You Look Very FAABulous! (Part 2, pitching)

The Pitching side of the Tout Wars NL 2013 Hypothetical Standings In the first part of this comparison of the Hypothetical Draft Day Standings and the End of Season Standings in Tout Wars NL, we saw that Tristan Cockcroft finished in first place, even though he bought the fourth-best team (more…)

You Look FAABulous! (Part 1, hitting)

Counting Last Year’s Free Loot in Tout Wars NL On March 25, 2013, the Tout Wars NL draft was held in the studios of SiriusXM radio in New York City. Nationally-known fantasy writers and experts auctioned teams for a roto-style league that has been running since 1998. If all the (more…)

Top 10 Most Misunderstood Fantasy Baseball Concepts: #5. Player Projections

I’ve been banging this drum for the past few years, but I still hear people say, “I like my player projections bold. Go out on a limb, fer Gehrig’s sake!” That was what Wilton tried to do. Don’t remember Wilton? Well, at Baseball Prospectus, before there was PECOTA, there was (more…)

Basics: How To Convert The Guide’s $ Values to Smaller Leagues, step-by-step

So, you have a set of dollar values in hand, like the dollar values from the Fantasy Baseball Guide 2014 (use the promocode rotoman2014 to get a dollar off). But you don’t play in a 12-team AL or NL only league. How do you translate those prices to your league? First (more…)

Basics: The Theory of Converting $ Values to Smaller Leagues

In The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2014 (at newsstands now! and online at thefantasysportsguide.com, use the coupon rotoman2014 to save) we publish Bid Values for what is roughly a set of players I anticipate will have only league draft day value. Because we go to press before many free agents have (more…)

Roto: Putting Together A Perfect Pitching Staff

We know that most roto leagues spend about 31 percent of their total budget on pitching. The reasons for this are debated, and discussed in this recent story. And in Part 2.  But if leagues spend $968 on pitching, an average of $81 per team, what is the best way (more…)

10 Most Misunderstood Fantasy Baseball Concepts: #6. The Replacement Player

Maybe the widespread discussion of VORP and WAR have straightened this one out, but once upon a time there was a lot of chatter about the Replacement Player when it came to fantasy baseball dollar values. The basic idea then and now is that each player has a value based (more…)

10 Most Misunderstood Fantasy Baseball Concepts: #7. Preseason $ Values.

I used to derive my preseason prices from my projections. I modeled the stats for the whole season and priced players as if that’s what really happened. This worked pretty well, because they were based on projections made in March, which were about as solid as could be, incorporating a (more…)

$ Return By Position in 2013

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what we paid for each position last year, and what the guys we bought earned. This is back of the envelope stuff, in part because of the relatively small samples at each position, plus the vagaries of position elgibility. (more…)

Top 10 Most Misunderstood Fantasy Baseball Concepts: #8. Post Season Dollar Values.

A lot of the analysis in that two-part Most Misunderstood piece on the Hitting/Pitching budget split (No. 9 part 1, part 2) was built on information gleaned by comparing the price expert leagues paid for players on auction day with Post Season Dollar Values for players. That is, pricing what players’ (more…)