Do poor def and Inj cards have any value?

[schnoogens]

I am not afraid, at all, to start 4's in LF or RF. Usually I have 1's and 2's up the middle and at least 3's at the infield corners - I'm willing to give that 4e7 guy a permanent spot in LF with maybe a cheap defensive backup for late innings. The difference with RF is that the arm rating is more important.

[schnoogens]

Some of my all-time favorite players are the high risk, high reward "6" injury rated players. Alex Escobar in the '06 season was probably my favorite. It's easy to have a $1-2M backup that you feel alright about, and in Escobar's case his card was only $4.31. Definitely worth the chance at an AMAZING season.

When so much of the season depends on dice rolls...you might as well go big or go home. :wink:

[MARCPELLETIER]

[quote:34b7a0bd99]If you can prove that Strat systematically prices one type of player below a different type of equivalent value...ie, makes the one-win defender "cheaper" to draft than the one-win hitter....then and only then can you say draft defense over hitting. [/quote:34b7a0bd99]

Well, your logic is sound, and the question is how Strat is able to balance dh-ing with playing the field.

At one extreme, you have the position that lousy fielders are accurately priced as fielders, and henceforth they are incredible bargains as dh. Under this view, if a ss4e21 is worth the same value AS A SS over a replacement player than a ss1e10, then Strat probably priced them the same. Of course, it follows logically that the ss4e21 will be an incredible better value when used AS A DH than the ss1e10 when USED AS A DH.

At the other extreme, you have the position that lousy fielders are accurately priced when being used as dh, but are terribly overvalued when they are being used in the field.

Of course, the truth might be in between these two positions.

According to DEAN's defensive charts analysis (see his post in the strategy section), the five lousiest defenders compared to perfect defenders (1e0; for this ranking, I am excluding 0.5M players, and excluding supplementary defensive positions found on cards) are in order:

1-Renteria
2-Peralta
3-Weeks
4- Bradley
5- Cust

(In fact, Dean did not consider arm strength, so Cust might be a little bit worst than Bradley).

The question to settle the issue becomes this: when looking over this list, do people feel that these players are accurately priced as fielders and are superbargains when being used as DH?

I don't feel so. Renteria is a lopsided card, most people would think of him as a good investment if limited to lhp. Bradley looks like a superbargain (more on him later). But looking over Peralta, Weeks, and Cust, it's hard to conclude that these three players are superbargains as dh.

My own take, for what is worth, is that this list would be good investment for dh, but not superbargains, but would be terrible values when playing the field. So my own position is that Strat is in the middle ground between the extreme positions I described earlier, but Strat leans more towards the second extreme.

Bradley does appear as a super-bargain, though. But contrary to the other cards, he's switch (something I feel Strat undervalues slightly), draws a lot of walk (same argument), and is injury-prone (something I feel Strat undervalues significatively).

[teamnasty]

Good discussion Marcus, loved it.

[teamnasty]

I would however guard against drawing a conclusion about which "pole" Strat is closer to in its valuation biases based upon a sample of five players. Plus Bradley is a pretty gigantic bargain in this set, I'm not sure that data set even proves your point.

However I think intuitively veteran players such as your self develop a keen sense of the biases thru trial and error. To the extent you rely on them to rule out 4's at outfield corners I respect that. My experience has taught me the opposite; that big hitting , lousy fielding corner outfielders are undervalued by Strat.

But let's go with your premise for a moment because its well reasoned; i.e, that Strat overprices lousy defensive players at the margins and, by relative contrast, underprices good defense. It seems to me that this instinct of yours is shared by a majority of strat players and that when team building most teams choose pitchers, or defense oriented parks. The problem then becomes that the valuation changes because the high demand for the Iwamura's and Hudson's etc means that several teams get shut out of the players that suit their park. Whereas, the small number of teams who choose a homer park have less competition and are more likely to come out of their draft, and subsequent free agent auctions, with players suited to their park.

Thus the logical move of the masses to draft undervalued defense winds up creating a shortage of good defensive players, and a glut of freely available big sticks, who ironically now become easier to build a team around.

[MARCPELLETIER]

Well, to make things more complicated, I actually believe that gold gloves are (perhaps overwhelmingly) overpaid in Strat, at least in 2008 edition and forward.

So you won't find a gold glove lover in me.

And I'm not alone in thinking this. Contrary to what you suggest, there is no rush towards Iwamura, to take him as an example. He has been left out as a free agent in the last three-four seasons I played in. Actually, I wrote a post sometimes ago intitled "why people hate 1s", because in the last league I'm in, you could find a 1-rated player at every position in the free agent pool. Clearly, people do not feel that 1-rated are underpriced; if anything people feel they are overpriced.

My own take is that the best bargains are found in the 3s-pool. Kinsler and Theriot are among the best buys.

One point I need to clarify about my last post: I believe that this list is one of bargains for DH. In my ratings, Weeks is valued at 2.11M when used as DH. Peralta is worth 3.66M. So both are close to 1M over their pricetag as DH. But as fielders, their value is below their current pricetag. I have Peralta around 2M, and Weeks below 1M. Suggesting me that Strat has hit the middle road between the two extremes. So if you play a season with Peralta and Weeks as SS and 2B, you will not be as optimal as compared to, say, Theriot and Burriss (to take two players of approximately of the same salary). If you need proof, I can simulate seasons with CD-ROM just for you.

Cust is perhaps the best example. In non-dh league, I have him as the worst value in this year set. I have him worth 2M when playing the field. In dh league, I have him at 4.39M.

Bradley is a special case. As a dh, I have him at over 7M. As rf, I have him at 5.26M, so still worth the payroll. But still, he'd be 2M better if you leave him at dh-ing.

[MARCPELLETIER]

For the record, I have Iwamura at 5.33M, so 1M overpriced.

[teamnasty]

Agree totally about Iwamura. And Theriot seems like a bargain agreed given the obp at ss for under three mil but man is it punchless obp. Agree he's a good value

[MARCPELLETIER]

In defense of the TSN-STRAT math brains, who are probably working around the clock in preparation of the new season.

They said on these boards that they were fixing the price of cards based on the most optimal stadium, whereas what I report here are based on average stadiums.

Iwamura, according to TSN's logic, is priced 6.56M because his value is incremented in extreme weak stadiums, relative to other players who are losing all their BP stadiums (for recall, Iwamura is weak on both sides, so he doesn't lose any value).

If his price were calculated based on an average stadium, his wage would be sensibly lower, even by TSN standards.

Bottom-line: he's not that bad a value in weak stadiums, but should be avoided elsewhere.

[barney811]

Just when I thought I was getting this thing down I get to reading this and realize that my success is just pretty much due to a random roll of the dice.....

Barney