Injuries, tigers and bears -- Oh my!

Written by Xach on March 22, 2005

Well, the day job finally told Xach to pack his things and get steppin'. Yep, he loves you so much that he puts Roto before anything else on his priority plate. Folks, you won't find this sort of dedication anywhere else on the Internet. We here at Rotogods.com are here for you. Oh, and if any of our esteemed readers would like to buy Xach lunch, a cup of coffee, or even just an injury free fantasy team, drop him an email.

Speaking of injuries
If anyone knows about injuries it's me. I have Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Joe Mauer, Lance Berkman and Dallas McPherson. Not to mention there's a slew of carear-long injury risks on the squad as well in Kevin Brown, Woody Williams, Phil Nevin, Larry Walker and Austin Kearns. Then there's the Xacharific fantasy basketball team of Sam Cassell, Zach Randolph and . . . well, I'll stop the list there. Point being: I am a curse. Sure, there are all kinds of advice that experts love to give about injuries and how to deal with them. After years of being burned, I give you the one best piece of advice I have: Kill yourself.

Dusty Baker's follies and a lesson for fantasy owners
Phil Rogers wrote an interesting article for ESPN.com in which he makes a very solid case for placing the health woes of mark Prior and Kerry Wood squarely on the shoulders of Dusty Baker. Among the charges levied against Baker is the fact that in winning the Manager of the Year award in 2003 and taking the Cubs to the Championship Series, Baker bullheadedly rode the two promising young studs as if their futures as franchise cornerstones were not even a consideration. He reveals that if you include the playoffs (which many fantasy owners wrongly ignore in deciphering stats, by the way) no pitcher in baseball threw more pitches than Kerry Wood (4,007), who, as we all know, has been an injury concern since his rookie season. And as Rogers points out, Prior and Wood were 1 and 2 respectively in pitches per start in 2003. Perhaps other folks in the sports world were already aware of these facts, but not me.

When preparing for a fantasy baseball draft, it's easy to look at innings pitched. They're right there on every player card. But those cards list neither the number of pitches per season nor the number of pitches per start. As mentioned earlier, both Prior and Wood are on my fantasy baseball team and I'm taking two lessons from Rogers' piece on Prior and Wood:

1) Always try and look behind the popular numbers and find the important numbers. Former Sporting News fantasy writer David Srinivasian used to taut pitch counts as one of the most important indicators of future performance for a pitcher. And while there are some notable exceptions, consider me now sold on his philosophy, some two or three years late in learning my lesson.

2) Always respect injury risks for what they are. Take them very seriously. Like Dusty Baker in 2003, fantasy owners may often get tempted to catch lightning in a bottle for one season. This is likely my greatest personal weakness as a fantasy player. But even if I get tempted more than others, we all get tempted sometimes. Don't let this happen if you can help it. Don't trade full value for Grant Hill -- even if he's been healthy. Don't draft Mike Sweeney. Don't draft Troy Glaus unless you absolutely have to. Don't reach for Magglio Ordonez or Lance Berkman. Just don't do it. Sure, some of these guys are healthy right now. But for each one of them that plays 150 games, the chances are several of them won't surpass 120. I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about the sporting world or the future of injuries. And I do understand that anyone could get hurt at any time. But does it make sense to let yourself get sexed up by the high ceiling of injury concern Richie Sexson when Jeff Bagwell won't even be taken until 7 rounds later? Use that high pick on someone without concerns and let someone else draft J.D. Drew before Shawn Green.

Sure, Dusty Baker did bring the Cubs to the Championship Series in 2003. But he also gambled with future injury by overworking two very promising young arms. And although the verdict is still out, it appears he may have lost. Don't be Dusty. There's seldom a good reason to risk injury.

Choosing cheat sheets
Speaking of finding the meaningful numbers instead of the obvious numbers, it can be all too convenient to lean on your favorite publication's cheat sheet as a meaningful guideline. But do you know what really went into them? Most cheat sheets use some form of statistical analysis informed by a three year average or "trend" in order to project a player's probable fantasy value for the upcoming or current season. Perhaps our resident stat geek, Worm can help us spread some more light on the stats issue one of these days, but in the race to win over Internet readership it seems every "expert" has a new, better way to project player values. Some weigh the past three years evenly. Some give more weight to the past year and less weight, progressively, to the previous two (this seems most popular of late). Some newer, more radical stat models weigh current player trends against other players in history with similar and/or identical trends. But the problem with these cheat sheets is that none of them truly reveal their statistical formulas. In fact, most of them have no set formula, as they massage data based on risk perception, age and all sorts of subjective things.

I'm not supposing that any fantasy player (save for a few rookie exceptions) is tied down to any one set of rankings. In fact, most veteran players aren't even tied down to the notion of rankings whatsoever. But everyone at least looks at them. And you bet your ass that people will forever try to use them in trade negotiations to point out how unfair a trade is for them. But the best way to perceive a player's value may very well have nothing to do with that player's statistics. Look instead to hype, league draft order and public perception. Because if every person has his or her own set of performance expectations, and every statistical analysis has its own set of mysteries or imperfections, the real question isn't how the player will perform. The question should be how much you have to pay. Whether you're analyzing a draft or a trade, the question is value, not performance. No matter what analytical tools are introduced to the fantasy world, it's generally your expectations that will win or lose you fantasy games.

Feeding your inner stat geek
Do you have an inner stat geek? Chances are, if you're addicted to fantasy sports, you do. Perhaps the web site is better known than I suspect, but I was literally dumbfounded when I stumbled upon Tangotiger.net. I can't claim to understand all that he has to say. But I can say that if you find Sabermetrics the least bit intriguing this site needs to at least be glanced at. The man is a freak, statistically speaking. He may also have something to say about the relative use of statistics for baseball projections on a general level. Hey, I'm just leading horses to water here. You make the call.

That's all I got for today folks. Sure, it didn't have the usual humor you've come to expect as part of our morning ritual, but hopefully it still brought you a little closer to nirvana.

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For comments, suggestions, or whatever the fuck, you can send Xach an E-mail or post a comment below.

-- Written by Xach on March 22, 2005