Now that the season is over, I think it is safe to say that my team, the Replacement Levelers, are a dominant force in this league. In this post, I have looked at my roster in the hopes of finding the "Secret Sauce", the key to my team's success for pedagogical purposes.
I find it difficult to point to any individual player who won the title for me this year. Sure, my team had some draft-day sleepers that came up huge for me, like Jason Bay and Evan Longoria. Good free agent pickups also played a huge role in building my pitching staff. But, my team had even bigger draft-day busts, like Pedro Martinez, Dustin McGowan, Ricky Weeks, Alex Gordon, and Jeff Francoeur. Coming out of the draft, this team was only predicted to finish in fourth place. If one of my competitors had planned to defeat me by buying the players that I was after, they might just have ended up overloading on these disappointments.
So what is the "Secret Sauce" for the Replacement Levelers? Well, I believe that replacement leveling as a philosophy is an important part of that sauce. Replacement leveling means treating every player as a fungible commodity. (For the original source of replacement leveling philosophy, see baseballprospecutus.com) My personal mascot (or Jesus) for this philosophy is Jermaine Dye. He was unexpectedly great in my team's first year. In my team's second year, I didn't really consider drafting him, and he unexpectedly flopped. I haven't checked his stats, but I think he was serviceable again this year. Because of Dye's limited skill set, he is erratic, and, therefore, totally replaceable. When I hear his name mentioned in a draft room I sigh and look the other way. While I think Dye is a good example of a replacement level player, I believe that every player is, to a certain extent, replaceable.
Let me go into a little more detail. During an auction draft, as the price goes up for a player, he becomes more replaceable. This statement will come as no surprise, but it does go against many people's basic instincts. I know how tempting it is to keeping bidding on a player in order to a win. But, the higher the price goes, the more likely you will end up with a bust. Instead, your draft day goal should be to acquire as many players as you can with the highest probability for greatness for the lowest price, all the while understanding that these players are replaceable. This is why many managers fall in love with five tool players - because they have the broadest skill set, and therefore the highest ceiling. However, it is also dangerous to fall in love with five tool players, because they also may fall into what I shall call the Damon trap - they may be okay at everything, but if they lose any skills, it is only a small step to being bad at everything.
After the draft, replacement leveling becomes even more important. Once the season starts, your predictions for greatness either increase or subside. Also, you must make these calculations regarding new players that you didn't even think had a shot at greatness. These calculations I am talking about require math and hunches and are beyond the scope of this post.
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It also didn't hurt that you were able to unload an expensive Ortiz, who you would either have kept at high price only to have underperform, or just not kept at all, plus a $15 Beckett for arguably the most valuable commodity in FLB, Jose Reyes, who was locked in at a $15 salary to boot PLUS were able to get cash thrown your way in that deal if I remember correctly. While your general point in your analysis (i.e. don't pay 100 cents on a dollar for player A when you can get player B who will provide 90% of the production in all likelihood for 50% of the price) is obviously correct, I think you may be overanalyzing things. The real key to your success this year at least, from my persepctive, was getting extremely high levels of performance out of relatively cheap or mid level salary players(Reyes, Markakis, Longoria, Bay, Kinsler) while managing to get performances out of your two expensive players (Beltran and Sizemore) that justified their salaries. Sure you had a couple of real busts (Gordon, Weeks, Martinez) but all of those guys were mid salary players and you had more cash than anyone going into the draft to start out with. Plus, throw in the out of nowhere dominance of a Edison Volquez, who you picked up immediately before he blew up, and you've got a recipe for success. A lot of this stuff is due to your skill, some of it is due to luck, but that's FLB.
Now me, on the other hand, either because I'm a totally crappy evaluator of who's poised to break out, because I was unlucky, or both, I totally crapped the bed in getting value out of the auction. I thought at least one of Kemp for $11, Buchholz for $11, Swisher for $23, Hart for $20, Carlos Pena for $24 or maybe even Edwin Encarnacion for $5 or Milledge for $5 would bust out into being worth far more than their salaries. Instead, all of those guys either performed at a level that nobody would be surprised with or lower. I think if you look at the roster I had coming out of the auction, you'll find that not a single one of those guys had overall stats that would make you scream "break out." The closest to that would be Dice-K, but his K:BB was execrable and absolutely killed me, and even his Ks weren't that great, and Harden, but his wins were terrible despite being healthy for most of the year. Anyway, I'll endeavor to be less mediocre next year.
In Defense of Stupidity
Yes, I did trade a cheap Jose Reyes AND $10 for a fat guy from Boston and his ineffective pitcher-teammate. Obviously, this was on the level of Jim Duquette's move to trade Scott Kazmir for the wrong Zambrano. However, I saw an opportunity to flip a single great fantasy player who I thought would underperform for two great players, who I thought were worth more than their respective prices. Keep in mind that I proposed the trade.
Here is how I broke out the trade values:
GET:
(1) David Ortiz ($33 cost / ~$50 value) plus
(2) Josh Beckett ($15 cost / ~$25 value)
(3) $10 to the other team
Total Cost = $58
Total Value = $75
GIVE
(1) Jose Reyes ($15 cost / $25
(2) $10 from my team
Total Cost = $15
Total Value = $35
The trade was predicated on my absolute disbelief that Jose Reyes would perform to expectations given his precipitous decline in 2007 at the end of the year. As someone who watched a considerable number of those Mets games, I was completely convinced that Reyes had become Juan Samuel, or a guy with tremendous talent who lost his love of the game and was just going to get by without any effort. Meanwhile, I assumed Ortiz would provide a massive power boost for my team and simply ignored the higher injury risk he presented. Since my team lacked power, I was going to be light on HRs and RBIs. Moreover, I assumed Beckett would perform to his prior numbers, which would give me a solid #1 starter. Clearly, I was completely off on all of the performance projections.
The other element of this trade, which took people by surprise, was the concept that I would now have five keepers for 2008, whereas Replacement Levelers would have only three. My conviction was that keepers have a tremendously disproportionate value since they tend to not only be good players, but they are consistently good. Accordingly, I had this vision that I was buying certainty. That held out to be true, but it was certainty that my team would suck.
Justin, I agree that your strategy was correct as a general matter, although maybe your specific valuation calculations were probably off. In general, you seem to do everything right, and by everything, I mean use BP religiously, but you don't seem to get the correct results. Do you have any theories about why that is the case?
I know I depend heavily on BP for my valuations, but do try to to harmonize them with my thoughts about a player's career path. Do you do the same thing? Do you think the problem is more with BP or with your thoughts?
Yes, I too would be interested in Justin ruminating about where things tend to go off the rail. Obviously you are using the same source material as inspiration as Rich (and less relevantly as a comparison of success in the past two seasons, me and Matt), and you are applying a great deal of logic to the whole process of putting together your team, but the results don't seem to be there.
WIth specific reference "the trade," I don't particularly take exception with it as a gambit except perhaps with the part about throwing in 10 bucks on top of everything else. If Ortiz and Beckett performed this year as one would reasonably have expected them to, it's arguable the trade would have been a good one in the near term. The bigger reason why I wouldn't have done that trade in your position, however, is 1) Reyes was both very young and super cheap allowing you to overpay for other players that might give production near what would have been expected from Ortiz and Beckett and 2) To my benefit in good years and detriment the last couple of years, I always tend to favor the player with the most "upside" in any situation, particularly if that player can contribute in both the power categories (HR/RBI) and speed (SB). This led to my ruination with my Corey Hart obsession, amongst others, but has worked for me in the past. In any event, I would be interested in a self-analysis done by Justin in a seperate post on why you think you haven't been able to put it together yet for a finish "in the money" in this league.
Yes, I start with PECOTA and then adjust various numbers, particularly for the star players. Apparently, I'm pretty bad at that. For Ortiz and Beckett, I would say they both underperformed most 'expert' expectations. For Reyes, my math was that he had hit a plateau and that he was not going to be worth more than $15 at any point during his career. I was wrong, but watching many 2007 post-All Star Break Mets games in 2007 definitely influenced my belief. Of course, Reyes performed almost exactly to expert expectations, including PECOTA, and may indeed have more upside. A few more comments:
Places I was right:
(1) A.J. Burnett - I thought he was good for a large number of decisions since he would go deep into games. Sure enough he had 28 decisions, including 18 wins. He also threw way more KOs than I projected. He was simply better than expected combined with being right about getting decisions and since loses don't matter, that worked out well;
(2) Ted Lilly@ $4 - let's assume lucky and right are the same thing.
That's it.
Errors in my analysis/projections:
(3) I thought Andruw Jones was still alive, but he was horrifically bad. I thought I was betting on a rebound versus playing decently, but he was worse than a replacement-level player;
(4) I assumed keeper Josh Willingham would be worth a minimum of $15 if he performed on par with 2007, but had nice upside. Instead he got injured and performed more like an average fantasy outfielder;
(5) I fell in love with Billy Butler as a pure hitter who was young enough to grow into a great hitter. So far, I was just wrong. I definitely pushed my expectations above what PECTOA suggested;
(6) Francisco Liriano wound up in the minor leagues early in the season and it took him a long time to get back to form, during which I had too many injuries to be able to wait it out;
(7) Phil Hughes - I was just hoping that being in the Yankees starting rotation would guarantee some good stats. Instead, he got hurt, then found he needed glasses, then wound up in the minors permanently;
(8) Jeremy Bonderman was another starter who was supposed to be part of my core, but he barely played this year;
(9) I wasn’t willing to keep John Lackey at $15 given his injury and my belief that his return could be delayed. He ultimately went for only $16 at auction, so it seems to me that my thinking reflected those of the entire league;
Various Disappointments:
(10) Chipper Jones seemed to have a great year, but he only had 439 ABs, so while his OBA (.470) was fantastic and way above expectations, he hit fewer HRs and RBIs than I projected;
(11) Prince Fielder was a bit below my expectations for HRs, Rs, and RBIs and OBA. I was even a little bit below PECOTA expectations. That said, at $15, he was still a good value and added heft to my team.
(12) Rick Ankiel disappointed since I thought he was going to be much more of a monster. He started the year way overperforming my expectations, but mysteriously lost muscle and body weight in late May. I have no problem taking players using steriods as long as they are committed to injections throughout the year;
(13) Ryan Zimmerman fell off from the pace he set in the last two years and became worse, rather than better. This was made worse by the fact that with Chipper Jones I could have covered 3B and left a UTL spot open for someone better.
I thought I'd attempt to comment on some of Justin's thoughts on why he went after certain players, trying to think back to how I thought of them.
A.J. Burnett - I don't remember what you paid for him, but I remember fighting you for him. I think this was a very good pick.
Lilly - Always a dark horse favorite to put up a good year. Rarely delivers on that promise, but rarely costs much money either, so he's worth it.
Andruw Jones - Defensible. Other smart people were hoping/predicting a comeback. I wasn't a believer having suffered through his craptastic 2007 in a different league. I avoided him like the plague and think he (amazingly enough) may simply be completely finished.
Willingham - To me, this was a puzzling keeper. If he was a young player on the upswing, I could have understood it, but (without looking) I think he was 28 or something coming into the year and my impression is that what he was in 2007 is about as good as he's ever going to be. I just don't like the idea of keeping a player who looks to me to be, at best, a fairly standard issue decent outfield option (with no steals, throw in 15 steals from him and I'll be all over him Corey Hart style, to my own downfall).
Butler - don't remember what you paid for him, but at low cost he was a decent option as he was, in theory, perfectly tailored for this league with his high OBP and power potential. He looked like a poor man's David Ortiz in the making, and still may be, he just wasn't last year.
Liriano - I had Liriano on my roster at the end of '07 and seriously toyed with the idea of keeping him at $15, but decided that it wasn't worth the risk. Turned out I was right, but it could have gone the other way (as did my decision not to keep Lincecum at $15).
Hughes - another guy that was worth a risk at a good price, just didn't pay off for you.
Bonderman - Ah, Jeremy Bonderman, The Destroyer of Teams (if not Worlds). He is the ultimate siren song of a guy who seems like he could blow up and dominate and insists on just blowing up in the more traditional sense. I avoided him like the plague this year after seeing him break down at the end of last year in every way possible such that it seemed he must be injured.
Lackey - I think not keeping him at $15 was the right choice given the seeming severity of his injury at the time the decision had to be made.
Chipper - He was a guy I wanted to avoid for pretty much the reason why he eventually wasn't as valuable as he could have been. He's always injured. He plays well when available, and at the right price could be a bargain, but he's simply not to be counted on.
Prince - was, as you say, still a good value at $15, but nevertheless was a real dissapointment for you that you could not have forseen. His OBP was particularly not that great and his power was obviously way down from 2007. He'll probably bounce back.
Ankiel - I wasn't a fan of Ankiel. I believed the power was real but I just felt he was the kind of guy that could hit 35 HR and kill you with OBP by turning in a .310 OBP or something like that.i
Zimmerman - there is substantial disagreement among analysts about his hitting potential. Until he proves otherwise, I've always seen him as a moderate offense guy who is going to be hurt by the team he plays with in the runs and RBI department. Not a guy I'd partiuclarly want on my team.
In the end, I don't think too many of these guys were egregious decisions to have on your team. Maybe you need a new manager. The bad chemistry is killing you.
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