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Anatomy of a Collapse (October 15, 2003)

Posted 5:33 p.m., October 15, 2003 (#20) - Matt
  Great, great stuff Tango, many thanks.
Keep up the good work.
Two comments (1) This was not just about the Cubs blowing it, it was also about the Marlins getting one big hit after another to win the game. They aren't getting nearly enough credit. What happened to the old cliche of "good teams pounce on your mistakes"? The Marlins certainly did.
(2) I don't like the fan getting a negative score that assumes a sure out on this play. Alou very well might have caught the ball, but there is also at least some possibility that he wouldn't have. Again this doesn't make for good media coverage to admit the possibility that the play might not have been made anyway.

Sabremetrics 301: Custom Linear Weights (December 18, 2003)

Posted 12:30 p.m., December 23, 2003 (#3) - Matt
  Neat stuff. But what's a "PickoffError"? How is it bad? I assumed it was an error on a Pickoff throw by the pitcher, which would often allow the runners to advance. So how could that have a negative run value? Maybe it's picking up something else, or I don't know what a PickoffError is.

Sabremetrics 301: Custom Linear Weights (December 18, 2003)

Posted 12:02 p.m., December 26, 2003 (#6) - Matt
  Got it, thanks for the breakdown.

MLB Timeline - Best players by position (January 14, 2004)

Posted 12:06 p.m., January 19, 2004 (#15) - Matt
  Very interesting list.

Man, I wish the Dodgers hadn't gotten rid of John Wetteland (for Eric Davis). And Pedro Martinez (for Delino).

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 1:18 p.m., February 25, 2004 (#54) - Matt
  My league has 12 teams -- J. Cross, how do you think your equations would change because of that? Or, how did you get your data on 100 teams, so maybe I can do it myself for leagues with 12 teams? Does your data have other stats as well (my league is more like a 10x10 system, apparently)?

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 1:51 p.m., February 25, 2004 (#55) - Matt
  Disregard the part of my last post about having 12 teams. I just now found your post where you addressed that issue. Still wondering about other stats, though.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 2:36 p.m., February 25, 2004 (#61) - Matt
  Actually, I guess what I need to compare is the roster requirements. Do all of the ESPN teams have the same roster requirements? I see these:
c,1b,2b,3b,ss, 5xOF, 2b/ss, 1b/3b, Util, Bench
9xP, 3xBench

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 11:52 a.m., February 26, 2004 (#67) - Matt
  The more I think about this thread, the more I realize how much I'm not understanding here. But I think I'm getting it.

One confusion I have is how you're handling Batting Average. That .28 figure that you're using in post #52, does it matter what you use there? That is, since I have more teams in the league, should I change that number? Because I understand that the constants for the other stats come out in the wash. The same question would go for SLG and OBP and others.

The other questions are just requests. Could anyone figure out SDs (like in post #52 or #48) for other stats? Hits, walks, and total bases for hitters, and innings pitched, CG, walks, holds (?!), and K/9 for pitchers? And will you have data or Marcels for CG and holds?

Also, do you have data and Marcels for

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 12:58 p.m., February 26, 2004 (#69) - Matt
  Thanks. I know the Marcels are the dummy prediction, but I don't see these fringe stats like CG and Holds (or Saves, for that matter) in the Zips. I'm using the Zips for everything else, though. I could probably get them from DMB but I haven't decided if I want to buy that disk yet. :-) Although I now see that RotoTimes has them so I'll use those for now. But if you get around to finding the SDs for other stats that would be great (I guess from individual player stats, should be adequate). I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have any way to do that.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 12:17 p.m., February 27, 2004 (#70) - Matt
  I found that I could use the Lahman database to try to get the numbers you posted in #52, tangotiger. And I'm spot-on with the numbers for PA>=300. But I'm nowhere close for PA>=500. Here's what I get, following your lead of setting HR to 1:
HR=1
SB=0.93
R=0.61
RBI=0.44

All I'm doing is finding the standard deviation for these stats, for all players, 1994-2002, with greater than the listed number of PA. Then taking the SD for HR and dividing it by the SD of the other stats. Is that right? How come we have this discrepancy?

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 12:30 p.m., February 27, 2004 (#71) - Matt
  This Lahman database is fun. I can probably run my own queries to answer my questions, if I make sure I understand what's happening here.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 12:24 p.m., March 5, 2004 (#102) - Matt(e-mail)
  I think that you don't need to worry about the expected standard deviation on the team level, but you can just use the standard deviation from whatever pool of players you decide is appropriate. This is based on the assumption that the players are randomly distributed among the teams in your league (whether you think this assumption is plausible is up to you). If so, then the team standard deviation will just be (sd of players)/(sqrt (# of teams in league)). Since you are dividing every sd by the same number, and all you care about is ranking the players relative to one another, it doesn't affect anything. I think this is right, let me know if I'm wrong in my thinking.

J. Cross, I'd be interested in seeing your spreadsheet. I have a spreadsheet that ranks players based on sds, but am struggling to figure out how to make it dynamically re-rank. You could e-mail to me, thanks very much.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 5:28 p.m., March 11, 2004 (#118) - Matt
  What would your (plural) suggestions be for figuring replacement level in these fantasy situations, where you have roster spots that are flexible? For instance, our league has 2 starting pitchers, 2 relief pitchers, and 3 just plain pitchers which could be anyone.

My current idea is that I would find the 20 (10 teams in the league x 2) best SPs and the 20 best RPs, then combine all the pitchers back together and find the 30 next best pitchers. That part makes sense, I guess. But then what value do I use to calculate Value-Over-Replacement for, say, Prior? The 20th best SP, or the #30 guy from the 30 next best pitchers?

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 11:51 a.m., March 12, 2004 (#123) - Matt
  When I look at it, calculating replacement level works out about the same either way (post 118 or 119). The only problem arises with catchers. If I take the top 110 hitters (we start 8 position players and 3 utility guys) and call the 110th guy replacement level, then only one catcher is above this replacement level. Most catchers are well below. But I think this method is pretty reasonable anyways. Let me know if anyone else has any other thoughts.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 5:09 p.m., March 15, 2004 (#126) - Matt
  The other thing I keep struggling with is how to value guys that are in "scarce" positions. Right now I'm thinking about Gagne. I calculate him to be worth "8" in our scoring system -- let's just take this number as truth. The next best reliever is Billy Wagner, at "4." If it's my turn to pick, and I can choose between Gagne, or Vladimir Guerrero, (rated at "17" with the next outfielder after him at "16") whom do I choose, if I know that neither one will be available when it gets back to me? Because obviously Guerrero is worth more, but since everyone has to choose a reliever, Gagne is worth marginally more than reliever that will be available the next time I pick. I keep coming back to the conclusion that I should take Gagne, but I'm wondering what y'all think.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 1:39 p.m., March 16, 2004 (#139) - Matt
  In re: post #128, I've already converted everything to standard deviations. So my evaluation of Gagne, Guerrero, etc. are already converted to a standard scale.

I'm being converted over to Tangotiger's method. If nothing else, it makes drafting a heckuvalot easier, since I don't have to try to figure out what other people are going to draft before I get to pick again. I will just choose the player with the highest value above replacement. If I see any weird distributions emerging, like the skewed distributions in your examples, I will be aware of them, and if players have similar VORP, perhaps I will choose the player from the skewed distribution.

One thing I realized is that, since most leagues let you have some form of "utility" player who can play any position, the VORP for a particular player can have two values. For example, I have the replacement-level 2B valued at 15, so if I am looking to draft a 2B, I should compare them all to 15. But once I have picked a 2B, I have to compare all the other 2B to a different value, 17, which is what I figure the replacement-level "generic hitter" will be at the end of the draft.

Overall, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for posting here and answering my questions and discussing these things. I have learned a lot and will be much better prepared for my draft on Saturday, my first year in fantasy baseball since high school.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 1:26 p.m., March 23, 2004 (#150) - Matt
  I know that talking about your own fantasy team is like the most boring thing in the world to other people, but anyways. I had my draft, and I learned a lesson. I seriously underestimated the quality of outfielder that would be left at the end of the draft (i.e, the replacement level OF). This caused me to completely overvalue OFs, and drafted 6 of them in the first 7 rounds. Now I have too much hitting and not enough pitching.

I think this was mostly because other people had different ideas about who the good outfielders were. I set the replacement level at about the 70th best OF, but at the end of the day, I should have set it at about the 40th best OF. If anyone still has to draft, you may want to take into account other people's sub-optimal drafting evaluations when setting replacement level. Perhaps it's more obvious who the top people are at the other positions, and there are less to choose from, but I pretty much nailed the replacement level for everything else except OF.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 1:31 p.m., March 23, 2004 (#151) - Matt
  I know that talking about your own fantasy team is like the most boring thing in the world to other people, but anyways. I had my draft, and I learned a lesson. I seriously underestimated the quality of outfielder that would be left at the end of the draft (i.e, the replacement level OF). This caused me to completely overvalue OFs, and drafted 6 of them in the first 7 rounds. Now I have too much hitting and not enough pitching.

I think this was mostly because other people had different ideas about who the good outfielders were. I set the replacement level at about the 70th best OF, but at the end of the day, I should have set it at about the 40th best OF. If anyone still has to draft, you may want to take into account other people's sub-optimal drafting evaluations when setting replacement level. Perhaps it's more obvious who the top people are at the other positions, and there are less to choose from, but I pretty much nailed the replacement level for everything else except OF.

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 7:36 p.m., March 24, 2004 (#153) - Matt
  Ten teams in my league, choosing from both AL and NL. We need three OFs and three utility players which can be from any position. Thus, a total of 11 hitters per team. We also draft 5 bench players which can be hitters or pitchers, I figured about 3 of those would be hitters, per team. That gives us 30 outfielders to be drafted, and a total of about 140 players.

When I sorted my player list by "value" (calculated by standard deviations), the top 140 players included about 70 outfielders. I had to add in a few catchers to that 140, but that's minor. I still had 60-70 outfielders that I thought would be drafted. Now, it's true that 60-70 outfielders were drafted, but about a dozen of my top 70 were not drafted. And the ones that are left are somewhat distributed throughout the list, so that a couple of guys who I have ranked about 30th are still available, and so are several guys that are ranked in the low 40's.

What do you think? Did I make a mistake somewhere?

FANTASY CENTRAL (February 21, 2004)

Posted 2:16 p.m., March 25, 2004 (#155) - Matt
  I would say that yes, 10-20% of my top players at other positions were not drafted. However, the effect was not as great for the other positions, in that I would say I was only off by a little bit when predicting replacement level for the other positions.

For most of the other positions, 10-20% is like one or two guys. I can think of the players left at the end of the draft as randomly distributed throughout my list, but obviously more likely to come from the bottom of the list and increasingly less likely to come from the top. So with 1-2 guys left at one position, it is not too likely that someone will be left that I consider "mid-range." But with 20 guys, as in the case of the OFs, that's pretty likely. Also, if just one guy is left in a position in the mid-range, I have a tough time calling that "replacement level." But with the OFs, there start to be quite a few guys left at a certain level.

It didn't happen with pitchers -- my replacement level estimate was pretty close. My hypothesis is that the mid-range guys that would have been left by other people, got drafted by me later on, whereas I couldn't take any more OFs.

Pappas - Marginal $ / Marginal Wins (March 9, 2004)

Posted 12:03 p.m., March 10, 2004 (#8) - Matt
  You could try doing everything with the log of salary, instead of just straight salary. That's common when working with income data, of course, and would take care of any exponential problem.

As a Dodgers fan, I am very surprised by those numbers. (1) I am surprised that their adjusted payroll number is not higher, (2) surprised that they have won more games than would be expected from their payroll. All I hear about is all the fat contracts the Dodgers have sunk into bad/injured players (Darren Dreifort being the poster boy), and how they don't live up to expectations every year. Of course, this is from reading the LA papers, where they will never live up to expectations unless they win the WS, and where expectations aren't based on actual talent level.

Pappas - Marginal $ / Marginal Wins (March 9, 2004)

Posted 12:03 p.m., March 11, 2004 (#14) - Matt
  Sorry, with my log comment I was just thinking off the top of my head. I was thinking about it at the player level -- usually at the individual level, salaries are distributed more exponentially, so using a log of salary works better for regression. But you're completely right, when you look at the graph at the team level, it just looks linear.

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