Using CVRC in shallow leagues

[Black Sox]

Just wondering your opinion on using the CVRC for valuation in a 10 team mixed league. Do you look at the values differently in a league like this or is it no different than a 12 team league. Any tips or differnt ways to be looking at it?

[Todd Zola]

Just wondering your opinion on using the CVRC for valuation in a 10 team mixed league. Do you look at the values differently in a league like this or is it no different than a 12 team league. Any tips or differnt ways to be looking at it?

While I "look" at the values the same, I use them more as a relative ranking than a green light/red light means of bidding. The shallower the league, the more you want to employ stars and scrubs and "overpay" for the top end talent.

[rotonut]

I couldn't agree with Todd's response more. If you use the values the CVRC kicks out in a shallow league and follow it to a "T", you will not get any of the top talent and overpay for the middle tier players. Shallow leagues allow you to overpay early since the replacement players are usually very serviceable players for most of the positions.

[mjlewis]

heh. this made me curious about what the CVRC does with really small leagues.

It won't run with 4 or fewer teams (I'm curious as to why), and with 5 teams and a $260 salary cap, Joe Mauer is worth $291 due to his batting average being worth $272. I have no idea what to think of that. (Also it generates a blank line at line 33, for what that's worth.)

The obvious trend I'm seeing by running these is that as the size of the league is smaller, batting average is more valuable, but I don't have an intuitive explanation for that.

Er... with six teams, there's also something strange where David Ortiz and his 0 SB are getting a component value of $18.70 in steals and Albert Pujols and his 13 SB getting a component value of -$9.50, Ichiro is getting -$16.31, Carl Crawford -$29.92... somehow the SB value is getting reversed. SB values are screwed up until you get to 8-team leagues, at which point it flips completely the other way and now Carl Crawford is the most valuable player in the league due to his $62.17 SB component, Juan Pierre is second... but in a 10-team league the values look normal-ish.

I remain nervous. yay for stress testing?

- Mike

[Todd Zola]

heh. this made me curious about what the CVRC does with really small leagues.

It won't run with 4 or fewer teams (I'm curious as to why), and with 5 teams and a $260 salary cap, Joe Mauer is worth $291 due to his batting average being worth $272. I have no idea what to think of that. (Also it generates a blank line at line 33, for what that's worth.)

The obvious trend I'm seeing by running these is that as the size of the league is smaller, batting average is more valuable, but I don't have an intuitive explanation for that.

Er... with six teams, there's also something strange where David Ortiz and his 0 SB are getting a component value of $18.70 in steals and Albert Pujols and his 13 SB getting a component value of -$9.50, Ichiro is getting -$16.31, Carl Crawford -$29.92... somehow the SB value is getting reversed. SB values are screwed up until you get to 8-team leagues, at which point it flips completely the other way and now Carl Crawford is the most valuable player in the league due to his $62.17 SB component, Juan Pierre is second... but in a 10-team league the values look normal-ish.

I remain nervous. yay for stress testing?

- Mike

If you are using standard, all bets are off. It is calibrated for 12 team and may hold up for 10 team mixed. You have to do some sort of customization for 4 or 6 team leagues.

[Black Sox]

I don't play in auctions I play in drafts. I use the $$ generated to help with creating tiers and also to help define who I should be targeting early in a draft. The reason why I'm asking is that I noticed some players who I'm high on having little to no value at their position when I thought the opposite is true and vice versa. As an example A.hill in this setting is showing -$1 value. I understand he's projected with a low ba but I would think his advantage in HR RBI RUNS would have pushed his value higher. To me if a player rates out at $0 or -$1 then they are replacemet level and could be found on the waiver wire. Also J Mauer is always rated as a top 3 pick yet I'd never do it ( for all the reasons Todd gave in his article ) Am I missing something or looking at this the wrong way?

Forgot to mention values were obtained running the two pool.

[Todd Zola]

I don't play in auctions I play in drafts. I use the $$ generated to help with creating tiers and also to help define who I should be targeting early in a draft. The reason why I'm asking is that I noticed some players who I'm high on having little to no value at their position when I thought the opposite is true and vice versa. As an example A.hill in this setting is showing -$1 value. I understand he's projected with a low ba but I would think his advantage in HR RBI RUNS would have pushed his value higher. To me if a player rates out at $0 or -$1 then they are replacemet level and could be found on the waiver wire. Also J Mauer is always rated as a top 3 pick yet I'd never do it ( for all the reasons Todd gave in his article ) Am I missing something or looking at this the wrong way?

Forgot to mention values were obtained running the two pool.

If you are doing anything wrong, it is looking too much at the value in a vacuum and not considering the intrinsic value of a player to you.

If you have some players that have some high batting average value, you can withstand the hit from someone like Aaron Hill.

But the fact his average is a drain does at least tell you that in a shallower league, the cutoff for valuable average is higher, which makes some sense.

The other thing, and this does take some work but it may help you is to do the steps to customize the pool. It may be that scarcity does kick in is 10-team leagues and you will need to make the adjustment. Maybe Hill's value is greater. I would suggest 3 pools --- C, middle infielder and the rest. If you post your league specs, I can run it as it will only take me a couple of minutes and we can see if it is worth your time to learn how to do it.

[Black Sox]

Thanks Todd. We play with 2 c 1 1b/2b/3b/ss 1 mi 1 cnr 5 of and 1 ut.

[Black Sox]

Also Todd any tips on changing the catagory weights of SB & BA or changing the BA baseline to compensate for a 10 team league. Would either of these things help since it seems that BA & SB become overvalued in a more shallow league.

[Black Sox]

When I broke down the player pools of draftable players it came out to...
C - 4
1B - 20
2B - 17
SS - 12
3B - 14
OF - 69
DH - 4

After re calculating for enough C it became
C -24
1B - 17
2B - 14
SS - 10
3B - 13
OF - 58
DH - 4

Top 10 becomes
Pujols, Albert $55
Cabrera, Miguel $40
Gonzalez, Adrian $36
Votto, Joey $36
Crawford, Carl $34
Teixeira, Mark $33
Mauer, Joe $33
Cano, Robinson $30
Ramirez, Hanley $30
Braun, Ryan $29

Thoughts.......

[AllstonRockCity]

Top 10 becomes
Pujols, Albert $55
Cabrera, Miguel $40
Gonzalez, Adrian $36
Votto, Joey $36
Crawford, Carl $34
Teixeira, Mark $33
Mauer, Joe $33
Cano, Robinson $30
Ramirez, Hanley $30
Braun, Ryan $29

Thoughts.......

Having used the CVRC for leagues this shallow in the past, I can tell you that those numbers look correct. The most valuable players in any given year have very high ($40+) values in this format. Then its a bunch of guys in the $20's and teens.