Just a Bit Outside: Making Smart Fantasy Baseball Decisions…for Once

Howie Kendrick is the Dr. House of professional baseball. Dare me to make sense of that analogy? OK…if you insist.

I’ve seen a full six episodes of the inexplicably popular Fox Drama, “House,” which makes me entirely qualified to generalize the show as a heaping pile of horse turd. In every episode, Dr. House and his team encounter a baffling medical mystery and offer – with complete certainty – a handful of diagnoses that one-by-one are proven incorrect. Finally, with the patient on the verge of certain death, the good doctor somehow generates the accurate diagnosis, the patient recovers and House goes back to popping Vicodin like its candy.

And yes, that’s EVERY episode. Why are millions of Americans watching? I suppose on this baseball blog, that’s neither here nor there.

So how does that apply to Howie Kendrick? No, I’m not suggesting that the Anaheim infielder has a drug problem, but I am suggesting that America’s fantasy owners have a problem by stubbornly continuing to insert the young Angel into their lineups.

A quick check of the most mainstream of sites reveals that Kendrick is an especially popular player. He’s owned in 72% of ESPN leagues, which at first blush, sounds right for a man of such alleged talents. The thing is, Kendrick is 28th on ESPN’s player rater – that’s not overall, that’s among other second basemen! Oh sure, Howie has been hot lately, but in a format in which the standard league has 10 teams, utilizes the standard five hitting stats and starts a 2B and a MI, no more than 20 second basemen should EVER be owned. And yet, Kendrick is rostered in nearly three-quarters of all leagues.

But my beef with Kendrick goes beyond his being overrated. Even in deeper leagues in which Kendrick could legitimately be considered, he’s a bad play. Sure, we’re talking about a guy with an impeccable minor league resume, one who was billed as a future big league batting champ. But his lifetime .300 major league batting average is empty; the guy has 18 homeruns in 1,200 major league at-bats! He offers nominal stolen base potential, below-average RBI, and because he’s seemingly allergic to taking a free pass (maybe House can diagnose the ailment), the guy scores far too few runs to be useful. But hey – at least your team starts a .300 hitter, right?

This pre-season, Kendrick’s average draft position in ESPN leagues was 127, making him a 13th round pick on average. Jose Lopez and Mark DeRosa were the next 2Bs, with ADPs of 136 and 141, respectively. And don’t even get me started about Aaron Hill, Marco Scutaro and Orlando Hudson, who were undrafted free agents in all but the deepest 2009 leagues. Do you get the picture? Not only is Kendrick’s limited skill set vastly overrated by players today, but it was overrated during the 2009 pre-season and will likely be overrated again in the spring of 2010.

Riddle me this, batsmen – which 2B would you rather have on your fantasy team?

Player A: .300 BA, 7 HR, 37 RBI, 49 Runs, 5 SB
Player B: .273 BA, 6 HR, 37 RBI, 38 Runs, 8 SB

Obviously, you’ll take the superior performance of Player A (Freddy Sanchez, by the way – who is 169 overall on CBS Sportsline’s player rater compared to 241 for Kendrick). And while one could argue that Howie’s production has come in 120 fewer at-bats, I say that’s another indictment against him! After all, despite breaking camp as the Angels’ starting 2B each of the past three seasons, various injuries have prevented Kendrick from ever amassing more than 340 at-bats in a season.

Listen, I have nothing personal against Howie Kendrick. I’m sure his talent is real and may eventually lead to legitimate fantasy value. But hey, I also know that Hugh Laurie is a fine actor…and I don’t let that fact excuse him for starring in redundant, brain-shrinking, stink bomb TV. It is human nature to be wowed by minor league stats and the gushing reviews of advanced scouts, just like it’s easy for us to be influenced to watch a crappy show by its copious amount of Golden Globe nominations. But sometimes, fantasy addicts, the proof is in the pudding.

You shouldn’t flip over to “House” during its normal timeslot because that’s what you’re programmed to do; you should only watch if you’ve had a frontal lobotomy and can no longer process rational thought. The same holds true for Howie Kendrick – don’t draft and/or start him in your fantasy leagues because you’re blinded by a pretty batting average and the allure of his potential. I’d wager that in 99% of leagues in which Kendrick starts, there is a better and cheaper 2B available on the waiver wire.

So don’t do it. Don’t watch crappy TV and don’t let momentum lead you to employing overrated second basemen – not now, not ever. Because the truth is, a bad episode of House only lasts an hour…but a season of Howie Kendrick on your roster may cause a significant narcotic dependency. And seriously, how much Vicodin do you really want to pop?

The Actual Value of Fantasy Baseball Decisions

Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball” introduced the baseball mainstream to Sabermetrics, but I realized early on that I didn’t have the brain capacity to fully understand, absorb or apply all of the copious statistical data that had suddenly flooded the market. What I was able to glean from the book was the to recognize and appreciate what my competition valued and under-valued. Like most fantasy baseball enthusiasts, I’m always looking for an edge…and thus my one truly Sabremetric endeavor each year is a massive, ranked list that I use as draft prep for my long-running 12-team, 5x5 rotisserie mixed league.

Dubbed the SPI (ostensibly for “Smith Projection Index”, but clearly a rip-off of the college basketball rating system), my rankings use a proprietary formula to weigh pre-season draft lists from “fantasy experts”, average draft position (ADP) from comparable leagues and my own carefully culled data. The goal is to rank every player and prospect, not necessarily from first to worst, but by actual value. I want to be able to anticipate when specific players will be snatched up, as this foresight can be perhaps my biggest advantage in a league where hours of draft homework is the standard. But I also don’t want to take a mediocre player simply because he’s on a lot of sleeper lists. I want a draft list that is both objective AND subjective, because really…isn’t that the best way to make an informed and accurate decision?

It’s easy to love Albert Pujols’ production, but when you’re building your draft list (or trying to climb the standings), a more important element is deciphering Pujols’ value relative to other players in the league. Four months ago, the SPI said Pujols was the best player in baseball, but that Prince Fielder was the best 1B value – someone who would likely produce 1st round stats despite being a 3rd or 4th round draft pick. SPI ranked him #25, roughly 5-10 picks ahead of where he was selected in most comparable leagues. Obviously no one who selected Pujols is kicking himself that he missed Fielder, but of the SPI’s top 15 First Basemen, only Prince and Joey Votto had rankings that were double digits better than the players’ ADP. Fielder ended up as the 21st pick, Votto the 105th (despite an SPI of 74), and neither of the owners who drafted these players is disappointed.

I could bore you with the SPI’s pre-season studs and sleepers, and its mid-season hits and misses, but instead, I’d like to implore you to consider four types of value when building your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and keeper league rosters. Potential value is the sexy siren that can present the greatest (or lowest) return on investment; performance value is entirely objective, incredibly accurate, and yet easy to dismiss because it’s, for lack of a better word, boring; perceived value uses projections, extrapolations and – surprisingly enough – wishful thinking to make judgment calls. But it’s the incredibly obvious and too-often ignored Actual Value that represents your greatest chance of success, because it takes into account all available subjective and objective data to reach a conclusion. Maybe our progressive minds can absorb this information, but you can bet that the majority of your competition will get stuck somewhere along the way to enlightenment. Use their weaknesses to your advantage.

You cannot be a winning fantasy player over the long haul if you’re too focused on potential, performance or perceived value. But actual value – the “It’s the Economy, Stupid” of fantasy baseball analysis – is one of the few legitimate methods for us to grab a real advantage. And short of unsustainable good luck, it’s likely the only tool to ensure long-term competitiveness in the deepest and most ruthless of fantasy baseball contests.

This is THE (capital letters) vital skill to have when planning your draft, building a mid-season trade offer or weighing your roster options. Once you recognize the competitor who is too hung up on potential value, you’ll be able to capitalize on his “grass is always greener” fetish. Compete against a performance value owner? His lack of imagination will keep him in the past while you dominate the future. And if you find yourself up against a perceived value foe, you can count on his overreliance on formulas and crossed-fingers to make him ignore the real world trends staring him right in the face.

Of course, if you’re matched up with an opponent who understands the actual value of potential, performance and perception…chances are it’s too late. I’ve already won.