NFBC Message Boards

Every Monday, well Wednesday if I was busy all weekend on a major project for a certain fantasy baseball site and then participated in a public mock on Tuesday that also included our own Tom K, I will be attempting to embellish the content of these boards with an essay. So without further ado...



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TRADING PLACES



Damn you Greg Ambrosius. Damn you and the horse you rode in on. That’s what I would have said to you ten years ago. I would have said it right to your face. I swear to god I would have.



You see, when I first started out in the industry in 1997, my niche was the human element. I talked about getting inside your opponent’s head to gain an advantage. I talked about understanding their psyche. Realize this was back in the day when you and your buddies got together in the back room of a bar and spent an entire weekend afternoon drafting and drinking, not necessarily in that order. This was when you picked up the phone and called your pal Joe to talk trade and not send an e-mail to someone you know only as [email protected]. As a matter of fact, my first major published work was a chapter in the old Mastersball Annual talking about trading tips.



But now it’s a decade later and I owe the mustachioed one a debt of gratitude. I know, I know, all debts are paid in beers. It used to be that trading was one of my favorite, if not my favorite aspect of fantasy baseball. But in recent years, for reasons mostly my fault, trading had become a tedious, boorish and tiresome element that detracted, not added to my enjoyment. But with the emergence of the Ambrosius brainchild affectionately called the NFBC, I was able to weed out my less than desirable trading leagues and replace them with no-trade leagues. Heck, I even joined a private no-trade league comprised of many of my fellow NFBC participants.



So what changed? Basically, trading, especially in keeper leagues, is a time consuming process that requires a subtle mix of patience and persistence. Ten years ago, I was willing and able to make the time for both, but no longer. For the past couple of years, I found myself ignoring my opponent’s inquiries and proposals and unwilling to take the time to properly seek to improve my team via the trade route. My responsibilities at the day job morphed from Lab Technician to Chief Scientific Officer while my responsibilities at my night and weekend gig became more serious when we stopped publishing the aforementioned Annual and went to a pay model. The manner I was treating my leagues was in a word, disrespectful to my fellow league members and especially the league commissioners who worked so hard to foster a fun and competitive environement. Recently, when unfortunately leaving a couple more leagues run by friends of mine, I told them that if it was anyone but me treating the league in the manner I did, they would be asking me how to boot the deadbeat.



Don’t worry; I’m not going to segue this into a “Top Ten Tricks of the Trade” tutorial. Been there, done that. Actually though, I’ll be dusting off the old archive as I am about to begin my second tour of duty with SI.com, this time as their strategy columnist, but that’s a gratuitous plug for another day.



All that said, I still play in a handful of industry leagues that allow trading, but I find the process more palatable, as I am usually dealing with someone who is also short of time so we skip the foreplay and get busy. And because of this, I have the time, desire and willingness to occasionally cuddle a little when it is necessary. I also play in a local trading, keeper league that is old school in that many of the guys are friends and we have a live auction and periodic “league meetings” at an adult-beverage serving establishment.



Truth be told, it took me a little while to get used to the NFBC no-trade format, especially in the auctions. I was a huge proponent of chasing value, not stats, then trading value into the necessary stats to garner rotisserie points. It especially affected the manner in which I treated pitching, as I found it easier to deal my excess hitting for needed pitching than vice-versa. But here, those extra steals or surplus saves either waste away on your reserves or accumulate unnecessarily on your active roster. In the drafts, I find it relatively easy to pass on stats I don’t need, but in the auction, I usually bloody my tongue refraining from buying a player I have priced as a bargain, but whose contributions I don’t need.



Now I’m at the point I enjoy the challenge of a no-trade setup. I think it adds a cool strategic element based on balance. And the best part is it entails incorporating the human element I espoused earlier. You need to read your opponents much like a poker player and figure out their strategy, so you can best plan your own series of moves maximizing the talent you draft or buy. And something I think is really interesting and adds a great twist is some NFBC gamers are so active in the various formats their tendencies are beginning to become apparent, further adding to the head game.



So thank you Greg. Thank you for availing me a format I can enjoy and that offers some new challenges. And when I see you in Vegas next month, I will thank you right to your face. I swear to god I will.



[ February 14, 2007, 10:18 PM: Message edited by: ToddZ ]

Good job Todd. And by the way, I'm an easy one to thank: MGD or Corona!!!



The funny thing is I won my very first league title by trading Jamie Moyer for Greg Maddux back in 1988 after Maddux had his 6-14 season or whatever it was. The guy who traded him was a Cubs' fan and was so embarrassed by his move that he quit the league two years later. But it was one of those situations where he didn't have the time to analyze everything, I did and he made a quick, stupid trade. Maddux led the Wenches to five league titles and will always rank up there near Brett Favre -- okay, a very major tier down -- on my list of athlete favorites.



But these days I don't even have time to make a smart XFL trade offer. Just too busy. I'd play in no-trade leagues nine out of 10 times. The world is just too fast-paced these days for me to work trades properly. You said everything I would have...except the stuff about the mustachioed one!!



Good stuff.

Todd enjoy reading your weekly posts and agree with everything, for myself also. Wanted to be the first to congratulate you to the Ultimate League Auction and look forward to competing against you in the toughest league.



Kelly

I too came up playing in trade leagues.It still goes on today , the last trading league i play in.I try not to make trades , because everytime time there is a trade , in somebody's mind somebody got **** #d.Weve lost good friends because of trade leagues, some people just cant let a bad trade go bye, so they try to ruin the league or quit, or even get kicked out.Trade leagues are a headache and just isnt fair to play all year then a guy in last gives the guy in first Alfonso Soraino for Shea Hillenbrand because Hillenbrand is a dollar. It just doesnt work , our basketball league switched 3 years ago to no trade , or the league was over.Im still in that trade league we started in 1993 , and still is a headache, i dont trade now so i dont have to hear you got the best of him, or if i even think trade i will give a little more so nobody can complain.Thats not the way to run a business. Anyway's thank god for the NFBC and the NFFC and let the best team win.

We enjoy the no-trade as well. Watching the league bully rip off the league retard was becoming less and less tolerable.



NFBC all the way !

Don't get me wrong, a keeper league with all the members sharing the same philosophy and commitment is as good as it gets. But having everyone, and I mean everyone on the same page is paramount. Hillenbrand for Soriano should not decide the league, but serve as an impetus for the next team to deal their farm roster Alex Gordon for Vlad, something like that. Some other team trades a $1 Papelbon for K-Rod. These "lopsided" trades are not so lopsided if everyone is cool with them -- and yes, there are lots of leagues that play this way. If you don't like the free market way of doing things, there are means like a salary cap to keep the dumping inder control.



I guess I just wanted to clarify I am not against trading leagues in general, it is just my personal preference is now non-trading for the most par due to time constraints and priorites.

Todd, I didn't see the final team but I watched your draft the other night. First of all thanks, for letting us watch, now the criticism Where was the power for your team? seemed very underpowered to me... What do you think?



Chris

- we have hard cap max $340 (full season)

- we have hard cap minimum of $200 (until day after trade deadline)

- can't trade with same team more than 3x during season

- trades must be even; 3for3 etc (3 is max at one time)

- top 70 players in baseball are asterisk players and you can't trade more than 1 if you dont get 1 back in return.

- team with biggest point gain from allstar game on receives 1k (only to team that DIDNT come in the $)



want to trade ?? go right ahead ! good luck



Q

Todd, I didn't see the final team but I watched your draft the other night. First of all thanks, for letting us watch, now the criticism Where was the power for your team? seemed very underpowered to me... What do you think?



Chris Chris, I think you're right. Actually, I hit my HR mark, but was by my standards woefully short on RBI, run and SB, but destroyed my BA mark.



Not making excuses, just stating facts, but I was not tracking my team totals as I was still at the day job, doing day job things and also trying to promote (if you can believe that) my site via both smart and entertaining responses to the questions posed by the watchers.



In my post-mortem, I like to play the "what if" game. What if I took this guy instead of that guy.



I took Pujols #1 and followed with Furcal and Ichiro, both of which I have rated as mid-2nd rounders. However, if I took Bay instead of Ichiro, who was rated one spot behind him, and then took Willy Tavarez instead of Chipper in Round 7 (I believe), I would have improved all my counting stats except SB, and only frop from .290 to .287 in BA. My goal was .283 so I still have some wiggle room to do ywo more "what ifs", one gaining me power, one gaining me speed, both costing me average.



So my take home lesson was how important it is for my style of drafting to track the stats and not estimate on the fly. Second, and this may sound goofy, but I learned if I make the right picks, I can build a team with Pujols #1. I say goofy because, like, who couldn't? But in this year's pool, I see two pockets of talent where I can draft say 5th-7th and likely get a player I have rated top 3 (Carl Crawford, cough cough)and earn profit or draft 9th-11th and get a player I have rated top 8, again getting profit. So this exercise will go a long way in helping me select my KDS ranking.

Funny you say that. I thought Jason Bay was the right call there or perhaps Derrek Lee (though that gave you 2 1b). I do agree that 45 seconds would lead to some of the cuff picks as it was very time compressed to do both picking and answering questions



I felt that the draft was much more aggressive in terms of picking pitchers than I have seen in NFBC drafts. What do you think?



Regards,

Chris

Actually, my observation has been pitchers and catchers are both being drafted earlier than normal. My theory is the player pool is a little different than in the past -- I see fewer top tier "I'm picking this guy and I don't care what position he plays" and fewer "I don't want this guy no matter what." So when you get to the middle rounds, you see a ton of hitters you like and feel comfortable taking a pitcher or catcher earlier than in the past.



This is just a theory. This is the time of year that people start using better projections, either their own or store-bought, and go less on 2006 and the house ranking at MDC, so ADPs and draft dynamics are in process of changing from the earlier 2007 mocks.

Chris, I think you're right. Actually, I hit my HR mark, but was by my standards woefully short on RBI, run and SB, but destroyed my BA mark.

Look, I'm not trying to be an a$$, but if you were shooting for 141st place in homeruns, that would easily explain why you've done poorly.

Look, I'm not trying to be an a$$, but if you were shooting for 141st place in homeruns, that would easily explain why you've done poorly. Come on man, you're better than that, let's be honest, you most certainly are trying to be an ass.



But I'll be honest, that's OK. It comes with the territory. Plus you're right. Maybe.



Based on my first run through, which are admittedly similar but not exactly as my site publishes, I totaled between 290 and 300. So I went to a couple of other sources that I trust and ended up with only 279 and 263. Digging deeper, I have my team with 250 more AB that one set, almost 500 more than the other. There are a couple of potential reasons for this. The obvious is one of us is wrong. But secondly, some prognosticators are a little more liberal or more often conservative with AB. It is still early, I drafted several players whose playing time is in question and I was definitely more liberal in my AB than the other sources. Curiously, I have my team at .2895, while the other places have it .291 and .293, further suggesting the primary difference in the counting stats is our respective playing time estimations and not a difference in skills.

No, honest. Maybe I should have phrased it better but I was wondering how you could possibly have been shooting for that number. Frankly, I don't understand your response at all but I think I gather that you were shooting for the *number* of homeruns you got, before the leaguewide offensive spike which seemed not to hit your team.

Are we talking about the same thing? I'm talking about a mock I did Tuesday, not NFBC 2006.



I was shooting for 290, which historically gets you into the top 10 overall (if you hit your other marks as well.)



My count had a little over 300. My site put me at 294, two other sites at 263 and 279.



If you dispute my mock team will hit 300, that's fine. I bet by mid-March, I dispute it too.

I thought you meant last year. Sorry. Let this be a warning to everyone: Don't drink and post.

All,

Here is Todd's team:



Pos Name Team Pick

C A.J. Pierzynski CHW R13 P1

C Johnny Estrada MIL R17 P1

1B Albert Pujols STL R1 P1

1B Ryan Shealy KC R16 P15

2B Ian Kinsler TEX R8 P15

SS Rafael Furcal LA R2 P15

SS Carlos Guillen DET R5 P1

3B Chipper Jones ATL R7 P1

3B Aubrey Huff BAL R11 P1

3B Morgan Ensberg HOU R14 P15

OF Ichiro Suzuki SEA R3 P1

OF Randy Winn SF R18 P15

OF Wily Mo Pena BOS R23 P1

P Billy Wagner NYM R4 P15

P Brett Myers PHI R6 P15

P Chad Cordero WAS R9 P1

P David Bush MIL R10 P15

P Kelvim Escobar ANA R12 P15

P John Patterson WAS R15 P1

P Scot Shields ANA R19 P1

P Mike Pelfrey NYM R20 P15

P Bill Bray CIN R22 P15

DH Jay Gibbons BAL R21 P1



Todd, maybe I am too conservative, but I am having a hard time even getting to 260... anyway, have a great weekend

without shealy they hit 238 last year. he should hit 20 so that is 258. many of these guys missed time or had bad years. as a team- i think it has more potential to go up than down. todd seems smart enough to have drafted another outfielder to start if pena isn't playing- so i would say a good chance of 275-285. not the team i would have drafted- but i can see the logic.

The more I look at it, other than the Bay/Ichiro and Jones/Tavarez switch I mentioned earlier, the extra .008 points in BA SCREAMS David Ross and John Buck and not AJP and Estrada. This would have enabled me to get some better pitching as well.

I did notice Todd took Gullien at 5th round pick one.You already had Furcal , and Delgado was still on the board, not many drafts does Delgado slip into the 5th round.I like Delgado to get his avg back to 290 to 310 after a full year with the Mets , and 40 bombs and 100 rbi's.

The ONLY issue with Delgado is I had Pujols at 1B and I like a TON of the younger 1Bman, Shealy included. I don't much like the SS pool so I was OK with filling the MI.



In Vegas, I'll make better use of the ADP to get a guy like Guillen a round or two later.

Originally posted by Spyhunter:

All,

Here is Todd's team:



Pos Name Team Pick

C A.J. Pierzynski CHW R13 P1

C Johnny Estrada MIL R17 P1

1B Albert Pujols STL R1 P1

1B Ryan Shealy KC R16 P15

2B Ian Kinsler TEX R8 P15

SS Rafael Furcal LA R2 P15

SS Carlos Guillen DET R5 P1

3B Chipper Jones ATL R7 P1

3B Aubrey Huff BAL R11 P1

3B Morgan Ensberg HOU R14 P15

OF Ichiro Suzuki SEA R3 P1

OF Randy Winn SF R18 P15

OF Wily Mo Pena BOS R23 P1

P Billy Wagner NYM R4 P15

P Brett Myers PHI R6 P15

P Chad Cordero WAS R9 P1

P David Bush MIL R10 P15

P Kelvim Escobar ANA R12 P15

P John Patterson WAS R15 P1

P Scot Shields ANA R19 P1

P Mike Pelfrey NYM R20 P15

P Bill Bray CIN R22 P15

DH Jay Gibbons BAL R21 P1



Todd, maybe I am too conservative, but I am having a hard time even getting to 260... anyway, have a great weekend My model says 254 HRs, but bench players for guys like Chipper and Wily Mo who will miss time should get you a few more. Of course, an injury to a top power guy and you could lose all of those extras and then some.

I see it the same way at 260ish. I don't see why you can't take Delgado. I understand you had Pujols and like Shealy, but you can have 1 at 1b another at cn and the other at ut. I had 3 1b's last year and it does prevent you from making all the moves you want (I couldn't bench Tex, Morneau, or Giambi till late) but production is production. Get what you can when you can.

I see it the same way at 260ish. I don't see why you can't take Delgado. I understand you had Pujols and like Shealy, but you can have 1 at 1b another at cn and the other at ut. I had 3 1b's last year and it does prevent you from making all the moves you want (I couldn't bench Tex, Morneau, or Giambi till late) but production is production. Get what you can when you can. Let's take the actual players out of the equation for a minute and concentrate on the very last statement but production is production. Get what you can when you can.



I disagree with both the first part and the last part.



Production is not production. Not all of a player's production is useful. The useful part is that which not everyone has. I liken this to picking football winners. If everyone in your pool has San Diego beating Houston, then it doesn't matter if the Chargers cover or the Texans pull the upset as everyone gets the same win or loss. The game was not useful in determining the weekly champion. Same thing here. Not all of two player's stats are useful -- you need to compare them against the baseline at their respective positions.



Let's say we have a 2-man HR derby league in which we each draft a catcher and an outfielder. Here is the available pool:



OF1 - 35 HR

OF2 - 30 HR

C1 - 25 HR

C2- 15 HR



You have first pick, who do you take? Production is production, right? You must take OF1 because he'll hit the most HR. I'll take C1. That leaves you C2 for a total of 50 HR, I get OF2 for a total of 55. The USEFUL HR are really



OF1 - 5 HR

OF2 - 0 HR

C1 - 10 HR

C2- 0 HR



Withe respect to the take it while you can statement, the goal here is profit. Locking up my second 1B in this round hinders my ability to make profit later. My personal analysis suggests I can get a cornerman at a couple of rounds profit later in the draft. OK, so I do it and fill my UT then as suggested. Now I take away the chance to get profit from my UT at the end of the draft. It is all about tiers of value and comparing against the ADP. You need to be able to maximize your profit and that often means having available roster spots to take advantage.



Now let's throw Delgado and Guillen back in. When I compare them to their positional baseline, I have Guilen as a more valuable player than Delgado. This is a point some may contend otherwise. I prefer to do my comparison numerically and not anecdotally and my numbers had Guillen better. The issue, however, is his primary contribution was batting average, which I did not need considering I took Pujols and Ichiro early. Looking back over the draft, Bill Hall would have been a better choice as I needed his pop and could absorb his lower batting average.



[ February 17, 2007, 08:00 AM: Message edited by: ToddZ ]

Todd, I agree with both posts actually. I agree that positional shortage can change the analysis and if Guillen was a 80% or better chance to be healthy I would have taken him like you did, however, since he is such an injury risk I would have gone with Delgado.



anyway, I just wanted to say I thought your team was much better than I could have done given the circumstances!!!



Chris