Champs: Who is your highest priced offensive player?

Here would be my cheap Miller Park team:

Vs RHP

C Wieters (or Grandal)

1b. P. Alvarez, B . Belt, Duda, A Gonzalez
Cuddyer, Laroche, Pujols

2b. Walker (or S. Rodriguez)

SS. Desmond or Peralta

3b. E Chavez, S. Rodriguez, Frazier

Lf. Dickerson, JD Martinez, Moss, Cruz
Cespedes, K. Davis

Cf. Ozuna, Kiermaier, Saunders

DH Ortiz, K Davis, Arcia, Francisco, P Alvarez

Rf Soler, Kemp, JD Martinez, Arcia, Saunders , Cruz,
Reddick, Saunders

Platoon reserves LHP

Rosario. C

Freiman 1b

Espinosa 2b,SS

Walters preferably DH
Mayberry LF, RF, 1b

A Garcia RF

So a mix of 2-3 mill guys with 4-6 guys and if you go more on the 2-3 guys you could have a hellacious pitching staff.

Interesting take J-Pav, and very similar to an approach I took in my fantasy baseball leagues this year (i.e., roto):

I went into my drafts with overall TEAM goals for offensive and defensive categories. Those goals were to be as close as possible to finishing in the top 3 of each category (for those of you who play in roto leagues, you'll understand). I didn't chase the big names, but did have to pay attention to position scarcity.

3 teams: 2 1st and a 2nd

Best I've ever done.

Now, you may be asking, "what the hell does that have to with SOM?". Now I'll tell you - I see JPav's theory as being remarkably similar, albeit he is framing in terms of Runs (or run variance).

Makes total sense to me - if you know the majority of playoff teams finish with x amount of runs, or x amount of runs against, then build your team targeting those totals.

That may sound like an oversimplification, but sometimes the KISS method is the best method.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: I haven't done that this year, but intend on giving it a shot. And yes, I know their are many paths to crating a winning team, but if you feel like you're stuck in a slump of .500 teams missing the playoffs, give it a shot!

Why is it harder to win with Trout? If I can coax 60 runs out of a $3 guy, then Trout needs to score 240 runs to be equally valuable to the $3 guy. And the top guys aren't scoring 240 runs.

Actually, it all depends of your baseline---if a 0.5M player produces 40 runs, and you can coax 60 runs out of a 3M player, then Trout is worth the pricetag if he can produce 4 times that difference (plus the baseline), in other words (60-40)*4 + 45 = 125 runs.

Actually, you have to take out the salary too out of the baseline.

This is how I generate my ratings.

That makes perfect sense.

My question then becomes, is run 125 more expensive to buy than run 124? So each run is not ten cents apiece, rather the first 30 are a penny, the next ten two pennies, the next ten three pennies...and then when you average it out, you arrive at the $10 mil salary guy costs 10 cents a run for 100 runs?

Because if that's the case, the risk in overpaying for a player goes correspondingly higher as you pay up. In fact, I would argue, this is an even better case for paying the least amount per player possible. If you pay $2-3 for a guy and almost always get $2-3 worth of performance, I like that margin of error better than the risks which come with overpaying.

The $4-6 mil guys often give you top overall performance in runs scored, OPS, etc. To me it seems, this is the way to bet.

Which brings us full circle. I hear what you, Edge, RB, et al are saying. You won rings with Trout (or McCutchen or whoever at the top of the salary range). Individually, I get that. But are the other managers in your leagues doing it the same way? I looked at 25 teams. Too small a sample? Maybe. But only if someone else can say they also looked at 25 teams and they averaged $10.75 or some such at the highest paid player. No one has said they found that to be the case.

So, although the title of the thread was intended to be rhetorical, the question I posted was this:

"In the meantime, I surveyed the last 25 Champs teams among my $80 mil leagues and discovered the highest priced offensive player averaged $7.92. So, it appears, if you are spending salary on any guy more than say, Justin Turner, you are swimming against the current.

Why do you think that is?"

When managers who may have no interest in posting how they're doing things on these boards leave the bread crumbs which suggest they're not overpaying for an individual hitter, should we ignore them?

Out of curiosity, I looked at 13 of the champions from my $80M (non-themed) leagues:

Avg salary of highest paid hitter: 8.64 (range 6.17 - 12.0)
Avg salary of highest paid pitcher: 6.78 (range 3.80 - 9.0)

Most often used highest paid hitter: Anthony Rizzo, 3 times (9.03M)
Most often used highest paid pitcher: Clayton Kershaw, 3 times (9.0M)

Incidentally, they appeared on the same team just once.


Avg runs scored: 684 (range: 553-784)
Avg runs against: 613 (range: 477-732)

Something worth exploring: 4 of the 6 teams with the lowest run difference, also had the lowest difference between highest paid hitter and pitcher, at an average of $0.23M. The remaining 9 had an average difference of $3.74M.

J-Pav, I looked at 18 80m non themed leagues. 3 champs had their highest player in the 6's, one in the 7's, and the rest were 8 or more. HarveyR's Minute Maid champion had Stanton, Brantley, and Miggy. Pinko Filth won in Petco with Gordon and Adam Jones. Mastermosser won in Safeco with Gordon and Seager. One of the 6's was you with Mckenry.

Brantley and Miggy were the most listed over 6, three times each, Miggy the high price only once. Seager, Span, and Harrison were all on two winners. The average top hitter was 8.87.

I think your theory is a good one, but it's not confirmed by the leagues I've been in. I think, like everything else here, it's a way to win, but I don't see it giving advantage over other ways.

This is a great topic, by the way, the kind I wish we had more of, so even if I don't exactly agree with you, I think your point is well worth looking at and discussing.

One question, you asked was if you go for Trout and miss, what happens? First, I don't usually go for him, it depends on whether he's available or not. But if you don't get him, you might get McCutcheon. If you don't get Rizzo, it's Abreu. Whereas when you miss out on your value players, they're all mixed in with non value players. Just saying. Going for all value players has worked well for me, but when you miss, you're left without much.

J-Pav, I looked at 18 80m non themed leagues. 3 champs had their highest player in the 6's, one in the 7's, and the rest were 8 or more. HarveyR's Minute Maid champion had Stanton, Brantley, and Miggy. Pinko Filth won in Petco with Gordon and Adam Jones. Mastermosser won in Safeco with Gordon and Seager. One of the 6's was you with Mckenry.

Brantley and Miggy were the most listed over 6, three times each, Miggy the high price only once. Seager, Span, and Harrison were all on two winners. The average top hitter was 8.87.

I think your theory is a good one, but it's not confirmed by the leagues I've been in. I think, like everything else here, it's a way to win, but I don't see it giving advantage over other ways.

This is a great topic, by the way, the kind I wish we had more of, so even if I don't exactly agree with you, I think your point is well worth looking at and discussing.

One question, you asked was if you go for Trout and miss, what happens? First, I don't usually go for him, it depends on whether he's available or not. But if you don't get him, you might get McCutcheon. If you don't get Rizzo, it's Abreu. Whereas when you miss out on your value players, they're all mixed in with non value players. Just saying. Going for all value players has worked well for me, but when you miss, you're left without much.

I agee " when you miss, you're left without much" -ON THE HITTER SIDE

Edge,

It seems like my $7.92 may have been lower than average. Still, it also seems a lot of teams are opting for not banking on a high dollar pick.

FWIW, I like your strategy of not caring who that high dollar pick might be. If you have eight solid values and the usual bench, then one high dollar pick is a luxury you can maybe afford to take a chance on without blowing the budget.

For me it's all about not relying on my autodraft. If we all chase the same 25 guys, then I want to avoid feeling I can't win if my draft goes poorly. I want to KNOW that I can cobble something together that competes, even if I miss my top 15 picks.

I do realize it's "a" way and not necessarily "the" way.

Seems to me going for value in draft leaves room to go up the pay ladder if necessary in waivers and post. value guys always seem to be gone after the draft to me.

Also, I like taking the macro view because we have Marc and others to get deep in the weeds on the micro side.

Here's a couple of ways not to win in 2014:

I thought I'd do a couple of Beane Count teams, like I usually get around to every year. In the past, they would do very, very well (net walks plus home runs):

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1412120

That's 773 walks/HR for, minus 485 against (+288) for 86 wins. Meh.

But that was way better than this:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1411711

That's 1016 walks/HR for, minus 480 against. Peeps, that's 536 net walks +homers garnering 77 wins.

Inconceivable. Maybe it was the bad Tulo-Stanton combo.

This leads me to believe that walks and homers are priced out of the equation this year. How about strikeouts?

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1412970 1582 K's for, 786 against. 796 net K's got me 78 wins. Blech.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1413023 1763 K's for, 871 against. 892 net K's got me to .500. Why did I even bother to double check with a second effort? Was is the bad Brantley and V-Mart combos??

My net hits team is not doing any better. Anyway, I do these things so you guys don't have to. So, if it's not hits, walks, homers, BABIP, or K's, what actually does work do you think?