Overeager Draftingness

[DOUGHBOYS]

I have been asked (many, many times) about two players.
Trea Turner and Jonathon Villar.
For two different reasons.

"What do you have against Trea Turner?"
That is the question most asked.
I explain that Turner played in every game last year. Which is wonderful. He didn't get hurt and he played every day.
BUT, the flip side of that is there is no way you can expect more at bats.
So, if taking him in the first round, THE FIRST ROUND, the only thing you can be hoping for is increasing his statistics in categories, while most likely (because most players do NOT have back-to-back 162 game seasons) getting less at bats.
Hardly any player is projected to have less at bats with more stats.
Why are NFBC folks expecting it out of Turner?
I don't get it.

.271/103/19/73/43
.275/102/21/63/15

You would think that these two sets of numbers would be going close together in drafts. They are not.
The first set of numbers are Turner's. The second are those of Tommy Pham.
However, Pham's numbers are with 25 less games played.
His drafters can have higher expectations through more at bats, not Turner owners.
Turner was overhyped two years ago when he ran wild and hit home runs at a high rate.
Will the real Trea Turner stand up?
In my eyes, he did. Last year.
And those were not first round numbers I saw.

Villar is a different story with the same prequel.
Villar too, had an amazing sequence where he was a wonderful player in 2016.
He hit 19 homers and stole 62 bases.
The best thing this side of the first two months of Trea Turner.
The result was for Villar as it is for Turner today.
He became overdrafted the next year, Being drafted in the first and second rounds.
Villar then torpedoed his owners by putting up a crappy 2017.
So bad that he was dropped in some leagues.
Now,Villar is traded to BAL and plays great for them in putting up his 2016 type numbers again.
And the overreaction the following year has been the same.
Villar has moved from the tenth round in early drafts to now the FOURTH ROUND of current drafts.
He hasn't done a thing in three months.
No news, no best shape of my life, no trade to a better team than BAL...Nothing.
And he has moved up six rounds.
This is overeager draftingness.
And there is a reason for Drafter overeagerness.

Last year, only 11 players stole 30 bases.
I use 30 bases because it is both an even number and suddenly, a high plateau for base thieves.
Of those 11 players, three are first round players (Turner, Ramirez, Betts)
Another three are also very expensive (Merrifield, Marte, Mondesi), they are going in rounds two and three.
Another two are judys on the decline (Hamilton, Gordon)
SO, if not getting your speed advantage in the top rounds and not wanting to use a high pick on a judy, there are only three other choices left.
Villar, Mallex Smith, Lorenzo Cain.
Along with Villar, Smith has also raised his roundage to the sixth round.
While Cain has not had much movement in usually being drafted in the fifth round.

Speed is a tough nut this year.
It makes people crazy.
They're drafting Turner in the first and Villar in the third round of some drafts.
15 Drafters and only 11 players with 30 Bags can have that effect.
Still, it is a trap.
A high price to pay for a category.
It's easy to shrug it off by saying that Turner and Villar 'have pop'.
That is justification that is not altogether truthful.
But drafters can lie to themselves after selecting any player.
It is Overeager Draftingness.
I know that isn't a real word, but everybody knows what it means.

[Gb2715]

I like this Dan. I just finished up an article about speed that will go out next week. My feeling is why not finish middle of the pack in steals and pound the other 4 categories while everyone is panicking for speed. Makes no sense.

[DOUGHBOYS]

By the way, I think I know of a player who will get at least 2/3 of the projected stolen bases of either Turner or Villar and hit more homers.
AND, not nearly as expensive.

I'll let you know that player AFTER my last draft.
(The Last thing I need is Overeager Draftingness on MY player.)

[Gb2715]

I have a few guys late I think are 15 hrs 20 Sb guys. Those are the types I’m targeting late to make up speed and get some other stats along with it. We will see in October I guess!

[DOUGHBOYS]

Agreed on all counts!

[Brian Jenner]

The obvious rebuttal here is that Turner's performance from 2018 is worthy of a first-round pick. He doesn't need to get better to be a top 10 player. He just needs to stay the same. Plug .271/103/19/73/43 into your preferred valuation system. If it doesn't spit out first round value, then I think the valuation system is broken.

[DOUGHBOYS]

If Turner gets in your first round, Marte does too with the similar numbers?
Trevor Story BLASTS Turner out of the water with his numbers...first round too?
How many first rounders do we have?
I don't have a preferred valuation system, if I did, I'd prefer that Turner not be in my first round on the basis of his numbers from last year.

In fairness to you, almost every 'ratings program' that comes out SEVERELY over estimates speed as a category.
I don't know why.
I believe it is to give more props to the five tool players.
Or maybe to prop up the one-category speed players like Hamilton who get too much cred every year.
Players are to be lauded for five tools. I get that.
Turner has one large tool (speed, get your mind out of the gutter) and lesser tools
Ratings systems usually go too far in gauging speed for ROTO leagues.

Look at these numbers...

.271/103/19/73/43
.291/119/29/70/12

The second set of numbers wins three categories in a drubbing, is close in another, and is beaten soundly by Turner's stolen bases.
When it comes to three solid victories over one, most fantasy players will take the wins in the categories.
BUT, the 'player valuation' doesn't work like that. It rewards speed too much.
Alex Bregman beat Turner in four of five categories last year. Has dual positionality at CI and Mi.
Yet, Turner is taken before him in every draft.
Charlie Blackmon is sooo last year.
He put up a solid year and fell out of the first round.
Those are his numbers listed with Turner's above.
Turner stays, Blackmon goes.
If Turner puts up another year almost like last year this year, I believe, he too, will follow Blackmon and fall out of the first round next year.
It is not Turner's current numbers keeping him in the first round. Especially having obtained those numbers with maximum games and at bats.
It is the hope that Turner can do even more. It is the hype that Turner can do more.
Hope and hype die a slow death in fantasy baseball.

[Brian Jenner]

There's slight risk in guys that are heavily weighted to one category over another because if they get injured it's hard to replace those steals without hurting every other category. But Turner is pretty solid across the board. He's not a one category player, he's above average in every category except HR, where he's merely average. Devaluing him because his ratio of HR to SB is skewed is like worrying that you have ten $5 bills and only one $20 bill in your pocket, and trading five $5 bills for a nice crisp $20 bill to balance things out. The concern should be the overall value. To continue with the analogy, saying that Bregman beats Turner in 4 categories and therefore he's better is like saying that Bregman has one extra of each $5, $10, $20, and $50 bills, so therefore he has more value even though his total money is lower than Turner who has an extra $100 bill.

Turner, last year, was already elite and put up first round value. So I simply disagree that people are counting on getting more. Looking at most projection systems, the ones people use to make these values, he's projected to do worse than last year in every category except AVG. People aren't counting on him getting better. If he repeats last year's stats he'll probably be rated even higher next year because it removes some uncertainty and raises his floor.

As far as one category or another being over-rated, or over-priced: the price is the price. You need steals, so you need to pay the market rate. I would argue that steals are often actually under-valued based on a PVM model with replacement level valuation like Todd uses over at Mastersball. But what I think about how the market values steals is irrelevant if I want to buy them. I can buy a little bit less and aim for 5th in the category rather than 3rd, but that difference is negligible.

[DOUGHBOYS]

You make good points, but I'll agree to disagree, especially with the Bregman analogy.
(If Bregman and Turner had five dollar bills representing each category, I'll take Bregman's four dirty five dollar bills over the clean five dollar bill that Turner holds representing speed. They all spend the same, although the clean bill is prioritized by some.)
Turner is outstanding in one category (stolen bases)
Turner is very good in another (Runs)
Turner is average or below average in all others (AVG, RBI, HR)
Average or below average in three categories for a first round selection?
No thanks.

Marte and Merrifield provide nearly the same statistics without the heavy price tag.
The pairing of Marte and Merrifield has become popular, especially for those drafting Trout and Betts at the top of drafts, with an elite pitcher for picks two and three.
In the middle of the first round, Turner is usually paired with an elite pitcher in the second round, and ? in the third.
He is a tough player to begin an important draft.
Although fortified in two categories, playing 'catch up' offensively, especially in the power statistics is the order of the day.
Not only do raw statistics come into play with Turner's lofty place in ADP, but pragmatism in drafting becomes a reckoning as well.

Let me take your side of the argument for a bit...
Carl Crawford was the last 'Speed with pop' to be consistently drafted in the first round
Crawford was always going to improve those other statistics.
He did. One year.
In 2010, Crawford put up these wonderful numbers.
.307/110/19/90/47
He was drafted in the first round each year after and disappointed every time.
(By the way, Crawford put up those numbers while walking just 46 times. Take that Sabrs!)

Maybe Turner has a year like this in him.
It is not out of the realm of possibility.
If so, it would make Turner strong in four categories and average in home runs.
THAT is what we are looking for in the first round.
Turner drafters, for the most part, are not looking to 'bank' last year's numbers as much as they are hoping for Crawford-like numbers.

[DOUGHBOYS]

I cannot prove this since the NFBC has taken away all previous years teams...
And if the status changed since early September of last year, I apologize in advance.
To fortify my argument concerning Turner last September with a fellow NFBC Main Event drafter, I went through the top 20 teams in the Overall standings last year.
Not one owned Turner.
To be fair, Turner was drafted higher (third or fourth overall!) the previous year.
The numbers he put up last year has him falling to a lower ADP this year.
On the right track, but not enough in my mind.

Edit- Just one more thing. Turner is NOT the prototypical lead off hitter of the present.
In the past, his speed would have him there all year, no question.
He was moved down the order last year for temporary times.
With more sabr-minded minds pushing lineups, a move down the lineup may be in the cards.
A.336 OBP, the main factor. That OBP being only 23 points higher than their eighth hitter, Yan Gomes.
A drop in the order alone, would really hurt Turner's chances of having a first round year by anybody's standards.

[NorCalAtlFan]

blah blah blah, turner =votto. we get it!
don't take him and move on.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Acuna-Tanaka, Bryan!

(Not at all like Votto, really)
I fully advocate Turner, as a second rounder.
Votto just plain drives/drove me crazy from a fantasy perspective.

I'm getting emais from veterans to shut up about Turner and his place in the first round.
Drafters should take notice

[DOUGHBOYS]

I'm not a huge fan of metrics by today's standards. I admit that the eye test comes before any MPH or 'rates that folks come up with now.
I was sent this tidbit of info today and I'll quote it from the email...

'Trea Turner ranks 246th in 'Hard Hit Balls' tied with Martin Maldonado'.

I know the immediate takeaway is to think less of Turner. I really do not.
The problem that most drafters have is that they try to 'build up' what Turner lacks in his game, which is the power aspect.
Turner's game is not about hard hit balls.
It is about using speed.
Dee Gordon's batting average rose with lesser hit balls (It fell by the same reason )

So when somebody sends a metric like that to me, it is taken with a grain of salt.
More troubling to me is that Turner got more than 1/4 of last years RBI vs. one team.
The Miami Marlins.
The Marlins staff is horrible, but RBI is an opportune statistic.
It would worry me that the RBI totals will not match those of last year.
On the positive side, Turner does begin the season with a more staunch bottom of the lineup.
And like said, he could be moved down in the order which could fortify that RBI number.