Last week I debated scouting and sabermetrics with Mike and Patrick. Some of us just don’t want to be deluged with stats, but is there a happy medium? If you are a guy like me, what can you do?
Mike Podhorzer and Patrick DiCaprio and I have different views on Sabermetrics. I have great respect for Mike and Patrick and how they prepare for the draft and maintain their rosters throughout the season by using statistical analysis. The use of the Strand rates, BABIP, and flyball/groundball ratio are vital statistics when finding the sleepers and buy low candidates (sorry Mike). I applaud the Sabermetrics community for their due diligence and hard work.
But “For Guy(s) Like Me”, my official category, how can we incorporate them into our analysis without making me want to throw the computer against the wall due to stat fatigue? The answer is quite simple. You are already using some of them and not even knowing it. Mike Podhorzer told me as much.
When I am looking to pick up a player off of waivers during the season and I am debating between two players on draft day I have to have some reason for my preference. I look at stats from his minor league career, if he is a young player, to see if his power numbers have any support. I look at injury reports to see if a player’s steals or homers were down due to an injury. I look for opportunity on a certain team to see if a player is blocked by an established star or if he has a chance to showcase his skills on the major league level. I look for home/road split and first and second splits to gauge my interest in a player’s overall upside. Guess what? That is a form of sabermetrics.
By true definition, Sabermetrics is the analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics. Isn’t that what I am doing? A pitcher’s WHIP and a hitter’s OPS are stats that I always look at in evaluating players and that is right in Bill James’ wheelhouse.
The stats players want to use the stats to establish trends…For Guys Like Me, I don’t need to see Robinson Cano’s VORP to determine that I wanted to trade for him in the second half; I see that the guy is a beast after the All Star break.
Carlos Quentin was a guy I picked early because he had a great minor league pedigree, came off shoulder surgery that zapped his power and had an opportunity with redemption in PaleHoseLand. I read where this guy really wanted to prove the D’Backs wrong for giving up on him and was highly motivated to succeed. I didn’t know about Q’s Linear Weighted Power but I did know that guy was motivated. Of course I didn’t know he was THIS motivated so it has been a great surprise.
I am definitely intrigued by all the statistics that Sabermetrics proponents use but I doubt that I ever use them all. What I do know is that to be a true expert in any league you need to do your homework and come up with some consistent analysis for picking your players and maintaining your rosters and you have to know something about the Bill James’ school of stats. If not you are just like the out of town tourist in Vegas. You are giving the house your money unless you get lucky.
Mike McDermott said in the movie “Rounders”, “Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.” Don’t be the sucker and don’t debate whether Sabermetrics is good or not, it is here and it is part of Fantasy Baseball. “For Guys Like Me” we just have to find a way to win without using the Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Jon // Jul 22, 2008 at 8:43 am
The analysis that you do (keeping up on injuries, etc.) is extremely important, as is more sophisticated analysis. Many sabermetric ideals in real baseball are not as appropriate in fantasy, however. Cano’s VORP is not all that relevant, because it’s not a good predictor of his future HR, RBI, SB, etc. (But on the flip side, looking at 1st/2nd half splits is foolish as well.)
However, the main place where many more sophisticated stats come into play is in the determination of the amount of luck a player has had. Of course, you want to buy low on good players who have been unlucky, and sell high on bad players who have been lucky.
Stats like FIP, BABIP, strand rate, HR/FB, GB rate, etc. are all extremely useful in determining the amount of luck players have had - and I feel strongly that if you’re ignoring these you’re doing yourself a great disservice.
If you don’t like the math, then you shouldn’t worry at all about how FIP is calculated, for example. But you should be well aware that you should prefer to have a pitcher with a 3.50 FIP and 4.50 ERA on your team to a pitcher with a 4.50 FIP and a 3.50 ERA.
2 Brian Joura // Jul 22, 2008 at 9:08 am
There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Find out what approach works for you and stick with that. And you don’t need to be defensive about your approach or ridicule others for their approach. At the same time, if you notice that your approach is not giving you the results you want or expect, then maybe you need to expand your horizons.
3 Sal Paradise // Jul 24, 2008 at 5:35 pm
As stated, BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) and FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) are very good indicators of who is having bad luck or not. Just go to THT (hardball times) and sort by BABIP leaders/losers and see how different it is from their line drive % +.120 (rough approximation of what BABIP ’should’ be). Same with ERA and FIP.
For instance, I have Ellsbury on my fantasy team, but didn’t flip him after his homerun spree (unfortunately), and now he’s slumping. But his BABIP is absurdly low in comparison to what it should be, so I can expect him to bounce back from his .26X average.
For the first third of the season I use my preseason predictions. For the middle third I use over/under-performance to buy/sell low/high.
No need to pay attention to VORP. Marcel’s and some intuition are probably the best bet.
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