Jack's Flash - FAAB Economics
Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 5:03 am
I think that KJ Duke summed it up best last night when he concluded that Scherzer’s real value was probably between $100-$150. A starting pitcher never drums up a lot of dollars because he doesn’t offer enough on-field work to garner a major bid. It is the same reasoning that you can’t really draft a starting pitcher in the first round of the draft.
Starting pitchers only get at most two shots in a week to build your stats. They also carry a lot of risk in those starts. If a pitcher goes out and gets knocked around, even with a ton of strikeouts, he kills your ERA and WHIP. Remember those are categories that you don’t just get stalled in - you can go backwards.
Enough said about that. What’s done is done. Now, how do you proceed going forward?
FAAB Economics is a fundamental part of this sport (ok, game for everyone that doesn’t take it that seriously). First I want to address the defensive side of FAAB, and then I will follow up with the offensive side.
FAAB Defense
Going into the season you have $1000. Divide that over six months of play and you have $166 per month on average to spend. If you would rather look at it weekly then it would be $38 per week. If you have played in the NFBC for a couple of years then you are already aware of the ramifications of being in a deep league. There usually isn’t a lot to choose from on FAAB Sunday. A lot of that money will be spent on rotating two-start pitchers, replacing injured or demoted players, improving a bad team, and collecting those late season call-ups who can prove to be the guys who take you to a championship.
When I talk about defense, I am referring to what you can do to make your team better in and of itself. Suppose that you are weak in saves, then FAAB is going to pull you through when a closer becomes available. If you have A-Rod, then you are going to have to dip into your FAAB and get somebody to replace him. You get the point. FAAB is your roster management mechanism.
First, pace yourself. Knowing that there is a finite amount of FAAB available to you during the season, you can’t blow it all early on. What are you going to do if you have $100 left in the last month or two and your team is competing strong? You may not have enough to outbid the guys you are competing against to get the players you need to put you over the top.
Second, now is the time to either get, or keep, yourself in the race on the hitting side. I pointed out earlier that now is not the time to start going overboard on K’s. Chasing strikeouts can kill you. Scherzer’s start last night is a prime example. His 4.50 ERA is recoverable. His 2.25 WHIP is recoverable. What he does in his next start (unless Gonzalez gets the start) could put a serious hurt on you. I know. I’ve got Andrew Miller and I have a lot of work ahead of me through the season to get the damage that he has done to my stats under control. As on offset though, I have Webb and Dice-K to help level him out. Matsuzaka’s performance last night is a good reason that you have to be very careful with guys who get you a lot of innings with a lot of hits and a lot of walks. Pitching is unpredictable, but it becomes the real game of the endgame not the earlygame.
FAAB Offense
For everyone, that came in as runner-up on the Scherzer lottery, this Bud’s for you! Take a look at the team who won Scherzer. How many FAAB$ does that team have left? There are a few leagues with teams that are going into a highly conservative spending mode. Use this to your advantage. Even the teams that will have to go into a moderately conservative mode can be exploited. They are now on a limited budget. They’ve realized it. You need to realize it too.
Find their weakness and make sure that they can’t buy anyone to improve themselves. They won’t have the buying power to compete against you unless they break their budget. Watch for them to have an injury and make sure that they can’t pick up a replacement. Since this is an individual league tactic, then it works in any satellite, variant, and Main Event league.
There were probably 364 people who just said, “That S.O.B.” That’s fine. My response is that whether you view this as a game or a sport, there are always offensive and defensive measures for you to win. Many teams just exposed a serious weakness in their team. If you are down in the stats, they just gave you a way to climb ahead of them. If you are on top, then they gave you a fork to stick in them so that you could officially call them “Done.” Whatever you do, make sure to bankrupt them before the end of the season when the face of pitching begins to change.
There are other tactics that will work as well. Stream your bench on the low dollar teams, tying up active players for two-week periods. Put out slightly above average players that those teams need so that they will drain away the rest of their FAAB. And, one of my favorites, horde the multi-positional players. Those players are now more valuable to those teams than any other since they can use them to fill different holes in their line-up for the price of one player.
Ethical or unethical? Every sport and game has offensive and defensive tactics. Everyone needs to know what to do next or what may be coming their way.
Starting pitchers only get at most two shots in a week to build your stats. They also carry a lot of risk in those starts. If a pitcher goes out and gets knocked around, even with a ton of strikeouts, he kills your ERA and WHIP. Remember those are categories that you don’t just get stalled in - you can go backwards.
Enough said about that. What’s done is done. Now, how do you proceed going forward?
FAAB Economics is a fundamental part of this sport (ok, game for everyone that doesn’t take it that seriously). First I want to address the defensive side of FAAB, and then I will follow up with the offensive side.
FAAB Defense
Going into the season you have $1000. Divide that over six months of play and you have $166 per month on average to spend. If you would rather look at it weekly then it would be $38 per week. If you have played in the NFBC for a couple of years then you are already aware of the ramifications of being in a deep league. There usually isn’t a lot to choose from on FAAB Sunday. A lot of that money will be spent on rotating two-start pitchers, replacing injured or demoted players, improving a bad team, and collecting those late season call-ups who can prove to be the guys who take you to a championship.
When I talk about defense, I am referring to what you can do to make your team better in and of itself. Suppose that you are weak in saves, then FAAB is going to pull you through when a closer becomes available. If you have A-Rod, then you are going to have to dip into your FAAB and get somebody to replace him. You get the point. FAAB is your roster management mechanism.
First, pace yourself. Knowing that there is a finite amount of FAAB available to you during the season, you can’t blow it all early on. What are you going to do if you have $100 left in the last month or two and your team is competing strong? You may not have enough to outbid the guys you are competing against to get the players you need to put you over the top.
Second, now is the time to either get, or keep, yourself in the race on the hitting side. I pointed out earlier that now is not the time to start going overboard on K’s. Chasing strikeouts can kill you. Scherzer’s start last night is a prime example. His 4.50 ERA is recoverable. His 2.25 WHIP is recoverable. What he does in his next start (unless Gonzalez gets the start) could put a serious hurt on you. I know. I’ve got Andrew Miller and I have a lot of work ahead of me through the season to get the damage that he has done to my stats under control. As on offset though, I have Webb and Dice-K to help level him out. Matsuzaka’s performance last night is a good reason that you have to be very careful with guys who get you a lot of innings with a lot of hits and a lot of walks. Pitching is unpredictable, but it becomes the real game of the endgame not the earlygame.
FAAB Offense
For everyone, that came in as runner-up on the Scherzer lottery, this Bud’s for you! Take a look at the team who won Scherzer. How many FAAB$ does that team have left? There are a few leagues with teams that are going into a highly conservative spending mode. Use this to your advantage. Even the teams that will have to go into a moderately conservative mode can be exploited. They are now on a limited budget. They’ve realized it. You need to realize it too.
Find their weakness and make sure that they can’t buy anyone to improve themselves. They won’t have the buying power to compete against you unless they break their budget. Watch for them to have an injury and make sure that they can’t pick up a replacement. Since this is an individual league tactic, then it works in any satellite, variant, and Main Event league.
There were probably 364 people who just said, “That S.O.B.” That’s fine. My response is that whether you view this as a game or a sport, there are always offensive and defensive measures for you to win. Many teams just exposed a serious weakness in their team. If you are down in the stats, they just gave you a way to climb ahead of them. If you are on top, then they gave you a fork to stick in them so that you could officially call them “Done.” Whatever you do, make sure to bankrupt them before the end of the season when the face of pitching begins to change.
There are other tactics that will work as well. Stream your bench on the low dollar teams, tying up active players for two-week periods. Put out slightly above average players that those teams need so that they will drain away the rest of their FAAB. And, one of my favorites, horde the multi-positional players. Those players are now more valuable to those teams than any other since they can use them to fill different holes in their line-up for the price of one player.
Ethical or unethical? Every sport and game has offensive and defensive tactics. Everyone needs to know what to do next or what may be coming their way.