The insane bargains

Riggo said this in one thread

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Pricing Mistakes – The “Insane Bargain” players

Collecting these guys enables you to build a 100M team in an 80M cap league
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12.73 -- '01 Nap Lajoie, 2B (10.64) +209
11.51 -- '76 Joe Morgan, 2B (10.30) +121
11.34 -- '39 Joe Dimaggio, CF (10.01) +133
10.54 -- '04 Nap Lajoie, 2B (8.78) +176
9.18 -- '63 Hank Aaron, RF (7.60) +158
8.06 -- '20 Happy Felsch, CF (6.86) +120
7.76 -- '00 Honus Wagner, 1B (6.55) +121
6.11 -- '27 Earle Combs, CF (4.70) +141
5.94 -- '62 Tommy Davis, LF (4.34) +160
5.89 -- '58 Richie Ashburn, CF (4.86) +103
5.82 -- '88 Dave Henderson, CF (4.66) +116
5.77 -- '07 Torii Hunter, CF (3.80) +197
4.43 -- '86 Steve Sax, 2B (3.28) +115
4.01 -- '02 Bobby Wallace, SS (2.95) +106
4.00 -- '22 Baby Doll Jacobson, CF (2.84) +116
3.72 -- '09 Danny Murphy, RF (2.54) +118
3.70 -- '09 Ed Konetchy, 1B (2.60) +110
3.69 -- '09 Dots Miller, 2B (2.31) +138
3.50 -- '59 Smoky Burgess, Ca (2.29) +121
3.47 -- '26 Bob O'Farrell, Ca (2.45) +102
3.37 -- '27 Clyde Barnhart, LF (2.16) +121
3.32 -- '77 Davey Lopes, 2B (2.19) +113
3.31 -- '78 Bob Watson, 1B (2.12) +119
3.30 -- '69 Nate Colbert, 1B (2.29) +101
3.30 -- '55 Les Moss, Ca (1.82) +148
3.17 -- '24 Eddie Brown, CF (2.09) +108
3.14 -- '66 Russ Snyder, LF (2.12) +102
3.03 -- '83 Lenn Sakata, 2B (1.67) +136
2.91 -- '66 Paul Blair, CF (1.40) +151
2.80 -- '09 Tommy Leach, CF (1.73) +107
2.78 -- '82 Willie Aikens, 1B (1.51) +127
2.74 -- '79 Chris Chambliss, 1B (1.71) +103
2.73 -- '55 Walt Dropo, 1B (1.69) +104
2.56 -- '51 Irv Noren, CF (1.49) +107

Hey, nice job Riggo with those ratings. Actually, the many threads you wrote were a lot of fun to read. It kicked a boost to my enthusiasm to return!!

Just came back from 2 years of SOM inactivity, and boy! do I concur with you: the 7.60M Aaron card and Torii Hunter are among the great bargains of the set. They fall in my top 10 best bargains, and that's even before making stadium adjustments.

Several of the latest released cards look pretty good in my ratings, makes me wonder if SOM changed its methodology to evaluate cards. Lieberthal, Baldelli, the 4.75M Molitor card, they all look pretty good in my ratings.

But how about 1.03M Renteria! He's the best cheap value in the set by far!! Man, if Wallace is a bargain at 2.95M, how so much more is Renteria!

But the best value of the whole set I think is the 11.25M Bonds.I know it's no secret that his card is so much good, but when I ran my formulas last weekend, I was very surprised by the magnitude of how good he is for the money. He's the only player in the whole set that my ratings have 2M above his price tag. Actually, his value when used as a dh is set at 14.22M in my ratings.

Last time I had such a wide gap was Victor Santos! The oldtimers will remember.

Bonds' 11.25M card is such an extreme card, it could well be that he's an outlier because of methodological biases in my ratings or because of a real understimation by SOM. In any case, in my comeback team, Forbes field, I followed my ratings blindly and went all in with Bonds! We'll see if that will work out or not.

Welcome back! Hope it is an extended stay

Marc, how 'bout posting a link to your latest team?

A Napoleon Lajoie team!!

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1522878



Speaking of Lajoie, my rating system values his card roughly at 11.40M, so not as high you do, but still a very good buy . My rating system in the first drafts also estimated him in the 12.50M zone, but I came to realize that a few assumptions I was working with were slightly off-track.

First, a 1-range middle infielder, especially second basemen, play many at-bats as a rated 2-defensive range. I came to realize that, as soon as a runner gets on-base, HAL holds the runner at first almost automatically, holds (too) often the runner on second base as well, plays liberally the "infield in" strategy, all these have the effect to decrease the defense range by 1. Second basemen are more affected than ss because they are more often responsible of the runner. So all the promises of gb-A you see with a 1-2b don't sum up in reality. With bases empty, you do have a 1-2b, but as soon as runners get on, you have more often than not a 2-rated 2b. I've analyzed many seasons of Lajoie specifically in real SOM Seasons, and, while SOM doesn't provide enough information to yield strong conclusions, I interpret the data as concurring with my analysis.

Second, I changed the way I establish my estimated salaries based on the value of the cards. The challenge here is how to scale a rating system to get a salary structure that makes sense in a Strat environment. Before I would determine the overall value of a card, defense, running,and offense altogether,then use a scale to end up with a salary structure that makes sense. I came to realize that it is better to treat each part, offense, defense and running, separately,. Otherwise, high-priced players with great running and great defense, players like Lajoie and Morgan, could see their salary estimation get inflated with some scaling factors. Obviously, the scales for offense and defense must look alike, a single coming from the offense can't be worth twice as much as a single allowed by the defense. But I do use scale factors that give slightly more value to offense, especially if I estimate the value of players in different scoring environment. The logic here is that offense from a high-priced card likely to be clean-up is more important than the offense from a low-priced card, and the scaling factor can be used to get this effect.

Last time I had such a wide gap was Victor Santos! The oldtimers will remember.

Geez...


2001 I think. Right?

I'm thinking 2002 for Victor Santos?

The 2002 playing the 2001 season?

I think I pass over Eric DuBose. He was a majestic bargain at 2.93M. Normally, prices go down when a card gets transferred from 20XX to ATG, but his went way up when he was transferred to ATG (unfortunately, to the point of being too expensive)

have u composed a list of 1 fielding pitchers?

The 2002 playing the 2001 season?

I think I pass over Eric DuBose. He was a majestic bargain at 2.93M. Normally, prices go down when a card gets transferred from 20XX to ATG, but his went way up when he was transferred to ATG (unfortunately, to the point of being too expensive)

Damn it.I am so out of my league in this ATG set. Bobby Wallace is platinum and DuBose is crap. Kingman a ripoff. No wonder why they are bombing.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1534679

But what are these "insane steals" based on? In a small ball park, I could name 25+ CF better than T.Hunter or D.Henderson or J.Dimaggio. In a bopper park or Minute Maid Park, I could name only four CF better than J.Dimaggio and two CF better than D.Henderson and none better than T.Hunter.

Also, is it even a problem that B.Wallace is "such a steal"? He *only* costs 2.95m. If you are *lucky* enough to get him on your team, the best your 80.000m roster becomes is 80.500m (only in a tiny park, much less of a value in other parks). I love B.Wallace more than anyone, but let's put it in context here. In a tiny park he is, at most, 0.5m more than his 2.95m price tag. That is just a couple drops in the bucket.

Also, remember that the Jet ratings that Riggio is largely parroting have plenty of flaws too. My best guess is that when Jet prices, he is applying separate factors to OB and TB (might be more granular where he drills down to double, triple, homerun). However, in my opinion his selected OB factor is way too high and his selected TB factor is a little on the low side. Then, he is in some way deciding that certain positions are "undervalued" and others are "overvalued". No idea how he is choosing this, but a couple of his "undervalued" positions are completely "overvalued" and vice versa.

I have a few of the guys on Riggio's "insane steal" list as some of the more overpriced in the ATG8 set. Does anyone else agree, or does everyone just copy Jet and leave it at that? Seems like Petro has a good rating system, he is no longer choosing a lot of what I refer to as the "Jet Junkers" anymore, so he has figured something out.