From: wall@cc.swarthmore.edu (Matthew Wall)
Subject: Re: Expansion's effect on costs?
Followup-To: rec.sport.baseball.fantasy
Organization: Swarthmore College Computing Center
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 16:20:34 GMT

In article <40572@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, demers@cs.ucsd.edu (David DeMers)
wrote:
> 
> What will the expansion's effect be on costs in roto leagues?
> We are adding just one new owner.  I'm  pretty well convinced
> that value should dilute a bit - there will be 18 or so
> new everyday players, two or so additional closers, and
> at least a couple of new decent starting pitchers (though
> we won't know who they are until next October :-)
> With $260 being added to the pool, I think there will be
> more body for the buck.  
> 
> Any comments?
> 
In article <40572@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, you wrote:
> 
> What will the expansion's effect be on costs in roto leagues?
> We are adding just one new owner.  I'm  pretty well convinced
> that value should dilute a bit - there will be 18 or so
> new everyday players, two or so additional closers, and
> at least a couple of new decent starting pitchers (though
> we won't know who they are until next October :-)
> With $260 being added to the pool, I think there will be
> more body for the buck.  
> 
> Any comments?
> 


This is just a guess. I think free agency will have as much impact on costs
as expansion, but in terms of *value* it's a whole different ball game.

(1) Highest quality players will be inflated. There's a constant pool of
them in a market with greater demand.
(2) Quality starting pitchers *should* be inflated, because they'll get
marginal wins over the expansion teams.
(3) The low-end will be muddled and underpriced overall. The few good
players on the Rockies and Marlins will be underpriced. The few good
pitchers on those teams will be overpriced at $1. It's worth some extra
attention to the scrubs this year.
(4) Devaluations:
    -- devalue all pitching wins from '92 by 16% to reflect the increase in
the total number of games played from '92 to '93.
    -- devalue RBI by about 18-20% figuring teams scoring on the expansion
teams plus any RBI produced by expansion players will make the average RBI
worth less. (This assumes more scoring overall.)
    -- devalue HR by about 20% for the same reasons as RBI, plus the
likelihood that both Joe Robie and Mile High will be hitters' parks.
    -- devalue SB by about 10%. There will be 16% more steal opportunities
but the stolen base talent will likely be merely spread around more. It's
likely the expansion teams will have adequate defensive catchers.
    -- devalue saves by about 5%. There will be more blowouts, and fewer
close games for any existing NL team, hence fewer saves, but figure the
Marlins and Rockies to get about 20 saves each to cause overall devaluation
of the value of any single save.  
    -- low ERA and ratio pitchers' values should go up, so add value to
anybody better than last year's league averages and subtract it from
anybody below average last year. Basically, pitchers pitching against two
more bad teams should do that much better, and the Rockies' and Marlins'
pitchers should do that much worse. However, this stuff is so hard to
predict normally, I wouldn't put a percentage value on it - just keep it in
mind.
   -- Average. A toughie. My guess is that league average will go up a
little, but the distribution of talent will actually make your above
average hitters increase in value slightly. Free agency probably affects
this more (if Bonds goes to the AL, for instance.)


- matt

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