5x5 Dollar Figures

[WVHogan]

While cranking out my yearly rankings which I do in a precise ranking method based on my league's final stats (I use a three year running average of totals in my 5x5 format), I decided to do a simple sort of your 5x5 dollar amounts and compare them with what I have. ONE thing I found that confused the heck out of me was that you gave Scott Rolen $31 and A Rod $30. If you look at all the catagories A Rod beats Rolen in all except for BAVG ( 295 vs. 286) There is no positional reason for the extra buck in my view nor do I think the 9 points in BA swings the four other catagories that are clearly in A Rod's favor. Could you explain why Rolen is a higher dollar value?

Second I could not help but notice the perponderance of high HR's and BAVG players in your 5x5 rankings. Wheras my rankings (I have 12 years of a 5x5 league under my belt with 4 championships and 10 2nd or 3rd place finishes) seem to reward SB and BAVG personel. Again, in using a percise ranking method it becomes obvious that these type of players are fewer (and thus just as valuable as your normal power hitter but again you have them with dollar values lower then these type of players. My second question is this: Do you favor this type of player (HR.BAVG) in your 5x5 assignment of dollars?

[RAY@HQ]

The BA difference is actually .295 to .280. The full lines, for readers who don't want to go look them up:

A-Rod: 599 ABs: .280 44 HR 109 RBI 13 SB 107 RN
Rolen: 570 ABs: .295 37 HR 105 RBI 12 SB 95 RN

A-Rod's edges: 7 HR, 4 RBI, 1 SB, 12 RUN
Rolen: 15 points of BA.

The projection difference makes sense to me. That 15 point difference in BA, over nearly 600 AB, is pretty important and I think completely explains their relative values.

I do not believe that we do any "weighting" that would result in category biases in our dollar values, but I'm not the best person to answer that question.

[dizzy]

One more thing to consider. If you are using the AL and NL projections, combining them, and then sorting, this will not give you an accurate picture. Those rankings are single league specific. AL batters are undervalued compared to NL players because they are only being valued with respect to their league-mates.

Try running the custom values generator with your league specifics. You'll see that A-Rod is actually worth a few dollars more than Rolen in combined leagues.

[WVHogan]

AL & NL Projections

Dizzy! Your reply forces me to ask another question! ARE the NL and AL Stats posted on the projections page of HQ league specific (as you state)? I am in a mixed league and have taken both AL and NL projection sets and merged them year after year! I frankly do not use nor like the custom value tool because we run a non auction/straight draft league...and this tool does not give me proper valuation between players. I am able to generate points for each catagory and normalize them according to our league results. BUT if what you are saying is true that the AL projections are weighted differently then NL ...well FARG! I need to get HQ Projections for straight mixed league! Help!

[dizzy]

As I understand it, you would not be wise to just merge the AL and NL projections provided by this site for a mixed league. However, I don't understand your problem with the custom value generator. I am also in a non-auction league, and, therefore, the actual dollar amount given is not what's important, but the relative value, or ranking, of the players is what's important.

Any official HQ response... am I right about this?

[hqforums]

Correct on all counts. You cannot merge the AL and NL projections files as the players are valued based on each individual pool of talent. Using the Custom Valuator is the only way to provide appropriate mixed league values.

Using the relative rankings for straight draft leagues is also correct - however - the Valuator accounts for statistical scarcity but not POSITIONAL scarcity so you'd probably want to make a few adjustments for that.