Usage Ratings ARE WHACKED

Just so you know, I built a custom player set around usage which is a manual process because when you download the player files, usage is NOT included as a sortable column, but I digress ...

In wading through the list and weeding out the 8's, 9's and 10's for usage, I am CONVINCED that these rankings are based upon drafted team rosters as opposed to opening day teams rosters (as they should be). I believe that those ranking are not based upon USAGE, they are in fact based upon being DRAFTED.

Explanation: If you look at all of the players at the same price range and position as the super high usage players, they too are also ranked very high.

Specific Examples:

#1 - Players like Jordy Mercer, Shano Collins, Dan Plesac, etc. are all 10's for usage, but so are the guys you get on your team when you miss those guys on your draft card.

#2 - High usage guys for which people draft the cheaper version to give themselves draft flexibility are also ranked very highly even though no one ever uses them. Doc White comes to mind, no one uses the non * $5 million version, yet it is very highly ranked. There are plenty of other examples for this.

#3 - The other thing is that this is clearly based upon ALL TIME "draftage" (not a word, but fits better than usage) because there are guys who are listed as high usage guys that no one has used since the early days of ATG. Red Schoendist (sp?), Tex Hughson, Mellie Wolfgang are great examples.

The point being that Strat's USAGE rankings are whacked and you should probably take them as nothing better than a "guideline" for players you MIGHT want to take a gander at next time you are building a team.

It would be great if they actually reflected opening day rosters, not drafted rosters. And if they were based upon the actual card set usage (ATG 9), not ATG all time because that is what actually matters.

Very disturbing if true.

$0.97 Shano Collins example, the following outfielders are all rated a 10 for usage:

Shano Collins, Dave Pope , Jack Smith, Ken Berry

Which ones stick out like a sore thumb?


$0.50 Reliever example, the following nickel relievers are RATED A 10 for usage:

Rudy Arias, Milo Candini, Dan Plesac, Javier Lopez, Andrew Kittridge, Doug Bair, Andy Hassler

Even better are some of the 9 usage rated players:

Dallas Green, Jerry Augustine, Greg Booker

Seriously, when is the last time you saw anyone using Dallas Green?

$0.97 Shano Collins example, the following outfielders are all rated a 10 for usage:

Shano Collins, Dave Pope , Jack Smith, Ken Berry

Which ones stick out like a sore thumb?


$0.50 Reliever example, the following nickel relievers are RATED A 10 for usage:

Rudy Arias, Milo Candini, Dan Plesac, Javier Lopez, Andrew Kittridge, Doug Bair, Andy Hassler

Even better are some of the 9 usage rated players:

Dallas Green, Jerry Augustine, Greg Booker

Seriously, when is the last time you saw anyone using Dallas Green?

Happy New Year, Sweet Swinging,

Good for you for attempting to create a custom set that pares back the high-usage cards. Not easy, is it? I wouldn't have bothered to do it myself for the NO10s! league you're playing in with me, if I hadn't found an automated screen scraper tool called Data Miner.

Truly, the only player you cited in the quote above that is the slightest bit puzzling is Jerry Augustine. I suppose it's possible he's high-usage because, like Arias, his last name would appear at the top of the list of nickel relief pitchers.

The others, to me, make perfect sense. They all follow the theme of trying to find low-cost value.

All the other pitchers you named are hard-slant balance cards, which at $.50M are always a premium in any draft. They suck, but not nearly as bad as an E pitcher at the same price. Plesac, Kittredge, and J Lopez are actually really, really good as hard-slant specialists, and Kittredge especially is worth 3 or 4 times his price.

Ken Berry is a 1e2 at the corner outfield positions, and although he hits like Mollie Putz, there are many, many who want a glove like his to enter the game in the 8th inning. (Not me. At $.97M, he's grandly overpriced, IMO. And he was $1.66M in ATG 8.)

Pope and Jack Smith are hard-slant balance hitters. If you search lefty hitters under $1M and filter to "1R or further right," Pope's usually the best slugger and Smith the best on-base guy. In other words, there are few if any lefty equivalents to Mark Brouhard or Lou Piniella.

But really, I am not sure I understand your point. A high-usage guy is a high-usage guy, whether drafted or rostered on Opening Day, isn't he?

My point is you try to draft Shano Collins and you get Ken Berry. He shows up as a high usage player when in fact, he is probably DROPPED in waivers or FA 95% of the time.

In Berry's example there are cheaper options that hit similarly so if you're looking for a backup at all 3 OF positions, Berry wouldn't be in my top 5 or 10 choices. Hence, drafted vs. usage.

My point is you try to draft Shano Collins and you get Ken Berry.

Do you though? 1920 Collins is listed as a 1B, shouldn't you get a 1B if you miss on him? And wouldn't most people draft 1917 Collins anyway? 1917 Collins is a 1 usage whereas 1920 is a 10, that pretty much proves they go by final rosters rather than draft results.

You get Steinfeldt if you miss on Blowers and Steinfeldt is only a 2.

The thing that jumps out at me about the usage ratings is 8s and 9s and even 10s on guys who I rarely have any problem acquiring (like Jack Smith, a legitimately useful card). I think what's going on is that the vast majority of cards cluster around 0% usage across leagues. So when you display their usage rate by percentile, 1s are used in 0.0% of leagues, 2s are used in 0.1% of leagues, etc. Meanwhile 10s are everything above 30% or so. 9s are about 15-30%, 8s are about 7-15%, 7s are about 5-7%.

My point is you try to draft Shano Collins and you get Ken Berry.

Do you though? 1920 Collins is listed as a 1B, shouldn't you get a 1B if you miss on him? And wouldn't most people draft 1917 Collins anyway? 1917 Collins is a 1 usage whereas 1920 is a 10, that pretty much proves they go by final rosters rather than draft results.

You get Steinfeldt if you miss on Blowers and Steinfeldt is only a 2.

The thing that jumps out at me about the usage ratings is 8s and 9s and even 10s on guys who I rarely have any problem acquiring (like Jack Smith, a legitimately useful card). I think what's going on is that the vast majority of cards cluster around 0% usage across leagues. So when you display their usage rate by percentile, 1s are used in 0.0% of leagues, 2s are used in 0.1% of leagues, etc. Meanwhile 10s are everything above 30% or so. 9s are about 15-30%, 8s are about 7-15%, 7s are about 5-7%.

That makes sense (the part about Shano being listed at 1b), but I regularly get Berry as the substitute for Collins. Either that or I'm totally off my rocker. Now I gotta go back and try to see if I can find a team that I missed out on Shano and who I got.

Would they be accounting for auto-drafted players in their Usage rankings?

I would guess that many or even most who play 365.strat-o-matic.com are newbies or novices. Lots of them take advantage of the Auto-Draft Team feature.

Hal always auto-drafts a team worth $80M, right to the penny. Invariably that will mean a bunch of nickel cards, like Milo Candini (and $10M Lou Boudreau, for some reason).

But shoot, whether drafted or picked up during waivers or Frenzy, Usage 10 guys like Mariano Duncan and Mike Blowers and the like always start the season on somebody's team. And man that gets old.