Fantasy Baseball: AL Late Round Picks

In an effort to unite the clans...er...fantasy baseball blogosphere, Dom the Baseball Don over at Fantasy Baseball Island put together a list of Late Round NL picks, and I'm going to offer a few AL picks:

1. Kei Igawa (NYY-SP): I think that Philip Hughes is going to be a very popular pick this year, and will rise a few rounds earlier than he should. But in the few mock drafts I've done, Igawa has been available well into the late late rounds. Both Yankee hurlers are good options for wins, but Igawa may represent a bigger bargain.

2. Dustin Pedroia (Bos-2B): Someone has to play second base for the Red Sox, and all the platoons are usually dominated by the OF for them. He looks to be a Loretta-type player, much better suited for points leagues, but will provide a decent batting average boost. (For those set at 2B, maybe Kevin Youkilis at 3B is more up your alley.)

3. Ian Kinsler (Tex-2B): However nice Pedroia may be, Kinsler is a much surer bet. However, he's also much more likely to be taken in the mid-rounds, which is why I'm listing him later than Dustin. A very 'toolsey' player, Kinsler is poised to produce both power and speed for your roster.

4. Mark Teahen (KC-3B): Being out-hyped by future phenom Alex Gordon is not a bad thing for those looking for draft day bargains. Teahen showed considerable talent finishing off the season in '06, and will feature in an increasingly talented, underappreciated and overlooked Royals lineup. Offering a bit of speed and 20+ HR possibility to go with a smooth swing, here is yet another reason not to reach for a top 5 3B at the top of a draft.

5. Wily Mo Pena (Bos-OF): Still in a bit of a platoon situation, if he manages to get 500+ ABs could very well hit 35 HRs. He could also near .300 AVG, but look for something more around .280. (Strikes out WAY too much for points league consideration.)

Fantasy Baseball: They May Not Be Real, But They're Spectacular

I've been over at FakeTeams.com lately, and they have an excellent group of contributors. Multiple articles per day, a strong viewership and active comments all make for a great site. It's a very good mix of daily advice, highlights of baseball articles from other sources, and original insight. Don't forget to tell 'em NoPepperGames sent ya!

Fantasy Baseball 101: Blood, Sweat and Tiers

Chase Utley (Phi-2B) went fourth overall in a recent expert mock draft. Joe Mauer (Min-C) then went 18th overall later in the next round. We all know the importance of these players, and how much they loom over the talent far below them at their respective positions. We also know that there were many players taken after these picks that will provide much better numbers, but at different, “deeper” positions. But at what point do you decide that the draft urgency between Joe Mauer and Victor Martinez is greater than that of the player at the top of your list (and the next guy at that player’s position that will be available when the draft comes back around), and how do you put yourself in a position to utilize this information?

The answer is simple – tier your rankings.

Having cut my fantasy teeth in fantasy football, and being in a long-running baseball points league, tiering my rankings is a necessity. However, it’s much tougher in a Rotisserie league, where the value of SB production must be directly compared to RBI production. Putting a direct numerical value to these figures would involve a great amount of effort – effort I simply don’t have.

Err…what?

That’s right – I’m not going to do it. Coming up with my own rankings is pointless, redundant, time-consuming and redundant. Why? Because people far smarter than I am have beaten me to it, and do it far better than I could possibly dream of. Go to a bookstore, go to amazon.com, run a search on “fantasy baseball rankings”, or go to the fantasy baseball website of your choice (but come back!), and get some rankings – any rankings will do, just so long as they’re relevant. If you find a set of rankings that includes auction values, even better. Now go through these rankings, and divide them by position (for multi-eligible players, assign them to the most scarce position (see Ranking Positional Depth for insight on this). Whenever there is a significant difference between players, draw a line between them.

“What’s your definition of ‘significant difference’?” This too is somewhat subjective. Everyone here in the blogosphere is working on that – do the same research you’ve been doing that found you here reading my ramblings. Check the mock drafts over at www.mockdraftcentral.com and see where the breaks are. Make notes as to how much of a gap this represents. The difference between Utley and Cano/Roberts is much larger than the difference between Mauer/Martinez/McCann and the rest of the catchers. Avoid making too many tiers – three is a good goal (4 or 5 for OF and SP).

When it comes draft day, trends emerge. Fantasy football veterans should be very familiar with the term “run on kickers” or “run on defense” or on tight ends. The same thing happens in baseball – especially with catchers and closers. But occasionally, you’ll witness runs on deeper positions. A more recent expert mock draft saw seven shortstops taken in the first two rounds (15 team league). This is absolutely insane. There are two good picks in these – Jose Reyes (the first taken) and Raphael Furcal (the last taken). “I've never seen a run in a draft that early in my nearly 12 years in fantasy,” remarked Brad Evans of Yahoo! Fantasy Sports. “Typically, I tend to avoid position runs and when shortstops flew off the draft board I tried to concentrate on who were the best available players regardless of position at the time. Usually, you can slip a golden puck pass the goalie in those situations. Travis Hafner with the 7th pick in the 2nd round was just that.”

Boiled down to its basics, your goal is to either recognize comparable talent further down your tier and wait on it, or to draft the final player on a tier. The tough part is realizing that you’ll be working with eight sets of tiers and having to juggle them within a time-limit. Evans succeeded in drafting one of the top teams in that draft because he avoided that ridiculous run on SSs (and a later run on closers).

NoPepperGames: Chomping at the Bit

Here at NoPepperGames headquarters, the staff has been noticing a huge increase in the amount of traffic. This is due largely to a number of great fantasy baseball blogs out there that have added my link to their sites. I cannot thank Fantasy Baseball Guy, The Waiver Wire, and Fantasy Baseball Island (and soon Lenny Melnick) enough for their contributions.

However nice it is being linked to, and how much it leads viewership increases, all of this means very little if there isn't a product here for you to consume. I dropped off the map mid-season last year, but am positive that this new picture of Cal Ripken hanging next to my desk is all that's standing between me and a consistent level of bloggery. That, and the fact that I'm no longer free-basing horse tranquilizers.

Anyway, if there are any questions you'd like to submit (draft strategy, fantasy team analysis, draft analysis, sleeper suggestions, the color of my eyes) feel free to e-mail me (link on the right).

Fantasy Baseball: Gentlemen, Start Your (Web) Engines!

Today is the day Yahoo! opens up their fantasy baseball leagues. They've delayed it a day in order to install some new fancy accoutrements, so we'll see how those work out. With ESPN.com switching to free leagues, I hope the competition forces them to offer some of the nice features they've had in the PLUS leagues for free.

I noticed that ESPN is offering Head-to-Head points-based leagues, which is (in my opinion) the only way to play a H2H league (but is still a fair ways off from regular Rotisserie, which is the absolute way to be playing fantasy baseball).

Yahoo hasn't dropped the green flag yet, but here's hoping you get a dandy draft time.

Fantasy Baseball: Ranking Position Depth

My 2B rankings discussion of yesterday may be a bit surprising to people (if so, please comment - I'd love to hear some input). I was having a similar discussion regarding the depth and shallowness of the other positions for fantasy baseball, and did some number tinkering. For reference, I used numbers derived from last year's player statistics, projected into a standard points league (detailed at the bottom of this post).

Taking the top 300* hitters (sorry, no pitchers or DHs here - the pitching numbers don't marry well as a direct comparison in points leagues, and the DHs are too few), you get the following standard deviations within those positions. (For those unfamiliar with a standard deviation, it's a rough statistical calculation of how much members of a group vary amongst themselves. If a group all score very similar points, that group will have a very low standard deviation. If the difference between players is great, then their standard deviation will be larger.)

1B	149.0868
SS	144.6618
OF	125.9941
C	119.4956
3B	107.5955
2B	103.2491

*Note: There are 3 Utils of note here (Ortiz, Hafner and Thomas). To fit them in, I'm actually putting them into every category to raise each StDev even

Whoa, what are the Firstbasemen doing up so high?!? Well, when you factor in how unbelievably well Pujols, Howard and Ortiz performed, they really skew the numbers. Plus, once you get beyond the 20th 1B, things really spiral downward. And the high score for SSs seem to be in line with early expert mock drafts, where 8-9 SSs are being drafted before Round 7. So let's focus in a bit, and take just the starters (okay, top 15, 40 for OFs) for a 12 team league:

C	91.97971
2B	77.91002
OF	72.2821
1B	71.14352
3B	64.33469
SS	62.42214

Here's where putting the Utils starts to skew things a bit - take a look at those Catchers! Taking them out gets the following:

1B	69.7932
OF	69.03502
3B	64.33469
SS	53.29755
C	53.02394
2B	49.30079

So what does this mean - grab a 1B as soon as possible? Not necessarily - but it demonstrates a number of things:

1. 2B is a much more consistent category than thought. Utley is still king, and there's a big gap, but once you get beyond that, there's not much variation. (An Utley-free list drops 2B to 34.2.)
2. 1B has incredibly talent at the top. (Without Pujols and Howard, that number drops to 48.1.)
3. OF is consistently mislabelled as a "deep" position. Feel free to wait on your #3, but your #1 and #2 better be good to be competitive.
4. People are drafting SSs with a bit too much enthusiasm. If 8-9 SSs are going in the first 7 rounds, why would you reach for one? Spend your time upgrading your usual SP or OF, and wait for these shallower position players later in the draft.

And don't forget - if you're in a Roto league, these projections MUST be taken with a grain of salt. Keeping track of how you're doing in particular categories is imperative, and points-league rankings do not reflect these differences.

My Points League Setup:
Singles, Walks, RBIs and Runs: 1 pt
Double, Stolen Bases, Sacrifice: 2 pts
Triple: 3 pts
Home Run: 4 pts
Strikeout: -1 pt
Caught Stealing: -2 Pts

Fantasy Baseball: 2007 Second Basemen Draft Strategy

So it seems apparent to everyone that second base is the shallowest position on draft day. Experts have been saying, we've been saying, so it must be true, right? Certainly by looking at last year's numbers, it would certainly seem that way.

But let's take a look. A reputable online fantasy site is currently ranking them thusly (auction values deleted):

1. Chase Utley, Phillies
2. Brian Roberts, Orioles
3. Robinson Cano, Yankees
4. Brandon Phillips, Reds
5. Rickie Weeks, Brewers
6. Howie Kendrick, Angels
7. Dan Uggla, Marlins
8. Tadahito Iguchi, White Sox
9. Josh Barfield, Indians
10. Jeff Kent, Dodgers
11. Marcus Giles, Padres
12. Ray Durham, Giants
13. Ian Kinsler, Rangers
14. Jorge Cantu, Devil Rays
15. Luis Castillo, Twins
16. Orlando Hudson, Diamondbacks
17. Jose Lopez, Mariners
18. Jose Castillo, Pirates

Certainly, after Utley, everyone else paled in comparison. But after Utley, was there really all that much difference between these players? If I miss out on drafting Utley, am I hosed? No, I really don't think so. All of those players between #2-9 could put up nearly identical numbers. If Kent and Giles return healthy and play 140 games, they could put up similar numbers. If Kinsler is as good as they say, he could put up 20-20 numbers. (I have no idea why Durham is listed so highly.) I think Cantu is in for a better year than last year, and Castillo (the Luis flavor) is always a good source of SBs. Lopez is a potential to breakout as well.

So while none of those guys are going to put up Chase Utley numbers in '07, they all are going to be good go-to players. And in '08, we could be saying "Get your good 1B while you can, because the 2Bs are identical from #1-10."