Using BABS in deeper leagues

BABS is great, but she’s not perfect. She works best with players who generate statistically significant performance samples. BABS likes playing time. As such, she works like a charm in most standard mixed league formats.

But once we start dipping into those batters likely to see just a few hundred plate appearances, or rarely-used pitchers, her impact starts getting a bit diluted. The error bars around those players’ projections are pretty wide anyway, and BABS only serves to make the range of possible outcomes even wider.

We don’t all play in 12 or 15-team mixed leagues so there is a need to figure out how BABS can still help. For AL/NL-only leagues, dynasty leagues or 50-round draft-and-hold leagues, BABS becomes more about tactical assessment rather than actual performance projection.

That approach makes sense. Small sample sizes are prone to wide variations in performance so it’s not like we can really project what those players are going to do anyway. The best we can do is to get a general sense of where those players fall, and incorporate the risk assessment element of BABS.

Here are some tips for using BABS as you get deeper into those types of drafts:

1. In the early to middle parts of the draft, you need to focus on the above average part of the pool. That’s what BABS evaluates best anyway; the asset ratings focus exclusively on above average skill. Exhaust as many full-time players as possible before even considering mid-timers and part-timers.

2. Then start considering good-skilled mid-timers over poorer skilled frontliners, because playing time is fluid and the disabled list is going to move players back and forth between those playing time categories anyway. So if the remaining full-timer has a name like Alex Gordon and you have a chance to grab a Yasmany Tomas, do it.

3. Avoid players with -AV/-ER Liability at all times. Better to take a player with no assets than some liability. I have been able to come out of even 50-round drafts having rostered only one or two players with that liability, and it has usually been a tactical add. If I own DJ LeMahieu (A+), I might be okay rostering a Chris Davis (P+ | AV-,inj-), but BABS would never consider Davis as her starting fist-baseman.

When the best players are depleted, what then?

4. Continue to avoid all –AV an –ER players, even if they are projected for significant playing time.

5. Because of playing time churn, you can judiciously start dipping into the part-timers with big skills upside, especially those on teams with risky frontliners. Remember that “no path to playing time” means nothing these days. Raimel Tapia may be several spots down on the Colorado depth chart, but it’s not like Ian Desmond, Gerardo Parra and David Dahl haven’t ever spent time on the DL.

6. Embrace some injury risk here, especially for players who once had promise but have fallen in the ADPs due to health issues. Take more risks with inj- over INJ players. Devon Travis, Matt Duffy and Carlos Rodon still own very interesting skill sets. However, if your roster is already laden with health risk, filtering out all the remaining INJ and inj- players will help you manage the player pool easier. Part-timers with INJ risk can be ignored completely.

7. Elevate prospects. Use their regular BABS ratings but supplement with their minor league BABS ratings. I always keep the minor league lists handy. Those lists tell me that Austin Hays (p,AV) will probably be a better overall player than Matt Chapman (P+ | AV-). If the minor league BABS asset ratings are not roster-worthy, those players should be ignored.

8. Use the ADP market values as rough guides during the early part of your drafts, but by the middle rounds (round 14 or so, and later), you should abandon them completely. By that part of the draft, most owners are focused on filling their own individual roster holes, so the ADPs become pretty meaningless. Just grab who you want.

Using the Target function on the Master Spreadsheet, I would enter a value about 1-2 rounds ahead of your pick during the first 10 rounds, then gradually increase. By round 14, I’d enter a value a good 100 picks ahead. You don’t want to be picking a player with an ADP in the 500s in the 15th round, but you also don’t want to miss out good talents because you aren’t willing to look a few rounds ahead.

In auctions, skill always trumps dollar values. Once you get below the $10 level, everyone is potentially interchangeable. The market is usually wrong. Odds are Michael Soroka (-$5) has a bunch more upside than Dan Straily ($1), even in 2018.

One final note that applies to all leagues… Multi-positional players are gold. Rostering a Marwin Gonzalez or a Yangervis Solarte allows you the flexibility to stock your reserve list with more pitching options. And as we all know, you can never have too much pitching.