Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

Unbeknownst to me during my NFBC draft last night Ricky Romero was optioned to the minor leagues to work on his delivery. I love Romero as a bounce back candidate because I couldn’t find any statistical problems and it appears as though his 2012 year was all mental. Even though I drafted him not knowing he was sent to the minors, my rationale for drafting him is he can regain his delivery and be extremely effective when he makes it back to the big leagues. J.A. Happ replaces Romero in the rotation and becomes the 5th starter.

Andrew Cashner looked good in his start yesterday. His fastball sat between 94-97 mph and his changeup looked good too. It appears he’ll be ready for Opening Day.

Dan Haren looked bad in his start against the Marlins, giving up four home runs runs (two to Giancarlo Stanton). He had trouble commanding all of his pitches, especially his secondary offerings. He did strikeout three batters, but they were all looking; also, he didn’t miss a lot of bats. Most of the swings against him found barrels. He’s currently going as the 35th pitcher, which is too high for me. I rather have C.J. Wilson, Hiroki Kuroda, Lance Lynn and Jarrod Parker, who are all going after Haren.

Erasmo Ramirez was sent to Triple-A and Jeremy Bonderman was reassigned to the minors. This means Brandon Maurer and Blake Beavan will be the Mariners 4th and 5th starters. Maurer is the only pitcher you want in a mixed league as he can miss bats with mid-90s fastball, a plus slider in the mid-80s, and an average changeup that plays up due to the delivery. He’ll be able to miss a ton of bats and will have the fortune of pitching in the Safeco. Maurer isn’t known for his long bill of health so enjoy the production while you can.

This week is the most exciting time of the year for me because it’s draft week. After spending three months preparing I’m ready to get this show on the road. Last night I had my 16-team ESPN Up & In draft and I totally crushed it. After four or five rounds people were complaining about how its brutal playing with this many owners and that draft pool was thinning out. Like last year I bet most of the owners (including myself this year) will stop making daily moves after about six weeks. I’m participating in four NFBC Leagues, one 15-team and three 12-team; one of the 12-team leagues is for the $50K grand prize. I added the $50K grand prize a couple of days ago. Having three leagues already on my plate I was hesitant because I thought I wouldn’t have the time to be successful, but then I realized this may be the only time in my life where I’ll have the most time to devote to fantasy baseball so I said “Screw it. I spent a lot of time preparing and it’s time to see how well I can do.”

If you never heard of NFBC, you should give them a look if you’re looking to play for money with a larger payout. I never played in NFBC before but after doing a little research I realized I should’ve started a long time ago. Anyway, enough of my self-indulgence; let’s talk about my approach to my drafts.

Categorical Thresholds
The first thing I wanted to tackle during my draft prep was the category thresholds I would need to get to in order to win each league. I believe in order to win I will need to finish in the top 75% of every category (i.e. 3^rd and 4^th). The thresholds were based on data from my previous leagues and other sources such as here and here. Since this is my first year in NFBC I put a more weight on the external sources. The table below provides my categorical/statistical thresholds necessary to win a 15-team and 12-team mixed league.

My Draft Approach
NFBC allows owners to provide a weighting preference to each draft position through a system called Kentucky Derby System Preferences (KDS). Suppose an owner doesn’t want the first overall pick, he can give that pick the lowest weight. In my 12-team leagues I targeted the 8^th and 9^th pick because they provided the most consistent value with the first four rounds. After Ryan Braun and Miguel Cabrera every hitter is surrounded by question marks; now, Braun has off the field question marks and could be subject to a 50-game suspension, but the chances of that happening are less than 5%. The reason why I choose the 8^th or 9^th picks was I want to try to get either Joey Votto or Prince Fielder with my first pick and a fantasy ace in the second round; preferably Justin Verlander or Clayton Kershaw. With so much uncertainty for hitters in the first two rounds, starting pitchers are safer bets to sustain their draft day value. If one of those two pitchers does not fall to me, I’ll probably punt pitching with my first four picks.

For my 15-team league I wanted either the 14^th or 15^th pick; I got the 14^th pick. I want Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander or Clayton Kershaw in the second round. If you’ve read my blog you would have seen me utter the phrase “you can’t win your league in the first, but you can lose it” on multiple occasions. Targeting Harper goes against that adage because he has a lot statistical outcomes when it comes to 2013; he could be a monster and hit 30 home runs with 20 stolen bases or he could repeat his 2012 season. I agree drafting Harper goes against what I’ve preached, but in order to win I’m going to need players who outperform their draft day values and Harper is one of the players I feel has the greatest likelihood of achieving that.

My goal is try to get 100 home runs and stolen bases along with two pitchers with my first six draft picks in my 12-team leagues. In the 15-team league, I’m targeting 80 home runs and stolen bases with the first six picks along with two pitchers. If I can hit those thresholds I’ll be extremely happy and I’ll like my chances of winning. After the first six picks I’m going to go with value based drafting (VBD) and try to get players who can outperform their draft day value. With seven bench spots I want six of them to be devoted to pitching so I can stream them every week.

There were few strategies I considered. Waiting on pitching was a strategy I originally considered, but after more thought it’s imperative to draft a fantasy ace in order to create a competitive advantage. An ace is defined as a pitcher in my first tier of starting pitchers in my fantasy guide. There are two reasons why I want an ace. First, pitching is the deepest position and therefore everyone is going to have great pitching. Therefore, having an ace will allow a greater opportunity to win more categories. Second, as I mentioned before, aces are just as safe as hitters this year this year.

The next logical transition would be to draft two aces, but after I ran all the simulations I saw my hitting would be too low to offset the gains I had in pitching. Also, there’s more variability in wins and saves, making them less reliable. The only way this strategy could work is if I filled all the hitter positions before drafting another pitcher. Under that scenario I would have to stream pitchers the entire year, which carries a lot of high risk because pitchers are free agents for a reason; because they’re not good and therefore are subjectable to blow up starts (starts where they give up 5+ earned runs).

Closers
In my 15-team league I’m going to draft two closers and two high end relievers, preferably their “backups.” I’m going to wait until about 16^th closers are off the board before grabbing the two closers with back to back picks. In the 12-team league I want at least two closers, preferably three, with two-three relievers. Again, I’ll probably wait until the 18^th closer goes off the board before I try grab my closers.

Well, there you have it…my draft strategy. If you have any questions feel free to hit me up on Twitter @MattCommins.

I’m the last to the party to talk about this, but it’s ok, these notes are more for me than anything else. Kyle Lohse signed a three-year deal with the Brewers and instantly becomes their number two starter. It’s easy to say his .262 BABIP and 77% LOB% will regress. It could be true they both regress, but he’s had a BABIP lower than .287 three out of the past four seasons. Also, for three years in a row his strikeout and walk percentages have gone in the right direction. Lohse is a legit number two starter, but he’ll be pitching his home games in the bam box in Milwaukee. In a 12-team mixed league he’s a number three starter.

David Freese will begin the year on the DL with a bad back.

Shawn Marcum is experiencing neck discomfort and therefore will not be ready for Opening Day. If you’re in any league besides a NL-only league and you own Marcum, you deserve to lose.

Jacob Turner will begin the year in Triple-A. In 13 innings (in Spring Training) he’s given up 14 ERs, 9 walks and only 5 strikeouts.

Scott Kazmir, Shelby Miller and Erik Bedard have all been named the 5th starters for their respective clubs (Indians, Cardinals and Astros respectively). Of the three, I have Miller the highest; 34th starting pitcher overall. I know the adage of how young pitchers never do well in their inaugural seasons, but after what I’ve seen I’m convinced he’ll miss a ton of bats. Bedard and Kazmir are both AL-only plays. Bedard is ticking time bomb and could get hurt at any moment so enjoy his mediocre performance.

Greg Holland’s fastball velocity is down 2 mph from last year; 94.5 mph in Spring Training. This news isn’t exciting and I dropped him from 11th to 23rd in my Closer Rankings. I believe Aaron Crow is the next in line for saves if Holland falters, but Kelvin Herra is the dark horse for saves.

Shin-Soo Choo is experiencing back spasms, but is expected to be ready for Opening Day. During the spring he’s missed five games due to back spasms and this is something to keep a close eye on. This news scares me because back spasms can reoccur at any moment and will never go away.

With the signing of Jon Garland, Drew Pomeranz was optioned to Triple-A. I literally have no idea what the Rockies are doing anymore. It appears as if they have no plan to win any time soon. Pomeranz may not be that good, but Jon Garland, really? I’m glad I’m not a Rockies fan.