NY Auction Expectation

JerseyPaul · Post by **JerseyPaul** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:30 am

Greg,

Did you fill a NY Baseball Auction last year? Was it NL or AL? I'm kind of indifferent at this point as I haven't started my serious preparation. I think I'd prefer AL for strategic reasons but no big deal.

What is your expectation? One? Both? Price?

It looks like Vegas has plenty of action but I'd hate to spoil Todd Zola's day by showing up there

Looking at the Vegas signups, there's some serious talent there.

ToddZ · Post by **ToddZ** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 12:48 pm

Unless you're coming to tell me I'm needed back at the office and I need to catch the next plane back home, nothing will spoil my day.

Bring it on!!!

I'll be in NY for the First Pitch Forum (date TBA soon). Feel free to try to spoil my day there as well.

JerseyPaul · Post by **JerseyPaul** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:21 pm

Todd,

I hope you know that I TOTALLY respect you and your knowledge of the game. If only I had 10% of your baseball insight. Football is such an incredibly easier game, fewer players, easier to calculate value being points based, smaller rosters and a much shorter season. Some of those things changes drafting/auction strategy so my lack of baseball knowledge gave me an edge in football.

I was at the First Pitch at Laguardia last year so I'm on Shandler's mailing list. I'll probably go again, as I'm an empty baseball vessel trying to get filled.

I thought your evaluation paper was very interesting. I toyed with my own algorithm that I think is really close in philosophy to yours. It was my homegrown version of football VBD adapted to baseball.

I took all the players at a position and estimated the last draftable (including my estimation of the split for CI and MI) using projections I had confidence in. I then went category by category and gave the last player zero points and the top player 100 points. I then prorated all the players in between based on the percentage they placed between the high and low. That gave my a 100 point scale by 5 or a maximum of 500 points. In essence, I converted baseball to a points game and then used VBD for a serpentine draft strategy. Tried that 2 years ago but came in 4th or 5th out of 15 (WCOFF). Hojin won that year.

ToddZ · Post by **ToddZ** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:38 pm

Thanks for the kind words JP, I know you were just having a little fun.

I have some new draft theories to present to my adoring (cough, cough) public soon, much of it based on some NFBC analysis.

I assume you know so pardon me if this is old news, but Joe Bryant, the architect of the VBD method in football has written that he borrowed the idea from fantasy baseball.

The best part about drafts is you can have a dead-on set of projections and rankings (an oxymoron, but let's pretend such a beast exists), but the trick is still filling out your roster with the maximum production, which sometimes means deviating from that master list. I recognized this as a weakness of mine in draft leagues, I guess we'll see if I have figured out how to conquer that soon enough.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 3:13 pm

JP, last year we filled one AL Auction League in New York at $1,250/team and we had two people interested in an NL Auction League. That AL Auction League was a pretty serious group and I expect almost all of them back again this year. I would think a $650 AL Auction League in the Northeast would fly too, but we'll have to see. I'd be surprised if we didn't have at least 1 and 1 of the AL Auction Leagues in New York and a strong push for a full Mixed Auction League at $650/team.

Las Vegas has some very strong fantasy baseball players and the Auction Leagues are loaded with guys who know what they're doing. Those guys had so much fun that they all signed up quickly this year to get back in, which is why we've filled one AL-only and one NL-only Auction League in Las Vegas already. We're going to fill some $650 auction leagues in Las Vegas, too, and maybe even a few more auction leagues at $1,250/team.

But I know that New York group is solid, too. I'm getting more phone calls lately from guys who competed in the other baseball event in Las Vegas last year and want to play in ours this year, so Vegas is going to fill up fast and with some serious players.

I hope the $650 leagues catch on in each city as I love the auctions (as does Todd) and I'd like to get more people involved in them. It will be interesting to see how our final numbers turn out, but the interest to this point has exceeded my expectations and I know that 2005 will be a historic year for the NFBC.

JerseyPaul · Post by **JerseyPaul** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 6:28 pm

What makes baseball so hard is this category nonsense. Let's say for a moment that all positions are equally scarce. Let's further say you have perfect knowledge of end of year dollar values. Now you start the draft....

You follow your $ values and get slow sluggers with your 1st 3 picks. Now the guy with the highest $ value in round 4 is also a slugger. Do you take the "next best" in a no-trade league when you've already piled up tons of HRs and RBIs but no steals yet?

I don't expect an answer to that.

In football I don't care if my RB gets running yards or receiving yards. They all become points. Not so in baseball where "too much of a good thing" can be bad if it means you are weak somewhere else. So straight "draft the next highest value guy" clearly won't work.

This is also where ADP become critical, except there is no reliable ADP information available, especially ADP for larger leagues like NFBC has.

This takes some kind of AI machine to figure it all out. Either that, or you need to be an idiot savant. Of course some have called Greg that

ToddZ · Post by **ToddZ** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:45 am

Originally posted by JerseyPaul:

This is also where ADP become critical, except there is no reliable ADP information available, especially ADP for larger leagues like NFBC has.

While one may quibble over the reliability, the ADP is available from last year's NFBC plus all NFBC members can access the Mock Draft Central site where there should be a few more larger leagues to use as templates than in the past.

I won't go into details, but I am working on some analysis based on 2004 data to help answer the dilemma posed concerning the power versus speed guy. Ultimately, the question will become "do trends from 2004 carry over to 2005?"

JerseyPaul · Post by **JerseyPaul** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:46 am

I used mockdraftcentral ADP and ESPN ADP last year and was very disappointed in the results.

The NFBC/WCOFF owner seems to be different than the average fantasy owner. Many of the players I had targeted as "value" based on ADP were drafted much earlier than published ADP. Obviously high stakes owners put much more time and effort into draft preparation and there are few "value" picks, much less real "sleepers".

In some ways that makes things easier in that when a player rises to the top of your board you have to take him then or it's likely somebody else will. Playing the "I'll take X now beacuse I can get Y next round" is a very dangerous decision with these sharks.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:55 am

JP, I have the NFBC's Average Draft Positions from 2004 that I can e-mail you and any other new NFBC member for 2005. I just e-mailed that out yesterday to everyone who is signed up to date. It helps just to see where NFBC guys started taking speed guys last year and relievers and even top starters.

What you've said is correct, but NFBC guys took Carl Crawford in the first round last year, knowing that steals were at a premium and that sluggers in a 15-team mixed league could be found at any time. Top closers may have gone higher than expected as some guys wanted to lock down 40+ saves. If you're going to win your league and have a shot at the $100,000 in the NFBC, you can't just draft a "traditional" draft. You have to think outside the box a little and then make great in-season pickups all year long. Look at last year's winning rosters and you'll see a lot of Chone Figgins' and Brett Tomko's on them, mid-season pickups for sure.

Baseball is a totally different beast from football. For one thing, it's like comparing a marathon to a 100-yard dash. And secondly, the year-long accumulation of stats without trades makes Draft Day SOOOOOOO important. This is the ultimate "total points" league, as you, Dyv and Gekko are proposing for the NFFC!

I've been called an idiot many times, but I don't become a savant until I win LABR at least once!