Is There A Method To Your FAAB Madness?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Jeff Zimmerman of Fangraphs.com is looking at NFBC FAAB analysis this year and trying to come up with some predictable data for the future. He's been analyzing the first half of the season FAAB results and has been posting some interesting tidbits on Twitter. Follow Jeff at @jeffwzimmerman on Twitter.

Here was today's post, which I found very interesting:

In this season's @thenfbc Main Event, looking at double digit bets, the most common ending integer is '1' (13.3%) and '7' (12.7%). The least common ending digit (and the one owners should use) are '0' (6.4%) and '6' (7.7%).

Thoughts?

[Edwards Kings]

Somebody prop Doughboy's up, because when he reads this from me, he may faint...or at least get some Dorito dust ready to revive him.

For this analysis, it won't be all about the numbers. Yes, I said it.

In order to have usable data, he at the very least is going to have to break the population into two groups...newly named or appointed closers and everyone else. The bidding on one is totally irrational and I believe unpredictable. The sample size, unless you get more than one year of data on FAAB closers may not be enough for extrapolation.

As to everyone else, you obviously have to somehow account for the timing of the bids...kind of like a bag of Doritos....when you first open the bag, you grab them by the handful. As ready availability declines, you may take only two at a time, then one. Bidding correlation, at least if the goal is to discern "winning" bids, in April and May is limited for most in July/August.

And the winning "1's", how may winning $1 bids were primary, how many were conditional?

Is there a strategy? Yes. I have talked about bids in my leagues in years past, but I think he will find there are very few winning bids in the middle integers (say 4 to 8) and of those, the extra bucks over 1-3 were not needed. And I think he will find that most of the time, it does not take a $100+ bid to win a player....unless he is a closer du jour. Your chance of winning a ball player increases within a relevant range ($1-$15, $16-$25, etc.) which is expected, the returns however (i.e. players won without having doubled the next highest bid or otherwise wasting your FA money) diminish.