22-03-17 Mailbag
Do you have a question that would be best answered by one of our experts and benefit everyone? Submit it on our Contact Page and put MAILBAG in the Subject Line. We’ll select the best ones to respond to in each of the four Game Plan installments.
I am doing a 50-round draft and hold league. I am not sure how to set my asset targets and risk budget. There are 27 bench spots, but should I only allocate my budget to the first 23 rounds?
The short answer is yes – the published asset targets and risk budget are for your first 23 players. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t try to set targets for the rest of your roster. As you draft deeper into the player pool, the availability of positive-asset players will dwindle and the risk cost will rise. How should that be handled?
Well, although your active roster is slightly less than half of the total, it would be inappropriate to prorate your targets by double. On the assets side, I might multiple the targets for your total roster by perhaps 1.5 or 1.75 at most. For instance, if you had set an active roster target of 14 units for power skills and your goal is to draft another 16 batters, I might set a target of 22 or 24 power units for your 30 batters.
It could be more extreme on the risk side. If you had set a $35 risk budget for your 23-man active roster, you’re going to have to open things up for your 27 reserves. At $35, your average active roster risk per player is about $1.50. I might push that to $2.50 per player for your reserves, or $67.50. Your entire roster risk cost could well surpass $100.
But risk tolerance is still a personal decision. If you are committed to rostering the safest players available, set your budget low and see what the marketplace gives you. As I showed here, it is possible to assemble a very low risk roster, and perhaps budget as little as $50 for your full 50-player squad.
Jose Ramirez is usually going in the top 5 of most drafts, yet BABS has him in the 11th ranked asset group. That means she thinks he is at best the 11th ranked player. How can that be?
This was a question asked during my session at First Pitch Florida Online a few weeks ago, and I choked on the response. (I won’t make excuses, but I was distracted by some technical issues on the zoom. Okay, I am making excuses.)
The easy response is that the rankings of the asset groups are not an exact science. It’s tough to provide an appropriate weight that says one asset is exactly, or even proportionately better or worse than another. Yes, P+ is better than PW, but is (P+,a) better than (p,A+)? The BABS ranking says yes, but can we be that precise?
One thing is true – BABS does give more weight to speed since that is a scarcer skill. So that explains some of J-Ram’s “misfortune.” The presumed 10 players who she would rank ahead of him include Mookie Betts and Starling Marte, the latter of whom is rarely drafted in the first round at all.
But wait a minute. You’re probably thinking, “Hey BABS, J-Ram is plenty fast. He’s 25 bags in the bank.” Sure, that’s his history, but on the basis of underlying speed skill, he’s actually barely over league average, which is reflected in the “s” grade. Admittedly, his monster 2nd half last year refutes that, though it could be an outlier. BABS sees what she sees.
Perhaps more important – just because an asset group is ranked higher doesn’t mean you need to draft players according to that ranking. Marte is in the (S+,AV) group by himself – a group that’s ranked 7th – but his ADP is 29, so you would not need to consider him as first round pick anyway.
In the end, you can agree or disagree with BABS ratings. She has calculated some odd ratings in the past. Most times she’s dead on (Freddy Peralta), but sometimes she’s dead wrong (Vlad Guerrero). Jose Ramirez has barely merited that “s” grade every year. But you can override BABS (she’ll never know), give him “SB” and elevate him into the same asset group as Mookie. That group is ranked 5th. There you go!
With the new outfield dimensions in Baltimore, it doesn’t appear that the park factors were considered for Orioles players like Cedric Mullins and Trey Mancini. It seems to me it would be comparable to being traded from a hitters’s park to a pitching friendly or at least a neutral site. The inverse would be true with a positive affect for the pitching staff. Any thoughts on making this adjustment or is it just too new to speculate?
According to our research, the change in LF dimensions at Camden Yards converts the park from hitter-friendly to neutral. Typically, BABS will tag a player with a park factor adjustment if they are going from one extreme environment to the other extreme. So none of the Orioles would be in line for a park factor tag.
Skills ratings would be unaffected as well. According to Derek Carty at First Pitch Florida Online, the hitter most affected by this change would likely be Ryan Mountcastle, and even then, he would lose only about 4 HRs. While that is not nothing, in BABS terms, it’s not enough to make a difference in overall power expectations.
Similarly, John Means would be the pitcher to most benefit positively, but with all his projected ERA approximators (xERA, FIP, xFIP, etc.) still showing a level over 4.00, the adjustment would not be enough to move his current (k) rating even to (e,k).
Just a thought here. How about a third level of Injury Rating for players with a current injury? Or maybe an elevated Risk $ amount for guys who will begin the season on the IL?
As I was updating the injury designations this morning, I was wondering if an (INJ) tag for Ronald Acuna was descriptive enough. And David Bote is supposed to “miss at least the first month of the season.” Should he be (INJ) or (INJ+)? So, yes your ideas have merit. As BABS continues to evolve, I’ll consider these enhancements.