Week 7 Real Rankings/Trade Review

NOTES
We're 1/3 of the way through the season, which is a good time to start assessing where you're at and what you plan to do moving forward.

The recent trade between Jeff and Jason is an interesting one. Chatwood and Carpenter have been major disappointments while Jon Gray has done his typical flash of brilliance followed by stretches of suckdom. At this point in the season, it's perfectly reasonable to assess a player and what they will produce.  However, there's still time to overcome underperformance, so it's not set in stone. But Carp is projecting at 59/14/59/0/.323 and Chatwood at 3.70/1.62 with 150 K, while Gray is at 5.33/1.39 but with 209 K and the key difference is Chatwood is getting lucky 5.35 xFIP while Gray is decidedly unlucky at 2.94 xFIP.  Chatwood and Carpenter may very well turn it around and Carp has been better as of later, but at this point, there was no reason to give up on a solid SP4 with SP2 upside to get them. Jeff wins this one by a big margin.

Like Judge and Bellinger last year, Ozzie Albies has come up and shown the bigs really aren't THAT hard. Meanwhile, 19 year-olds like Ronald Acuna and Juan Soto are sprinting through minor league systems in one season -- both have now done the Low A to Majors route in one season or less. It's a young man's sport and identifying the right one can mean the difference between being a good team and a great one.

Speaking of great teams, Thor and Tomohawk have shown remarkable consistency, both with volatility in the 0.5 range. That's really difficult to do 7 weeks into the season, particularly when you consider Chad has the 4th best hitting and 4th best pitching.

Meanwhile, consistency isn't such a great thing when you're in the bottom. With VARs in the 1.5 range, Brokeback and Donkey should perhaps start considering making some changes. Meanwhile, Cowhide is really feeling the strain of a tough draftboard.

There's a lot of stars in the top 25 this year. Mostly keepers, Ozzie, two young RPs, a guy who was dropped by a moron, Haniger, Story, and a surprising Morton.

1 Mookie Betts Bos - OF  Sexual Napalm
2 Mike Trout LAA - OF  Montezuma's Revenge
3 Justin Verlander Hou - P  Donkey Punchers
4 Bryce Harper Was - OF  Thor's Hammered
5 Gerrit Cole Hou - P  Donkey Punchers
6 Max Scherzer Was - P  Montezuma's Revenge
7 Ozzie Albies Atl - 2B Tomahawk chops
8 Aaron Judge NYY - OF  Moose is Loose!
9 Manny Machado Bal - 3B,SS  Sexual Napalm
10 José Ramírez Cle - 2B,3B  The Angry Pirates
11 Freddie Freeman Atl - 1B,3B  Tomahawk chops
12 J.D. Martinez Bos - OF  Sexual Napalm
13 Chris Sale Bos - P  The Angry Pirates
14 Francisco Lindor Cle - SS  Take the Knebel
15 Corey Kluber Cle - P  One Nut Wonders
16 Josh Hader Mil - P Tomahawk chops
17 Charlie Blackmon Col - OF  Take the Knebel
18 Tommy Pham StL - OF  Take the Knebel
19 A.J. Pollock Ari - OF  Brokeback Moundmen
20 Brandon Belt SF - 1B,OF Anal Hershiser
21 Mitch Haniger Sea - OF Thor's Hammered
22 Trevor Story Col - SS Ring of Fire
23 Charlie Morton Hou - P Tomahawk chops
24 Adam Ottavino Col - P Cowhide Joyride

Week 6 Real Rankings

Week 5 Real Rankings

NOTES
It may take a while for a front runner to emerge here. There does seem to be a general top tier developing with Thor and Tomahawk remaining consistent and around 6.0, but they're a bad week from being in a group of eight teams around 6.50-7.00.  The key has been their consistency, as shown in the VAR column and the relative balance of their hitting and pitching.  The group  in the 7.50-8.00 range are a couple decent weeks from joining that middle tier too. 

Then, there's Cowhide Joyride in a tier all by himself and the obvious candidate to sell early a la Sexual Napalm in 2015, Angry Pirates in 2016, and Brokeback in 2017 -- all of which produced relatively successful turnarounds.


I know I've been saying it for years, but just in case you think it's my own unsupported anti-RP bias, let's take a look at the S+H leaders  Archie Bradley, Wade Davis, Edwin Díaz, Juan Nicasio, Brad Boxberger, José Alvarado, Josh Hader, Chaz Roe, Jeurys Familia, Brad Hand, Adam Ottavino, Craig Kimbrel, Bud Norris.  That's 13 RPs with 9 or more SH, 6 of which were not drafted at all. Only 3 (Diaz, Hand, Kimbrel) were drafted among the 10 highest drafted RPs.  On top of the general unreliability of them producing the one category they control, their contribution to the other categories is another consideration. With an average of 3 IP per week, each RP accounts for approximately 4% of the total for the week.  The average SP is 5.5 IP per outing, when you factor in multiple starts, its around 7 IP per starter per week, or 9.5% per starter. So while they K at a higher rate and have generally better rates, the weekly impact of most RPs is negligible because the inning totals K totals are less than half that of starters and the difference in rates (average of 3.71/1.21 for SPs and 2.92/1.10 for RPs this year) is not significant enough to dramatically improve rates. Their overall contribution is essentially 1.50 categories, which is consistent with their overall contribution to the actual game on an individual basis. This supports the role we've developed for RPs in our league and their overall contribution/value of our league.

Could this change? Certainly. Some MLB teams outright avoid having their SPs go through a lineup a third time as advanced analytics have supported such a move. This threatens the viability of the QS category, but makes the alternative (W) even less appealing. Something to contemplate.

Speaking of things to contemplate, I heard an interesting strategy for leagues struggling with the DL designation dilemma - no limit, no stash DLs.  Your roster could be 40 people as long as they were placed on the DL while on your roster. There would be no picking up DL players to "stash". I love that idea, though its an administrative nightmare I don't see Yahoo addressing any time soon. There are other more customizable platforms that could facilitate this apparently. We've always been a Yahoo league, but that is something to think about. Hopefully Yahoo attempts to address it creatively. I hate having teams be shorthanded because a valuable contributor gets place on the DL.

Thank you to those who have paid their dues. If you have not, please go to https://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/10469/finances and see what you owe.

Updated individual player rankings.  There's a lot of first round types in there, with some interesting emerging pitchers and steals like Ozzie Albies, Mitch Haniger, and Javier Baez:

Week 4 Real Rankings

Week 3 Real Rankings

NOTES

Can't pontificate too much this week, but parity is alive and well in H&T! The actual standings and the real rankings continue to fluctuate considerably each week. We're probably about four weeks from knowing about where we all stand, so good luck as we enter the difficult period where you have to take a hard look at even the highest draft picks and consider their roster-worthiness. Word of advice -- don't even think about the draft at this point. If the sample size is big enough to draw a conclusion you're not comfortable with, move along if there's a better option.  Someone on the waiver wire right now will end up a top 30 player -- it's often just a matter of making a difficult decision that can be the difference between a success or a failure.

Of course... I dropped a boring Brandon Belt on the same day he started a four-game HR streak, so what do I know?

Week 2 Real Rankings

 

NOTES

While it's nice to see my team on top, it takes a while for these to actually reflect how good the teams are. Just working with small sample sizes, although Hanley has promised 30/30 and he's on pace for it, so be ready.

The matchups weren't all the close this week and most RR reflect the Actual performance. Take The Knebel and Tomahawk had an interesting matchup with one team flopping in pitching and the other in hitting, but both were top 6 teams for the week.

There have been 23 weather-related postponements this year - a new record. This is no doubt impacting outcomes (especially if you were counting on Twins or White Sox Fri-Sun), but Sunday's doldrums pretty much hurt everybody.  The nice part is you'll get those back at some point.

It will be interesting to see how speed is valued this year. So far, the league is averaging a little of 0.5 SB per day and about 4 per week. Meanwhile, the league is average 1.1 HR per day and 8 per week.  There are only 13 players with more than three SBs and only 10 were drafted (Craig Gentry, Rajai Davis, Tim Anderson were not) and only 8 are ranked in the top 300 overall.

It's always fun to look at the overall leaders since Yahoo customizes it to our settings. I added a column showing when they were selected or kept ("K"). Not a whole lot to take away though since some are primarily based off a few good days (Didi, Baez) while others show some very interesting young guys (Chapman, Albies), but usually there aren't so many Keepers in the top 25 so early. Sounds like you guys knew what you were doing this year.

Week 1 Real Rankings

NOTES

For Jed, and as a reminder to everyone else, the Real Rankings are something I started doing a few years ago as a way for everyone to assess their teams beyond wins and losses.  Instead of matching up your team’s production vs. your opponent, the Real Rankings match them up against the rest of the league. The two tables show your Real Ranking for the week and the average Real Ranking for the season.  The lower your score, the higher your rank.

The Real Rankings have been extremely accurate over the course of the season. Obviously, there is a lot of variation week to week based solely on the variable matchups. But by the end of the year the different in the Real Rankings and the Actual Standings is usually no more than 2 spots. 

This verifies that winning % is a good way to assess team performance, but allows us all to be a little more honest when assessing our team’s production.  Week 1 has provided a perfect example of this with no other but yours truly.  In the Actual Standings I am 12th, but in the Real Ranking I am 2nd due to my matchup with the top Real Ranking team, Anal Hershiser. So it allows me to be a little less pissed and perhaps a little more patient.  Meanwhile, even though Justin is second in the standings, he probably should feel pretty confident that he was actually the best team through week 1.  Conversely, someone like Kyle and his Angry Pirates might not want to feel so comfortable sitting at the top of the Actual Standings because he actually wasn’t all the productive compared to the rest of the league, finishing 10th in the Real Ranking. He just benefited from an easier matchup in Dave. 

For the tables, the Weekly ranking just shows where you ranked in each individual category. Going left to right in columns, the Overall ranking shows the RR (ranking), ACT (actual standings), +/- (difference between Actual and Real – this should get smaller as the year goes on), Team, OV (Overall – average overall ranking of all weeks), H (average ranking for season – just hitting), RK (ranking of H), P (average ranking for season – just pitching), RK (ranking of P), VAR (variance – shows volatility of the weekly results for the season), 1-21 (weeks)

I will also include Notes most weeks based on the week’s activity, results, trends, etc. Not a whole lot to note this week other than both Shohei Ohtanis ended up on Gibby’s roster! This makes me happy. I’m guessing Yahoo will change this next year (they seem to be getting a lot of flack from the industry). It will be interesting to see how big of an asset he becomes, but the early returns are pretty amazing.

Always interesting to see how quickly people give up on players. It’s obviously warranted in some cases, usually because of injury or playing time concerns. So far, Lewis Brinson (13th round) is the highest pick dropped.

The weekly totals are high due to the long week.  For this week, the average totals would be more like 30r, 8hr, 29 rbi, 4 sb, .328 obp, 60 k, 3.53/1.24, 4 qs, 3 sh. Of  course, there were also a lot of weather related issues obscuring the numbers.  QS are always lower earlier in the season as well.

Keep in mind the 60 transaction limit is still in place. It’s always a lot higher earlier in the season, but something everyone should monitor.