I’ve been thinking a lot about what mistakes I made this year. One was going after established “five tool contributors” as I call them like McLouth, Hart, and Rios. I paid around 14-16 bucks for each. Which is I believe what everyone thought was their market value. This would have been alright as a strategy but I then fucked up by also paying for Braun and Holliday. I paid $36 for Braun, which isn’t that bad, and is about what he is worth. I paid $29 for Holliday. So an OF of Braun, Holliday, McLouth, Hart, and Rios for a combined cost of $110. Now while McLouth and Hart both got hurt and Rios had an awful last month of the season, if you had looked at my OF at the beginning of the season I think most would say that I had bought “at value” ie gotten $110 of production for my $110 layout.
The problem is, you can’t win by spending most of your hitting dollars “at value” you’ve got to make a substantial profit. So what should I have done? Gone after guys Werth, Lind, and Choo instead of Hart and Rios. I knew all about those two, I knew they were sleepers long before Matthew Berry shouted it to everyone. Why didn’t I pick those guys? Well, one, I was playing in a pretty good league, so they all went for around $8 so while there was profit, it wasn’t insane profit for the risk, and I didn’t go any higher. But one of the reasons why I didn’t go higher was that I had the idea set in my mind to go after these five tool contributors. Problem is, most of them are OF. Finally, why did I go after OF studs like Braun and Holliday vs. guys in the infield?
Here are some truisms for any 10-12 team league where OF is pretty deep.
1. For the same price as an elite OF you can get an elite infielder
2. Infield has less depth than OF
3. The replacement level for OF is MUCH higher than for other positions. So if someone doesn’t pan out, there will always be a good replacement on the waiver wire.
So what should you do?
1. Ignore most of those 5 tool contributors, usually they are not overvalued, just properly valued, someone will take them around the $14-16 range.
2. Caveat, you still bid on these guys of course, and if they happen to fall through the cracks (I also got Hunter Pence, a comparable player for $4) great, you’ll get a good profit.
3. Instead, you go for the sleepers. Yes, OF sleepers end up getting shouted to the world, but hey, pay the $8 for a Werth or Lind and, worst comes to worst, you get $5-8 of value out of them. At least you only sunk $8 of “at value” money vs. $16 of “at value” money for McLouth. And at best, you’ve got some of the profit that you will need to win your league.
4. There are sleepers, who I define as guys waiting to break out, and then there are guys that just fly under the radar. They are near replacement value but still better than replacement value. Say $2-3 players who you just get for $1 or $5 you get for $2. If you are going to do this, the best place to do it is OF because as mentioned above, the basement for OF is so much higher than the basement for every other position.
5. During the season don’t be afraid to drop your sleeper/flyer OF guys and pick up another off the waiver wire, someone (or multiple someones) will make the leap, and just pull the trigger, you only spent $1 on the guy on your roster right?
Tags: strategy
