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Steamer and NFBC Pitching Values - Part III

I've been comparing the Steamer Projection valuations - as run through my formula - to the NFBC ADP over aseriesofposts, and today I want to add a new wrinkle: accounting for closer scarcity.

You don't have to roster closers among your nine active pitchers, but due to the nature of the NFBC virtually everyone does. That's because a significant portion of your entry fee goes toward the overall prize money, and you have no shot at the overall title if you tank saves. That artificially drives up the price of closers, and we need to account for it of we're going to price the pitching pool accurately.

To that end, I decided to imagine instead of needing nine pitchers of any kind on your NFBC roster as is technically the case, you actually had to have a couple closers. I settled on six starters, two closers and a flex (starter or closer). The flex meant half the teams have a closer in that spot and half have a starter. Accordingly, I multiplied 6.5 starter slots by 12 teams to get 78 total starting pitchers drafted before the reserve rounds, and 2.5 closers (30 total.) I then separated the Steamer projections lists into starters and closers, using the 78th-ish* starter and 30th-ish* closer as my rough replacement value baselines.

*(For starters, replacement value was the average projections of pitchers ranked 68 through 87, according to ADP. I use 20-pitcher sample around the No. 78 starter to smooth out wins, ERA, Ks and WHIP. For relievers, replacement value was relievers 25-36.)

I calculated the value over replacement (VORP) in each category for the starters vs. baseline starters and relievers vs. baseline relievers. Then I adjusted the ratios for innings pitched and figured out how many standard deviations (in the overall mixed starter/reliever list) each pitcher's VORP was above or below the baseline for his group in each category. I added those together to get a total value.

Once you have the total value, you still have to convert it into dollars, and to do that I needed to know what the total budget for starters and closers was in the NFBC. Luckily, I had already figured that out in a prior post (you can click and evaluate the method for yourself.) It turns out 34 percent of the total pick value (converted to dollars) is spent on pitching, $1060.64 of the total $3120 (based on $260 per team). Of that $1060.64, based on ADP, $293.36 is spent on closers.

Once you have that number, it's pretty easy to add up the total values for all the closers drafted, divide that sum into the amount of money to be spent ($293) and get a multiplier. That multiplier is then applied to the total values to generate a dollar value. Here are the results for the closers (in order of ADP and based on the Steamer projections):

Player$
Aroldis Chapman25.54
Kenley Jansen26.46
Zach Britton16.31
Seung Hwan Oh12.74
Mark Melancon14.88
Craig Kimbrel15.40
Wade Davis18.04
Edwin Diaz18.69
Roberto Osuna10.13
Ken Giles13.48
Andrew Miller21.27
Alex Colome6.19
Kelvin Herrera10.57
Cody Allen6.25
Jeurys Familia10.06
A.J. Ramos1.05
Tony Watson5.48
David Robertson6.64
Francisco Rodriguez0.09
Sam Dyson1.71
Raisel Iglesias9.46
Adam Ottavino0.00
Dellin Betances9.94
Hector Neris0.00
Brandon Maurer3.77
Jim Johnson0.00
Cam Bedrosian10.84
Shawn Kelley14.87
Ryan Madson0.00
Addison Reed0.00
Nate Jones0.00
Neftali Feliz2.13
Brandon Kintzler0.00
Fernando Rodney1.00
Greg Holland0.00

Based on these numbers**, it's easy to see why the elite closers should fly off the board in the fourth round - or earlier. But that's not really what this is demonstrating because I used the NFBC's own total closer expenditures to generate the closer budget. Put differently, the only reason the closer budget is $293 and not $200 is because the NFBC drafters collectively made it that way. So this doesn't show whether it's right or wrong, only that when you do apportion that much money to it, and treat closers as a separate position to be filled, here's how much of that budget you should apportion to each, assuming he was going to perform according to his Steamer projection.

You can see there's big gap between the top two (Chapman and Jansen) and everyone else. And the takeaway is that so long as closers are necessary as they are in the NFBC, and so long as this necessity pushes them up to where they're being pushed in the NFBC, then you should spend much more on Chapman or Jansen than anyone else, assuming you believe the Steamer projections.

This is a weaker point than I'd hoped to make, but it also underlines something that's hard to escape when doing these exercises: the power of the market to influence value. If you must have saves, and everyone's drafting closers in Rounds 2-4 until there are none left, what do you do? If you punt, you'll have a monster team in the other categories, but even so, it's hard to contend in the overall contest without saves, no matter how good your first four picks were. So the best we can do to some extent is assign a budget based on the market's practices and figure out how to make the best use of it. This is also true on the bigger question of hitting/pitching split.

(**The reason there are so many closers at the bottom with a zero dollar value rather than negative, is I set up the formula that way. When you allow negative valuations, it apportions even more money to the guys at the top, but that makes no sense because in practice the negative relievers would be dropped long before that.)

Let's take a look at what happens to the starting pitchers when you apportion them 34 percent of the budget ($1,061) minus $293 (closer budget) = $768 for 6.5 slots and compare them only to other starters:

ADPPlayer$ADPPlayer$ADPPlayer$
1Clayton Kershaw43.3231Michael Fulmer5.6361Drew Pomeranz3.24
2Max Scherzer31.3132Felix Hernandez7.6862Joe Ross3.47
3Madison Bumgarner26.8833Marcus Stroman6.7863Ian Kennedy3.25
4Noah Syndergaard27.7834Kevin Gausman7.1464Adam Wainwright4.66
5Chris Sale25.7235Dallas Keuchel14.8665Jharel Cotton1.44
6Corey Kluber24.6636Tanner Roark1.0866Dylan Bundy-3.56
7Jake Arrieta17.8237Jameson Taillon12.0967Hisashi Iwakuma4.07
8Jon Lester21.6238Julio Urias2.1668Sonny Gray0.03
9Yu Darvish19.9639Matt Harvey6.6769Ivan Nova2.51
10Johnny Cueto20.8940James Paxton12.2470Taijuan Walker1.12
11Justin Verlander20.0341John Lackey8.9571Tyler Glasnow0.06
12Chris Archer20.4142Lance McCullers14.5372Alex Cobb-1.07
13Carlos Carrasco20.8843Steven Matz10.7073Collin McHugh6.19
14Stephen Strasburg21.6544Matt Moore9.4374Jeremy Hellickson0.81
15Carlos Martinez12.4345Jon Gray6.9575Anthony DeSclafani-0.60
16Jacob deGrom14.1146Carlos Rodon4.3676Zach Davies0.47
17Kyle Hendricks12.8247Vince Velasquez6.9477Daniel Norris-3.24
18Aaron Sanchez4.1248Jake Odorizzi4.5078Trevor Bauer-2.20
19Cole Hamels10.8849Sean Manaea1.5379Gio Gonzalez6.50
20Masahiro Tanaka13.1550J.A. Happ3.4580Joe Musgrove-8.12
21David Price14.8251Aaron Nola9.8481Lance Lynn3.23
22Zack Greinke10.5152Robbie Ray11.9582Junior Guerra-2.06
23Julio Teheran6.3653Marco Estrada-3.4283Ervin Santana-0.22
24Jose Quintana12.2854Jeff Samardzija11.4184Mike Foltynewicz-0.20
25Rick Porcello10.8955Drew Smyly7.5885Jason Hammel-1.98
26Danny Duffy11.9356Jerad Eickhoff1.1086Chris Tillman-7.03
27Kenta Maeda8.7657Michael Pineda12.5487Eduardo Rodriguez-1.17
28Gerrit Cole12.6258Matt Shoemaker13.0588Jordan Zimmermann-1.63
29Danny Salazar12.6259Blake Snell4.1089Francisco Liriano1.01
30Rich Hill13.1660Garrett Richards6.8990Brandon Finnegan-5.28

Oddly, while Kershaw is still on top and by a massive margin, his overall price ($43.32) is much less than it was ($48.41) when I did this while including closers. Even stranger, on the first pass, I made the hitting/pitching split 70/30 rather than the NFBC's 66/34 here. You'd think Kershaw would have even more value.

But three things cut against that - when you remove the closers, the ERA/WHIP baseline gets lower, meaning more starters have value in those categories than they did when closers were included. That means while Kershaw's even further above replacement than before, he has to split the ERA/WHIP money, so to speak, with more high-inning players than before. Second, for whatever reason, Steamer seems to have reduced Kershaw's projection - from .92 WHIP to .97 and 2.30 ERA to 2.37. (I'm not 100 percent positive of this, but I'm trusting my memory here.) Third, the first time I ran the numbers, closers were worth quite a bit less because they didn't get a scarcity boost, i.e., I didn't assign them $293 of the $1,060. In fact, under the original undifferentiated 70/30 split, pitchers got $936 total and closers $143.9. That left starters with $792.1, $24 more than they have here.

The same is true of Max Scherzer, also still an outlier and also cheaper than before, but the rest of the pitchers are more or less the same as before without the closers included.

Here are the top 120 pitchers with starters and closers re-integrated:

ADPPlayer$ADPPlayer$ADPPlayer$
5Clayton Kershaw43.32102.7Danny Duffy11.93231.4Ian Kennedy3.25
13.2Max Scherzer31.31203.1Jeff Samardzija11.41229.2Drew Pomeranz3.24
19.1Noah Syndergaard27.78101.8Rick Porcello10.89285.6Lance Lynn3.23
15.7Madison Bumgarner26.8882.2Cole Hamels10.88258.9Ivan Nova2.51
54.9Kenley Jansen26.46242.4Cam Bedrosian10.84156.1Julio Urias2.16
21.1Chris Sale25.72168.9Steven Matz10.70283.5Neftali Feliz2.13
54.2Aroldis Chapman25.54123.8Kelvin Herrera10.57163.5Sam Dyson1.71
25.5Corey Kluber24.6697.6Zack Greinke10.51189.8Sean Manaea1.53
58Stephen Strasburg21.6595.3Roberto Osuna10.13237.5Jharel Cotton1.44
37Jon Lester21.62129.5Jeurys Familia10.06259.4Taijuan Walker1.12
118.4Andrew Miller21.27201.3Dellin Betances9.94205Jerad Eickhoff1.10
42.1Johnny Cueto20.89197.2Aaron Nola9.84149.1Tanner Roark1.08
57.7Carlos Carrasco20.88181.2Raisel Iglesias9.46140.8A.J. Ramos1.05
55Chris Archer20.41173.4Matt Moore9.43305.2Francisco Liriano1.01
46.4Justin Verlander20.03163.8John Lackey8.95291Fernando Rodney1.00
37.5Yu Darvish19.96109.1Kenta Maeda8.76276.5Jeremy Hellickson0.81
93.1Edwin Diaz18.69132.4Felix Hernandez7.68277.4Zach Davies0.47
92.7Wade Davis18.04204.6Drew Smyly7.58156.1Francisco Rodriguez0.09
30.3Jake Arrieta17.82142.8Kevin Gausman7.14263Tyler Glasnow0.06
64.3Zach Britton16.31176.4Jon Gray6.95255.7Sonny Gray0.03
83.8Craig Kimbrel15.40186.6Vince Velasquez6.94192.9Adam Ottavino0.00
83.8Mark Melancon14.88228.4Garrett Richards6.89221.3Hector Neris0.00
248.1Shawn Kelley14.87137.4Marcus Stroman6.78240.4Jim Johnson0.00
146.3Dallas Keuchel14.86157.5Matt Harvey6.67256.5Ryan Madson0.00
92.3David Price14.82146.9David Robertson6.64263.9Addison Reed0.00
163.9Lance McCullers14.53284.3Gio Gonzalez6.50277.7Nate Jones0.00
67.5Jacob deGrom14.1199.5Julio Teheran6.36289.1Brandon Kintzler0.00
110.8Ken Giles13.48126.4Cody Allen6.25300.8Greg Holland0.00
126.9Rich Hill13.16275.8Collin McHugh6.19295.6Mike Foltynewicz-0.20
89.1Masahiro Tanaka13.15123.3Alex Colome6.19290.4Ervin Santana-0.22
221.4Matt Shoemaker13.05128.7Michael Fulmer5.63277Anthony DeSclafani-0.60
69.3Kyle Hendricks12.82145.9Tony Watson5.48275Alex Cobb-1.07
81.2Seung Hwan Oh12.74236.2Adam Wainwright4.66299.7Eduardo Rodriguez-1.17
123.9Danny Salazar12.62187.6Jake Odorizzi4.50299.9Jordan Zimmermann-1.63
110.9Gerrit Cole12.62186.6Carlos Rodon4.36296.6Jason Hammel-1.98
215.3Michael Pineda12.5481Aaron Sanchez4.12285.7Junior Guerra-2.06
65Carlos Martinez12.43224.4Blake Snell4.10280.7Trevor Bauer-2.20
101.7Jose Quintana12.28255.2Hisashi Iwakuma4.07278.1Daniel Norris-3.24
163.6James Paxton12.24234.4Brandon Maurer3.77202.6Marco Estrada-3.42
151.4Jameson Taillon12.09230.9Joe Ross3.47246.1Dylan Bundy-3.56
201.5Robbie Ray11.95190.7J.A. Happ3.45306Brandon Finnegan-5.28

It's interesting to note Jansen is the No. 5 overall pitcher, while Chapman is No. 7, ahead of Corey Kluber Stephen Strasburg and Jon Lester.

Next post will take on the hitters, with catchers separated out the way the closers were here.