Player valuator values based on number of Pitchers

[RAY@HQ]

Yup, I am confident that Todd has it right. I'd also point out that the differences are pretty trivial... If you weren't displaying fractional values you probably wouldn't even see it.

[Todd Zola]

That's definitely one explanation. However, I don't see how that explains the ranking for 9 pitchers relative to 8 and 10.

Sure it does -- just making this up for illustrative purposes.

The replacement levels for 8 could be

8 8 8 8 8

for 10 could be

10 10 10 10 10

for 9 could be

9 9 117 9

The relative different in those categories could cause a flip flop, I see it all the time.

[mtaveira]

My money's on each number of pitchers alters the replacement set which in turn can adjust the value above replacement in each category.

That's definitely one explanation. However, I don't see how that explains the ranking for 9 pitchers relative to 8 and 10.

[Todd Zola]

My money's on each number of pitchers alters the replacement set which in turn can adjust the value above replacement in each category.

[mtaveira]

Today (06/08/12), I generated values using a first group of settings, a second group of settings, and a third group of settings. The groups were the same except that for the first group I set it to 8 pitchers, for the second group I set it to 9 pitchers, and for the third group to 10 pitchers. I figured this would result in minor changes in the results. In particular, I thought that the prices of pitchers would change, but the order of the pitchers (rankings) relative to each other would not change. I was wrong.

For the first group of settings (8 pitchers): Lee was $25.68 (4th overall pitcher) and Greinke was $25.39 (5th overall pitcher).
For the second group of settings (9 pitchers): Greinke was $23.07 (4th overall pitcher) and Lee was $22.54 (5th overall pitcher).
For the third group of settings (10 pitchers): Lee was $23.16 (4th overall pitcher) and Greinke was $21.92 (5th overall pitcher).

The change in prices was not surprising, of course. However, that Lee and Greinke changed in ranking is perplexing to me. (According to each of the results, Lee and Greinke are projected to pitch 141 IP and 132 IP, respectively, from here on.) I have Lee and Greinke, so the results are trivial. However, I'd like to know how their rankings could change merely by changing the numbers of Pitchers in the settings. Obviously, with such a setting change, I would expect their rankings to change relative to batters or RPs, but I would not expect rankings of SPs relative to other SPs to change.

Originally, I only tried the second and third settings (i.e., comparing 9 vs 10 pitchers), and I was surprised by that result. I rationalized that maybe Lee was better to have if your league required more pitchers. (I didn't really buy it because there was a $1.77 swing between the two pitchers and only 9 IP difference.) I was even further surprised when I tried it with 8 pitchers. As with the 10-pitcher settings, Lee became more valuable than Greinke. I also tried it with 7, 11, 12 pitchers, and Lee always came out on top except for 9 pitchers. There were numerous other pitcher-ranking changes based on the change of pitchers in the settings (e.g., Gio Gonzalez vs. Felix Hernandez; James Shields vs. Jared Weaver; etc.).

Our league settings (more details below), by the way, is for 9 pitchers (6 SP + 3 RP; daily changes). However, because the Valuator does not account for IP (and we have a large IP cap), I think I should be using 10 pitchers. Hence, how I discovered the discrepancy when the results for 10 pitchers didn't line up with the results for the settings I had been using for nearly 2 years!

Can someone explain how these discrepancies could occur?

As a complete side note, the Valuator really needs to account for max IP. Inputting the number of pitchers is almost useless. There is a huge difference between SPs and RPs. There is also a big difference between leagues with lots of IP and leagues in which IP is a premium.


My league settings: 10 teams, $285 budget, 69% offensive budget allocation, no Force Positions, "Top Player" valuation, $1 min. bid; 6x6: R/HR/RBI/AVG/OPS/SB, W/QS/SV/K/ERA/WHIP; C/1B/2B/3B/SS/CI/4OF/2UT, 9** (6SP/3RP), 5 bench spots.

**I changed this value as discussed above.