New Feature: Positional Values and Dollars

ken_admin  3/14/2013 6:54 AM

These only apply if you've filled out the Active Roster Spots under League Settings.

To support this, we've added two Display Columns:

• Positional Value - Shows the player's adjusted value based on their position and your active settings.  To calculate this, we determine the number of players you need at each position, find their average value, and then each player gets an adjustment based on the difference between their position's average value compared to the average value of all positions.
• Positional Dollars - the new auction values calculated off of the Positional Values

We also show a table near the top of the page showing the adjustments being applied to each position.

When Draft Tracking, these values will update in real-time as players are selected which will help you determine which positions are becoming more scarce.

Here's a sample table showing the adjustments for a standard Yahoo! league:

morrison  3/14/2013 2:49 PM

This is really awesome -- thanks!

shoemosher  3/14/2013 5:59 PM

So as I understand it, from the example above, the higher the number, the more scarce and needed that position is to draft. So for the above team, if during a draft using Draft Tracker the team likely does not have a catcher, correct?

shoemosher  3/14/2013 6:16 PM

Essentially, I was in a mock and had currently draft a C, 1B, 3B, OF, OF, OF. The positional value read: 

C +0.24
2B  +0.05
SS -0.03
3B 0.00
OF -0.27
SP -0.31
RP +0.31

I'm confused as to why C was still showing up, while 1B was not. All settings were for a standard 1C league. What am I missing?

ken_admin  3/14/2013 7:35 PM

Currently, the positional values assume a specific numbers of players being drafted at each position based on your active roster spots.  Once that number of each position has been taken, the position disappears from the table.  This isn't too user-friendly, and we'll make an adjustment so it always shows a value for each position.

shoemosher  3/14/2013 8:33 PM

Sure, just wondering why it was still showing a value for C tho. Wondering if it was working right in that instance.

mbuser   3/14/2013 8:37 PM

It means that 12 catchers hadn't been drafted at that point.

justinshilot  3/15/2013 8:55 AM

The positional values aren't working correctly when you input individual OF positions.

For example, putting in that a league has 1 LF, 1 CF, 1 RF, and 2 OF, the scarcity treats it as though you only need two OF's, when technically you need five.  So, if you don't put in your outfielders as generics - they will be undervalued by the scarcity metric.

ken_admin  3/15/2013 9:22 AM

@justinshilot - Are you using a position source that has LF/CF/RF (which is only the ESPN one at the moment)?

justinshilot  3/15/2013 9:51 AM

Sorry about that - I am using Yahoo.  Didn't see the ESPN part.

ken_admin  3/15/2013 9:53 AM

I'll adjust the site to only show active roster positions that apply to the select position source. Thanks

notv0002  3/15/2013 9:55 AM

Trying to really wrap my head around auction values.  Do your amounts use the average value of rostered hitters/pitchers or use VORP as the baseline?  Same thing for positional values?  Is the average positional value (ie avg of top 12 catchers for 12 team league) used to set price or value of 13th catcher +/-?

ken_admin  3/15/2013 10:16 AM

We use the averages.  For auction values, the dollars are split between your top player for hitters and pitchers based on your $ amounts for each.  For example, $100 for 10 teams x 10 pitchers would split $1,000 ($100x10) dollars between the top 100 (10x10) players.  The default $ uses the player Value to determine the split, and the positional $ uses the positional values to determine the split.  Is this what you needed to know?

For settings, we recommend using the active hitters and pitchers rather than including the bench in the totals.

notv0002  3/15/2013 10:31 AM

Not exactly what I was looking for, but I need to think about how to better articulate my question.  Maybe it becomes a question of how z-scores are calculated.  If I configure settings such that 120 hitters are active, would I expect to see zscores for only those 120 hitters, and then prices are only relative to those 120 players?  Or am I more interested in how valuable my player (or any of the 120) is relative to the 121st player, since I can obtain them for free?

#20939  3/16/2013 11:50 AM

Similar question to the above and maybe I am just understanding this incorrectly.  I am going to do a draft this morning for 378 players and currently it will assign dollar value through 378.  Positional value only assigns dollar values through 260ish players and I'm not sure why as I thought it would also be 378.

ken_admin  3/16/2013 12:08 PM

The z-scores are calculated off of your top players (10 team, 10 hitters/8 pitchers each would be 180 top players).  The average and stdev of these top players are used to calculate z-scores for all of the players.

@20939 - Checking your settings, your # of hitters/pitchers is more than your defined active roster spots.  We recommend setting these to be the same so I would reduce your # hitters and # pitchers.  The dollar values are calculated off your top players while the positional dollars are calculated off the active roster settings which is why less players have those.

EwingsKneepads  3/18/2013 8:18 AM

Currently, the positional values assume a specific numbers of players being drafted at each position based on your active roster spots.  Once that number of each position has been taken, the position disappears from the table.  This isn't too user-friendly, and we'll make an adjustment so it always shows a value for each position.

After playing around with the Advanced Draft Tracker, I noticed that players with multi-position eligibility are being counted at each position instead of their most scarce position.  For example, when Zobrist gets drafted, the ADT treats this as a 2B getting drafted, a SS getting drafted, and a RF getting drafted. 

Also, regarding the LF/CF/RF position source (ESPN), it seems that the OF positional value isn't being calculated correctly.  Instead of being treated as a type of flex position like MI or CI, the positional value seems to be calculated as if OF were a position unique from LF, CF, and RF.

ken_admin  3/18/2013 2:03 PM

If a player qualifies at multiple positions, we do include them in all positions when showing the strength of the remaining positions.  Once selected, the player is assigned to the position with the least players assigned to it.

For the OF, yes, it is a specific position and not something that covers LF,CF,RF.  The assumption is that leagues that have LF,CF,RF do not have generic OF positions too.  If needed, we can add a new roster spot called LF,CF,RF.

EwingsKneepads  3/19/2013 11:35 AM

Ken,

My mistake, thanks for clearing that up. 

In most LF/CF/RF leagues, it's common to have 1 active roster spot for each of the LF, CF, and RF positions.  There's usually an additional 1 or 2 "OF" positions that can be occupied by any player with one of the outfield eligibility distinctions (similar to leagues that utilize an active IF position that can be occupied by any player with 1B,2B,3B, or SS eligibility).

It actually makes sense when you think about it since it's rare to find players tagged with OF eligibility in these leagues, but not LF, CF, or RF.  It's usually only seen on utility-types (like Joe McEwing back in the day) who played 20+ games combined in LF,CF, and RF, but less than 20 games at any of the 3 positions.

Also, even though I set the # of active spots for DH to zero, it seems as if the positional values for players with 1B/DH eligibility (like Dunn, Morneau, etc.) are being calculated as if they were DH's instead of 1B the Draft Tracker.  DH isn't actually listed under "Pos Adj", but the positional values of these players are being shown as higher than their regular values.  So I guess I'm not really sure they're being classified as DH's, but clearly something's off.

ken_admin  3/19/2013 12:00 PM

I'll take a look at that DH issue plus I can add a new roster spot that holds LF,CF,RF,OF.

liam4  3/20/2013 12:30 PM

Thanks, fantastic feature.

One issue arises when it comes to starting pitchers with RP eligibility.  They get the RP value boost, which puts them above other starting pitchers if you're looking at positional value for draft purposes.  It's easy to keep in mind and adjust for it, but figured I'd mention.  Call it the Kris Medlen Rule.

Also, I'm struggling with why RP's get such a positional value boost.  So far I've just ignored it and drafted RP's late anyway, given ADP.

ken_admin  3/20/2013 2:55 PM

For most users, positional value is much less valuable for pitchers, and I believe you're treating it properly.

donkeyshark  4/1/2013 12:57 PM

While I am certainly on board the practice of adjusting for position scarcity, I don't see this as the correct way of calcuating it. It doesn't make sense to me mathematically to calculate the average value of a position and compare that with the average value of the overall player pool. While this does yield better results than not adjusting at all, it doesn't really give us a fair picture. What really matters is how much better your players are than what you could replace them with if they got hurt, not how they rate vs the "average" player in their respective position. If there are 20 shortstops that get drafted in your league and you want to figure out the value of shortstops, then you look at the z scores of the 21st best shortstop, not the average z scores of the 20 who are taken. A prime example as to why this is more correct is to look at the Catcher position. Buster Posey is considerably better than the 2nd best Catcher. If you were to adjust the value of all catchers using the average value calculations specified above, you are devaluing the catcher position because Buster Posey's stats are making the rest of them look better (average higher) than they really are. But imagine that Buster Posey goes down for the season on opening day... now your calculations are WAY off. However, if you are basing your formula off of the value of a replacement player (say the 13th best Catcher) and Posey goes down, your formula still works quite well as there isn't much difference now between the 13th and 14th best catchers. 

Cliff notes: you shoud be adjusting position scarcity z-scores based on the value of what you can replace your players with rather than what the average drafted player produces.