Ranking the Top 50 Yahoo Players - ROTO Style

[jake_twothousandfive]

I tried a little experiment I thought I'd share with the Cafe.

I took the top 50 hitters according to the Yahoo Rankings. Using the five categories (BA, HR, RBI, Runs, SB) of my Roto league, I ranked each player for each category and awarded points based on each that ranking (just as a roto league does to calculate the league standings). So that the top player for each category earned 50 points while the worst player of the group earned 1 point for the category.

For batting average I got a little fancy. I didn't think simply using their BA rankings would be entirely fair. Take Joe Mauer for instance. He's hitting .395, but he's done that in limited time. Because of that, he wouldn't bring up your team average as much as a similar top BA hitter who has played for the entire year (like Ichiro). To compensate for that I ranked each player by BA and total hits and took the average of the two (e.x., Mauer earned 22 points for his 82 hits and 50 points for his .395 BA for an average of 36).

For example, Pujols has the most HRs, runs, and RBIs, netting him 150 points across the three categories. While he ranked among the middle for SBs (earning 28.5 points) and towards the top for BA/hits generating 39.5 points. For a total of 218 which, as you can imagine, absolutely blew everyone else out of the water.

Here are the results:



IDK, I thought it was pretty interesting. It seems to be common knowledge that the Yahoo Rankings are solid but not ideal. This is at the very least a nice basis for comparison.

Here's the Google Doc in case anyone wants to see the full spreadsheet: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= ... Qb2c&hl=en

[daullaz]

Great work!

[Ursa]

I do something similar on a spreadsheet for my current batters so I can better see trends but this is light years beyond my paltry efforts. Good stuff.

[JMB05]

How does Pujols rank in the middle for stolen bases? My friend Carl Crawford says you list is no good.

[mtxdevil]

How does Pujols rank in the middle for stolen bases? My friend Carl Crawford says you list is no good.

eh?

[jake_twothousandfive]

How does Pujols rank in the middle for stolen bases? My friend Carl Crawford says you list is no good.

His 10 SBs ranks him in the middle amongst these players. Carl Crawford's 40 SBs were the best of the group, netting him 50 points for the category. Pujols was tied for 22nd in this category so he earned 28.5 points.

In terms of SBs, Pujols is obviously behind players like Crawford, Ellsbury, and B.J. Upton, but he's also obviously ahead of players like Fielder, Morneau, Teix, VMart, etc.

Just look at the spreadsheet.

[jlm53089]

Great work
It is really cool to see it in this sort of way.

Whats next?
Top 25 Starters and Closers?

[Splendid61]

For batting average I got a little fancy. I didn't think simply using their BA rankings would be entirely fair. Take Joe Mauer for instance. He's hitting .395, but he's done that in limited time. Because of that, he wouldn't bring up your team average as much as a similar top BA hitter who has played for the entire year (like Ichiro). To compensate for that I ranked each player by BA and total hits and took the average of the two (e.x., Mauer earned 22 points for his 82 hits and 50 points for his .395 BA for an average of 36).

You do realize that Mauer's counting stats (which make up 4 of the 5 categories) are also affected by missing all of April.

[jake_twothousandfive]

You do realize that Mauer's counting stats (which make up 4 of the 5 categories) are also affected by missing all of April.

That's true, but he's the only one affected that way. Unless I prorated his stats for the year or used a smaller time frame (e.x., the last month) I wouldn't be able to account for that.

Besides this is based on what they've done for your team this year. Mauer has been terrific, but in a limited amount of time. The players who have been terrific all year have had a bigger impact in leagues and thus should be ranked higher IMO.

[jlm53089]

You do realize that Mauer's counting stats (which make up 4 of the 5 categories) are also affected by missing all of April.

That's true, but he's the only one affected that way. Unless I prorated his stats for the year or used a smaller time frame (e.x., the last month) I wouldn't be able to account for that.

Besides this is based on what they've done for your team this year. Mauer has been terrific, but in a limited amount of time. The players who have been terrific all year have had a bigger impact in leagues and thus should be ranked higher IMO.

Agreed.
Like in real fantasy some of Mauers value should be hurt due to injury.