It is fairly commonplace now days to have a multitude of resources that help you compete in fantasy sports. Whether you use magazines, subscription websites or various crowd sourcing tools, there is usually little problem in drawing what a player’s value will be in any fantasy league.
Dynasty Grinders is not different enough to make those types of tools useless. Quite the opposite, I believe in having more information to gather to draw my conclusions. The crowd definitely has information for you to draw from.
That being said, there are differences. Dynasty Grinders is a head to head, points based scoring, dynasty fantasy baseball league. It is similar to FanGraphs‘s version of Ottoneu, but different. We have a larger budget, draft different positions, more players. It is similar to standard dynasty leagues, but different, mostly because we are not roto.
That being said they all offer a synopsis of sorts about how the crowds are assuming players are going to perform from year to year. They are just projections, but these projections offer a baseline. This baseline is necessary to judge assumed value of any given player. The trick here for Dynasty Grinders is how to calibrate various projections or draft utilities to Dynasty Grinders’ settings.
FanGraphs does offer a nice auction calculator utility. It actually works quite nicely. But, alas, it also has its short comings. Take for instance the values of these top 5’s using Steamer Projections and with standard roster construction:
FanGraphs Auction Calc – Standard Hitters
| Name | Team | POS | PA | rPTS | Dollars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Trout | LAA | OF | 671 | 1256.1 | $89.8 |
| Bryce Harper | WAS | OF | 647 | 1174.0 | $78.5 |
| Giancarlo Stanton | MIA | OF | 647 | 1127.2 | $72.0 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | ARI | 1B | 658 | 1123.7 | $69.7 |
| Miguel Cabrera | DET | 1B | 649 | 1091.9 | $65.3 |
Phew, $90 for Mike Trout? Hot damn. That’s a hefty price for the guy who’s won four one MVPs. But, in a sixteen team league, and with the projection of 1256 points, he has a value that it would take several players to make up at other positions. Let’s take a look at pitchers.
FanGraphs Auction Calc – Standard Pitchers
| Name | Team | POS | IP | rPTS | Dollars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton Kershaw | LAD | SP | 217 | 1430.3 | $118.4 |
| Max Scherzer | WAS | SP | 212 | 1264.2 | $95.6 |
| Chris Sale | CHW | SP | 210 | 1251.9 | $93.9 |
| Jake Arrieta | CHC | SP | 208 | 1189.3 | $85.3 |
| Corey Kluber | CLE | SP | 211 | 1183.4 | $84.4 |
And there you have it. Starting pitchers! Now, nobody is arguing who is on the list. Those guys are studs, and in weeks that they start twice, your team is sitting in the clear driver seat.
Why the higher values? Well the context matters. First, this auction calculator is not considering that we’re a dynasty league, so while Max Scherzer is quite good, it might be better to throw the extra dollars on Corey Kluber who should be fairly easy to keep for the next half decade.
Secondly, Three of these guys are projected to outscore Mike Trout for the season. Now, any rational betting man would probably put their money on Trout to meet projections more than any other player. Pitchers are volatile, perform a job that biomechanically impacts their ability to stay healthy, and their statistical floors are just lower.
Finally, FanGraphs is tied to OttoNeu which doesn’t do head to head. They’re doing roto. This makes a difference too. Dynasty Grinders allows 7 starts per week. The guys listed above are going to get every chance to start no matter what. However, our league is likely to be prone to people not carrying 7 man staffs and streaming starts like FanGraphs assumes.
No, more likely you’ll be carrying a 9 or even 10 man starting pitcher staff. Why? Because, after the third or forth tier of starting pitcher, match-ups start to matter quite a bit. So while most teams will have their first four or five starts each week pigeon holed, those last ones often leave tactical match-up decisions.
Being able to keep 30 active players, it makes sense to grab more starters to have more choices, and also limit the streaming ability for other teams in a way. If you could pick 6 good starters who won’t get hurt, you could just do that. For those of us who can’t predict the future, we will be hedging.
So what does that change? Well let’s tweak the auction calculator, instead of letting it use the bench spots wherever, lets tell it that all 16 teams are carrying the following roster:
2 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 SS, 1 3B, 1 CI, 1 MI, 6 OF, 2 UT, 10 SP, 4 RP
Yes, while we’re not able to capitalize on all these players as full-time starters, these guys who we will be bidding on backups, do offer coverage on a week to week basis. Each week offers an extremely limited opportunity in getting starts at each position. If Mike Trout is only playing 5 games one week, you’d rather have a backup play the other two days if possible, rather than leaving the spot open. You’d also rather have a starting capable player over the replacement level one. We’re all trying to win here…so what does the FanGraphs Auction Calculator say now?
FanGraphs Auction Calc – Adjusted Roster Hitters
| Name | Team | POS | PA | rPTS | Dollars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Trout | LAA | OF | 671 | 1256.1 | $55.3 |
| Bryce Harper | WAS | OF | 647 | 1174.0 | $49.7 |
| Giancarlo Stanton | MIA | OF | 647 | 1127.2 | $46.5 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | ARI | 1B | 658 | 1123.7 | $44.0 |
| Miguel Cabrera | DET | 1B | 649 | 1091.9 | $41.9 |
Well, that’s quite a difference… Let’s see those pitchers again…
FanGraphs Auction Calc – Adjusted Roster Pitchers
| Name | Team | POS | IP | rPTS | Dollars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton Kershaw | Dodgers | SP | 217 | 1430.3 | $71.1 |
| Max Scherzer | Nationals | SP | 212 | 1264.2 | $59.7 |
| Chris Sale | White Sox | SP | 210 | 1251.9 | $58.9 |
| Jake Arrieta | Cubs | SP | 208 | 1189.3 | $54.6 |
| Corey Kluber | Indians | SP | 211 | 1183.4 | $54.2 |
Now these prices almost seem too low. They probably are. The truth is that the prices are most likely in between these two values of sorts. If you click on the links that I provided. You’ll see the difference more so.
In the original list, FanGraph’s AC is setting the replacement level ($1) for players ranked 16th, 17th, 18th. That’s certainly low. Addison Russell, Erick Aybar, and Brandon Crawford are all in that “zone”, and they’re all going for at least a few dollars, if not even more.
In the second list, where the replacement level for SS is being set much lower, those three guys are all being rated around $7. Low or high? Who knows. In the case of Russell, a rookie last year, perhaps its low, as the young guys attract value in dynasty leagues.
But, when you tell the calculator that there will be money spent on the bottom of the roster, that lowers how much can be spent on the top players. Over the next two and a half months leading up to the draft, I will be going over these valuations much more. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Oh, Happy New Year!
