Weekly Question: Where Does Soriano Go On Draft Day?

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:38 am

i believe at one point in the preseason that Ron Shandler projected Soriano to have a sub .240 batting average. oopppsss

The Lollygaggers · Post by **The Lollygaggers** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:50 am

This is an interesting thread so far. I’m projecting pretty much the same numbers as everyone else (except more steals than Chest expects). By my calculations, however, those numbers translate into a Top 5 value. I can appreciate Liquidhippo’s argument about Soriano’s potential downside – hell, I owned Soriano in 2004. But other contenders for the #2 pick (i.e., Reyes and Howard) don’t have nearly enough of a track record to safely assume that they’ll repeat their 06 breakouts. At this point, I don’t know who I would pick at #2. But Soriano seems like a clear contender to me, along with A-Rod, Reyes & Howard.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:59 am

It's a fair point that while Soriano may not be good value at #2, who else would be? Probably no one.

Clear cut #1 = Pujols

Picks #2-#6 too close to call.

I think you could make a case for any of these guys after Pujols ... A-Rod, Howard, Reyes, Soriano, Beltran.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:14 am

Originally posted by KJ Duke:

It's a fair point that while Soriano may not be good value at #2, who else would be? Probably no one.

Clear cut #1 = Pujols

Picks #2-#6 too close to call.

I think you could make a case for any of these guys after Pujols ... A-Rod, Howard, Reyes, Soriano, Beltran. Agreed. The 2-6 picks should be interesting this year as there will be speed coming back in the second and third rounds this year, unlike last year. And don't forget that Carl Crawford is worthy to be in this mix, too.

I don't agree, however, on your dollar values for Soriano. In a mixed league, he will definitely go for $40+. Remember, Pujols went for $48 last year. I think Soriano is worth $40+ in an NL-only league, but I'll finalize my dollar values later.

Vander · Post by **Vander** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:17 am

That's 1 of the reasons I don't want the second pick this year. Let somebody else have it and I'd be just as happy with what's left and then hopefully get a better second round pick then they would. If I had to pick second, as of now I still take Soriano. 30/30 minimum is hard to pass on.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:33 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

I don't agree, however, on your dollar values for Soriano. In a mixed league, he will definitely go for $40+. Remember, Pujols went for $48 last year. I think Soriano is worth $40+ in an NL-only league, but I'll finalize my dollar values later. [/QB]NL only, I'd agree with Soriano in the low $40s.

Tradesman Kettleers · Post by **Tradesman Kettleers** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:38 am

My problem with Soriano is that alot of his value is derived from SB's. Stolen bases are a commodity that can be derived from "lesser" players i.e., the Ryan Freels, Willy Tavares,Scott Podsedniks of the Baseball World not to mention Chris Duffy. Players such as Ryan Howard and A-Rod provide a commodity which you can't find in a lesser player and that is a significant Power/BA/OBP combination. Here we are in Round 8 of our Mock Draft and I can still find Speed, Power alone is pretty much gone and forget about Power/BA. Power/BA/OBP leads to RBIs and Runs, so I'll take the 4 category Howard combination of BA/Runs/HR/RBI over Soriano's 4 category Runs/HR/RBI/SB every day of the week. A-rod is a 5-category contributor along with David Wright and Chase Utley. Guys coming off of career years are poor risks for repeat performance. Remember you're drafting for 2007, not assembling a 2006 Fantasy All-Star team. Howard and A-rod should definitely be taken ahead of Soriano in all Drafts and should be rated ahead of him in the magazine also. The only qualification is the variability in BA from year to year, but this is offset in this argument by the expectation of Soriano's regression to the mean for HR's and SB's,never mind his career high OBP of .351 which was nearly .02 higher than his previous best as a result of 29 more Walks than he's ever had before.

Liquidhippo · Post by **Liquidhippo** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:37 am

Originally posted by Tradesman Kettleers:

My problem with Soriano is that alot of his value is derived from SB's. Stolen bases are a commodity that can be derived from "lesser" players i.e., the Ryan Freels, Willy Tavares,Scott Podsedniks of the Baseball World not to mention Chris Duffy. True, as long as you're willing to live with the black hole in the HR & RBI department that the Freels and Duffys provide.

The biggest problem for me is that Soriano is just an OF now. This may be the weakest 2B field in recent memory. After Utley and an injury prone Weeks, there's nothing special left at 2B, maybe Uggla if you think he can repeat. If Alfonso was still at 2B, I'd take him 1st overall, but he's not, he's just an OF.

Captain Hook · Post by **Captain Hook** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:13 pm

I think you guys are way off base on your draft slots for Soriano as well as some other guys.

Who was the most valuable in 2006?

IOW if you drafted today knowing the stats who should have been drafted with the #1 pick?

I will give a hint and then update the NOT list and if you are really guessing and don't know will give the winner (or their designate) a nice liquid prize in Vegas in March.

1) It's NOT Pujols

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:26 pm

Originally posted by Captain Hook:

I think you guys are way off base on your draft slots for Soriano as well as some other guys.

Who was the most valuable in 2006?

IOW if you drafted today knowing the stats who should have been drafted with the #1 pick?

I will give a hint and then update the NOT list and if you are really guessing and don't know will give the winner (or their designate) a nice liquid prize in Vegas in March.

1) It's NOT Pujols my auction value model using '06 says ...

Pujols & Reyes $41

Soriano & Santana $39

Howard $38

Captain Hook · Post by **Captain Hook** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:28 pm

KJ - for a 15 team mixed you are wrong but you need to make an official guess - if you want

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:31 pm

Perry, no model is perfect so I'm not sure how you can make a definitive statement, but I am curious.

Officially, since you say its not Pujols I'll say Reyes.

Dak · Post by **Dak** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:56 pm

Santana!!!

Chest Rockwell · Post by **Chest Rockwell** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:59 pm

Originally posted by Captain Hook:

I think you guys are way off base on your draft slots for Soriano as well as some other guys.

Who was the most valuable in 2006?

IOW if you drafted today knowing the stats who should have been drafted with the #1 pick?

I will give a hint and then update the NOT list and if you are really guessing and don't know will give the winner (or their designate) a nice liquid prize in Vegas in March.

1) It's NOT Pujols Teach us oh wise one! Please give us a hint... My guess is Cezar Izturis am I right?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:50 pm

Originally posted by Captain Hook:

I think you guys are way off base on your draft slots for Soriano as well as some other guys.

Who was the most valuable in 2006?

IOW if you drafted today knowing the stats who should have been drafted with the #1 pick?

I will give a hint and then update the NOT list and if you are really guessing and don't know will give the winner (or their designate) a nice liquid prize in Vegas in March.

1) It's NOT Pujols Perry, I'll take a Corona in Las Vegas and keep 'em coming. I think it's unquestionably Santana, who led his position in the five major categories. Now, taking him No. 1 overall or even second would take some big cahunas!!

Some folks won't even take a dominant pitcher in the Top 10. It will be interesting to see where he lands in each league because he's still only 27 and his best years could be ahead of him. He's definitely an interesting pick this year.

ToddZ · Post by **ToddZ** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:03 pm

Actually, there are two acceptable correct answers based on the valuation procedure used for these determinations.

This explanation will make one obvious, if it isn't already.

Most dollar value methods assign more of the available money to hitting, even though there are the exact amount of hitting and pitching points available. So one answer will consider this unequal split, and will be the way you see most sets of value presented. The second answer splits the hitting/pitching money equally.

Maybe Perry can take care of rewarding one answer and I can take care of the other.

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:49 pm

Originally posted by Captain Hook:

I think you guys are way off base on your draft slots for Soriano as well as some other guys.

Who was the most valuable in 2006?

IOW if you drafted today knowing the stats who should have been drafted with the #1 pick?

I will give a hint and then update the NOT list and if you are really guessing and don't know will give the winner (or their designate) a nice liquid prize in Vegas in March.

1) It's NOT Pujols I agree with some of the other guys that you can't really prove your valuation system is the best. Though, I can't see how you can have two guys tied. Mine goes to the tenth decimal place. Nevertheless, I will agree with Todd Z and raise him one to say that a third system values differently by position so there may be three correct answers. I will assume that we are talking about the bast overall hitter, tho, and tell you my system says Reyes is more valuable than any of the others.

Not terribly close either.

[ November 22, 2006, 12:57 AM: Message edited by: bjoak ]

SlackerDan · Post by **SlackerDan** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 12:47 am

I agree that Albert is a clear #1, but J.Santana is by far the most dominating pitcher in the league and is worth a top 5 draft pick. Once you have a Santana on your staff you can take some decent "chances" on starters in the middle rounds. It would be very difficult to pass on crawford, howard, arod, soriano, beltran, reyes, utley and a few others....but for me Santana is the best pick of them all ( next to Albert ).

SlackerDan

ToddZ · Post by **ToddZ** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 2:06 am

I agree with some of the other guys that you can't really prove your valuation system is the best. There really is no such thing as a best valuation system, because there are so many different definitions and applications of value. What I will say is based upon my definition of value, the system I use is the best, primarily because the system itself IS the definition. But that's a story for another day, another place, we've hijacked this thread enough

Though, I can't see how you can have two guys tied. Mine goes to the tenth decimal place.Never said two guys are tied, said there are two correct answers based upon using two different hitting:pitching splits.

As fas a carrying value out to 10 decimals, so long as fractions are involved, you can carry them out as far as you want. But the error involved with the calculation renders a $24 player basically the same as a $25 player so I present overall values as whole numbers. I do present categorical values to 2 decimal places though.

Nevertheless, I will agree with Todd Z and raise him one to say that a third system values differently by position so there may be three correct answers. Actually, I believe a proper system accounts for position from the get-go. Obviously, the answer Perry was looking for is indeed Reyes, thus his overall value is influenced by his position. If an outfielder turned in the exact same stat line, he would have earned a buck or two less. This is base upon a 69% hitting, 31% pitchig allocation that we find to be the standard now in 5x5. Under these conditions, Reyes earned $42 with Pujols and Crawford next at $37. Johan earned $36. I don't have the exact numbers, but using a 50/50 split, Santana would earn about $46 with Reyes at $30.

That said, I am playing around with an alternate means to determine league specific values. Conventionally, most systems assign positive value to enough players to fill each roster, in the NFBC that would be 220. But with the reserve list, injuries, etc., we all use far more than 220 players to contribute to our league pool of stats. SO what I am doing is going league by league, valuing each player based on his exact contributions to that league. The same player may have different value in different leagues, as they may have gotten a different number or at bats and/or the total of each scoring category is different per league. I have not yet introduced any sort of positional adjustment, so every counting stat contributes positive value. Even using this system, in which Reyes gets NO benefit (yet) for playing SS, his stats ALONE make him the most valuable fantasy hitter.

I will assume that we are talking about the bast overall hitter, tho, and tell you my system says Reyes is more valuable than any of the others.

Not terribly close either.

The numbers don't lie

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 4:12 am

Originally posted by bjoak:

Though, I can't see how you can have two guys tied. Mine goes to the tenth decimal place. bjoak,

Forecasting calls for putting specificity in context of likely error IMO; when approximating something it isn't worthwhile to assign meaning to differences so slight that it will be overwhelmed by likely error. That's why I have lots of ties in my model, all players are rounded to the dollar.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 4:24 am

Originally posted by ToddZ:

That said, I am playing around with an alternate means to determine league specific values. Conventionally, most systems assign positive value to enough players to fill each roster, in the NFBC that would be 220. But with the reserve list, injuries, etc., we all use far more than 220 players to contribute to our league pool of stats. SO what I am doing is going league by league, valuing each player based on his exact contributions to that league. The same player may have different value in different leagues, as they may have gotten a different number or at bats and/or the total of each scoring category is different per league. I have not yet introduced any sort of positional adjustment, so every counting stat contributes positive value. Even using this system, in which Reyes gets NO benefit (yet) for playing SS, his stats ALONE make him the most valuable fantasy hitter.

The numbers don't lie

Interesting adjustment Todd - as to the size of the player pool w/ value - I've built a complex model with a lot of variables that aren't typically accounted for, but I hadn't thought of this ... might have to play around with that. Nice to hear an original idea.

I have quantified positional values though - based on marginal contribution by position.

As for Reyes, I had him tied w Pujols in value which includes a SS premium ... I've seen other models that I believe overvalue SBs/ that's the only way I can see Reyes having more value.

ToddZ · Post by **ToddZ** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 4:33 am

As for Reyes, I had him tied w Pujols in value which includes a SS premium ... I've seen other models that I believe overvalue SBs/ that's the only way I can see Reyes having more value.

My system resembles that remark

Although I prefer to look at it from the POV that other systems undervalue steals (like SGP).

That said, I do encourage making a strategic adjustment to the raw value for a speedster, to account for the uniqueness of the category. I call this category efficiency ratings (CER). What I mean is if my cheat sheet said bid $35 on Manny Ramirez and $35 on Juan Pierre, I am more likely to go the full $35 on Ramirez, as I can strategically compete in steals without a rabbit. The SB category is distributed as such that it is efficient to earn a few points, but inefficient to compete for the top spots.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 4:56 am

Originally posted by ToddZ:

quote: As for Reyes, I had him tied w Pujols in value which includes a SS premium ... I've seen other models that I believe overvalue SBs/ that's the only way I can see Reyes having more value.

My system resembles that remark

Although I prefer to look at it from the POV that other systems undervalue steals (like SGP).

That said, I do encourage making a strategic adjustment to the raw value for a speedster, to account for the uniqueness of the category. I call this category efficiency ratings (CER). What I mean is if my cheat sheet said bid $35 on Manny Ramirez and $35 on Juan Pierre, I am more likely to go the full $35 on Ramirez, as I can strategically compete in steals without a rabbit. The SB category is distributed as such that it is efficient to earn a few points, but inefficient to compete for the top spots. [/QUOTE]Now I know what my model is missing, snappy concept titles!

... agree with your concept, I look at scoring category spreads each year and try to tweak my model such that it accounts for value differential across an efficient point-to-point range rather than the entire category spread.

Captain Hook · Post by **Captain Hook** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 5:37 am

Thanks to Todd for pinch hitting for me - had to get some extra Thanksgiving shopping in so those in the kitchen would have enough to work with LOL

For hitters for the 2006 season, the top earner was Reyes - and by a pretty good margin over the other hitters, obviously influenced by the surprising HR and RBI from a SB/MI. Since the original question was about Soriano the top hitters for NFBC models (15 team mixed, 5X5) were:

1) Jose Reyes - $41.64

2) Albert Pujols - $37.49

3) Carl Crawford - $37.29

4) Alfonso Soriano - 37.22

I extended the prices to four places so you could differentiate but also see how close Pujols, Crawford and Fonzie were last year - and that is the trick - who can repeat or improve for 2007?

The Lollygaggers · Post by **The Lollygaggers** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:58 am

Originally posted by Captain Hook:

For hitters for the 2006 season, the top earner was Reyes - and by a pretty good margin over the other hitters, obviously influenced by the surprising HR and RBI from a SB/MI. Since the original question was about Soriano the top hitters for NFBC models (15 team mixed, 5X5) were:

1) Jose Reyes - $41.64

2) Albert Pujols - $37.49

3) Carl Crawford - $37.29

4) Alfonso Soriano - 37.22

Two thoughts, Perry:

1) I'm surprised that your dollar figures are this low. Elite players go for $45+ in NFBC mixed auctions -- How is it that the breakout production of Pujols, Crawford and Soriano isn't worth more than $38? (Stated more precisely, didn't these guys "earn" more than $38?)

2) My valuation system looks at standing points added over replacement player -- a variation on ESPN's Player Rater. By my calculations, Reyes is barely #1 among hitters, with Soriano, Pujols & Howard closely behind (in that order). However, if you pro-rate Pujols' numbers to account for the 13 games he missed while on the DL, Pujols jumps to the head of the pack by a significant margin. FWIW, Crawford is 6th among hitters using this valuation system. I suppose I don't really have a question here, just a comment that reasonable people can come up with significantly different conclusions using the same fixed data.