Papelbon Plan question

[eudubbz]

Hey Todd,

I just wanted a little clarification on your thoughts about the Papelbon plan. Since the middle tier of closers have many more questionmarks than years before, wouldnt it be a better value to go for the lesser guys? For example, lets say you have the following closers for argument's sake

Upper Tier = 5 ($25 or so)
Middle Tier = 6 ($10 or so)
Lower Tier/Shared Duty/Question Marks = 19 teams left but many more guys picked as there is no definitive closer ($1-$5)

Now let's say the Upper Tier earns $25-$30 in value. Middle Tier earns about $10. Lower Tier can be anywhere from $0-10. Wouldn't it be safer to throw spaghetti on the wall and hope to hit a $10 closer for $1 or maybe trade for one that emerged with a job during the season? You won't earn any/much profit from the upper tier, just what you paid for with the Papelbon Plan, with the added downside of a possible injury or ineffective year. Profit for Middle tier is hit or miss but they're not the focus of this argument, and profit can be had with the cheaper guys. The only thing it would cost you is an extra bench spot, which can be easily replaced.

This also leads me to the next question... with the glut of teams without a 9th inning anchor, more people will have guys on their bench as hopeful closers. How will this affect the value of other positions? In other years, those guys would have been snatched up and sitting on a bench but in this year, they would be in the FA pool.

[Todd Zola]

I did not do the best job of differentiating draft versus auction strategy. In an auction, I would definitely target specific speculative closers I felt more confident would succeed in terms of skills and opportunity. "The Papelbon Plan" is more applicable to DRAFTS, where if you are drafting on the edges, you could wait 20+ picks between turns, seriously reducing your choices, if not being totally shut out of a run.

This also leads me to the next question... with the glut of teams without a 9th inning anchor, more people will have guys on their bench as hopeful closers. How will this affect the value of other positions? In other years, those guys would have been snatched up and sitting on a bench but in this year, they would be in the FA pool.

This is league dependent. In the leagues I play in, my fellow competitors have been cherry-picking speculative closers for the past several years.

I posted my results for an NFBC satellite league. In this league, I took 3 second/third tier closers (Bell/Qualls/Hanrahan) in the low teens and Villanueva (pre-Hoffman signing) so I did not feel the need to speculate on other relievers (though I am contractually obligated to draft Scot Shields now that I am again representing Mastersball). This enabled me to pick up an extra OF or two as OF is my team's glaring weakness.

[Hambowen]

All my auction leagues the speculative closers do not go for $1-3. If they are thought to be the closer at start of the the season then they will go in the $5-$10 range. The $1-3 guys are the setup guys that have a chance to be closers.

I really try to stay away from the speculative guys once they get around the $10 range. I usually look for top 10 closers that are below my projected value(usually 2-3 fall in that range and i try to get 1-2) The rest of your saves can come from the waiver wire I have found or from your bench if you have a large one in your league.

[viper]

but there are some leagues where saves from the waiver wires don't really exist - the NFBC being one. New closers do pop up but they are all risky and very expensive. Several times I have bid around $250 of my FAAB for a guy and lost out by over $100. I then watch this new closer get 1 or 2 saves and then get replaced. It is amazing to see how quickly the obvious backup closers go in NFBC drafts.

[cwk1963]

Same for me. I don't play the NFBC - yet - but since my leagues use K/9 instead of counting K's, the closers-in-waiting types go in auction because they can really help mitigate the effects of buying a Jon Garland type.

[Mojo Jojo]

sorry for the stupid question, but what is the papelbon plan?

[viper]

The Papelbon Plan can be found in the December Blogs. You will need to open up the December Blog file. Todd's Blogs started before the Forum was active so you may also want to check out the comments.