Mastersball Fantasy Forum

Related to your most recent post, I'm not quite sure how to answer this in a way that feels right.

Replacement/marginal value is calculated by generating the valuation of the worst player at a given position and setting that to the minimum bid, and then you build off that to figure out the prices for the better players.

Does this necessarily assume that players/values are distributed normally? If the catcher pool was Buster Posey and nine Tucker Barnharts, is Posey's price the same as it would be if it was nine Buster Poseys and one Tucker Barnhart? If it was you'd have to do something else to make all of the players in the league add up to the league budget, but is it as easy as that?

If there were nine Poseys and a Barnhart, would you expect all of the Poseys to sell for the same price or is there some effect that describes the urgency of getting one increasing as there are fewer remaining? How would you calculate that?

First off, it's moot - the pool has players of descending potential.

But to answer, it's sort of like inflation. Everyone things it's linear, but it's not. It changes after every purchase. It's silly to do because valuation is so flawed, hence not worth it, but in theory, values should be recalculated after every purchase, based on the scenario at the time (available players, roster spots, money left, etc). But -- this is what needs to be paid so everyone spends all their money, which is different than what the player is projected to return. Getting caught up in the minutia of bidding 24 or 25 based on an algorithm is a losing proposition.

To embellish a little..

9 Posey's, 1 Barnhart versus 1 Posey, 9 Barnharts would be different prices for Posey since the pool of useful stats contributed at the catcher position will be different. Let's do a HR derby league.

The rest of the pool contributes 1000 useful HR.

Posey hits 25, Barnhart hits 10.

9 Posey's, I Barhnart means 9 x 15 or 135 HR added and each Posey is 9/1135 of the total money allotted.

1 Posey, 9 Barnharts means 15 HR get added so Posey is 9/1015

You have 10 catchers, so lets say this is a 10-team league. Using $260 to keep things in perspective,

Every player costs $1. We're drafting 130 hitters. So there's 2600-130 = 2470 to be distributed.

9/1135 x 2470 = 19.58, so adding the marginal price of $1, that's $20.58 for 9 Posey's, $1 for Barnhart

9/1015 x 2470 + 1 = $22.90 for Posey and $1 for 9 Barnharts

So the solo Posey is worth a little more.