Passive Player Valuation
Welcome to Paul Singman's first edition of Outside the Box! I have graciously been given the freedom to take this column wherever I choose and future articles will focus on two main subjects. The first type are clever strategies to help you win your league, and the second type are player evaluations using sabermetrics. Having said that, let's move onto today's topic - player valuation.
Player valuation is the estimation of a player's value or worth*. Knowing how you value your players is important, however more important is determining how others value the players you own. There are several ways to do this, the simplest is asking people in your league, "What do you think of Bobby Abreu?" or, "Would you consider doing Rafael Furcal for Hanley Ramirez?". In this case, simple is stupid. One of the biggest mistakes made when trying to trade a player is making it seem like you are trying to trade that player. The other person immediately lowers the value of the player you want to trade, meaning you get less in return for him. We don't want to do that, right?
Another way to find out how others value your players is by using statistics. BA, OPS, VORP, WPA, BRAA, ERA, FIP - these tell you what a formula thinks of a player, not the dimwit who somehow is currently in first. Stats are good for determining how you value players, but not for how others value your players.
There is a simple way to determine how others value your players, stumped? Allow me to introduce ProTrade.
ProTrade is essentially a sports stock market where members can buy or sell shares of a player using ProTrade dollars. Like the real stock market, at ProTrade the market dictates the cost of a player. If you have not yet figured out how ProTrade relates to the topic of player valuation, understand this - the cost of a player on the ProTrade market is the metric to determine how others value your players. For example, if Magglio is currently traded at $257.03 and Ichiro at $263.34, then Ichiro is valued more highly than Mags by the average fantasy player. To see the full ProTrade rankings click here.
On an unrelated side-note, a founder of ProTrade is Jeff Ma. For those too lazy to click the link, he's the guy the movie 21 and the book Bringing Down the House is based on. Basically ProTrade was founded by a mathematical genius, whose life really "jumps off the page."
Back to the topic, remember you should NOT use ProTrade's rankings as a statistic to value players, rather use "actual" statistics, you know the ones with the capitalized and abbreviated names I mentioned before. If you see some Yankees player grossly overrated in ProTrade dollars, that's a good thing because in general Yankees' players tend to be overrated by the general fantasy player, although less now than 5 years ago.
One last thing to consider is where your league members live and any "man-crushes" they may have. People tend to develop extreme attitudes towards players in their area, especially if they root for their home team. For example, a person living in Atlanta most-likely loves Chipper Jones and hates Jeff Francoeur more than your average person. Also if you are aware that someone in your league absolutely loves Nick Swisher, understand they may rip them self off to acquire Swisher (think about that during a draft or auction as well).
This is the end of my article here, but if you must read more of my work feel free to check out Behind The Plate Fantasy.
*A friend of mine had a blog until it was abruptly deleted because he apparently copied a dictionary.com definition without citing it, so I'm going to take zero chances and just cite the dictionary.com definition of player valuation. "valuation." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 06 Jun. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/valuation>.
Player valuation is the estimation of a player's value or worth*. Knowing how you value your players is important, however more important is determining how others value the players you own. There are several ways to do this, the simplest is asking people in your league, "What do you think of Bobby Abreu?" or, "Would you consider doing Rafael Furcal for Hanley Ramirez?". In this case, simple is stupid. One of the biggest mistakes made when trying to trade a player is making it seem like you are trying to trade that player. The other person immediately lowers the value of the player you want to trade, meaning you get less in return for him. We don't want to do that, right?
Another way to find out how others value your players is by using statistics. BA, OPS, VORP, WPA, BRAA, ERA, FIP - these tell you what a formula thinks of a player, not the dimwit who somehow is currently in first. Stats are good for determining how you value players, but not for how others value your players.
There is a simple way to determine how others value your players, stumped? Allow me to introduce ProTrade.
ProTrade is essentially a sports stock market where members can buy or sell shares of a player using ProTrade dollars. Like the real stock market, at ProTrade the market dictates the cost of a player. If you have not yet figured out how ProTrade relates to the topic of player valuation, understand this - the cost of a player on the ProTrade market is the metric to determine how others value your players. For example, if Magglio is currently traded at $257.03 and Ichiro at $263.34, then Ichiro is valued more highly than Mags by the average fantasy player. To see the full ProTrade rankings click here.
On an unrelated side-note, a founder of ProTrade is Jeff Ma. For those too lazy to click the link, he's the guy the movie 21 and the book Bringing Down the House is based on. Basically ProTrade was founded by a mathematical genius, whose life really "jumps off the page."
Back to the topic, remember you should NOT use ProTrade's rankings as a statistic to value players, rather use "actual" statistics, you know the ones with the capitalized and abbreviated names I mentioned before. If you see some Yankees player grossly overrated in ProTrade dollars, that's a good thing because in general Yankees' players tend to be overrated by the general fantasy player, although less now than 5 years ago.
One last thing to consider is where your league members live and any "man-crushes" they may have. People tend to develop extreme attitudes towards players in their area, especially if they root for their home team. For example, a person living in Atlanta most-likely loves Chipper Jones and hates Jeff Francoeur more than your average person. Also if you are aware that someone in your league absolutely loves Nick Swisher, understand they may rip them self off to acquire Swisher (think about that during a draft or auction as well).
This is the end of my article here, but if you must read more of my work feel free to check out Behind The Plate Fantasy.
*A friend of mine had a blog until it was abruptly deleted because he apparently copied a dictionary.com definition without citing it, so I'm going to take zero chances and just cite the dictionary.com definition of player valuation. "valuation." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 06 Jun. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/valuation>.
