This article is part of our The Z Files series.
Maybe it's more an early season rut than writer's block, but I had trouble coming up with a topic this week. I could have reviewed unsettled bullpens. Yawn. I could have offered my opinion on some hot or cold starts, but that's all they'd be, opinions. As noted sabermetrician Tom Tango says, "small sample" and "but" do not belong in the same sentence. Instead, I'll touch on a few arbitrary topics.
It's no secret; I'm an unabashed wonk for DFS leagues. I have no problem with those playing DFS primarily for money. However, there's also nothing wrong with playing the daily format just for fun. In fact, an argument can be made DFS leagues combine the best of both worlds.
I'm not going down the skill versus luck road. It's a tired debate. DFS is a skill-based game. That said, especially when it comes to taking down a GPP, some of the skill elements wander outside what we may consider to be fantasy-baseball acumen. It so happens these elements aren't in my wheelhouse.
On the other hand, there's a growing database of information aiding matchup analysis. While there's a lot of noise in a one-day DFS contest, it seems to me those better at applying matchup analysis over the long haul should prevail in a season-long DFS league.
For those unfamiliar, by DFS league, I'm talking about a format where instead of declaring a winner after each nightly contest, scoring involves a running total of points scored by the participants.
Maybe it's more an early season rut than writer's block, but I had trouble coming up with a topic this week. I could have reviewed unsettled bullpens. Yawn. I could have offered my opinion on some hot or cold starts, but that's all they'd be, opinions. As noted sabermetrician Tom Tango says, "small sample" and "but" do not belong in the same sentence. Instead, I'll touch on a few arbitrary topics.
It's no secret; I'm an unabashed wonk for DFS leagues. I have no problem with those playing DFS primarily for money. However, there's also nothing wrong with playing the daily format just for fun. In fact, an argument can be made DFS leagues combine the best of both worlds.
I'm not going down the skill versus luck road. It's a tired debate. DFS is a skill-based game. That said, especially when it comes to taking down a GPP, some of the skill elements wander outside what we may consider to be fantasy-baseball acumen. It so happens these elements aren't in my wheelhouse.
On the other hand, there's a growing database of information aiding matchup analysis. While there's a lot of noise in a one-day DFS contest, it seems to me those better at applying matchup analysis over the long haul should prevail in a season-long DFS league.
For those unfamiliar, by DFS league, I'm talking about a format where instead of declaring a winner after each nightly contest, scoring involves a running total of points scored by the participants. The league champion accrued the most points over the length of the contest. It doesn't have to be every night. Leagues can play anywhere from one slate to seven slates a week.
One of the major advantages of playing DFS leagues is the injury element pervading traditional season-long formats is mitigated. Sure, there will be nights where you lose a pitcher or hitter in-game, but this pales in comparison to dealing with the M*A*S*H units otherwise known as fantasy reserve lists.
For me, it's a best of both worlds situation when applying cogent matchup evaluation to players virtually assured of playing that day. The analysis involves the same season-long expectation for pitchers and hitters, massaged based on factors like venue, weather, strength of opposition, etc. That is, the same projection theory intrinsic to season-long play is integral to DFS action.
Admittedly, the game theory (non-fantasy baseball analysis) element of DFS is absent from these leagues, at least relative to those primarily playing in GPP tournaments. Ownership levels and contrarian picks won't be common in the lexicon for DFS leagues.
Or, will they? What about teams finding themselves lagging the leaders? How can they make up ground? One way, of course, is taking risks on players not likely in the lineups of those ahead of them.
In the interest of full disclosure, one of my responsibilities as a member of the Tout Wars board is coordinating Tout Daily, our version of a DFS league. We added a cool twist to an already unique format. For the first three years, we had five four-week periods, awarding entrance into a one-day final tournament to the top finishers in each period. The winner of the tournament was crowned Tout Daily champion.
Intrinsic to this format is both playing it safe, akin to the strategy for DFS cash games, along with a GPP approach if you needed to leapfrog several participants to earn a Golden Ticket to the finals. Though, some do opt to take the GPP tack at the beginning of each period.
The twist added this season is in lieu of the single-slate finals, we're running a three-day survivor tournament. Here, the field is reduced after each night, with the champion accruing the highest total over the three-day tournament. The reason for this is a one-day affair introduces the variance we're looking to avoid, so requiring the winner to maintain excellence over a three-day span is a better measure of the skill inherent to a champion.
The major point of all this isn't a cheap ploy to promote Tout Daily, though I'm not above that. Go to ToutWars.com for a weekly wrap of our Tuesday contest (this week's winner was RotoWire's Clay Link). The truth is, I'm a huge proponent of DFS leagues and hope they gain more traction. For what it's worth, it's not too late to gather some friends and set up a DFS league this season. Be creative. Come up with your own rules. Trust me, DFS can be even more fun without the money aspect. Though, there's also nothing wrong with having an entry fee with a prize pool like traditional fantasy leagues.
My analysis may be rooted in number-crunching, but I'm still a scientist at heart, conjuring up hypotheses (some hare-brained) with the intent on looking into them, assuming sufficient time and available data. Here's an example.
There's plenty of narrative, and some science, with respect to cold-weather baseball. The ball doesn't travel as well. Players aren't loose. The cold plays with their psyche. It hurts when making contact in the cold. Conventional wisdom gives the edge to pitchers, even though some claim they can't get a feel for some of their arsenal in the cold, especially breaking pitches.
My question involves players debuting mid-season, when it's warmer and they're in a groove. Or, at least, their timing is better than early on. Their major-league numbers are dumped into the black box responsible for spewing out a projection, along with the MLEs (major-league equivalents). The thing is, we don't know how those players would fare early on. It doesn't even have to be their personal reaction to cold temperatures. It could be playing in a lower-scoring environment compared to the rest of the year. Granted, MLEs include early-season performance, where it's also raw, but the level of competition could skew these numbers.
The player triggering this thought is Luis Castillo. I don't want to imply that how he reacts to the cold has to do with growing up in the Dominican Republic, but I'm not dismissing the notion, either. The fact is, Castillo came up mid-season after half a year in Double-A Pensacola. His three outings have been home in Cincinnati, and on the road in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, all in less than ideal temperatures. Castillo hasn't been as sharp as he was in the second half of 2017. Could it be we simply don't have a proper expectation for pitching in the cold? Maybe this should be baked into the preseason projection, hedging a slow start.
Keep in mind that next year, this poor start will be accounted for in Castillo's 2018 numbers, so the sum of any climate influences will be captured organically. The largest effect would be on players debuting midseason, as the only MLB data we have on that set of players won't include cold-weather performance.
Castillo is only one example, perhaps of greater personal interest as I'm heavily invested in his right arm. To test this theory, I'd need to identify all players debuting midseason, then compare their early performance the following season to what was expected. Even then, I'm not sure how to properly account for the impact of their early minor-league numbers. It may be more of a feel thing, massaging players on an individual basis.
Or, I may just be trying to rationalize Castillo's rocky opening to the 2018 campaign.
