	90 Reds	88.5	-3.5	2	32
7	Milwaukee Whiffers	78	0	5	19
8	Phatsnapper	76	-0.5	1	9
9	Muddy Mud Skippers	53.5	0	4	10
9	Cheeseheads	53.5	0	6	15
11	Westy's Slugs	52.5	1	3	39
12	Benver Droncos	31	0.5	10	30

These are the standings for our league as of June 25th. For the past two weeks the top five spots have been fairly consistent, with C-Lauff and Roland fighting over first and O.D. making a strong run at the top of the order too. What's most interesting for me has been watching the many many moves of teams like the Thugs and Jambrone and wondering if I should be adopting the same strategy.

I mean, think about it. Is it normal that 40% of the top 5 teams have made less than 10 moves, while 2 of the 3 teams with the most moves are also in the top 3 of the league?

Unfortunately for me, this kind of rapid player-swap isn't included in any of my long-term plans. Part of this is that I'm still new to the fantasy baseball scene and still learning which players are for real and which are flukes. Most of it is personality - My memory can't really retain obscure stats and player info that well.

I'll just put it out there - is there a strong advantage in making frequent player moves? Are these low-move teams sitting in the top 5 just injury-bombs waiting to happen? With constraints such as time and / or knowledge is there a greater value in using your "Move" utility in trading than working the waiver?

It'd be interesting to track the number of trades made and the number of waiver moves made. It's probably in there somewhere.

Spitting Venom

Greg, one of our UPL regulars has a knack for coming up with timely, hilarious postings. This one just had to be archived:

Somewhere in a New York club... by: '90 Reds

Jun 24 9:31pm

...earlier this week I was sitting by myself, having a beer, minding my own. There were some freestyle rappers performing and they were pretty good. But then something quite unexpected happened... As I watched the next performer limp onto the stage, I thought to myself: "That's not The Chairman. That's not The O.N. Thug. That's not The Roland... Or is it?" Once he started to let it flow, he removed all doubt... Uh, uh, yeah, check it You know how I be, last week Jabrone couldn't do without me He was talkin' 'bout a "Jabrone Risin'" About first place fantasizin' I was without net access Almost wearin' a deer head dress But Jabrone still couldn't usurp me Of course not That's like Westy sayin' he make better trades than me! That's like Rupert sayin' he had a better draft than me! That's like the Cheeseheads talkin' better smack than me! That's like the Whiffers havin' more trophies than me! That's like the dyslexic Benver Droncos readin' better than me! That's like JimmyDix havin' longer balls than me! Stop, think about that It's not about that C-Lauff, Jabrone, tell me how 5th place taste? Uh, yeah, uh, uh, Jabrone, tell me how 5TH PLACE taste! Uh, uh, yeah Everybody sing it [holds mike to crowd] JABRONE, TELL ME HOW 5TH PLACE TASTE!

So naturally, there had to be a follow-up:

Re: Somewhere in a New York club... by: O.N. Thugs

Jun 24 10:16pm

While I can't confirm or deny any reports, according to TMZ.com, there was also a second stanza: Who's on top of the UPL? It's the O.N. Thugs you know so well. Who's on top of the UPL? It's the O.N. Thugs you know so well. Haters talk big game. Punks try to chase fame. Like Eight Belles, They all come up lame. Too many imitators. But no duplicators. Chumps wanna hate us. Jabrones ride the short bus. The Milwaukee Whiffers? Swept up by my Swiffers. JimmyDix? That's too easy. Forget Phatsnapper. May as well be Cheesy. '90 Reds? That's 18 years past. Bret Boone don't star in this cast. Westy's Slugs? That's 18th place. Too far back to see your face. Who's on top of the UPL? It's the O.N. Thugs you know so well. Who's on top of the UPL? It's the O.N. Thugs you know so well.

As I look more closely, I think that I'd put the "Haters talk big game... ...they all come up lame." lines at the end, just to build the flow a little better. But it wasn't a bad first pass response to what Greg posted. Plus, there's nothing like dissin' a horse that's been recently euthanized.

I'm sure that the fine folks at PETA will be contacting us soon.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Riding Out Storms II

The last few weeks have been sort of ridiculous. Defended my proposal on May 28. Wrapped up teaching for my summer school course. Drove out to Mizzou for a 5 day conference. Got back, and was prepping for a conference up in Chicago. Almost killed (and got killed by) a deer. Took off for Boston to help my brother pack up stuff for his move out to Hawaii. And finally got back home last night.

I think that I spent a few days in 2nd (and maybe even 3rd place). I was able to get online enough to update my roster a few times, and even pick up some new players. But, I haven't exactly been up to date on everything in either MLB or the UPL.

I knew that my catcher came back, and then got a concussion, so was out for a couple games. And I knew that my revolving door at SS had continued. I knew that my (historically) best starter was still getting lit up. And that my guys weren't really hitting (partially because I took on one too many bad hitting, fast guys).

So, it was interesting to find that somehow, someway, I'm still in first place right now. Go figure.

At this point, I've given up a few points in R, HR, and RBI, which hopefully will come back once Pujols gets off the DL. And when Furcal comes back, I should be able to close out more in R and SB. So, the offense should be OK. On the pitching side, my squad really needs Harang to not be terrible. Simply average from Harang may have been good enough to have this league put away by now (if he was 7-6, rather than 3-10, there would be a 7 point swing in the standings).

But as it stands, it's back to work :-)

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Jabrone Rising

Like in real baseball, fantasy baseball is a season of steaks and slumps, highs and lows. Learning how to ride those out is part of the overall approach to managing a winning team. Right now, I'm on the streak of my fantasy life. On May 23rd, I was dead-to-rites in 7th place, somewhere in the low 80's in roto points, and Roland posted this:

"Please tell me that this hasn't become a 2-team league with me and the Boston Red Sox.

I thought that you had traded for David Wright and Grady Sizemore."

Well, I did trade for David Wright and Grady Sizemore, as well as Scott Kazmir. And, I picked up Shane Victorino, Aaron Rowand and Jay Bruce. And all they've done since that magical 23rd of May is the following:

David Wright (11 games): .467 OBP, 10 runs, 3 HRs, 7 RBI's, 2 SB's

Grady Sizemore (10 games): .400 OBP, 6 runs, 4 HRs, 7 RBI's, 4 SB's

Shane Victorino (10 games): .422 OBP, 16 runs, 5 RBI's, 5 SB's

Aaron Rowand (10 games): .476 OBP, 10 runs, 3 HRs, 13 RBI's, 1 SB

Jay Bruce (7 games): .667 OBP, 1.038 SLG, 12 runs, 3 HRs, 7 RBi's, 2 SB's

Scott Kazmir (2 games, 14 innings): 2 wins, 0 losses, .642ERA, .642WHIP, 16Ks

Clearly, the guys mentioned above have been the leaders of this full-on attack of first place. Though, I don't expect the same production from the guys above for the rest of the year, this goes to show that free agent pickups, timely trades and overall effective roster management can give your team the shot in the arm that it needs. It's been good enough to get me 30 extra points and I think the guys are good enough to keep me in the mix.

Now, if I can just get my top 2 draft picks off of the DL (Holiday and Peavy) and have Liriano come back from AAA and produce, I can make Roland sweat the whole year for his run at the UPL baseball trophy. Although this year, I'd like to think that I'm a more formidable contender than in years past.

Off to watch Joba Chamberlain eat up the Toronto Blue Jays as if he were Joba the Hutt. Jabrone rising, my friends, Jabrone rising.

VORPed Minds Think Alike

An interesting baseball stat is Value Over Replacement Player, or VORP. Essentially, what this stat does is give you a picture of what would happen if a team did not have this player, but instead some random guy up from the minors. Now, in the majors, the conceptual definition VORP is sort of subjective based on what each franchise has in the minors. In fantasy baseball, the notion of a replacement player is much easier to define objectively, since everyone has the same pool of replacement players. Additionally, in fantasy, you don't have to worry about defense. So the evaluation is a bit easier.

This perspective also takes into account positional scarcity, since the replacement players for different positions will give you an indication of the scarcity that's in play.

So what's the easy way to do this sort of evaluation? Just look at each position, and note the difference in performance is. For example, look at these season-to-date lines:

Player	G	AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Chase Utley	55	210	42.0	17.0	46.0	5.0	0.394	0.638
Orlando Hudson	45	166	24.0	4.0	26.0	2.0	0.380	0.488
Utley Proj	162	618.5	123.7	50.1	135.5	14.7	0.394	0.638
Hudson Proj	162	597.6	86.4	14.4	93.6	7.2	0.380	0.488
Utley VORP	-	-	37.3	35.7	41.9	7.5	0.014	0.150

What I'm doing is projecting out Utley and Hudson's stats to 162 games. And then, illustrating the difference over 162 games. Of course, you can tweak what numbers you use in the projected values. Maybe you take some weighted average of this year's stats and prior year's stats, or whatever. Or for younger players, you use numbers based on the career arc. I'm also assuming that Hudson is the next best available 2B. This may not bet the case, particularly if you sort stats by the most recent month. But you can use a similar method for evaluation, only projecting out stats based on the most recent month's performance. That may not be the most accurate method, but if you want to try to ride out hot streaks, it could be what you're looking for.

In any case, you can start to see some other things to do. First, if you have a working understanding of what the replacement player levels are, you will have a better picture of the value of players. In fact, looking at these stats, some of these players belong on rosters.

Player	G	AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
C - Olivio	30	106	12	6	22	2	0.333	0.594
C Proj	162	572.4	64.8	32.4	118.8	10.8	0.333	0.594
1B/3B - Cantu	50	198	28	7	24	2	0.332	0.532
1B/3B Proj	162	641.5	90.7	22.7	77.8	6.5	0.332	0.532
SS - Crosby	53	208	27	3	26	4	0.325	0.389
SS Proj	162	635.8	82.5	9.2	79.5	12.2	0.325	0.389
OF - Bradley	48	171	30	8	31	0	0.435	0.561
OF Proj	162	577.1	101.3	27.0	104.6	0.0	0.435	0.561

So what does this get us? First of all, Milton Bradley and Miguel Olivio belong on a UPL roster. But really, you see the difference in what's available. 2B and SS have little value. 3B and 1B are a little better, and both run deeper. There are a lot of talented OF. What's misleading is C. After Olivio, you don't have much.

To get a true picture of each position, you should probably go deeper, maybe average out the top 3 replacement players. Additionally, you also have to account for the number of AB that each player will actually have. But, this is a nice little way of seeing what's available, as well as giving you a consistent metric for evaluating trades and other transactions. Also, I'm projecting stats based on 162 games. Maybe using AB is a better way of doing your projections for some players, since you could account for players who are coming off injury and have been used in pinch hitting roles or players who platoon.

So the notion of scarcity is a very real thing. This approach also helps illustrate what I was talking about in the previous post about injuries.

Player	G	AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
SS Proj	162	635.8	82.53	9.17	79.47	12.23	0.325	0.389
21 SS Games	21	82.4	10.7	1.2	10.3	1.6	0.325	0.389
C Proj	162	572.4	64.8	32.4	118.8	10.8	0.333	0.594
14 C Games	14	49.5	5.6	2.8	10.3	0.9	0.333	0.594
Total Stats	35	131.9	16.3	3.989	20.57	2.518	0.328	0.466

I've lost out on 21 games of Rafael Furcal and 14 games of Ryan Doumit. Here's what I missed out on, with replacement players, prorated for the games missed (this is the upper bound - in actuality, you probably don't get all of those games: likely only 19 games from SS and maybe 10 games from C). See some interesting results? It looks like I missed out on about 16R, 4HR, 21 RBI, 3SB, but would have only had a .328 OBP and a .466 SLG during that time from those 2 positions. And more importantly, my roster flexibility would have been lost. Even if the OBP and SLG weren't a concern for my team (and really, this year, they're not), what this data shows is that my roster flexibility was worth about 16 R, 4 HR, 21 RBI, and 3SB, roughly what I guessed in my last post.

This also helps you evaluate trades. For a little while, Ryan Garko was being shopped around in our league. The problem was that his value wasn't any better than players who were available in free agency at the time. Additionally, since Garko was a 1B, you likely were going to play him at UTIL, so your VORP there has to be based on all positions. It's not like he was a 2B or SS whose stats weren't great, but still better than whatever was available. Those players still have some value, if you can find the right place for them. But at a position where most teams are already set? That's a tough sell.

In any case, VORP isn't a magical stat that's just better than anything else out there, but it's a nice way of looking at players, and matching up values when you need to try to compare apples to apples.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)