Final 2016 BABS Ratings
Even with the massive in shift in the balance between power and speed this season, Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw still ended up atop the BABS rankings. Planetary alignment is a good thing. Those two are this era’s no-brainers, but the rest of the 2016 final rankings reveals a wealth of information.
A quick scan of the list reveals many players whose end-of-season rating matches their pre-draft rating. From a faux forecasting perspective, we’d call that a “hit.” Perhaps the draft rating is a forecast in practice, but it’s really more of a reflection of each player’s intrinsic skill set. I’m not trying to project the future, just capture the range in which reality lives. Review:
FINAL 2016 RATINGS: [EXCEL] [VIEW/PRINT]
Not a lot of surprises. Josh Donaldson and David Ortiz were both rated (P+,AV+) before and after, even though the retiring Papi was typically drafted several rounds later. Freddie Freeman improved from a (PW,AV+) expectation to (P+,AV+), reflecting his power improvement and Eduardo Nunez improved in both speed and batting tool — (s,a) to (S+,AV). On the pitching side, Max Scherzer and Yu Darvish did what they always do (ER,K+) while Noah Syndergaard took a step up – (ER,KK) to (ER,K+).
BABS captures the inherent statistical volatility of the stats. This might have seemed like an off-year for Jake Arrieta, but his (ER,KK) final rating was identical to his pre-season expectation. And few were disappointed with Chris Sale’s season, but BABS noted that there was some skills erosion — (ER,K+) to (ER,KK).
Moving forward, I will be spending the next few months continuing the process of building a more robust BABS for 2017. The new database is coming along. I have decided to add an (A+) rating for the batting tool skill. Early plans are to produce a BABS e-book as a reference volume and leave all the updated ratings, cheat sheets and analyses on this website. I hope to add a few new features to the site as well.
Feel free to share your BABS success stories below. I pulled out two 3rd place finishes (and a 5th) in the national experts leagues. I’m particularly satisfied with the FSTA/SiriusXM league finish because I drafted Dee Gordon in Round 2 and my 1/2/3/4 starting pitchers were Matt Harvey, Tyson Ross, Lance McCullers and Joe Ross (and BABS still got me a 2nd place finish in ERA).
I’ll be in touch.
Finished 4th in a 15 team 5×5. I like it.
won my 5×5 league for the first time since 2002. I’m a believer.
I won our NL 5×5 by 14 points, this is a 30+ year old league. In our younger AL 5×5 where we also payout by halves I got 4th in 1st Half, won the 2nd Half and finished in 2nd overall losing by 1 point. Thank you BABS!
I came in 2nd in our 13 team 6×6 lg . . . but I had 13pts in every hitting stat, runs, hits, hr, rbi, sb and average, no one has ever done that in the 15yr history of our lg.! My Pitching killed me . . . I am not gonna share Babs with any of the other teams
thanks Ron
I’m a believer too. Had a poor keeper list going in my 20 team mixed auction/draft hybrid. BABs helped me target my auction dollars wisely (Starling Marte, Justin Upton, Hamels, Beltre, Kemp) and turned me on to late round steals Duvall, Davies, Peraza, and Naquin. I was competitive down to the wire and ended up 4th, in the money in what should have been a rebuilding year. Thank you Ron and Babs!
Took over someone else’s last place team in a 12-team mixed keeper league, used BABS and competed down to the wire. Ended up in 2nd place overall by 1.5 points – and missed out on first by fractions of points in the AVG and ERA categories – literally tied to the 4th decimal in BA with the winning team and < .01 behind the next team up in ERA.
I finished third in our 12-team NL only. Losing Drew Pomeranz, Joe Ross, and V. Velasquez, and C. Kershaw to injury or trade hurt my pitching….
Fought all the way to the final weekend, but finished 2nd in my 11-team 5×5 league. Really could have used that makeup game between Cleveland and Detroit because I was just two HR out of first on Saturday and had Napoli, Kipnis, Guyer, Almonte and Justin Upton who would have played in that game. I felt BABS was great for the draft, but using it during the season is something I could use a little guidance on. If the database could highlight what players are flying high above or are well below their mean performance, that would be helpful.
Finished tied for 1st in one NL 10 team 5×5 and 3rd in an NL 11 team 5×5. Unfortunately, questionable drafting, injuries and bad performance(I’m talking to you, J Upton and C Gomez) in my AL leagues left me 2nd from the bottom, however that was my fault, not Ms BABS. Looking forward to the 2017 version.
I thought babs was excellent for my drafting.
The follow up sheets, I am not sure helped me very much, as who is doing good at that time, say a month or two later, can be found in many formats, and I can’t say that I found babs much more informative.
Still, I was very confident in my draft,and that is half the battle. I think your system worked out quite well in the draft. I would definitely want next seasons drafting set, for that reason alone.
Also, thank you for your attention on this site helping us with our questions and your expertise information.
Martin
Finished 5th in our very competitive 12 team mixed league. Can’t blame BABS though – she could never have predicted the impact of injuries to JD Martinez, Bautista & B. Moss nor the flameout of Sonny Gray. However, she did nail Bryant, LeMahieu, Lucroy and even Ozuna. Thanks for this great tool, Ron!
Thanks, Ron. BABS guided me to my first ever championship in our fantasy league. It helped me determine who to keep (we can keep up to 5 players), who to target in the draft (Freeman, Blackmon, Ortiz, Hamels, Britton)) and who to pick up during the season (Dahl, Rich Hill, Gary Sanchez). I attended the seminar in St. Louis and hope there will be one close to my home again next year. Now, other teams in my league want to know the success story of BABS.
I was was somewhat skeptical to begin with but stuck with the BABS plan throughout two new roto leagues I joined last year. Even though I was hit with injuries (Stanton in one league and Kershaw in the 2nd) I finished first in both – 15 team and a 12 team. I also used the strategy in my local keeper league. It was a little harder as we do not start from scratch each year and I was able to finish 2nd out of 14! This was the most successful fantasy year I have had in over 15 years! Will be looking forward to the product for next year. Thanks!
Ron, I won my 10 team 5×5 dynasty league for the first time since 2001. BABS was so valuable in my drafting process and I can’t wait for 2017 to draft again.
Won my 11 team AL-only and finished first, third and third in my 3 NL-only. I felt BABS helped immensely for the draft and BaseballHQ for targeting in-season upgrades. Thank you.
Have you ever considered a “s-” category? That would be one for some of these lumbering players who are liabilities on the base paths and conceivably hurt in the runs scored category. Maybe this is overthinking.
Yeah, I think this might add unneeded complexity. Many of those lumbering players are big power hitters who get their runs scored from HRs.