Capitalizing on 'Risky' Players

A few days ago I pointed you to an article over at the Hardball Times that dealt with risk as a market inefficiency. The article mostly dealt with this concept for Major League Baseball, but the principle is very relevant to Fantasy Baseball as well.

A player who is considered an 'injury risk' is naturally less valuable than a player who might put up the same numbers but with more consistent playing time. Suppose two players hit .300 with 10 ABs per HR. One is an iron man who plays 162 games per year and the other is lucky to play in 100. Obviously the 162-game guy is going to be more valuable in trades and will be taken earlier on draft day. However, it might actually be a better move to draft the 100 game guy several rounds later.

For example, Barry Bonds is a fantastic player, but for a plethora of reasons could have been had in Round 15 in many 12-team expert league drafts. He is considered a risky player. He is 42 years old. He hasn't played more than 130 games in three years. He has had some trouble with injuries. He doesn't play in day games after night games. He has been the center of this whole steroid scandal. Instinctively, most people didn't want to draft Bonds too early. Good news for us opportunists. You easily could have drafted Barry Bonds in Round 14 and Moises Alou in Round 23 and now have your LF spot filled with a fantastic player and will get near 162 games out of the position. Play Bonds whenever he is in the Giants lineup and play Alou on the day games after night games and if Bonds is to get hurt this year.

By targeting good players who are undervalued due to injury concerns (or certain other reasons) and targeting a player in a later round as insurance/as a platoon-mate who is also undervalued, you can find yourself a very capable full-time player for a much lower price.

Another good example of this concept is Troy Glaus, especially in leagues where he is SS eligible. Glaus could have been had in Round 8 in many expert leagues. Ryan Theriot went undrafted in most leagues. While Glaus hasn't had a major injury in two years, there is still a stigma attached to him. For practical purposes, lets say that we only expect 130 games out of him this year. Lets say the remaining 32 will be filled by Theriot when Glaus is on the DL. Below is a rough estimate of their stat lines.

	G	AB	H	HR	RBI	R	SB	AVG
Glaus	130	450	113	30	87	85	1	0.251
Theriot	32	110	33	2	12	25	9	0.300
Combined	162	560	146	32	99	110	10	0.261

Now let's look at a possible stat line for Miguel Tejada, who was drafted in Round 3 in a lot of expert drafts.

	G	AB	H	HR	RBI	R	SB	AVG
Tejada	162	650	200	26	100	100	5	0.308

The only category Tejada is significantly better in is Batting Average. Of course these are rough numbers and this exact scenario might not have worked because Theriot wasn't expected to play full-time during the preseason, but I think you understand that this concept has its place in Fantasy Baseball Strategy.

A reader mentioned the other day that this theory has its limitations, which it absolutely does. That reader said that it is not always necessary to take on risk. In less competitive leagues, risk might not be needed in order to win. But in competitive leagues, taking on a risk like Troy Glaus or Barry Bonds might be a sound strategy.

There are also some risky players that should not be taken. An example of the type of player that wouldn't work well with this platoon approach is Ryan Freel. Freel is a player that I like a lot and drafted for several of my teams because I expected him to start every day. That thought went out the window with the emergence of Josh Hamilton.

Here is why it might be difficult to begin to use the approach mentioned above with Freel. His days off seem to come at random intervals. Unless you are willing to check the lineup cards as they become available, minutes before games are set to begin - which you definitely could do if you are dedicated to winning your league - it would be difficult to decide which games to bench Freel and which to play his platoon-mate. This actually becomes impossible if the player in question is on a West coast team whose games don't start until after his platoon-mate's games have ended.

Anyway, I think I've talked enough about this for now. Tomorrow I'll talk a little more and go over a few guys who might be good targets for the remainder of the year to employ this strategy with.

New Feature

I'd like to start a weekly feature that is maintained mostly through reader feedback. The idea for this week's came from one of our readers.

What is the worst trade you have ever been proposed?

This does not have to include sabermetrics in any way. It's simply the most lopsided trade that, in your opinion, you've ever been asked about. Maybe you inquired about Felipe Lopez and were asked to give up Albert Pujols. Or maybe someone offered you Chad Gaudin for Alfonso Soriano. Hopefully your league is more competitive than one where someone thinks they have a legitimate chance of completing one of these trades, but whatever your worst trade was, send it in. Next week we'll post them all (or the worst ones if the response is overwhelming). Make sure to include the year the trade was proposed.

Each week we'll try to come up with a new type of reader generated feature, so it is critical that you guys participate in order to keep this going. Email us at saberoticians [at] gmail .com to send in your contribution. Also mention whether or not you'd like your name to be included.

Followup Articles

Over the past week I mentioned two articles written over at the HardBall Times. One was on Philip Hughes's mechanics, and the other was on the potential market inefficiency of Risk. Since then followup articles have been posted about both, so I thought I'd let you guys know about them. I'll be writing a little more on risk and its applicability to Fantasy Baseball either later today or tomorrow. Links to both of the followup articles are below.
Philip Hughes followup
Risk followup

Back in Action!

Alright! Final exams are over and I'm out for the summer. With a lot of stuff now out of the way, I will have plenty of time to dedicate to posting here and to further developing my system for next year (as well as developing one for Fantasy Football). Again, I'm terribly sorry for the lack of posts and the days without any; this sort of thing shouldn't happen again.

Clemens to Pitch For Yankees

Roger Clemens announced today that he will pitch for the Yankees, beginning at the end of the month. If you have room on your bench until then, need pitching, and Clemens is available on your Waiver Wire (in deeper leagues he's probably already gone) pick him up. He should be a Top 5 pitcher while he's playing. If you can trade for him cheap, it might not be a bad idea.

Great Article on a Potential New Market Inefficiency

In Moneyball, Michael Lewis talks about Billy Beane's discovery of a market inefficiency in baseball: On-Base Percentage. Well, today the Hardball Times writes about a new one. Check out the article here. Very well done.

What this article talks about can definitely be applied to Fantasy Baseball. This is actually a strategy I employed in a number of my drafts this season. I drafted Barry Bonds late, knowing I would only get 120 or so games out of him. I then took another outfielder late, such as a Moises Alou or a Pat Burrell or a Chris Duncan, who I intended to play when Bonds gets hurt and on days when the Giants play a day game after a night game and Bonds sits. This has so far worked out well for me, and I think it is a very good strategy that should be employed in certain cases.

It's late now, and I have to get up early, but this is something I will think about and probably talk more about tomorrow. Good night.

Russ Ortiz to the DL

The Giants, today, placed Russ Ortiz on the DL. This should clear a spot for one of our favorite prospects, Tim Lincecum. No official announcement has been made, but if anyone besides Lincecum takes this spot I would be shocked. If he is available in your league and you need pitching, pick him up.

Hughes and Lincecum

Well, it seems as though Philip Hughes will be out for 4-6 weeks. Not good for those of us who were relying on him in the back end of our fantasy rotations. If you have an open DL spot, put him there. If you don't, but can afford sitting him on your bench, do it. Otherwise its a case by case basis, depending on the size of your league, the type of league, your other pitchers, and a few other factors. Email if you'd like my opinion on what you should do with him.

Better news, though, is that Russ Ortiz gave up 8 runs in 3.1 IP last night. This is exactly the type of performance that will force the Giants to bring up Tim Lincecum. If you need pitching and he is still on your Waiver Wire, make sure you grab him now. It should only be a matter of weeks (and possibly... hopefully... less) before we see his Big League debut.

Interesting Article on Philip Hughes

While Philip Hughes is pitching into the 7th inning against the Rangers, I have been reading an article on him over at the Hardball Times. Very interesting. I'm not exactly sure what to make of it yet, but if I develop a strong opinion I'll be sure to let you know. Make sure to check it out, and to cheer Philip on against the Rangers. His peripherals look quite good right now.

Wow, interesting move. I was about to post this when I saw that Hughes has just been removed from the game despite having a no-hitter through 6.1 innings. I realize that no-hitters don't actually mean a whole lot, but with the luster of it I'd think Torre would let him keep pitching. He'd only thrown 84 pitches. Oh well, I guess they want to take care of him. I can't really complain, he pitched a good game for me.

A lot of people said to bench Hughes against Texas in mixed leagues; I didn't see the necessity of it considering his good peripheral numbers against Toronto. I'm certainly glad I played him, and I hope the Yankees see what we do... that Hughes deserves to stay in the Bigs.

UPDATE: I should have known he was removed for a reason. He tweaked his hamstring. Let's hope it's nothing serious; Hughes could end up as a Top 20 SP this year.

Buying and Selling

Starting this week we'll be having a post on which players you should and shouldn't buy low and sell high on. If a player that you are curious about isn't mentioned, email us and we'll let you know how to best proceed. I'll try to mention players who are owned in most leagues (or who should be owned in most leagues), so those in deeper leagues with specific questions please don't hesitate to ask me. Here we go!


Buy Low
Garrett Atkins - One of my favorite preseason sleepers is struggling a little. If his owner thinks maybe Atkins isn't the player he thought he was on draft day grab him. I still think Atkins will be a first round pick next year. .330/35/110/100 is still quite possible.

Conor Jackson - Getting absolutely, incredibly, ridiculously unlucky, Jackson is a guy who could be a Top 10 1B by the end of the year. Great Contact Rate, Line Drive Percentage, and BB rate. Is a pretty good bet to reach 30 HRs. Very good lineup should keep his RBI and Run totals up.

Manny Ramirez & Lance Berkman - My #10 and #11 picks in the league with my friends are both struggling. Both are good players though and should be picked up on the cheap if at all possible. Both will put up monster numbers in 4 of 5 categories.

Brett Myers - Myers won't stay in middle relief for too long. He'll either become one of the game's best closers or Starting Pitchers (again). If he becomes the SP you're set, and if he becomes the closer just turn and trade him for another top shelf SP. Great peripherals since moving to the bullpen, which is when he changed his arm slot to correct his early season troubles.

Dave Bush - .383 BABIP means Bush is getting extremely unlucky. His control is amazing, his K rate is over 7, and his GB rate is above average. Sooner or later his run of bad luck will stop. Get him now while you can.


Don't Buy Low
Carlos Zambrano - Mentioned a lot already, so I won't spend a lot of time going over him. He needs to improve his control to become an elite pitcher, and he hasn't done it so far this year. There's no indication that he will, so stay away from Zambrano.

Ervin Santana - Mentioned as a bust candidate for this year, Santana is fulfilling my expectations. In case you're tempted to trade for him... don't. Even worse peripherals than last year. 1.33 K/BB and 30% GB rate is not a formula for success.

Chien-Ming Wang - Simply does not strike out enough players to have fantasy value. A 3 category starter is very rarely worth owning. His BB/9 is too high to even think he'll have very good ERA and WHIP.

Ryan Zimmerman - Zimmerman is another guy who has been overhyped. He is due for a power regression (12 HRs perhaps) and he is only an above average contact hitter. Add in his terrible lineup (although it will improve when Nick Johnson returns) and you have a poor fantasy player. His draft day value was much too high, so don't think you're getting a bargain with him.

Chuck James - Braves pitchers tend to get more hype than deserved, and James is one of them. He has a decent K/BB, but it won't get much better. Not a great K/9 and a downright bad GB Percentage. BABIP is a little high, but essentially what you see is what you get with Chuck James right now.


Sell High
Matt Cain - Cain's a young guy with a lot of hype, but his K/9 this year is at just 5.91 and his BB/9 is all the way up at 4.37. That equates to a lot of hits and a lot of walks. Add in his low GB Percentage, which is always low, and you'll get a lot of HRs too. Of course his K/9 should increase and his GB% will increase maybe 5-7%, but there is nothing to suggest his BB/9 will decrease. A .117 BABIP and 0.51 HR/9 won't hold up. I have a very strong feeling Cain owners will be very displeased in the coming months.

John Maine - Maine is getting very lucky via .200 BABIP and 0.54 HR/9. BABIP should be around .290 and HR/9 should be over 1 with his low GB Percentage. His K/9 is surprisingly good, but it may not last. His BB/9 is pretty high and his GB% is low.

Henry Owens - Seemingly pitching well, but a .233 BABIP is just luck. Low K/9, high BB/9 and only a decent GB Percentage means Owens is in for a fall. Let someone else catch him.

Rich Hill - Already being mentioned as a serious NL Cy Young candidate, this won't be the case at the end of the season. .192 BABIP and 0.76 HR/9 are quite lucky and his K/9 is down from last year. His GB Percentage is up, but it is still poor. Hill will end up as a decent pitcher, but he won't be an elite pitcher as he is being treated now. Trade him for one.

Justin Verlander - Another preseason bust I talked about, Verlander is getting lucky... again. You can't bank on luck, only on skill. 6.52 K/9 and 4.34 BB/9 paired with an average 43% GB rate is not how you achieve a 2.79 ERA. Verlander is in for a drop in production.

Don't Sell High
Jake Peavy - One of my favorite players preseason, Peavy is outperforming even my expectations. K/9 over 10.5 and BB/9 under 3 equals sheer dominance. Trade him only for Johan Santana.

Josh Beckett - My #19 SP preseason, Beckett should continue to produce as long as he is healthy. May need to K more guys if his amazing BB rate increases, and his GB rate may be a bit inflated, but Beckett should continue to produce quality fantasy numbers.

Chris Duncan - Don't know if I've mentioned him, but Duncan was a preseason sleeper for me. His HRs last year were legit, and he has hit a few so far this year. Decent Contact Rate, good LD rate, and decent BB rate means he should be a fairly productive contact hitter. Good lineup means RBIs and Runs. Only trade him if you can get good value for him.

Alex Rodriguez - Was due to hit more HRs this year. This pace won't keep up, but A-Rod should hit 50-55 HRs and 60 is a possibility. Most of his HRs this year have gone very far. He is simply destroying the ball. Not a great contact hitter, but a .280-.285 average is likely. A lot of RBIs and Runs are in store hitting in the middle of the Yankee lineup, and A-Rod is normally good for a few steals. Don't trade him for anyone not named Albert Pujols.