Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

[b:bc3b8e4f35] THE SECRET FORMULA[/b:bc3b8e4f35] (tm) [b:bc3b8e4f35]2006[/b:bc3b8e4f35]

Subtitle: [b:bc3b8e4f35]Coffeeholic[/b:bc3b8e4f35]...This One's For You

Now that the stockings have been hung by the chimney with care, it's time to break out The Secret Formula franchise, the 2006 edition.

I post this with a lot of freshly gained humility and some hesitation, because like many of the [i:bc3b8e4f35]old guard[/i:bc3b8e4f35], I have spent a lot of time muddling along this year, struggling to find the right notes among the cards. Although I managed one tour ring, my tour season was surprisingly (to me, anyway) abysmal. Somewhere along the way I started to figure things out, although I couldn't quantify how or why, until only recently.

Before we continue, let me add the obligatory disclaimer here, before I get shellacked with the inevitable contrarian points of view. This is the third year I've done this, but those who remember "back in the day" know that [i:bc3b8e4f35]The Secret Formula[/i:bc3b8e4f35] was a tongue in cheek response to a thread started by our good friend [b:bc3b8e4f35]Coffeeholic[/b:bc3b8e4f35] three seasons ago called "What's Your Dream Team?" This is [i:bc3b8e4f35]not[/i:bc3b8e4f35] an absolute, this is [i:bc3b8e4f35]not[/i:bc3b8e4f35] the be all end all, this is [i:bc3b8e4f35]not[/i:bc3b8e4f35] the only way to Strat-O heaven. This is just one strat-o-holic's observations, shared with not only those who don't know, but those who don't yet know they don't know. I hope everybody enjoys it and it generates a little discussion.

First off, let's revisit last years' edition to see where we left off:

[b:bc3b8e4f35]2005 Secret Formula[/b:bc3b8e4f35]:

1. $32 million on pitching, $48 million on hitting (or thereabouts).
2. Spend for "1s" and "2s" at SS, CF and 2B.
3. To win in '05, you must get the most mileage out of your pitching.
3A. Low WHIP (leaning towards lower total bases, I argue).
3B. Low ERA (you must finish well in runs allowed)
4. Players suited to your park (there is a tendency for Shea and Minute Maid to be the CHAMPS' park of choice).
5. Study the CHAMPS teams you've played against, as well as the teams with the best winning records in the Record Book.
6. Win your division. You can't win it all if you're not in the playoffs to begin with. After that, it's pretty much a numbers game (and luck) to win it all (10 teams=four playoffs=one title).

[u:bc3b8e4f35][b:bc3b8e4f35]NEW INSIGHT[/b:bc3b8e4f35][/u:bc3b8e4f35]

:idea: Late last year, I was preparing my final tour team for a run at the Top Twelve. I gathered together the rosters of the best performing tour teams up to that point. One of the things that "stuck out" at me, was that there appeared to be something of a rhythm to the salary structure. By and large, the teams sported one stud starter and one stud batter. The rest of the team was usually standard best practice stuff, quality relievers, solid middle defense, etc. The thought I had at the time was, [i:bc3b8e4f35]I don't even need to know the players' names, I could just fill in a salary blank and the rest would more or less take care of itself. [/i:bc3b8e4f35]

When you see it all written out, it looks like a pretty credible idea; however, it really was just a fleeting thought at the time, one that I guess needed to marinate a while longer.

[u:bc3b8e4f35][b:bc3b8e4f35]THE SECRET FORMULA (tm) 2006[/b:bc3b8e4f35][/u:bc3b8e4f35]

Let's look at the best records from my last eight $80 million leagues. The average record is 93-69 for those eight teams.

Let's also lay out the salary structure for pitching. Ordering the pitchers from high to low regardless of SP or RP, we get the following:

1. $7.66
2. $6.03
3. $5.23
4. $4.02
5. $2.65
6. $2.05
7. $1.55
8. $1.13
9. $0.95
10. $0.62

If we add that up, we get $31.89 (where have we seen this before???) As an anecdotal aside, I was browsing a baseball stat book in the bookstore that mathematically confirmed that 40% of baseball is pitching, so we've got that going for us too (note to [i:bc3b8e4f35]old guard[/i:bc3b8e4f35]: 32 divided by 80 is 40 percent).

Let's do the same thing for the offense:

1. $8.61
2. $7.22
3. $6.59
4. $5.51
5. $4.24
6. $3.74
7. $3.10
8. $2.14
9. $1.69
10. $1.10
11. $0.86
12. $0.73
13. $0.67
14. $0.61

Again, this represents the average salary structure of eight teams who had the best record in an $80 million league.

I will argue this: if you organize your next team around [i:bc3b8e4f35]reasonable[/i:bc3b8e4f35] approximations of these figures, your team will compete [i:bc3b8e4f35]reasonably effectively[/i:bc3b8e4f35], more so after you add The Secret Formula fundamentals. I would add that how well your team performs attests to how well you apply these concepts.

Using this as our foundation, let's re-apply the old secret formula over our new skeleton.

[b:bc3b8e4f35]1. $32 million on pitching, $48 million on hitting (or thereabouts).[/b:bc3b8e4f35]

You do it, I do it, we all do it, but's let's stop torturing ourselves with our cleverness and just agree to spend $32 million on pitching. Nothing's more fun than our $20 million Ameriquest staff, but as you will later see, there is no surer route to mediocrity in 2006.

The number was $32 million in '03, the number was $32 million in '04, and the number is still $32 million in '05 (but we're calling it 2006!) This is probably about as close to an absolute as we're ever going to get (at least until the beta testers figure a way to fudge with it).

[b:bc3b8e4f35]2. Spend for "1s" and "2s" at SS, CF and 2B.[/b:bc3b8e4f35]

Going into this diatribe, this is the one I had the most reservations about. Players are more efficiently priced now, so I anticipated seeing lots of 3s popping up. Wrong. Across the board, the average 2B was an even two; SS an even two; CF an even two. Five 1s were in fact balanced out by five 3s (among the 24 2Bs, SSs and CFs). Last year there were zero threes at SS and CF, with a few at 2B. This year, they've crept in, so it's not necessarily as absolute as in the past. Early on I would've conceded that 3s at middle defense were not deal breakers; however, best practice continues to support the "strong up the middle" theory, despite the more efficient pricing. (**Remember the disclaimer though, I'm not saying it [i:bc3b8e4f35]can't[/i:bc3b8e4f35] be done, but if you're wondering why your teams are all 81-81, and your middle defense is 4, 3, 3...**)

My observational aside is that the players are perfectly priced for a league utilizing all 600 some odd players. But in a twelve man league, there are just too many options that include 1s and 2s at middle defense anyway, and since the [i:bc3b8e4f35]other guys[/i:bc3b8e4f35] are taking them, why swim against the current?

[b:bc3b8e4f35]3. To win in '05, you must get the most mileage out of your pitching.
3A. Low WHIP (leaning towards lower total bases, I argue).
3B. Low ERA (you must finish well in runs allowed)[/b:bc3b8e4f35]

The pitching numbers are relative to the individual leagues, so the exact ERAs and WHIPs are not that important. Overall, these eight teams (yes, it's sort of a small sample I know, but bear with me) finished top five in pitching (4.88 out of 12, on average, for runs allowed).

But, three teams were number one in offense, and finished 7th, 10th and 12th in pitching. If you don't plan on being number one in offense, then you better expect to be top two (maybe top three) in runs allowed (and remember to accomplish this with your $32 million budget!)

I'll leave the total bases argument for another time, but just as an undocumented observation, I'd guess that all things being equal, keeping your total bases allowed down would be a good thing. There's been some very good argument in other threads about creating and/or avoiding double play situations this year, and that also goes to maybe allowing some more walks at the expense of extra base hits.

If nothing else, remember this: [i:bc3b8e4f35]Pitching and Defense[/i:bc3b8e4f35].

[b:bc3b8e4f35]4. Players suited to your park (there is a tendency for Shea and Minute Maid to be the CHAMPS' park of choice).[/b:bc3b8e4f35]

Change Shea to Safeco and it's still valid. Specialty parks are an advantage when you know how to use them. The caveat in 2006 is that you as a manager are more vulnerable to the vagaries of the ballpark selections of your [i:bc3b8e4f35]opponents[/i:bc3b8e4f35]. Don't bring your all lefty Petco lineup to a league with seven Minute Maids this year. [b:bc3b8e4f35]Marcus[/b:bc3b8e4f35] and [b:bc3b8e4f35]Worrierking[/b:bc3b8e4f35] started a thread about this somewhere, in Strategy, I think. Awesome topic of discussion, especially among the skill or chance crowd that is frustrated that they feel like they're doing "everything right" but still not winning. For the "victims" out there...relax, it's not necessarily [i:bc3b8e4f35]your[/i:bc3b8e4f35] fault! :wink:

[b:bc3b8e4f35]5. Study the CHAMPS teams you've played against, as well as the teams with the best winning records in the Record Book.[/b:bc3b8e4f35]

Okay, there's no record book and I'm using best league records in lieu of CHAMPs teams this year. But I think you get the idea. Look around and see what you can figure out. I've already noticed in the few threads where somebody throws out a link to a big win team that they [i:bc3b8e4f35]often[/i:bc3b8e4f35] fit the profile of The Secret Formula just from a quick glance.

[b:bc3b8e4f35]6. Win your division. You can't win it all if you're not in the playoffs to begin with. After that, it's pretty much a numbers game (and luck) to win it all (10 teams=four playoffs=one title).[/b:bc3b8e4f35]

The Fourth of July is typically celebrated on the fourth day in the month of July (for you [i:bc3b8e4f35]Old Guard[/i:bc3b8e4f35] out there, that just means we're stating the obvious). It can't all be magic.

Along the way to these illuminating new insights, I had a devil's advocate moment. What if the salary construction concept was overstated because the average team salary construction was THE SAME regardless of how you finished? That is, if we're dividing $80 million among (usually) 24 players, couldn't the salary construction (on average) be pretty much identical?

Crap.

:idea: [b:bc3b8e4f35]ANOTHER NEW INSIGHT[/b:bc3b8e4f35]

We've already looked at what we SHOULD be doing, let's look at what we should NOT be doing.

Pitching:

[b:bc3b8e4f35]1. $7.23
2. $5.18
3. $3.82
4. $3.08[/b:bc3b8e4f35]
5. $2.73
6. $2.13
7. $1.89
8. $1.43
9. $1.00
10. $0.73
11. $0.61

Offense:

1. $8.70
[b:bc3b8e4f35]2. $5.71
3. $5.27
4. $4.75
5. $4.04
6. $3.31[/b:bc3b8e4f35]
7. $2.83
8. $2.22
9. $1.72
10. $1.40
11. $1.03
12. $0.78
13. $0.68
14. $0.50

This is the salary structure of the eight teams with the [u:bc3b8e4f35]worst records[/u:bc3b8e4f35] (in the same leagues as the teams above). What do we notice? In pitching, they are spending $29.83 million on pitchers, but spending 16% less than the winning teams on their [i:bc3b8e4f35]four highest priced pitchers[/i:bc3b8e4f35], i.e. the ones who should be racking up the most innings pitched (regardless of SP or RP). Want to handcuff your staff? Watch Wagner pitch 55 innings over a season eating up "ace level" salary, while Arroyo is pitching 225 innings as a starter.

In short, the guys with win pct. problems are spending money [i:bc3b8e4f35]where it doesn't matter.[/i:bc3b8e4f35] STOP DOING THAT!

If they're underspending on pitching than they must be going yard with their Big Bats right? Wrong. (As an aside, three of these eight losing teams chose Ameriquest as home field, not that there's anything inherently wrong with that...)

Notice numbers 2-6, in boldface. After choosing their Hammer, they're UNDERSPENDING on salary slots 2-6 by you guessed it, 16% (there must be a DaVinci Code golden mean formula to apply here, but I'm running out of gas now). On defense, they're averaging [b:bc3b8e4f35]2.9[/b:bc3b8e4f35] at 2B, [b:bc3b8e4f35]2.6[/b:bc3b8e4f35] at SS and [b:bc3b8e4f35]2.3[/b:bc3b8e4f35] in CF. It doesn't look like much, but that's a [b:bc3b8e4f35]30%[/b:bc3b8e4f35] difference, folks. What do you think this is doing to their ERAs and WHIPs and runs allowed stats???

What is going on? If you must lose, then the best way is to SPEND MONEY IN PLACES WHERE IT DOESN"T MATTER (i.e. pitching slots 5 through 11, and offense slots 7 through 14). Lousy platoons, underutilized back-ups, overrated utilitymen, unnecessary RPs. It's out there because MANAGERS ARE ACTUALLY ALREADY DOING THIS FOR YOU.

Enough already.

To sum up:

If you're frustrated with your managerial performance, consider Salary Construction with good Secret Formula fundamentals for an enhanced Strat-O-Matic experience.

Note to [b:bc3b8e4f35]luckyman[/b:bc3b8e4f35]: Before you assault me with your six-pitchers- below $0.68 [i:bc3b8e4f35]Secret Searching[/i:bc3b8e4f35] team ( :o , great name!) that beat me in Game Seven of the Finals, know that your team is INCLUDED as one of these eight best records teams, so even though you're dragging down my averages (and observations) I already know about this before you even start arguing with me!

Note to [b:bc3b8e4f35]Geekor[/b:bc3b8e4f35]: I don't know how many speed teams you're prepared to post against my observations, but I already see you coming from a hundred miles away, dude. Blast away!

Note to all stat geeks: Guess what happened when I applied my theory to another out of sample eight league universe??

:D

Just my two cents folks. All opinions are welcome, just go easy on me please, I'm a fragile sort.

Looking forward to 2007 where, maybe with the help of this post, we will continue to compete over an ever diminishing slice of SOM pie.

Happy Holidays to all, even to those that don't ever agree with me on anything I post here.

:D :D :D

Great post J!

Always glad to read your "stuff".

I am in no way any good "barometer" as my whopping-ly mediocre winning pct. (.510) clearly indicates. However I must say that my teams have a tendency to have a [i:73db8046e9]slightly[/i:73db8046e9] different salary structure not so much in the percentage allocated to pitching & hittng but rather in the individual allocation of $$$. That being said I emphatically agree with everything you stated above.

Last set I followed and learned a lot from your Formula post. This year I essentially start from that "mold" and tweak and experiment a little jus to add some flavor to the dinner...otherwise it gets stale on me.

Thanks again for the post. Good reading your stuff again, I do have to say this one is much funnier than last years ' 8)

This year we only had one season in the same league, if you want another round with this set send me an invite I'd love to take another hack at good [i:73db8046e9]Sir[/i:73db8046e9] [u:73db8046e9]Mr[/u:73db8046e9]. [b:73db8046e9]J-Pav[/b:73db8046e9]

Happy holidays J. :D

C2

[b:1e36e4e4a9]Brother C2[/b:1e36e4e4a9]:

Seven rings doesn't speak well to mediocrity. Keep up the good work (I always sort the managers by rings, not rating).

Thx for the kind words,

Happy Holidays!

Jeff

And I thought I could just look at the cards :roll:

Great work J. I have to go back to my best & worst teams and see how they compare to your #'s.

J-Pav - Long time, first time...

Is it just me, or are the "good" hitting team salary numbers the same as the "bad" hitting team numbers? :?

I have a team that starts on Monday, and when I worked on the team I have kept telling myself that I need to spend around $32M on pitching based on your prior postings on the secret formula subject. This is before you started this topic! What is interesting when I look at my pitching salary figures compared to your recommendations is that I have overspent on my #1 starter (who also is not a *) and underspent on my #2-4 pitchers. Also, I have a 12 man staff with cheap relievers since I didn't like some of the RP options avaliable between $1.5M and $2.0M.

Chuck

J-Pav, it's good to read your stuff, as I am too busy (and lazy) to go back over all the leagues I have played in!

Side not though, my speed teams win because of something Cummings brought up which seems to be ringing true. I can also show you bomber teams (with very little speed) that hold true and do well also. [b:f2e10b024f]Double Play's![/b:f2e10b024f] I went back and looked at the rating book for 02, 03, 05 and 06 and noticed what Cummings was pondering was true, DP's were up across the board. So I started only drafting people with low Dp's, and it has been working for me. Obvioulsy we can't always get all low Dp's everywhere, there just isn't enough players (there was back in 02 and 03). But keep them low and you'll have more outs to score runs :P

btw, according to that this team shouldn't have won a title :P

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/team/team_other.html?user_id=8871

7th in pitching (19.15 mil), 3rd in hitting, This team was actually last in the league at the 1/3 point, then won 9 straight series, lost one then won 11 straight series again. Ended up losing the best record sitting my guys the last week.

btw, the majority of my speed teams sit at 32-36 mil in pitching, not a drastic uptick.

[color=darkblue:aeab3354f8]Is it just me, or are the "good" hitting team salary numbers the same as the "bad" hitting team numbers? [/color:aeab3354f8]

[b:aeab3354f8]Chuck[/b:aeab3354f8]:

Yes, I rushed into more writing after I cut and pasted the first set of numbers and forgot to change them. It's corrected now. Thx!

With regard to pitching, I'm suggesting to pay the most attention to your four pitchers who hurl the most IP. [b:aeab3354f8]Luckyman[/b:aeab3354f8]'s team was 9, 8, 7, 5 and six guys under $0.68 (with the 5 being his closer if I remember correctly).

Personally, I don't think you can overspend on a number one starter. If you go Clemens, you just have to compensate elsewhere.

One thing I didn't mention in the big post was the role that experience plays. You have to overcome a lot to win in this game. Poor autodrafts, unlucky opposing stadiums, random hate from HAL, etc. all contibute to the downfall of our best laid plans. So even when we're doing everything right, it sometimes still doesn't work out. We shouldn't be tricked into thinking our failures necessarily mean that we're doing something "wrong." When you go for Zambrano in the autodraft and miss him, but find that Clemens is now available, should you downgrade pitcher 4 to release salary...

As to 12 man pitching staffs, I can only tell you that 10 pitchers and 14 fielders appears ideal (but only to the point where it's not ideal). It's up to the individual manager to determine if that 11th or 12th pitcher is actually [i:aeab3354f8]adding value[/i:aeab3354f8] or [i:aeab3354f8]wasting salary[/i:aeab3354f8]. Again, that can only come from experience.

[b:91eea47053]Geekor:[/b:91eea47053]

The Strato-O universe is a pretty big one. Sort the managers by teams played and I think you'll agree we're trying to find patterns among the grains of sand on the beach. There are no "teams that shouldn't win" because any one team can be lucky among such a wide universe of teams.

Remember also, I'm not trying to convert anyone's religion. Like [b:91eea47053]C2[/b:91eea47053] said, you start with the fundamentals, then experiment to keep things fresh and fun. My posts are probably more useful to the less experienced player. For those with more seasoning, this is probably just food for thought.

If you attached names to the salary lists I made, how many of us would notice the differences? You and me would probably "hear Jimi", but a less experienced player doesn't yet. I will tell you that in my experience, [i:91eea47053]more often than not[/i:91eea47053], the poorer lineup consists of managers who sacrificed sound defense for a bigger bat and it wasn't worth it in the end.