Looking at the rankings a little closer, it seems that the ratio categories (era/whip) are not taking IP into account when given value. If that's the case, it's clearly a huge flaw.
Yahoo is a joke. I'm strongly urging my commissioner to switch to ESPN next year. Do they have any explanation for why Stat Tracker receives game updates at the speed of a tortoise?
Fantasy Sports Genie wrote:re: not taking IP into account Definitely not true
Okay, that's good. I'm just trying to help figure out your problem from looking at patterns in the pitcher rankings...maybe you'll have more luck than myself.
i suppose if your team is in need of some pitching, now's the time to buy em low (guys like verlander) with their horrible ranking, that is before it gets fixed.
Fantasy Sports Genie wrote:re: not taking IP into account Definitely not true
If you want I can take a look at the algorithm. I have a B.A. in Mathematics. Perhaps a fresh pair of eyes would help? Just an offer...obviously I would do it just for the fun of it because I enjoy solving problems...maybe offer some free suggestions on tweaking it to get more accurate player rankings.
Fantasy Sports Genie wrote:Here is what I can tell you...
...
- I'm not convinced that the main thing freaking people out is entirely wrong. There is a big cluster of pitchers in the middle of the rankings who are essentially of neutral value. Often these are guys who haven't pitched much/at all. Those guys don't help or hurt your ERA or WHIP. They have minimal impact on saves since very few guys get saves anyway. They hurt you in wins and strikeouts. There is definitely going to be a set of pitchers that actually hurt you, because their ERA and WHIP pulls you down more than their wins and K's (or saves) pull you up. Having seen the math behind this, I think people would be surprised at where that line is. I think people have a gut feeling that says, "But he's a starting rotation pitcher! He can't be worse than a guy who doesn't even pitch!" That's simply not true.
...
This is what I have a hard time with. It's not that a starter can't be a negative contributor overall. Liriano's ratios would certainly hurt more than the 4 wins and 100-odd strikeouts would help. But "that line" is set far too harshly, whatever it is. Michael Bowden is ranked 267 overall, with 2 ip and 2 ks. Sure, the ratios are nice, but they clearly have virtually no effect on any team. Any reasonable ranking algorithm would have to conclude that Neftali Feliz (#263) and Bowden have contributed about the same amount as pitchers who haven't thrown a pitch at all this year.
But going by that (ie, drawing the line for 'pitchers better than an empty spot' around that point in the rankings), Yahoo apparently concludes that there are only about 40 sp worth owning this year. And even that includes a good number of relievers, who haven't accumulated many innings (Fogg, Clippard, Morales, eg), and brand spanking new starters (new for 2009, at least) who've only had a couple turns (Latos, Lehr, Gorzelanny). Most anyone drawing only from that group (and leaving the other spots blank) in roto would be in first in era/whip, and dead last in strikeouts and wins. Meanwhile, Carlos Zambrano, whose only real negative is a high whip (1.35), is ranked 519.
Having such a high ranking for an empty spot has to reflect either that it's better to punt the counting stats than to have a Zambrano on your team (which doesn't seem to be a winning strategy, since at best you get an average ranking of 6.5 out of wins, strikeouts, era, and whip), or that the replacement innings (waiver wire pitchers) yield better stats than Zambrano (which seems very doubtful).
(Btw, yes, I am assuming roto instead of h2h -- not because I think it's 'better', but just because it gives a decent baseline. It's tougher to analyze h2h because of all the many strategies available.)
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by fezzik » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:05 pm 
