CSS Button No Image Css3Menu.com

Baseball Prospectus home
  
  
Click here to log in Click here to subscribe
<< Previous Article
BP Toronto (03/18)
<< Previous Column
Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: An ... (03/13)
Next Column >>
Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: My ... (03/21)
Next Article >>
Rumor Roundup: The Wai... (03/20)

March 20, 2017

Fantasy Freestyle

Adjusting for Smaller Leagues

by Mike Gianella

the archives are now free.

All Baseball Prospectus Premium and Fantasy articles more than a year old are now free as a thank you to the entire Internet for making our work possible.

Not a subscriber? Get exclusive content like this delivered hot to your inbox every weekday. Click here for more information on Baseball Prospectus subscriptions or use the buttons to the right to subscribe and get instant access to the best baseball content on the web.

Subscribe for $4.95 per month
Recurring subscription - cancel anytime.


a 33% savings over the monthly price!

Purchase a $39.95 gift subscription
a 33% savings over the monthly price!

Already a subscriber? Click here and use the blue login bar to log in.

For those of you who use my bid limit articles, one of the most common requests I get is “how do I adjust these bid limits for smaller leagues?” This is a more common question for mono leagues, where even those souls brave enough to participate in AL or NL-only often play in eight or 10-team formats. My bid limits in mono leagues are designed for the old school, “traditional” 12-team mono leagues.

I used to play in a 10-team NL-only and came up with a rough but useful calculation to adjust my bids. I’ll use the hitter population as an example, but the same calculation can easily be used for pitchers as well. I’ll list the three steps below and explain each one in detail.

1) Break out my hitters into 14 groups of 12 hitters, from highest recommended bid limit to lowest. Each grouping is considered a “tier” of hitters.

A standard roster has 14 players and there are 12 teams in a standard fantasy league. The tiers assume a hypothetical auction where each team gets one player from each tier. Using the last published edition of my NL-only bids, this is what these tiers look like.

Table 1: Mike Gianella NL-only Hitter Bids, March 10, 2017

12-team

Tier

MG-12

Tier 1 (1-12)

385

Tier 2 (13-24)

312

Tier 3 (25-36)

270

Tier 4 (37-48)

217

Tier 5 (49-60)

190

Tier 6 (61-72)

177

Tier 7 (73-84)

162

Tier 8 (85-96)

135

Tier 9 (97-108)

113

Tier 10 (109-120)

82

Tier 11 (121-132)

56

Tier 12 (133-144)

27

Tier 13 (145-156)

18

Tier 14 (157-168)

12

Totals

2156

2) Break out the top 140 hitters into 14 groups of 10 hitters, again from highest recommended bid limit to lowest.

I repeat step one, except this time reducing the pool of hitters from 168 to 140. Looking at the bids side-by-side, they look like this:

Table 2: Mike Gianella NL-only Hitter Bids, Top 168 and Top 140, March 10, 2017

12-team

10-team

Tier

MG-12

Tier 1

Tier 1 (1-12)

385

Tier 1 (1-10)

328

Tier 2 (13-24)

312

Tier 2 (11-20)

270

Tier 3 (25-36)

270

Tier 3 (21-30)

240

Tier 4 (37-48)

217

Tier 4 (31-40)

207

Tier 5 (49-60)

190

Tier 5 (41-50)

172

Tier 6 (61-72)

177

Tier 6 (51-60)

157

Tier 7 (73-84)

162

Tier 7 (61-70)

149

Tier 8 (85-96)

135

Tier 8 (71-80)

139

Tier 9 (97-108)

113

Tier 9 (81-90)

121

Tier 10 (109-120)

82

Tier 10 (91-100)

105

Tier 11 (121-132)

56

Tier 11 (101-110)

89

Tier 12 (133-144)

27

Tier 12 (111-120)

66

Tier 13 (145-156)

18

Tier 13 (121-130)

49

Tier 14 (157-168)

12

Tier 14 (131-140)

26

Totals

2156

2118


Taking out the hitters at the bottom of the player pool doesn’t alter the financial composition very much. Only $38 in bids are assigned to the bottom 28 hitters in my NL-only bids. This is a problem, since $359 needs to be removed from the hitter pool. This is not an arbitrary number. A 12-team NL-only uses a $3,120 budget. In the last update $2,156, or 69.1 percent, of that amount was budgeted to the hitters. In a 10-team league, 69.1 percent translates to $1,797.

My goal is to keep the same percentage of money in each tier. This is accomplished by dividing $3,120 (the 12-team NL-only budget) by $2,600 (the 10-team NL-only budget) and multiplying this (.833333) by the total in each tier.

Table Three: Price Conversion, 12-team NL-only to 10-team NL-only, MG bids

12-team bids in groups of 10

New 10-team bids

Tier

Bids

Players

+/-

Tier 1 (1-10)

328

Tier 1 (1-10)

321

-7

Tier 2 (11-20)

270

Tier 2 (11-20)

260

-10

Tier 3 (21-30)

240

Tier 3 (21-30)

225

-15

Tier 4 (31-40)

207

Tier 4 (31-40)

181

-26

Tier 5 (41-50)

172

Tier 5 (41-50)

158

-14

Tier 6 (51-60)

157

Tier 6 (51-60)

147

-10

Tier 7 (61-70)

149

Tier 7 (61-70)

135

-14

Tier 8 (71-80)

139

Tier 8 (71-80)

113

-26

Tier 9 (81-90)

121

Tier 9 (81-90)

94

-28

Tier 10 (91-100)

105

Tier 10 (91-100)

68

-37

Tier 11 (101-110)

89

Tier 11 (101-110)

47

-42

Tier 12 (111-120)

66

Tier 12 (111-120)

22

-44

Tier 13 (121-130)

49

Tier 13 (121-130)

15

-34

Tier 14 (131-140)

26

Tier 14 (131-140)

10

-16

Totals

2118

1796

-322


Removing the bottom 28 hitters and their $38 from the player pool and prorating the Top 140 hitters takes out $360. Thanks for nothing, decimals. Feel free to add a dollar back to someone in the player pool.

You might be wondering why I simply don’t subtract two dollars per hitter across the board to lop of $336 and then subtract another $23 at the bottom to get to $359. The answer is that the prices at the top of the player pool tend to stay the same, or even move up a dollar or two at the top. This is because a shallower league creates a deeper pool of replacement level players. In 12-team NL-only, I have a five-dollar bid limit on Wilmer Flores. In a 10-team league, my system above would move him down to a one or two-dollar bid. It is possible that someone else may value him at three or four dollars and that someone else might have him ranked lower than 140th among the hitters. The variance at the bottom of the pool “creates” more one-dollar players, and subsequently created a need for bidding more competitively on the top hitters.

Human intervention is still required. Each tier allows the discretion of moving some players down in value more than others. You can simply move the players in the bottom of each tier down a dollar or down by the most money per tier, but I’d recommend using your own player preferences to make these choices. You will also notice that some of the financial redistribution leaves players higher in my rankings with lower bid limits based on how the money is reallocated. If you decide to use my approach outlined above, keep the rankings in order and redistribute the dollar amounts across player tiers so that the rankings remain intact.

Finally, remember that as with all my recommended bid limits that these are guidelines and not a set-in-stone instruction manual. In any league that is shallower than a “standard” format, you will want to give consideration to paying a little more for rookies and players with upside and push true reserves who are ranked above one-dollar down to a dollar. My bid limits do some of this work for you anyway, but remember my usual mantra. You know your leagues better than I do, and what makes sense to me might not apply to your league’s specific situation.

Mike Gianella is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 
Click here to see Mike's other articles. You can contact Mike by clicking here

Related Content:  Fantasy,  Auctions,  Bid Limits,  Shallow Leagues

4 comments have been left for this article.

<< Previous Article
BP Toronto (03/18)
<< Previous Column
Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: An ... (03/13)
Next Column >>
Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: My ... (03/21)
Next Article >>
Rumor Roundup: The Wai... (03/20)

RECENTLY AT BASEBALL PROSPECTUS
Playoff Prospectus: Come Undone
BP En Espanol: Previa de la NLCS: Cubs vs. D...
Playoff Prospectus: How Did This Team Get Ma...
Playoff Prospectus: Too Slow, Too Late
Premium Article Playoff Prospectus: PECOTA Odds and ALCS Gam...
Premium Article Playoff Prospectus: PECOTA Odds and NLCS Gam...
Playoff Prospectus: NLCS Preview: Cubs vs. D...

MORE FROM MARCH 20, 2017
Looking Back on Tomorrow: Tampa Bay Rays
Premium Article Flu-Like Symptoms: Has the Modern Bullpen Ki...
Short Relief: Spring Gimmickry, Intranationa...
Rumor Roundup: The Waiting Game
Fantasy Article Five to Watch: American League Prospects

MORE BY MIKE GIANELLA
2017-03-24 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Auction Values: Fourth Edition, 2017
2017-03-23 - Looking Back on Tomorrow: Atlanta Braves
2017-03-22 - Flags Fly Forever Podcast: Ep. 125: The Auct...
2017-03-20 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: Adjusting for Smaller Lea...
2017-03-17 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Auction Values: Third Edition, 2017
2017-03-15 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Draft Rankings: The Top 300 For 2017
2017-03-15 - Flags Fly Forever Podcast: Ep. 123: NL LABR ...
More...

MORE FANTASY FREESTYLE
2017-03-23 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: Auction Prep: Auction Pod...
2017-03-23 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: Reviewing the 2016 Model ...
2017-03-21 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: My First Draft of 2017
2017-03-20 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: Adjusting for Smaller Lea...
2017-03-13 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: An All-Post-Hype Team
2017-03-03 - Fantasy Freestyle: PECOTA, the PFM, My Bid L...
2017-03-02 - Fantasy Article Fantasy Freestyle: Robbie Ray and Statcast
More...