Ya, I'm sure Sandy doesn't actually mean that theres NOTHING you can learn from roto that applies to actual baseball (just prob exagerrated to make his overall point).. he could try a league with Mikey Jay, Doc, myself, Justin, and others if he'd like...:-)
In Roto you learn about how to distribute salary, you need know talent, you need to numbers, you need to know defense (for pitchers), you need to balance risk vs reward, you need to how to trade effectively, you need to watch the game to see guys you think are going to break out, etc.
You learn quite a bit. I actually think ROTO champs have a much better sense of perspective than analysts that haven't competed. If there IS a big weakness in ROTO though, it may be the lack of defense having any impact whatsoever with hitters... Lead gloves, good bats that qualify for positions that they don't belong in have an unrealistically HUGE value in ROTO. Still, as long as you keep that in perspective, it can help make a lot of sense out of things.
I think the one area where I disagree with you here Doc, is that I don't neccesarilly disagree with the theory in trading Morrow for Young, I'm just not sure if this specific 'case' makes sense. I'm actually in favor of trading Morrow, just maybe not for Young (I'd need to be more convinced that hes going to eventually break out with the bat).
One of our fave posters is uncharacteristically cranky this winter. :- )
Not that I deny having mastered at least 10 kinds of stupid. ... but .... forgetting that SB's are not equal to HR's, and stuff like that, isn't one of them.
It is ten kinds of stupid to use ROTO draft logic in relation to ANYTHING about real-world baseball.
Anything? You mean like the roto draft logic that says 45 homers are better than 9? That doesn’t apply, because it’s a roto draft logic, and not "real baseball"?
There are any number of principles that apply in greater or lesser degree. Let's keep MC and D-O-V the dogma-free zones that they've been the last few years, what say.
Every statistic used in fantasy baseball represents actual events occuring on the green grass of MLB fields. Math is the science of symbolism. When we say "112 RBI" or "17 Wins" we are symbolizing a whale of a lot of actual, "real baseball" events that occurred.
I'm talking about ten years' worth of 112 RBI vs. ten years' worth of 0 wins because your pitcher lost a rotator cuff. That is a roto draft strategy, but you don't get to rule it out of court because it's played on the internet.
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I use “roto” as a generic term as it applies to points leagues, sim leagues, etc.
Yes, you have to be careful with applying some 5x5 strategies to MLB, like the SB's, for example, and some of the ladder-management stuff. We all know that. You're shouting 3rd-grade math lessons at grad students here.
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This particular comment (get production out of your first 6 picks) wasn’t referring to 5×5; it was referring to sim leagues. But you should have been able to see how the logic applies in any form of baseball, amigo.
If your business hangs on five key investments, getting safe and good return on all 5 leverages your returns better than any other strategy. That applies in the stock market, in chess, in raising kids, in sim baseball or on Safeco Field.
I sign five players to $15m salaries, and they all return pretty good years, and you sign five, and one of them is on the DL, there isn't any way your four are going to outproduce my five. That's true of the statistics we count in fantasy baseball, and it's true of the actual scoreboards down on the field. The stats are the games.
You acquire five Vlad Guerreros, they’re going to return more consistent production than five Erik Bedards. The roto STATS reflect the ACTUAL PRODUCTION OCCURRING ON THE FIELD.
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=== I Got Your Sim-League Strategy Right Here, Pal Dept. ===
The fact is, you bet on twenty Brandon Morrows, and I bet on twenty Delmon Youngs? At the end of the decade I am going to have TWICE your production. That is true of their statlines, and it is true of their on-field production.
Play some sim-league. You’ll learn a lot. Not all of it transfers. But the lesson-learned on the Brandon Morrows of the game, and their tendency to disappoint, that does transfer.
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=== Rephrase, Counselor ===
Now, once you are AWARE of the FACT that star hitters, as a group, return more production on your bet (in the long run) than do star pitchers, after you factor in injuries and volatility ...
And once you are AWARE of the FACT that pitching PROSPECTS (like Morrow) are much harder to predict than are hitting PROSPECTS...
And once you have the sound judgment that has you preferring young star hitters to young star pitchers, in terms of ROI...
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Now you do have a problem. You do have to have TOR starters. It's as Bill James put it once to us, when he "endorsed" (so to speak) the idea of drafting Jeff Clement with the #3: "Catchers are risky. But you have to have a catcher, right?"
There are Yahtzee slots on your scorecard -- SP, C -- that are going to involve a lot of risk. But you have to attend to those slots on your scoresheet, sooner or later. Third-order logic "normalizes" that risk in a compartmentalized sense for that slot.
But that's not the same thing as saying you'd rather have Brandon Morrow because you like his chances better than Delmon Young's. Morrow has a good 50% chance, maybe more, of producing ZERO for the Mariners. Young's chance of producing zero is probably less than 10%.
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Which brings us back to square one. Morrow is a talented young starter who (a) has a shoulder history and (b) hasn't done anything yet. You trade him for Delmon Young unless your Yahtzee card has painted you into a corner that forbids it.
The Mariners don't have any of their Yahtzee slots filled in, except #1 SP, 2B and RF. They have to make the trade.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
Roto also gives you a sense for replacement level and nabbing the most valuable player in the trade (in real life the player that give you the most bang for your $ at the MLB level usually). Granted, RL in ROTO is usually MUCH higher than in real baseball.
I think the one area where I disagree with you here Doc, is that I don’t neccesarilly disagree with the theory in trading Morrow for Young, I’m just not sure if this specific ‘case’ makes sense.
Well, sure.
If you are AWARE of the fact that ten Delmon Youngs will return more, over their careers, than will ten Brandon Morrows (a pitcher who hasn't established himself yet) ...
And you then judge that DESPITE THAT GENERAL PRINCIPLE, you like Brandon Morrow specifically and dislike Delmon Young specifically, then fine. That's your (educated) judgment.
Not sure why Brandon Morrow is a safer bet than other great-looking ML-ready TOR's with a history of shoulder problems, though.
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Again: personally, I'd hate to make the trade. Am simply noting that objectively speaking, there's a considerable imperative towards it. I wouldn't blame the M's for ignoring that imperative.
Doc,
If you had said Sim-league, my response would've been very different. I've played Sim - Roto - and FP.
As for Sim-league -- I twice took Tampa to the playoffs in 4 seasons, (2 completely different leagues). And I would definitely agree that playing Sim leagues added to my analytical base in regards to real-world baseball.
As for ROTO - I stand by my claim. ROTO isn't just about the categories. (I played in a 7X7 roto league, which included advanced stats like OPS, DIPs, and even included what defensive stats we could get at the time - errors and OF assists). But, ROTO "requires" a balanced attack. You *CANNOT* win a ROTO league by hitting 300 HRs when the next best club gets 200. The last 98 extra HRs don't gain you anything in that category. The game SYSTEM of ROTO, (regardless of categories), makes the roster construction process so different that I will stand by my statement - that using ROTO roster construction logic to justify real-world roster construction logic is 10 kinds of stupid.
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Funny you should feel so strongly about hitters over pitchers for prospect-projection. It just so happens that in my very first sim-league, the first breakout BATTER I ever managed to get lucky with - (it was a strange one - I'm thinking Juan Pierre took some kind of quantum leap forward during his age 26 season) - happened to have a "career ending" injury the next season, immediately after I traded away the only player in my system with a shot at replacing him). But, I digress.
On the general subject of lowering risk - I can accept the basic concept that the everyday prospect is less risky than the pitching prospect, (especially prior to reaching the majors).
In this "particular" context - I do not agree with the assessment. First off, corner OF is the "thickest" position in baseball. It's the easiest to find replacements. Part of the risk assessment is also "how hard will it be to replace what I'm trading?" In this case, you've got two prospects. Both are young. Both have two full major league seasons.
The OF has two 100-ish OPS+ seasons - and little evidence of forward development, (his patience improved slightly).
The pitcher got more aggressive, (more Ks, fewer walks, more HRs), but the aggregate was a definite step forward.
The biggest unknown is move from reliever to starter for Morrow. That clouds the issue.
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But, the bigger issue I see that makes the argument dubious - is that pitcher performance variation INCLUDES defensive performance. While things like DIPs ERAs are smoothing out some of this noise, I think the "perception" of pitcher volatility is still largely tied to Wins and ERA - same as always.
But, every day player projections typically do not include defensive projections, (because we've seen these to be incredibly volatile, calling their validity into question). Basically, the single largest factor in pitcher volatility that MAKES them volatile is blithely ignored when examining the every day player.
Project Young to go -5, -18, +3, -8 defensively for the next 4 seasons, and what happens to his aggregate worth?
(No - I don't trust the defensive metrics - and am not arguing for their inclusion). But, I am saying that it is the analyses SYSTEMS that are creating a large chunk of the volatility in pitchers.
Honestly, I think a large chunk of the reality here is that the short-coming of the MATH are creating the conclusion - not the players themselves.
In all honesty, I don't care what his age is - a guy posting a couple of 100ish years as a corner OF doesn't thrill me. Maybe he becomes Carlos Lee. Maybe he becomes the next Hamelin or Cordova. I dunno. But I do know it's a LOT easier to find a Gabe Gross riding the pine than it is to find solid #3 starters at a reasonable price.
Sandy,
It depends on whether you play ROTO by categories or points, but ya, defense doesn't matter in ROTO for position players (which is probably the one biggest blindspot). It DOES teach you a lot of things about $ distribution, building a team, evaluating talent, etc, etc.
While I agree that Young isn't developing, age is VERY relevant for position players. Its rare to even have regulars in the big league that are 22 years old, much less guys that broke in as 20 year olds. Its a sign of a guy thats developed MUCH QUICKER than his peers.
Granted at the big league level hes stopped developing offensively and that is my main concern with him along with the defense and the fact that hes a bad fit for the park.
Also, I'd say you learn as much in Roto as in sim-leagues, if not MORE, about team construction.
While Sim-Leagues take defense into consideration, they are basically computer simulations. IMO they teach you MORE about MANAGING a team than GMing it. Its two different skillsets since Sim-Leagues dodge the HUGE factor that is talent evaluation.
Roto is based off of what real world players are actually producing.
"If you are AWARE of the fact that ten Delmon Youngs will return more, over their careers, than will ten Brandon Morrows (a pitcher who hasn’t established himself yet) …"
To phrase it differently, I'm aware of age-related arcs and am aware of DY's talent I'm just not as high on HIS chances of reaching it. His development offensively at the MLB level is looking more like Adrian Beltre than it is like A-Rod or Griffery.
I'm not against trading Morrow, but would prefer to trade him for someone else...maybe a good overall SS under club-control.
Here are several players who in the past year or so have put up comparable batting runs above average (or below, as the case may be) to Delmon Young through their age 22 season. We'll cut it off at 350 PAs.
Melky Cabrera, Asdrubal Cabrera, Daric Barton, Blake DeWitt, Adam Jones, Billy Butler, Justin Upton, etc.
The logic laid out above would dictate that you'd trade Morrow for each and every one of these players, right? If not, why not? Given your rule of thumb, what OTHER information would you use to pick and choose from amongst this group?
Personally, I might have Delmon Young rated below all of the above, perhaps excluding deWitt and MAYBE Butler.
The 'rule' can't be applied dogmatically, and if it isn't, then you've got to examine exactly what kind of player Young really is. Once you've done that, I really don't see why you'd contemplate trading Morrow for him.
1) Also relevant to the discussion is the fact that not one but two MLB teams, which excellent (even by MLB standards) scouting departments have taken a long look at Delmon Young and determined that he isn't no. 3/4 hitter.
Does Tampa flip Young for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett if Young is the next Albert Belle? No.
Does Minnesota flip Young for Brandon Morrow and eat Washburns contract if Young is the next Albert Belle? No.
The two organizations who know Delmon Young the best both seem very willing to shop him. This should tell you a lot.
2) The player who compiles the best career is not really relevant to the discussion as well. What each player does over the next 4 to 5 years of his career will determine the winner and loser of this trade. I like Morrow for the next 4-5 years a lot more than I like Morrow over the next 14. Morrow could be a TOR starter next year. Young shows no signs of being a MOTO bat next year.
I totally agree with youse guys' logic.
If you're not high on Delmon Young -- if you see him as Asdrubal Cabrera, rather than Albert Belle -- then you don't deal a guy like Brandon Morrow for him.
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Sure, it's relevant that good scouts doubt Young. You wouldn't have seen this level of skepticism against ARod or Junior even at 19 years of age, much less 22.
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It's also relevant that Young was a consensus #1-worthy pick. That's #1 overall in the draft, not "first round."
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I accept as reasonable the projection of Young as less than All-Star ability.
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The side point, you'd trade Morrow for any 22-year-old of Statline X, comes from a completely different paradigm. Some 22-year-olds you believe in. Some you don't. The idea that for every Statline X there is a "Correct" Projection Y is not one that interests me.