Positional Rankings - 5x5

I am now down to less than 24 hours before the auction, and I am sitting in Midway unwilling to pay for internet in order to do any research, so I am going to do the next best thing – try to determine a clear strategy for the auction. But before diving into the strategy, though, let me lay out my top guys at each position (75 in the OF, 75 SP, 60 RP, and 15 everywhere else). However, I want to caveat these lists – these rankings are not 100% where I stand on each of these players, more of a starting point. A quick look at my methodology will make this clearer:

I start with a set of stat projections for the year (this year I used ZIPS, PECOTA, CAIRO, and OLIVER) and then I take a weighted average of those projections for every player. I then break these players into lists by position, putting each guy at his most valuable spot (so, for example, Martin Prado is listed under 2B but not under 3B – yes, I could use him at 3^rd, but if I am playing him at 3^rd there should be some team willing to move a better 3B for Prado, who that team would then use at 2B, where he provides more value).

I then rank all players at each position by each stat used in my league (so in this case, AVG, HR, R, RBI, SB or K, W, S, ERA, WHIP) take the average and standard deviation of the top X guys in each stat (where X=the number of guys at that position owned in my ottoneu league the year before), find z-scores for each player on each stat, add up the z-scores, and rank accordingly. Despite all the steps, this is actually an incredibly simplistic ranking – I don’t make many alterations to the inputs, I don’t do any detailed statistical analysis. So what you see below is an unaltered list for each position, with some notes below, explaining where I think these rankings err.

Make sense? Yeah, I know – that is a pretty significant caveat (effectively that I don’t really stand by these rankings), but these are what I start with as I prepare for the auction.  So, without further ado:

Catcher

Joe Mauer

Brian McCann

Buster Posey

Jesus Montero

Carlos Santana

Victor Martinez

J.P. Arencibia

Russell Martin

Mike Napoli

Matt Wieters

Kurt Suzuki

Geovany Soto

Jake Fox

Austin Romine

First and foremost, I should note that my rankings almost always over-rate prospects. I think OLIVER is somewhat to blame for this, but suffice it to say that calling Montero the #4 catcher this year seems a tad aggressive – sure, it is POSSIBLE, but I wouldn’t bank on it. That said, the top two are no-brainers and a tier to themselves. I am surprised how low Soto falls (lack of runs seems to pull him down). The fact that Miguel Montero and Jorge Posada aren’t even in the top-15 seems silly to me. Assuming health, I am quite content to send one of those two out there every day. And the projection systems love Fox, but I am not sold – I just traded him in the original ottoneu for Brett Jackson.  I’d drop J. Montero and Arencibia, probably Santana as well, and move up Posada and M. Montero. I’d also keep an eye on Hank Conger if he gets a shot (although Mike Napoli would probably warn him to get comfortable on the bench).

First Base

Albert Pujols

Joey Votto

Miguel Cabrera

Adrian Gonzalez

Prince Fielder

Ryan Howard

Mark Teixeira

Adam Dunn

Kevin Youkilis

Paul Konerko

Justin Morneau

James Loney

Billy Butler

Derrek Lee

Lance Berkman

This list is kind of messy cause there are a lot of question marks – does Fenway outweigh Gonzalez’s shoulder surgery? Does Miggy’s off-season pull him down? Can Morneau be Morneau or is this just an extension of the weekly “We swear he’ll be back soon!” reports from 2010? Does Comiskey get Dunn 50 HR? When will Konerko turn old? And so on. But the fact is , winning without at least one top 1B is tough, and most past ottoneu winners have had two. Some young guys (Ike Davis, Freddie Freeman, Kila Ka’aihue) are awfully intriguing, and Carlos Lee and David Ortiz are both on my radar as well. Berkman, by the way, should probably be listed with OF, not 1B – his value is much higher once he gets that OF eligibility.

Second Base

Robinson Cano

Chase Utley

Dan Uggla

Brandon Phillips

Ian Kinsler

Dustin Pedroia

Jose Lopez

Kelly Johnson

Neil Walker

Brian Roberts

Martin Prado

Aaron Hill

Rickie Weeks

Howie Kendrick

Placido Polanco

This is all pre-Utley’s knee (I moved Adam Dunn for Utley this off-season in original ottoneu, by the way – had Konerko, Morneau, Thome, and Dunn and a GLARING hole at all three MI spots, so I am just hoping he gets back by June or so). Obviously he is not #2 anymore. As for the rest, I hate Jose Lopez and have no idea why he gets to be so high. I think Neil Walker is probably too high. Brian Roberts may be done – I certainly won’t be paying for him. Ben Zobrist, Gordon Beckham, and Ryan Raburn should be on this list, too. I think Beckham will bounce back, and Zobrist has gone from surprising superstar to highly underrated considering he qualifies at 2B. Brad Emaus is also intriguing, now that he is starting. His minor league track record is pretty damn good.

Shortstop

Hanley Ramirez

Troy Tulowitzki

Tsuyoshi Nishioka

Jose Reyes

Derek Jeter

Alexei Ramirez

Jimmy Rollins

Stephen Drew

Miguel Tejada

Jhonny Peralta

Elvis Andrus

Starlin Castro

Dee Gordon

Asdrubal Cabrera

Alcides Escobar

These might be the worst of the rankings. Nishioka should not be that high (although I do think he will have some real value), Drew should not be that low, Gordon should not be on the list. Yunel Escobar and J.J. Hardy are bounce-back candidates and I am high on both. Not sure why Furcal gets no love, either. Although that may just be the result of RBI being added to HR as a power stat – I am not used to that. One other guy I am tracking is Brent Morel – he’ll be the starting 3B for the White Sox and while he won’t hit enough to play 3B in fantasy, he qualifies at SS in ottoneu.

Third Base

David Wright

Alex Rodriguez

Evan Longoria

Ryan Zimmerman

Pablo Sandoval

Mark Reynolds

Adrian Beltre

Michael Young

Pedro Alvarez

Mike Moustakas

Aramis Ramirez

Ian Stewart

Chase Headley

Casey McGehee

Chris Davis

I think A-Rod should probably be ahead of Wright, but really I have no issues with the top 4. Sandoval’s upside is around that crew, but his downside is pretty ugly, so I think there are guys I would rather have. But note how thin 3B is – what had been a power position for a while has really slipped this year. All in all, this list seems okay to me – Moustakas won’t play enough to really be a top 10 guy, I don’t think, nor will Michael Young. The patented Adrian Beltre Post-Contract Year Swoon could be coming on, although I think leaving Safeco benefited him more than a desire for a new contract.

Outfield

Ryan Braun

Carlos Gonzalez

Matt Holliday

Carl Crawford

Josh Hamilton

Justin Upton

Matt Kemp

Andrew McCutchen

Hunter Pence

Nelson Cruz

Alexis Rios

Nick Markakis

Vladimir Guerrero

Curtis Granderson

Michael Stanton

Jay Bruce

Andre Ethier

Corey Hart

Shane Victorino

Shin-Soo Choo

Jason Heyward

Carlos Lee

Torii Hunter

Jayson Werth

Chris Young

Nick Swisher

Jose Bautista

Ichiro Suzuki

Delmon Young

Adam Jones

Bobby Abreu

Adam Lind

B.J. Upton

Aubrey Huff

Brandon Belt

Raul Ibanez

Garrett Jones

Carlos Quentin

Juan Francisco

Denard Span

Jose Tabata

Alfonso Soriano

Mark Trumbo

Dominic Brown

Jason Bay

Vernon Wells

Mitch Moreland

Drew Stubbs

Julio Borbon

Michael Brantley

Chris Carter

Marlon Byrd

Brian Cavazos-Galvez

Jason Kubel

Magglio Ordonez

Brandon Laird

Austin Jackson

Mike Trout

Michael Cuddyer

Ryan Ludwick

Chris Coghlan

Luke Scott

Dave Sappelt

Peter Bourjos

Ryan Kalish

Colby Rasmus

Jeff Francoeur

Jacoby Ellsbury

Logan Morrison

Brett Jackson

Jerry Sands

Bryan LaHair

Johnny Damon

Juan Pierre

Allen Craig

I am not going to spend a ton of time on this list because it seems ridiculous to me. Speedsters are way over-rated, presumably because my system of analysis does a terrible job accounting for the scarcity of stolen bases. Beltran isn’t on here. J.D. Drew isn’t on here. David Dejesus, Alex Gordon – lots of guys I like. More importantly, guys like Bryan LaHair and Brian Cavazos-Galvez ARE on here and really really should not be. Basically, I need to reconsider how I mix projections and how I handle stats with high levels of scarcity, like stolen bases. This means I am going to have to be a lot less analytical and objective in the auction than I hoped - rather than just go off my lists and some price projections, I am going to have to be far more subjective in determining who is worth what, who falls where, etc. This will inevitably lead to me thinking I know more than I do and making poor decisions. Ugh.

Starting Pitchers

Felix Hernandez

Roy Halladay

Tim Lincecum

C.C. Sabathia

Adam Wainwright

Cliff Lee

Justin Verlander

Danny Haren

Zack Greinke

Jon Lester

Jered Weaver

Matt Cain

Cole Hamels

Ubaldo Jimenez

Roy Oswalt

Stephen Strasburg

Ted Lilly

Tommy Hanson

Clayton Kershaaw

Johan Santana

David Price

Chad Billingsley

Colby Lewis

Josh Johnson

Mat Latos

Daniel Hudson

Max Scherzer

Chris Carpenter

Javier Vazquez

Ricky Nolasco

John Danks

Wandy Rodriguez

Hiroki Kuroda

Yovani Gallardo

Jake Peavy

Francisco Liriano

Matt Garza

Jonathan Sanchez

Shaun Marcum

Scott Baker

James Shields

Ryan Dempster

Gavin Floyd

Clay Buchholz

Bronson Arroyo

Ervin Santana

Josh Beckett

Tim Hudson

Brett Myers

Phil Hughes

Jeremy Hellickson

Johnny Cueto

John Lackey

Madison Bumgarner

Trevor Cahill

Travis Wood

C.J. Wilson

Jair Jurrjens

Brian Matusz

Carlos Zambrano

Randy Wolf

Gio Gonzalez

Kevin Slowey

Dallas Braden

Jeremy Guthrie

Derek Lowe

Jaime Garcia

Jon Garland

Ian Kennedy

Barry Zito

Jeff Niemann

A.J. Burnett

Ricky Romero

Mark Buehrle

Brandon Webb

This list I am generally happy with. A couple things it doesn't know - like that Strasburg and Wainwright are hurt or that Kevin Slowey doesn't have a rotation spot. But all in all, not a TON to argue with. Personally, I don't think King Felix is #1 (Probably Lincecum, Halladay, Hernandez) and I would move Josh Johnson up a bit. A few other quibbles here and there, but all in all, I think I can work with this. 

Relief Pitchers

Jonathan Broxton

Matt Thornton

Carlos Marmol

Heath Bell

Joe Nathan

Brian Wilson

Jonathan Papelbon

Joakim Soria

Neftali Feliz

Mariano Rivera

Tyler Clippard

Hong-Chih Kuo

Luke Gregerson

Aroldis Chapman

Francisco Rodriguez

Sergio Romo

J.P. Howell

Ryan Madson

Mike Adams

Kris Medlen

Phil Coke

Huston Street

Joaquin Benoit

Sean Marshall

Joba Chamberlain

Rafael Soriano

Rafael Betancourt

Grant Balfour

Chris Sale

Takashi Saito

Andrew Bailey

Francisco Cordero

Joel Hanrahan

J.J. Putz

Frank Francisco

Brian Fuentes

Craig Breslow

Daniel Bard

Craig Kimbrel

Brandon Lyon

David Robertson

Carlos Villanueva

David Aardsma

Evan Scribner

Jose Valverde

Joe Thatcher

Chris Perez

Darren O’Day

Scott Downs

Brandon League

Ryan Franklin

Matt Belisle

Matt Guerrier

John Axford

Jonny Venters

Alexi Ogando

Joel Peralta

Nick Masset

Drew Storen

Dan Wheeler

So I seem to have a reverse SB issue here, where the highly scarce commodity (saves) is now way UNDER-valued. Great. But that is easily remedied by keeping a handy-dandy list of closers and closers-in-waiting nearby. The odd things with RP in ottoneu is that you get 5 of them each day. Under original ottoneu's 4x4 scoring, there were no saves, so the strategy here was just to get 5 guys each day who were likely to give you a solid inning or two. In this league, I will need saves which, I think, brings some football strategy into play: handcuffs! NFL RB and MLB closers have a lot in common - high injury rates, low job security, incredible value in traditional fantasy leagues - and just like you can't take Frank Gore without his backup du jour, bringing on Mariano Rivera without shelling out for Rafael Soriano is probably not a good strategy. Need to keep this in mind Thursday evening!

Ok, so those are my heavily caveated rankings (is caveated a word?  I don't think it is...). Sometime in the coming weeks I will post my rankings for the 4x4 league - those are more heavily vetted and I am much more confident in them; these are just a rough draft to use as a guide tomorrow and I hope they serve that purpose.

Sometime pre-auction, I will try to add a post on my overall strategy (this post got away from me a bit, and so we'll leave it as is). Either way, I will likely be on twitter (@chadyoung) tomorrow during the auction. I may toss a couple updates up here during breaks, but it may be easier to live-tweet rather than live-blog since the auction will be fast-moving.

The FanGraphs Experts League

Before going into anything else, let me provide some details on the league itself.

We will be using the "Old School" ottoneu settings - basically all of the roster implications of ottoneu, but traditional 5x5 roto stats. We'll have a $400 salary cap to fill a 40 man roster with the following starting positions:  C (technically there are two C spots, but that is just because it is so difficult to platoon catchers - we are still limited to 162 games at C), 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, MI, OFx5, Util, SPx5, RPx5. Players can be kept for a $2 increase in their salary, and you can keep anyone and everyone, if you want to. As I noted in the previous post, I have been playing ottoneu for five years now, so these roster considerations are pretty straightforward for me, but as the auction occurs and the season goes on, I am sure they will come up in posts quite a bit.

The 5x5 stats are actually a bit of a change for me. Part of the origination of ottoneu was an attempt to get rid of stats that either do not measure individual performance (like wins, which are team dependent) and stats that do not reflect a play making a contribution (like stolen bases, which in most cases are completely balanced out by high speed guys getting caught stealing). So for the past five years, my focus has been on a 4x4 league with OBP, SLG, HR, R for hitters and ERA, WHIP, K and HR/9* for pitchers.

Suddenly, I am losing OBP and SLG, instead getting AVG (so long, Adam Dunn), SB (Jacoby Ellsbury might actually have value in this league!) and RBI (time to avoid sluggers on bad teams). On the pitching side, I lose HR/9 (which my other team is actually quite strong in), and pick up wins (might make a Yankee pitcher other than CC ownable) and saves (time to play "guess the closer!"). This is going to mess with my knowledge of the game quite a bit and my guess is that all of my rankings will look a bit funky to you when I post them.

So...those are basically the rules.  As for the competition, there are 12 teams.

1) The league was set up by Eno Sarris from FanGraphs and he will be one of the 12 owners. He's the only other owner I have ever had any interaction with, which means I will likely lean on him in trade negotiations a bit - I find it easier to negotiate when I have at least some sense of how to interact with the person.

2) Two writers from Yahoo! Sports are joining the league - the first is Dave Brown, who just this morning posted a piece on Evan Longoria's AK-47. Not sure what the fantasy implications are of that but...well...yeah...

3) The other Yahoo! owner is Andy Behrens, who recently gave Michael Brantley a shout out as a guy worth watching. As a life-long Indians fan (which I am sure will influence my roster construction), this makes me quite happy and officially makes Andy my favorite other owner, at least for now.

4) Jeff Erickson and Peter Schoenke of Rotowire are the only co-owners in the league. Co-owners always confuse me - do I need them both to agree to a trade? And how do you handle an auction with a co-owner when auctions end if no bids are made in 15 seconds? Need to talk fast and hope other owners bid slow.

5) I have only recently started using KFFL and so I don't know much about Tim Heaney and Nicholas Minnix's fantasy perspective. It seems to me one advantage I SHOULD have in this league is that these guys are all paid to tell people what strategies to use, which means putting their own ideas down on (electronic) paper. Of course now I have started this blog so maybe I gave that up?

6) Andy Andres is a professor at Tufts University, alma mater of both ottoneu founder Niv Shah and my dad. If only I had followed in my dad's footsteps, I could have taken a course on Sabermetrics - Andy teaches one of the only courses on the topic offered anywhere.

7) Neil FitzGerald and 8) Tom Kephart are joining from BaseballHQ, where Ron Shandler plies his trade. Earlier this year, Niv was able to talk to Ron about ottoneu and learned that Ron had been talking about a similar style league...which likely means that Tom and Neil are more up to speed on what ottoneu is than anyone else.

9) ESPN split duties in writing positional previews for 2011 and one of my competitors, James Quintong, wrote the preview for 3B.  Which means I know exactly what he thinks of each 3B.  I have no idea how to take advantage of this.

10) Me. Sites featuring fantasy analysis from other owners in this league are listed above. Sites featuring my analysis?  None.  Well, unless you count this one. Which I don't. And I imagine you don't either.

This could get ugly.

Update: Seems the lineup has changed a bit - Derek Van Riper and Kevin O'Brien from Rotowire are in with one team, as is Jack Moore from RotoHardball. I'll add them to the list above at some point, but wanted to at least give their due. Welcome aboard!

*Technically we have been using slugging percentage against for pitchers, but moving forward, ottoneu will be using HR/9. The change has some real implications but nothing like the change from our 4x4 to the traditional 5x5.

Welcome to the Show

Maybe it isn't exactly making The Show, but for a life-long baseball fan who was always better at the fantasy game than the real game, the opportunity I have before me is still pretty exciting. This year, I will be starting what should be a multi-year dynasty fantasy league with a group of top fantasy baseball experts.

My plan is to use this blog to document my attempt to beat the pros at their own game - and to just talk fantasy baseball in general. I expect to analyze basically every transaction that takes place in this league, delve into the other league I am playing in, and maybe add a bit of advice for any other fantasy players out there.

I was going to offer up some background on ottoneu, but all the information is now right here, thanks to Niv Shah, who first built a website to manage a game that no one else on the net could manage for us and has now made the game available to fantasy baseball fans world-wide through a partnership with FanGraphs.

As part of the launch of the game, FanGraphs writer Eno Sarris put together the aforementioned league of experts, and he and Niv decided I would be a good addition - my lack of credentials notwithstanding. I have won three championships in the short five-year history of the original ottoneu league, but beating friends in a game I helped invent seems like a rather flimsy resume compared to the gentlemen I have been asked to compete with (I'll introduce my competition in another post).

That said, I will be doing everything in my power to compete with the big boys, and I'll be documenting that (likely futile) effort here at Playing the Pros.

Opening Day is coming up shortly - as is the FanGraphs Experts League auction - so in the next few days I will be working hard preparing for the season. Expect 1) an introduction of the league including the rules we are using and my competition, 2) my positional player rankings, 3) a note on my strategy for the auction. If I have time, I may try to drop in something on the original ottoneu league, where I will be trying to defend my title.