Wondering who BABS is?
Finally! After more than a year of reading about her, learning about what makes her tick and secretly lusting after her, we all finally get the chance to MEET her!
Sort of.
I went a little crazy this month and decided to have this promotional video created to introduce the world to BABS. My wife doesn’t like it, but she is not my target audience. Believe me, this could have gone a whole lot further into dangerous animated territory. BABS is just the girl next door, right?
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
What is the deal with the database? Is it going to be something where I plug in my rules and we get a customized BABS spreadsheet that’s spit back out at us? And if this is the case, is there any shot it will be done by next Wednesday/Thursday?
BABS Database 1.0 will allow you to run ranking reports at will with the most up to date ratings, overall, by league and alphabetic listings. It will also allow you to look up players and get their last 3 years of BABS ratings. It will not be done by Wednesday/Thursday.
Next Wednesday/Thursday? Draft 3/10, hoping it’d be done by 3/8. It’s a OBP and SLG league (no AVG) so walks and power are prioritized. Will there be any way that I can structure BABS to prioritize power and walks?
We’re working around the clock on the database – it was supposed to be done in January but we got hit with every Murphy’s Law in the books – but I can’t make any promises. With some Excel expertise, you can prioritize power and walks by assigning values to the variables and giving power/walks greater weight.
Now I’m a bit confused. One of the things you highlighted in the book was that we shouldn’t focus on the numerics behind the variables—so when you say I should ‘assign values to the variables’ do you mean from an intuitive standpoint? For example:
If you have the p,SB category defaulted over the PW category, instinctively and non-quantitatively I’ll just copy/paste the PW category over the p,SB category. Or are you saying I make ‘P+ =5, PW and A+=4, p, AV = 3, etc… My gut tells me that you’ll say the former.
Your gut is correct. However, if it’s easier to assign some rudimentary values — just for the sake of easier Excel sorting — that’s fine too. Whatever gets you to where you need to be. This need not be rocket surgery.
Great stuff! Appreciate the back-and-forth!!!
The “master 2017 report”, updated Feb24, is that the official BABS database? Or will there be something else that is the BABS database? Also, will you update that master report again before the season? If so – when you do, is there a way that we can find which players had their skills/$values updated so we don’t have to sift through the entire sheet?
Thanks Ron. Love the site!
The master report is not the database. I described the database above. I am planning at least one and possibly two more updates before the season starts. The player ratings typically don’t change; mostly just the injury indicators. And the market values are dynamic – they all change, all the time – so it’s pretty much impossible to just identify individual changes.
Thanks Ron. Sorry – I’m new to some of the fantasy vernacular here.
Also, would you have any recommendations as per a place to get the “best” player predictions to augment the market values I get from your site?
Thanks
Matt
BaseballHQ.com
Thanks!
Ron, I’m a new member and devoured the materials this past weekend (the perplexed looks on the faces of my family as I did so were priceless). It’s great stuff and I’m a believer. It all resonates with what I’ve believed for a long time but never could distill to a workable, structured approach. Thanks for your hard work and for opening the door that had remained stubbornly closed. In addition to various sized mixed league drafts, I do 10-team auction mono-leagues. The challenge will be employing BABS for the latter, but hopefully I’ll get my head around that. I’m looking forward to having BABS at my side on draft days. Thanks again, Ron.
Yes, BABS is a bit more challenging in mono leagues. However, once you have your foundation players drafted, just make sure your fringe roster spots grab whatever small asset is still available and avoid the players with heavy liabilities. The error bars for all those end-game guys is huge but the best you can do is mitigate your risk.
Makes sense. Thanks, Ron.
Regarding Mono-leagues… is there any way that you would be able to throw up an excel sheet or an HTML of an AL and NL BABS report?
If the database is not available by mid-March, I will post a set of AL-only an NL-only master lists.
Using the Autofilter function in EXCEL, you can use the team field to pick only teams from one league. (It will still have the mixed ADP and R$ though.)
Ron :
I have to admit I’m confused about something. For a 12 team mixed league with 14 hitters, your minimum target is 50 asset points (boxes). Just using the PT, Pw, and Avg. categories, you stated that the goal is to have something (at any level) in all 14 of these categories (boxes) as a minimum. This appears to me to be the maximum that you can have if you use 14 hitters and would maybe take players like LeMahieu (no Pw) and Chris Davis (only P+) and a lot of others, out of the draft , if you desired to meet your 50 minimum total. I am not mentioning Spd since you only required 8 as a minimum, and that is reasonable. You said our goal is to “do better”. This looks physically impossible, unless you assign weighted values to the p, PW and P+ etc. I apologize if I am missing something obvious that I should have seen or missed while reading the book .
Joe
Remember that the “+” ratings essentially count as 2, as they permit you to roster players like LeMahieu and Davis. But if you max out your ability to fill more boxes, “doing better” can also mean rostering more “PW”s than “p”s and more “P+”s than “PW”s.
Ron,
I am confused. In the book you make a specific point about not using a numerical translation of the P+,PW,p ratings. Specifically, you state not to translate those ratings to 3, 2 and 1 (see page 59). However, in your response above you say a “+” rating essentially counts as 2. Can you shed some light on this seemingly contradiction for me? Thanks in advance.
Sigh. It’s not a contradiction so much as a resignation that, as hard as I try to present BABS in completely non-numerical terms, we are so hard-wired by numbers that sometimes using them is the only way to get a point across. The “2” above is actually NOT a weight, but just a way to show that rostering a “+” player essentially gives you coverage over two roster spots.
Ron,
Thanks for the response. I will apologize ahead of time for being thick on this point. In addition, let me state up front I find what you are doing here very appealing. It’s actually similar to how we often think about forecasting in our non-baseball work lives, so kudos.
Can you just clarify for me how a “+” covers two spots? I went back and looked at C.Davis he is only P+, no other skills above average, so how would his “+” cover two roster spots?
Again, I find the whole BABS approach appealing and I am now knuckling down to try and apply it to an 8 team AL mono league and would greatly appreciate grasping this nuance where I apparently am missing something.
Thanks again.
The “+” gives you coverage over two roster spots FOR THAT PARTICULAR ASSET. For Davis, his “P+” gives you leeway to roster a Ben Revere (who has no power rating) for the power category. However, that has no effect over any other asset — speed, batting effectiveness all have their own requirements.
I see says the blind man. Thanks.
Do you have an ETA on the database? I have some drafts mid-March to Opening Day. I have been playing with BABS player ratings to develop a plan, but if there is something bigger and better coming, then I’m excited!
Wish I could give a date, but I don’t want to promise anything. We’re working hard, we’ve run into some roadblocks, but we’re grinding through. I certainly hope it will be done within the next week or so, but again, I can’t promise. #FrustratedToo
I went into last years auction draft with BABS and I admit I was a little confused and after the draft (Realmuto $3, Segura $10, Villar $8, K. Davis $11, Verlander $22 . . . I also paid $40 for Kemp and $35 for Revere) plus I had my six keepers, I was not sure if I had made good choices, but I am sold on BABS . . . but like any system you need some good luck as well, can’t wait for database
is there going to be positional cheat sheets posted? Is there an ETA on the database? my draft is on March 11th. When will be the next babs update? sorry for all the questions, but i would like to have all of our salaries on the spreadsheet.
sorry Ron, just saw your answer on the database above.
More details in tomorrow’s newsletter.
Hi, I am a new subscriber based upon reading your BABS book, which I found to be a very interesting approach, so I was sold. A couple of things I am struggling with, but let me start with this one. And I apologize in advance of a similar question has been asked.
When you are talking about the asset minimums, are you talking about total roster, or only starters? Because in a traditional league (14 offensive starters, 9 pitchers, 5 bench) if you have 14 starters on offense, you are saying asset minimum, you need to have 14 power bats. So if 14 is my max # of total starting offensive players, and 14 is my minimum # of power bats I can have, it sounds like you are saying every person I draft has to be a power source. And if 14 is my maximum # of starters, how can I ever exceed the minimum required threshold? Or is this 14 minimum incorporating an assumption I will take 2-3 bench bats?
It does not include bench bats, and yes, the assumption is that you have to fill all 14 slots. However, there are still ways to exceed this minimum. First is to make sure you have more PW and P+ players. Also, P+ players allow you the flexibility to draft an open power slot. So if you draft JD Martinez (P+) and Ben Revere (no power), you are still meeting the minimum.
I have another question, this time about the market $. I am pretty sure you said this in the book, but that is 100% based on leagues that use a $260 cap right? So if my league uses a $300 cap, I should multiply those market $ by 1.154 to approximate what the market value would have been if those leagues used a $300 cap correct?
Also, my league only uses 12 offensive starters (only 1 catcher and only 4 outfielders) compared to 14 in a “traditional” league, and only 8 starting pitchers (minimum 5 starters, no max) as opposed to 9 in a “traditional” league, but has an 8 man bench for a total of 28 players selected during the auction, same total quantity as a traditional league. How should I account for that when trying to adjust what the market price would be for players if those rules were in place? Or do you think the difference is minimal enough not to worry about an adjustment?
Pro-rating the number of players works, but dollars do not. Your 1.154 multiplier will give you a rough estimate but will overvalue players on the low end. Just be aware of that.
BABS targets only relate to the 23 active players so you’ll have to make some adjustments, as described in chapter 12. You’ll be looking to convert to a 20-man roster, if I am reading it right.