Diamonds in the Points League Rough

Continuing our lessons learned and observations session from Cubicle GM’s recent fantasy baseball draft, I’d like to offer a few thoughts on fantasy leagues with a “points” scoring system.  A bit of set-up is probably worthwhile before I dive in.

CAPS LOCK CARL plays with a motley crew of degenerates in a 10-team league that recently switched from 5×5 scoring (AVG/R/HR/RBI/SB for hitters; W/SV/SO/ERA/WHIP for pitchers) on a head-to-head schedule reset weekly to a weekly head-to-head points scoring system. Teams and owners are the same, but scoring changed after a long discussion and common agreement. This post serves to analyze draft strategy after this league transition.

Points in the new league are standard, commonly used in similar leagues:

The main argument for switching from 5×5 scoring to Points was that it would represent a better picture of the player’s overall value. For instance, in a 5×5 league, a hitter’s walks, strikeouts and doubles are pretty much unaccounted for.  So are his errors. Pitchers do not get credit for characteristics of a “quality start” (though we don’t count this statistic) such as innings pitched or complete games, nor are they penalized for losses or blown saves.

Generally in a 5×5 league, it is a challenge to quantify a player’s individual value relative to his position or team; with points, there is a common currency that is the baseline for all decision making. We still have a bit of work to do to “optimize” our new scoring system, but figured now was as good a time as any to make the change.

I’m exhausted typing all this background. Need a coffee.

I’m back.

Theretofore, in attempting to perform my due diligence for this year’s draft, The Deficits again took over and I ended up conducting a detailed assessment of Overall ADP compared to Total Points (2008) rankings. It helped a bit in the draft, as I knew that most people would be going by Overall ADP and there would be “gems”, so-to-say, who would outperform their ADP in total points. There are also a few overvalued players (e.g. ADP ranking higher than TP ranking), though this stat must always be taken in context since we have position scarcity, sleeper/prospect factors and general league dynamics in place that cannot easily be broken down.

Finally, I also ended up looking closely at how my players at each position compared to what would be the “average league output” by position (for instance, the average output of the top-10 players at each position in a 10-team league) with some additional deviation for relative position strength. This essentially served to ensure I knew my margin for each position compared to what would be average for every other team in the league. That way, I can account for the fact that we play in a weekly head-to-head league. But I’ll further address this in a post later this week.

But for today, a few thoughts on how ADP rankings (which generally include all leagues in portals such as ESPN, Yahoo!, Sandbox) do not reflect the specifics of Points Leagues, and how to take advantage of this fact.

First, below is a breakdown of the top-25 players in terms of overall ADP:

Next, a breakdown of the top-25 players from 2008 in terms of Total Points:

You can see where I’m going here. The list at the top is a familiar one – these are the stars of the game, and fantasy studs, after all. The second is a bit random; a few stars, a few middle-of-the-road players (mainly pitchers) and one or two absolute surprises (A.J. Burnett? Ricky Nolasco?).

The point of this is not to say that you have to draft the latter list before the former in a Points league. Instead, it is worthwhile to be cognizant of value in the second list, and maybe bump these guys up a few spots in your rankings sheet, if you feel like they can sustain similar production in 2009. Also I would tend to give a far greater bump to guys that are consistent compared to those coming off their first year of solid numbers.

With that in mind, here’s a list of the top-25 notable everyday players who have a Total Points Ranking higher than ADP:

As a bonus, a list of the top-25 notable everyday players whose Total Points Ranking is lower than ADP:

Again, the second list you need to evaluate while considering position scarcity, sleeper/prospect considerations, 2008 injuries, etc. However, there are a lot of player on that list that are drafted simply for their “name” (paging Jorge Posada), outside of any relevant statistical comparison. I tend to avoid this list, simply because I prefer proven commodities. Lucky for me, my league-mates will draft anybody on a list of top prospects, generally about 50-75 picks ahead of ADP, meaning David Price is off-the-board in no time and more proven players are available when my name is called.

But in conclusion: know your league, analyze it’s scoring system and use it to work backwards from ADP, and recognize that your league-mates are likely to, with little variance, draft pretty closely to overall ADP (they include it in Live Drafts on every major fantasy baseball website). But that doesn’t mean that you have to. If you play in a league that scores by points, you may be able to find some value in unexpected places.

If you’d like the full study (I fumbled my way through a spreadsheet), email carl [@] cubiclegm dot com and I’ll be happy to pass it along.

Also, Brandon Lyon gave up four consecutive home runs yesterday. That bodes well for Detroit’s ninth inning this year (even after the adventures of 4-plus ERA Todd Jones!). Beware (and maybe pick up Joel Zumaya if you have room on your bench).

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