On The Run, Volume 1- Number 10

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On The Run, Volume 1- Number 10

January 26, 2017, 09:23:04 PM

Free Agency! Well there isn't anything that is free or cheap. That is for certain. I expected to get a SP by now, nope. Not even close. I thought I might go after one of my HTD bats. I did get one, but assumed Belt and he's going to hit less than 20HR's would stay in my price range. I would up with a cheap Trumbo, in my opinion who turns to Baltimore. Three tremendous RP arms, of which only one I didn't intend to target. Waiting on week 3 to start. I'll be camping in Missouri, with my oldest son's future Boy Scout Troop. They'll be snow skiing, I'll be at the lodge, I'm dumb, but not stupid enough to get on skiis on my restructured knee that isn't 100% and I know it.

The number of waived players continues to shock me. The trades are continuing. Can I ask a question? How does Cody Sedlock make it to 10.16 in the MLD? HOW? He was drafted 16th overall in real draft and is a low mileage college arm. What a steal after some were done drafting. I continue to restock my farm system with power arms.

Another thing, I'm surprised that through two weeks, no players going to a silent auction. I contribute this to aggressive bidding and GM'S knowing what they want. It's kind of nice and gives you a little breather before the next round begins.

Re: On The Run, Volume 1- Number 10

Reply #1 – January 26, 2017, 11:56:19 PM

I'm right there with you Brent.

My plans for Free Agency blew up in my face. I read somewhere that in dynasty free agency leagues they expect 15-20% inflation from year to year. Why inflation was present never was explained. Maybe somewhere here with a degree or two in economics could explain.

The math hasn't been done, but I'd expect we're approaching 40% inflation over last year. Partly due to the amount of talent, partly due to the amount of rookie talent on some rosters (allowing GM's to spend more), partly due to so many teams being competitive.

Being surprised about the lack of blind bids is one thing, but have we ever wrapped up a week of Free Agency on Wednesday before?

Re: On The Run, Volume 1- Number 10

Reply #2 – January 27, 2017, 06:24:52 AM

Quote from: dgonser – on January 26, 2017, 11:56:19 PM

I read somewhere that in dynasty free agency leagues they expect 15-20% inflation from year to year. Why inflation was present never was explained. Maybe somewhere here with a degree or two in economics could explain.

I don't have an economics degree but I'll give this a shot. Inflation, whether in real life or fantasy baseball, happens when there are too many dollars chasing after too few goods. Let's make some real wild assumptions. Let's assume we could develop a formula that tells us what every player is worth...some variation of contract value in relation to WAR or some other measurement of production. If we expected a player to produce 12 WAR over the years of his contract and common consensus was that a player's value in our league was $2M/WAR, he should be worth $24M over the life of his contract or $8M/year. Let's make another wild assumption and assume we have 120 players that will be signed in free agency and their average WAR is 2/year. That comes up to $480M of value in the free agency pool according to our magic formula using $2M/WAR to calculate value.

Now we come to the auction and we have 16 teams with a total of let's assume $560M available to spend in the auction. If that $560M gets spent on a player pool whose value is only $480M, we overspent by 16% compared to the value of what we bought. There are several other factors that contribute to making it worse. First, some may argue that spending $19M on a star and $1M on a scrub is better than spending $10M on two different players. The strategy may or may not be sound but it exists. Second, in a league like ours, I'm purchasing a players production for three seasons and one of those seasons is already a known quantity. Unlike real baseball where a contract is for future seasons of unknown production, we already know what 1/3 of the players production will be over the life of the contract. I think this adds to the amount people are willing to pay for some players. If I pay $15M/year for Altuve ($45M over the contract) and assume value for our league is $2M/WAR, he has to produce 22.5 WAR over the contract to be a fair value. We already know he produced almost 8 bWAR in 2016, he only has to produce 14.5 more over the last two years to "pay for himself". If I get 2 more seasons of 8 WAR, he was actually a bargain.

I think the only 2 points of conjecture in this analysis would be what the measure of production should be (WAR?) and what's the value of that production ($2M/WAR, 2.5, 3...more?). Variations in these models, whether actually calculated or just done by gut feelings, is what will cause some owners to bid higher than others.

Re: On The Run, Volume 1- Number 10

Reply #3 – January 28, 2017, 04:54:47 PM

One could also attribute the inflation this year re: starting pitchers to the fact that the four best starting pitchers in MLB (in my opinion Kershaw, Scherzer, Sale, and Bumgarner) were available. As were guys like Lester, Kluber, Porcello and Roark. I think our interest in signing those guys feeds on itself - when you don't sign the guy you wanted and someone like Kershaw goes for $19M, you're more willing to up the ante on the next guy.

Running counter to the inflation idea for this year are the prices that hitters are going for - those seem to be down from last year though I'm done zero research on whether that is true or just my feeling. But as an example, in years past, a guy like Encarnacion would've gone for more than $7M. (I get that point doesn't explain Altuve or Belt, but who's counting?)

Re: On The Run, Volume 1- Number 10

Reply #4 – January 28, 2017, 04:58:29 PM

I could also explain it a simple fact - Ed and Scott are going all in this off-season. Ed carried $20M of cap space last season and Scott had almost $15M. Both have filled that space nicely with some high-profile signings.

That doesn't account for Darrell and Jim who have a grand total of zero signings so far this year. Just wait till they start throwing their money around.