From: cabanrf@wkuvx1.bitnet
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball.fantasy
Subject: How to $$
Date: 23 Jan 93 22:25:29 CST
Organization: Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY

First of all, let me say that I am NOT in a Roti league.  I'm in
a fantasy league and I do think that there is a difference. 
Having said that, I dug out this piece that I wrote for some
friends some time ago.  Hopefully it'll help those who are
interested get a start on doing their own player evaluations.  As
a manager, it helped me get a win when I was in a Roti league.

One point of interest.  The values that this will give you tend
to be lower for the superstars and higher for the middle players. 
I ended up adjusting this quite a bit, but it should serve to
give a good starting point.  The adjustments I made were in the
relative amounts I would allocate to each category.

                      How to value hitters
             Part 1, Getting an initial dollar value

     As the baseball season approaches, the typical fantasy
baseball fan starts paying more attention to the players.  You go
and buy some publications, and read that Barry Bonds is worth $44
or some such information.  And that value is someone's opinion of
what Barry Bonds is worth.  But it's not YOUR opinion.  How that
person got to that value is the beginning of this piece.  

     First of all, let it be said that the advent of the personal
computer probably did more for fantasy baseball than any other
invention.  It makes it possible for you to make changes in your
evaluation methods and see the results of those changes reflected
instantly.  A spreadsheet program makes all of these comparisons
and figurings easy and fast.  Rather than having to do all of the
data entry, I've got a spreadsheet with all of the players stats
from last year in it.  In this example, cell addresses are given
in parentheses beside their referents.

     The first thing you have to do in player evaluation is to
look at your league.  The key questions you have are:

     1) How many members do you have in the league?  For the
purposes of illustration, we're going to assume you have a 10
member league.

     2) If you are running an auction, how many dollars do you
have for each member?  The usual here, based upon the original
Roti league is $260.

     3) As a league, what percent of the total budget is going to
be spent on hitting?  The authors of Roti baseball recommend 50%,
most of the leagues that I know spend between 60 and 70% of their
total money on hitting.  We'll use 60% as the recommended
spending on hitting.  (BTW, I usually allocated more)


     Set aside an area for macros and constants, I use the top
left of my spreadsheet.

     Now you are ready to get your first numbers.
10 members (b1) X $260/member (b2) X 60% (b3) = $1560.00 (b4)


     This means that your league will spend $1560 on hitting. 
All of your hitters dollar values should be based upon that
number.

Divide that number by 4, this give you what you will be spending
on each category (you can establish different weights for
different categories, this is just as an example).  (b5)
     



Set aside another area in your spreadsheet for manipulations.  I
use rows 21-300 and out to about CA.  When you bring players in,
leave yourself about 8 columns beside the players name for later
stuff.  My layout is:

A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J
posn name team      last proj proj proj proj proj
                    year $    avg  hr   rbi  sb
                    $

     Next you have to look at your league and determine how many
players from each position must be taken.  For example, most
leagues require that each team have two catchers.  Look at the
list of catchers from last year and choose the best twenty
catchers.   If you don't want to choose, rank by AB and then
choose in order of OPS.  Put these players in the manipulation
area.

     REpeat this process for each position.

     You now have three positions that are open: corners, middle
and a utility man. 

Calculate an OPS for each remaining player.

Go to the players that are left and group the corners and middle
into their own groups.  Rank them by AB & OPS.

Take the best 10 middle and corners and move them to your
manipulation area.

Rank all remaining players by OPS.  Take the best 10 to your
manipulation area.

THESE ARE THE PLAYERS YOU WILL USE TO ESTABLISH YOUR DOLLAR
VALUES.  You should have 140 players.

Sum the HR (b6), SB (b7) & RBI (b8).  Put these numbers in your
constant area

Average the AVG.  Put this number in your constant area. (b9)

Since the AVG for a player can hurt you in the standings it must
be able to have a negative impact upon your dollar valuations. 
Insert 2 columns beside the batting average column for your
players.  Let's say that the average column on your spreadsheet
is column R. and you are at player 21. 

The formula for S = @if(R21>=b9, R21-b9,0)
The formula for T = @if(r21<b9, b9-R21, 0)

Sum column S (b10) & T (b11) and put them in your constant area.

For the sake of an example, and to make the explanation clearer,
other columns are now given)

AB = U         HR = V    SB = W    RBI =  X

In the constant area, put what each event is worth.

HR (d2) = ( b5 / b6 )
SB (e2) = ( b5 / b7)
RBI (f2) = (b5 / b8)
plusAVg (g2) = (b5/b10)
minusavg (h2) = (b5/b11)

Convert all of the constants from formulas to values at this
point.  If you don't when you start adding players, these numbers
will change.

Now lets get last years play values.

Formula for player 21, col E.

(((s21*g2*2)-(s21*h2)+(v21*d2)+(w21*e2)+(x21*f2)))

To project next years stats, there are 3 things I like to look
at:

Playing time (manifested as AB)
Change in venue (traded to a new park)
General opinion about that player. (Can Anderson really do it
again and did Inky finally learn how to hit a curve?)  things
like that.

Beside your area for the stats you are looking at make an area
for projections.  Lets say 

AA,  AB,  AC,       AD,  AE   AF
AVG  +avg -avg      HR   SB   RBI
I hard code in the playing time estimations, looking at spring
training rosters and reading all I can get my hands on about
whats happening.  These are MY best guesses.  

Change in venue I handle via using ballpark effects, norming a
player out then adjusting for the new park.  (Watch HR and
players going to Houston)

For general opinion I put a number beside the AB which reflects
how I feel the player will do compared to his history.  (.95 for
Sheffield etc.)


Transfer the stats to the projection area using a /AB basis.  

 ((HR/AB)*(ballpark)*(general opinion)*(projected AB)

to give you an idea.

Projected dollar values would then be

((AB21*G2*2)-(AC21*H2)+(AD21*D2)+(AE21*E2)+(AF21*F2))

You can take it from there.

I hope this helps those who have been asking about dollar values. 
This was the starting basis for how I did it.


-- 
Roy F. Cabaniss......................*Wait till Tommy meets the Lord and
Western Kentucky University..........*finds out that He's wearing pinstripes.
All opinions contained herein........*Gaylord Perry (talking about Lasorda)
Are all mine own, and that's the sin.*Baseball, what a way to spend a day!!
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball.fantasy