The Secret Formula

[kptnfmrs]

[quote:662383a075]gb(A)s don't care what the SS's fielding rating is[/quote:662383a075]

True. But, the gb A's DO care if there is a runner on base or not, so in that regard, your prolific gb A pitcher (Drese?) can actually help your 2 dollar shortstop (or ANY SS) get more DP's, too.

J-Pav:
I can crunch numbers but I haven't figured out how to field a championship team in 2005 yet. :roll:
Or on ANY platform for that matter.

[J-Pav]

kptnfmrs:

CHAMPS Secret Formula:

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 [i:af197142a3]total bases[/i:af197142a3], 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).

The theory part is pretty much down, now for the execution part... :wink:

[kptnfmrs]

My first [url=http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=5829] 2005 Team [/url] won its division but had a hasty play-off exit. Built a Jacobs team with lots of help from the community.

My second try I did on my own at Minute Maid, but had a terrible draft and couldn't recover. There were about 5 Shea teams in that league. Looks to me like a team built to win at Minute Maid is built to LOSE at Shea.

Thanks for the post. Might try Minute Maid again soon.

[LMBombers]

Yes but vice-versa the Shea teams are built to loose at Minute Maid, Wrigley & Fenway. The problem is if there are 5 Sheas and only one RH park you could really be in trouble in your away games.

However you can't worry about that when building your autodraft team until after the draft. You have to play to win at home first. You can pick up a cheap hard lefty to help out on the road at Shea but that is only one game out of 3. It would be ideal of course to have RJ or Santana leading your staf even in a RH park. The would help compensate your RH team at a Shea stadium. RJ and Santana can win anywhere, even in a RH park. So if you had an RJ or Santana plus a cheap hard LH SP you could have an advantage, or at least hold your own, in 2 out of 3 on the road at Shea.

[MARCPELLETIER]

Charlie, you said:

[quote:a1882fde47]I don't get your argument, marcus, about Everett being any more valuable than any other SS based solely on those gb(A)s[/quote:a1882fde47]

I never meant to say this, sorry for the confusion.

My points are rather:
1) Everett-behind-all-star-pitchers has more value than Everett-behind-cheapo-starters (because of the increase of double-plays);
2) the increase of value is higher than for other (non-1) ss (because the increase of dps is greater for Everett than for Tejada).

This argument doesn't imply that Everett is better than Tejada. If Tejada is already a better value than Everett (say, because a high-hr environment), then my argument implies that the gap will get bigger in favor of Tejada if the rotation is stellar, but will get narrower if the rotation allowing lots of on-base.

[MARCPELLETIER]

BTW, I want to make a modification. Earlier, I just throw out numbers without checking them, saying that Everett could turn 40 more dps behind a pitching allowing lots of on-base, but in fact, the difference is much smaller. As you can see below, 10 dps is a much better estimation.


For the sake of the argument, I've compared these two teams:

Team A: Schmidt, Santana, Zambano, Sheets
Team B: Jamey Wright, Ishii, Lowe, Lackey

The selection of each player in team B was guided by the willingness to select 1M-2M playable starters who would match to pitchers in team A in all stats except for on-base allowed. Thus, Ishii, a lefty, has similar power numbers to lefty Santana, but much more on-base. Lowe, like Zambrano, doesn't give up the long ball, but he gives more on-base than Zambrano.

These two teams will differ in two important aspects:

1) Team A will have less runners on-base than Team B
2) Team A will face less hitters than Team B.

I think the implication of the first statement for the number of dps is self-evident. Because team A allows less runners, it will be involved in less double-play situations than team B. On average, 18% of all baseball events are dp situations. Unfortunately, I can't compute what would be the probability of having a dp situation for every pitcher, so I looked up at their stats for last years, and I made projections based on the probability of each event. It's a bit of a long process, so you'll have to take my words for it. But I came up with the following probabilities for being in a dp situation for the selected pitchers:

Team A:
Schmidt: 15.9%
Santana: 14.7%
Zambano: 18.3%
Sheets: 13.1%
Average: 15.5%

Team B:
Wright: 19.6%
Ishii: 18.3%
Lowe: 20.1%
Lackey: 16.8%
Average:18.7%

I was expecting a higher percentages of dp situations for team B, but the presence of Lackey reduces the average of dp situations for team B. Lackey was chosen because he was the pitcher who matched Sheets the best in the 1-2M range. Indeed, he has a 3.5% higher chances of being in a dp situation than Sheets. As an owner who picked up Lackey and played him in a full season, I can attest that Lackey's whip has been very good for the money. The card is affected by lots of doubles vs rhp, but doubles don't create dp situations, hence his low probability for dp situations.

So, on average, we have a 3.2% increase in the probability for team B of being into a dp situation. Assuming 189 readings of SS-X (based on 27X216 rolls per season), I come up with the result that Everett will turn 6 more double-plays in team B than in team A.

However, the total numbers of dps turned in a season will also be influenced by wht is mentioned in the second assumption, that team B will face more hitters than team A. The reason for this is simple: if a team allows an .380 on-base, then its whip is gonna be pretty high. On the contrary, the team allowing a .280 on-base will have a low whip. However, they both need the same number of outs. Both team must retire around 27 players per game, or 4374 players per season, or 4374/3 = 1458 innings per season. As a consequence, a higher whip will translate necessary into facing more hitters as a matter to reach that 1458 innings. Because team B will face more hitters, it will have to roll the dices more often, and consequently, team B will have more SS-X readings than team A. The net impact of this will be increased double-plays.

Because we know the difference of on-base between team A and team B, we can estimate the difference of whip, and hence the increase of dice rolls team B will necessitate to finish off the season. I won't bother you with the overall computions, but, assuming that team A will have a whip of 1.00, I get that team B will have a whip of 1.48.

Here, I'll make two assumptions. First, I will assume that the difference of whips only lasts for six innings per game. I will thus assume that both teams have similar whips for three innings of every game, either because the relievers of team B who take charge of the game after a pitcher's performance is as good as the pitchers in team A, or else because both pitchers are removed quickly and replaced by similar "mop-up" pitchers.

Because of this assumption, the difference of 0.48 for the whip that we got earlier becomes now a difference of 0.32. Assuming 27X216 rolls of dices per season, I obtain that team B will have to roll the dices 483 more times than team A, which will translate into around 16 more readings of SS-X. Assuming that team B will be involved in dp situations for 18.7% of the time, we can conclude that Everett will turn an additional 3 dps for team B.

Thus, the overall impact of having Everett behind a loose pitching staff like team B compared to a stellar pitching staff like team A is 9 double-plays.

[MARCPELLETIER]

Bottom-line: the effect is there, but is smaller than I expected. Following my ratings, Everett get an increase of value worth 0.80M by playing behind a loosy pitching staff rather than by playing in a stellar pitching squad (Jeter would get an increase of 0.20M for the same comparison).

[J-Pav]

Wow, we're sure getting away from things now.

Lucky:

Unfortunately, I have no idea about any of the assumptions, computations or conclusions you just arrived at.

In one real world example, my stud pitching team (WHIP 1.06) turned 107 double-plays, while the leading double-play team (WHIP 1.45) turned 167. He had guys like Westbrook and Trachsel on the hill. My infield was 2B-1, SS-2, 3B-3, his was 2B-2, SS-2, 3B-2.

Where do 60 additional ground ball double-plays come from then??

[MARCPELLETIER]

Well, I just showed, taking one arbitrary example, that a difference of 0.32 whip can lead to 9 additional dp from your ss-1 throughout a season. As we know, ss-X has almost 7 chances of gbA (out of 216 chances).

But of course, hitters also have gbA. So do pitchers. Second basemen, third basemen, first basemen and pitchers can also turn double-plays.

Suppose that, on average, there are 35 chances of gbA out of 216 chances on each roll involving a specific pitching team (say, 15 from the hitter card, 10 from the pitching card, and 10 from the defensive squad). 35 gbA is five times the 7 gbA found on ss-X. Logically, if, out of 7 chances of gbA, 9 dp can come from an whip increase of 0.32, then, out of 35 chances of gbA, we can expect a 45 dp increase from the same whip increase.

In your case, the difference of whip is 0.39, a 22% increase from 0.32. I think it is safe then that the number of dps will similarly increase. If such is the case, then the expected increase of dp is close to 55.

But of course, there are also some variability not accounted here, including the number of gbA found on the pitchers' cards, the variability of the dice rolls itself. But I think I am not too far from the 60 dp increase you have experienced.

My assumptions are safe, still. :wink:

[J-Pav]

Yes, that does help a bit more.