Buffett Does Baseball

The best day of the year for sports nerds is rapidly approaching, and I'm pretty damn excited.  Yes, loyal reader(s?), I'm talking about the kryptonite to your sex life - or any other - fantasy baseball.

Anyway, the whole genesis of this sports blog was that my ego was riding high after last year's fantasy win, and I thought I could parlay that into a few extra bucks by disseminating my fantasy genius over the data-info highway.  OK, so I'm no Matthew Berry, but two wins and a 2nd place in four years ain't too bad.  Also, if I went around calling myself Mr. Roto I might have to reconsider my priorities in life.  

Somewhere between that ridiculous idea and this post, my Arsenal fandom became a full-blown obsession, and I got a little sidetracked from baseball.  But the season is upon us, I've got my first-choice dollar-allotment spreadsheet (and several contingency plans) ready, and I thought I would, in my great munificence, grace you all with The Sports Optimator's fantasy baseball preview/over-arching strategy.  

I've been investing in the stock market for about the same amount of time I've been playing fantasy baseball, and the investing has helped my fantasy game about immensely.  I called this post Buffett does baseball, because I try to take his approach into the draft room, and the better I am at it, the better my team does, for the most part.  Google "buffett quotes," and you'll get any number of iterations of his oft-repeated saying about buying a dollar for 50¢.  Simple in concept, yet deceptively difficult to employ.  It's a mental game, really, one that pits you against your leaguemates, but mostly yourself.  First a quick stock market analogy: 

• Stock A makes disposable razors, has been earning, on average, $4 a share over the last 10 years, and pays you $2.50 a share every year for your troubles.  It costs $40 a share.  
• Stock B sells radiation-detecting technology, has a cool-sounding name, hasn't ever turned a profit, and sells for $15 a share.  
• Stock C sells something that everybody wants, makes oodles of money, doesn't pay a dividend, and sells for $600 a share.  

Without naming names, some of us are out there buying that piece-of-shit stock (B) that will never return your investment in it, just because you can't help yourself from gambling on something that might be the next big thing, and because you read about some other doofus that sounded smart saying he was buying it, too.  Others of us are buying Stock C, but waited until it climbed from $200 to $550 to get in, because you just didn't want to be left behind as it rocketed past $1000.  And a few are buying Stock A and laughing all the way to the bank.  

Buy 23 shares of Stock A for your fantasy team and I virtually guarantee that you will place.  

• Stock A is your proverbial Value Stock, or Value Player, and they are your friend.  Your Brad Hawpes, Paul Konerkos, and Dan Ugglas.  If you can get him for the right price, even Pujols qualifies as a Value Player, because as Buffett said, "Price is what you pay, value is what you get."  For example: Espuhn lists Pujols' value as $35 this year.  Knowing that he is absolutely going off the table in the first couple of rounds when everybody is flush with cash, and that he is as reliable as - pardon the cliché - a Swiss watch or train, if you can get him for $33, you've saved yourself a few bucks for another slot, and he'll probably end up outperforming that conservative figure anway.  Conversely, if you let yourself get dragged into a bidding war, and end up with him for $43, you've got Stock C, and you're probably hosed.  Rule #1 of a good auction draft is Do Not Overpay (Buffettism: Do Not Lose Money).  $1 here and $1 there can be made up elsewhere, but it's a pretty hard and fast rule unless you know you have excess cash towards the end of the draft and can outbid people calmly.  Back to another example: Last year, for whatever reason, I guess because people thought his arm was gonna fall off at any minute, I got Lincecum for $25.  He's not a $50 pitcher, so it wasn't the steal of the century, but his value was listed at well over $30.  I hadn't earmarked him for my team, but I had to take him; he was on sale.  Do this with enough players that get discounted for whatever reason, and that you have good reason to have confidence in, and you start to assemble a pretty fine team.  
• Stock B: Last year it was Matt Wieters, and this year, depending on your league and your draft, it could be Matt Wieters again.  He hasn't proven anything, and if you can get him for a buck, or $3, well fine, but somebody out there is taking this guy (or any other hot prospect) for $12, and the odds are good they're gonna be hosed.  

Baseball has more stats than any other sport, telling you how Player X has performed over the last 5, 6, 12 years, and what you can reasonably expect for the coming year, and it's pretty reliable... when it comes to veterans.  Focus on those guys, don't overpay, and you have a pretty damn decent chance of taking some money home. 

I may post a follow-up to this one citing some more hard examples from last year's draft, in which there were some INSANE prices paid, both above and below market value ($3 for Mark Reynolds, anyone? $6 for Verlander? $8 for Wainwright?).  The Sports Optimator is also hoping to post one after this year's draft, with some calls on who snagged the values, and who didn't.  

See you then, as long as I'm not too hungover, and not in the throes of post-draft depression because I shoved my own advice up my arse and bid $63 for Hanley Ramirez.    

Fantasy Baseball 2010 - A Cautionary Tale

So unlike my friend, I was a spectacular failure in our 2009 league. No, I didn't finish dead last or spend $45 on Carlos Beltran, but considering how "well" I drafted for a first timer I was beset by tragedy before we ever left the war room. I failed miserably for a few reasons, some were out of my control and some were all my fault *cough* Brad Lidge *cough*, but the best thing that came out of it was knowing what not to do. I'm no Talented Mr. Roto, but I ask you to read on and heed my cautionary tale.

So our league is challenging because we have two catcher slots and no bench, so you can't stash someone away until they get better. Its also odd because we use BB instead of runs, so that throws traditional player ratings out the window. With all the usual stats (BA, HR, RBI, SB, W, K, ERA, SV, WHIP) still in place, the use of BB takes a guy like Ichiro Suzuki and makes him almost useless, Michael Bourn? Don't even ask. You may like steals, but everything else is going to kill you (Disclaimer : Bourn actually hit pretty well, but .285 isn't going to make up for the puny stats) and your team is going to sink fast. On the flip side, guys like Nick Swisher and Jack Cust suddenly become very valuable since they tend to walk alot. Three True Outcome (K, HR, BB) studs are suddenly a good pick because walks are scarce, check out the stats. Only five players walked 100 or more times, and only one (almost three) hit over .300 (Pujols, of course), compared to 28 players that drove in 100 or more runs. So without further delay here is everything I learned after crashing and burning.

Draft Results
C Yadier Molina (StL)
C Ryan Doumit (PIT)
1B Adrian Gonzalez (SD)
2B Chase Utley (PHI)
3B Aubrey Huff (BAL)
SS Jhonny Peralta (CLE)
1B/3B Joey Votto (CIN)
2B/SS Jose Lopez (SEA)
OF Jermaine Dye (CWS)
OF Bobby Abreu (LAA)
OF Raul Ibanez (PHI)
OF Nick Markakis (BAL)
OF Shane Victorino (PHI)
UTIL Aramis Ramirez (CHI)
P Johan Santana (NYM)
P Jon Lester (BOS)
P Mark Buerhle (CWS)
P Edinson Volquez (CIN)
P Ricky Nolasco (FLA)
P Daisuke Matsuzaka (BOS)
P Brad Lidge (PHI)
P Brad Zielger (OAK)
P Frank Francisco (TEX)

I'm not going to go over every single player, but I was pretty pleased. I had some solid pitching, hitting depth, the best 2B, and I hit a homerun with some of my picks (Gonzalez, Abreu, Ibanez, Lester, Buerhle) and as soon as Doumit went down I snagged Pablo Sandoval (I tried drafting him for $1, but he wasn't C eligible yet) who was a huge add. So where did I go wrong, well let me tell you...

Keys To Failure
1 - Don't Pay For Saves : I went into the draft using the wisdom of Fight Club "The first rule of drafting is, you do not pay for saves. The second rule of drafting is you DO NOT pay for saves." Sadly, I paid, and it killed me. As an auction virgin, I started throwing out closers to get others to pay for them, and when Lidge was going to go for less than the value I had for him, I could feel my budget burning a hole in my pocket. I let the idea that someone else was going to get a deal get to me, and I started bidding, and bidding, and bidding. Eventually I got him for a whopping $14, which was pretty close to his WHIP last year. Lidge morphed into a BP machine and he just murdered me, that money could have been spent elsewhere.
2 - The Season Is 162 Games : Its a marathon, not a sprint. I basically had to talk Andrew off a ledge after the first few weeks. I'm such a weak person, when he begged me to take Verlander off his hands I talked him into waiting it out. That worked out well, for him. I didn't listen to my own advice, and I jettisoned Victorino within three weeks when he wasn't hitting or stealing. Suddenly, I found myself hoping Abreu would steal 70 because I just ruined the entire category for the season. You HAVE to draft speed, its extremely rare to land a Rajai Davis or a Dexter Fowler off waivers, so if you don't draft speed you might as well forget about it. So I basically screwed myself over in the first month of the season.
3 - Luck Is A Bitch : This is the last thing that killed me, and frankly I may have finished in the money if the world didn't hate me. I only drafted three players that really fell flat (Peralta, Lidge, and Nolasco), but injuries destroyed me. Hardcore fans will look at my roster and wince, but the casual fan might like to know that eight, EIGHT, of the players I drafted (Six of them pitchers!) spent most of the season on the DL with the WEIRDEST ailments. I had two season ending elbow injuries, elbow fatigue (Dice-K throws 400 pitches during warm-ups, who knew it would ruin his arm), depression, dislocated shoulder, and Ziegler managed to get SARS or something. I was waiting for a comet to hit Lester. If all of that wasn't bad enough two of my waiver pick-ups (Dallas Braden and Scott Richmond) went on the IR as well! I had guys on my roster for guys on the IR, who were on for guys on the IR! So what I'm saying is, shit happens and there is nothing you can do it about it. Have a nice day.

PUJOLS : LIDGE as LIDGE : MY 2009 FANTASY TEAM. Much like that HR, I'm still waiting for my WHIP and ERA to come down.

Keys To Success (From A Failure)
1 - Don't Pay For Saves : Yes, its that big of a deal that I'm bringing it up twice. I won't beat you over the head with stats, but saves are just one category. Plus, most closers will only pitch 55-75 innings, so their low WHIP/ERA is semi-negated and not enough to save your staff. Guys you can get for $1 will give you 25-30 saves, almost as much as Papelbon who will go for $12-15. Every season someone comes out of nowhere (Oakland's Andrew Bailey, for example), replaces a do-nothing closer, and has a stellar season. Joey Devine and Brad Zielger went down, and Bailey came in to become a Top-10 closer. I could have had him for $1. I was able to get SF's Brian Wilson (38 saves, T-7 with Papelbon), who went undrafted, for nothing off waivers. The $14 I spent on Lidge could have been Hanley Ramirez, as I dropped out as one of the final bidders, hell it could have been alot of players. Just don't pay for saves, unless you are in my league, if you find yourself in my league I encourage you to spend every penny you have to get Johnathan Broxton.
2 - Power/Speed Guys : One of the best ways to win your league is jump on power/speed guys (20-20, 30-30 players) because they give you balance and depth. Yes, a 30-30 guy won't have more steals than Jacoby Ellsbury, but Ellbury won't hit 30 homers and come anywhere close to 100 RBI. Piling up on power/speed players allows you to avoid using roster space on a one-dimensional base stealer or HR hitter (Mike Jacobs, etc.) who is going to kill your team with BA or miniscule RBI/BB. These guys are rare, so if you corner the market you will not be disappointed.
3 - Win In The Late Rounds : Its not a secret, any Fantasy Baseball guru will tell you, leagues are won in the late rounds. Getting Pujols won't make or break your class, but landing that $1 stud will give you a huge boost. Past examples of this are 2008 Ryan Ludwick (37-113 .299), 2009 Jayson Werth (36-99-20 .268), and 2009 Pablo Sandoval (25-90 .330), all guys that went late and were well worth the investment. So spend more time researching your late round picks, and don't worry if you don't get Pujols or Han-Ram.

Well, hopefully you have learned something from my implosion. I would like to think I won't be too drunk/angry/depressed after the draft to write a summary, and more importantly I'd like to avoid post-draft depression. I know I won't be bidding on Lidge no matter how much of a deal he is, unless I can bid -$5 he will not be on my roster.

Optimator Strikes Silver!

After a few weeks off I'm back at it. My entry in this week's Gallery (England's Injury Woes) netted me second place and on my hot-headed hero Eric Cantona.

Don't touch the sides... actually, don't touch anything!

The EPL Final Stretch, Advantage Arsenal

As the EPL wraps up for the week two things have become apparent; the title race is very exciting, and the battle for fourth is going to be close. The title is going to come down to either Manchester United (My team, Glory Glory), Arsenal, and Chelsea (There aren’t enough expletives to describe them) who currently have a game in hand. The gap between third (Arsenal) and fourth (Tottenham) is currently 12 points, so unless the Emirates falls into a black hole with the team on the pitch, nobody is going to crack the current top 3. So with less than 10 games left, and the media riding the Chelsea and United bandwagon, I’m going to say that Arsenal has the advantage here with the best chance at taking the title.

No, this is not a reverse jinx. If it was, I wouldn’t be able to say so, but it really isn’t. I’ve got three good reasons to believe Arsenal has the inside track, and if they don’t falter it could be their title to lose in the last few weeks.

1 - Arsenal has already played their games against the other Big 4 opponents. Despite losing to Manchester United and Chelsea twice they are just two points from the top. They don’t have to worry about playing anyone in title contention, and after pulling one out against Hull City they look like they have the momentum to keep playing well.

2 - Schedule. This is similar to #1, but I’m going to make it a reason because I like looking at stats. Chelsea and United are in a bad position regarding schedules, mainly because they play each other, but also because they will play more difficult opponents. Man U has the worst schedule (Average Opponent Position of 8.4), facing Chelsea (2) and Liverpool (6) at Old Trafford, and a derby game against rivals Manchester City (5) who would LOVE to crap on them like they did at Chelsea. Chelsea (Average Opponent Position of 9.8) have a game in hand, but they also have an extra road game (where they have been less than impressive), and travel to Man U (1), Tottenham (4) and Liverpool (6)…Ouch. Their only banker is a road game against the corpse of Portsmouth. Arsenal (Average Opponent Position of 10.9) doesn’t have a cake walk either with games at Nottingham (4) and Birmingham (8), and a home game against Man City (5) to close out their top-10 opponents. If Arsenal can close out the season on current form, it isn’t unreasonable to think United and Chelsea will shoot themselves in the foot and end up behind Arsenal.

3 - The Ewing Theory. I’m going to rob this one from Bill Simmons, but it’s a valid point. When Van Persie went down you could hear Arsenal fans dying a little inside, and people saying their offense wouldn’t be the same with a 5’ tall Russian trying to head corners, well they worked something out. They have been suffering injuries all over the place, including the brutal Eduardo-esque Ramsey broken leg incident, but they worked through it. No Fabregas? That’s ok, torch Porto 5-0. Still no Fabregas, and take away Gallas? That’s ok, Nicklas Bendtner will run like a drunken donkey and provide the offense they need. I’m waiting for Wenger to field Arsenal fans he picks up in the parking lot before the game, and at this rate they will still win.

Bendtner has four goals in their last two games, all of them with Fabregas on the bench.

So after looking at everything, I truly believe Arsenal have the inside track here. Wenger is a great coach who deserves to silence his critics with some silverware, and I predict this will be the season he does it. The only negative I could find is Arshavin’s new haircut, that bowl-cut was the heart and soul of their offense.

Optimator On Football Weekly

The Sports Optimator managed to get into this monday's Football Weekly podcast with an attempt at a Football Weekly shirt. They keep talking about merchandise, but never seem to follow through, so I took a crack at something to see if they liked it. Looks like I got their attention, just jump to the 25th minute mark of the podcast, hopefully they actually follow through on this.

Detail - AC Jimbo needs some work, I'll clean it up if this pans out.

Shirt Version - I'd like to have his head bigger and turn the 'Extraah' into 'Extraaaaah'

The Ramsey (Horror)show

I still haven't recovered from the worst tackle I've had the (mis)fortune of watching live, but I've stopped dry-heaving into a paper bag long enough to regurgitate somebody else's excellent take on the matter.  There's an even better article on this on the guardian.uk, but it seems to have disappeared for the time being.  So for now, I will re-post this, also courtesy of the Guardian. 

THE SHAWCROSS REDEMPTION?

One violent lunge. A scream. Tears. Angry voices. And a quick departure in the back of a van driven by one of the three main emergency services. The Fiver's usual Saturday night out at Whispaz nite spot (no jeans, no trainers, no boot-cut slacks, no slack-cut boots, no young slim people, no not smelling faintly of cat food) left plenty of time for thought this weekend.
Thrashing about in the communal lower bunk of its comfortable five-man holding cell, the Fiver was able to consider the major events of the weekend, mainly the tackle by Ryan Shawcross on Aaron Ramsey that snapped his tibia like a slightly stale breadstick in a depressing backstreet Italian restaurant. In particular, the Fiver's thoughts turned towards the question that seemed to be on everyone's lips. Is Shawcross really, really – is he really? - that kind of player?
He may have snapped both bones in Ramsey's leg through sheer brute force. But is that really him? Or does he occupy that place where you can go in between guilty and innocent, a kind of footballing Switzerland, a comfortable holding camp perhaps on the banks of a lake, for people who aren't that type of player despite having been that type of player for the half-second it takes to be that kind of player?
Fortunately, Wayne Rooney has joined the debate. "I was with him at United for a couple of years and he's not that type of player," Rooney said, sitting in front of some adverts at an England press thing. It's a view shared by Rory Delap, who also isn't that type of player: "I know Ryan and he wouldn't mean to do that," Delap explained today. "He is not a lad who would go out to do that."
So, there you have it. Consolation no doubt for Ramsey as he spends the next three months hobbling around in a cast with a dirty sock on the end and the words "Every journey has a beginning and an end and a middle bit and we walk these paths for a reason that lies beyond our paths of reason and that's the reason everything has a reason, luv Sol xxx" written in biro.
Ramsey can at least tell himself that none of this really happened. That his leg just isn't the being-snapped-in-half type. That Shawcross is only the type of player who does that kind of thing when he actually is doing that type of thing. And that while the Fiver may subscribe to the view of ancient Greek thinker Pindar that who you are is defined by what you do, this rule - unlike the rules of energy and resistance and unstoppable force meeting chalky, breakable object - doesn't seem to apply in football.