RotoGuru - Baseball Feedback Archives

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Feedback

This page is devoted to feedback I've received from you. If you have a question to ask or a comment to make, send me an email and if I think it's of general interest, I'll post it here.

Click here to move ahead to current feedback letters.

Guru:
I was just looking at your Base Advances article "Pitching for Dollars" from 3/31 and I just wanted to point out how right on you were, in comparing the Smallworld to the CNNSI game in this quote, "Make your own choices, and don't accept my expectations as gospel. I am wrong every now and then - surprising as that may seem! My recommendation is only that if you've decided to just play the $75 million version, at least consider trying a $50 million team as well. By July, you may find that game to be much more interesting."

Me and my buds are all playing the $50 million version. But last year we played on CNNSI so I put in a team for the hell of it. I've got my roster up to $108 million and already have an all star team and it just isn't very interesting, and it's still only May!! - Spaz's Boys (5/24)

response from Guru:
I didn't think I was going out on much of a limb with that comment. - Guru

Guru:
Over the last couple of years, thanks to SWS I have become an avid roto fan. I have learned more about my favorite sports and players, and have taken a new interest in sports I have never really followed. (Lets face it - unless you were a Bulls fan there wasn't much to follow the last few years in the NBA.) Plus I have always enjoyed statistics and have tried on my own to do some of the analysis that you have now made so convenient. Just perusing the stats you have put together is as much entertainment as the games. Thanks for making this all more interesting and competitive. (Although it kills me to do so I share you page with anyone I can ... well at least anyone that is not in my division.)

Keep up the good work. - David P. (5/24)

response from Guru:
I usually resist the urge to post these purely complimentary letters. But this one raises one of the impediments to site growth - and that is that many managers find the site so helpful that they keep it a secret from the rest of their competition.

Many times I get asked by Gurupies if there is anything they can do to support the site. The best answer I can give is "pass the site address along to someone else." Thanks. - Guru

Guru:
Do you have any specific thoughts on whether I should keep Pedro Martinez? I have had him most of the season, but I am beginning to think I could recoup his points elsewhere by "spreading the wealth." Do you have any thoughts? I am ranked in the 17 thousands, so not doing too well. - J. (5/24)

response from Guru:
You're ranked ahead of me, so why are you asking my opinion?

Pedro is a tough call. He probably can't continue to accumulate points at the same pace forever. But he's also one of those guys you're going to want to own for the long haul, assuming you can afford him.

The answer, I think, depends on the shape of the rest of your roster. If you think his value could be better deployed in other slots, then do so. His current SWP/EG/$m of 2.7 isn't bad, but you can find better ratios elsewhere, I'm sure. But if your roster is already shaping up pretty well, you might just want to hang on to him. - Guru

Guru:
I remember reading a feedback letter from a guy who said he exports your tables to excel for further analysis. I want to do this for the basketball playoff stats but I'm not sure exactly how to do it. If it's not too complicated could you let me know. This may be something other users would be interested in as well. - Josh L. (5/21)

response from Guru:
The simplest approach is to bring up the table in your browser. Then, use your mouse to highlight the area you want to copy. In the edit menu, click on Copy.

Next, open a blank spreadsheet in Excel. Position the cursor in the upper left cell of the area you want the table copied into. In the edit menu, click on paste. This will put all of the table data into a single column of your spreadsheet.

To parse the data into columns, highlight the column with the table data, and then select "Text to columns..." under the Data menu. From that point forward, the system defaults will probably work (the table should be read in as fixed width columns). When this process is finished, the data items will be in columns. - Guru

Guru:
Have you noticed the "View Price History" on the player pages at SW Baseball? I just discovered it today, so I think it is new. Anyway, in addition to giving all of the historical prices for the player, it lists how many times that player was bought and sold in each week. (Though not the initial draft numbers...) This could be very useful in anticipating gains & losses.

For example, look at the price history info for Chris Brock.

It still has me wondering about the pricing formula a bit - generally it seems that 10,000 excess times bought mean a $1 M price move, but the carry over effects are harder to figure as evidenced by Brock's 4/28 repricing. Obviously carry over has a significant effect sometimes. For example, Freddy Garcia went down slightly in price despite having been bought more than sold that week.

Thought you might find this interesting... - Brad H. (5/20)

response from Guru:
Wow!

This is the first opportunity we been had to peek into the repricing process!

I'm going to have to poke around for awhile. I'm sure many of you will do the same. Stay tuned... - Guru

Guru:
I just found your site, and as a newbie who has never been through the entire season with any of this and never really cared about baseball itself, I am having a blast with SWB and RotoGuru. I have been playing a gainer's game, but have a few questions.

Are some of the top players using only a few trades for gain each week so that in late July they will have tons of trades for pitching rotations and also have substantial value, or to play the value game best, is it better to just make as much $$$ as you can right now?
I have only been through a few months of feedback archives, but wonder about just holding pitchers unless you make a trade for value vs. trading into pitchers who start twice that week (not the every day rotation issue) who you expect will just hold their value?
Another issue in terms of early vs. late week trades is the threat of Monday injury. If I trade McGriff for Casey now and he is hurt on Monday, then I just shot myself in the foot (even though Casey's value will likely go up some from all the early week traders who have no trades to get out of Casey until Thursday's games).

Any other advice? It might make sense to start a FAQ/newbie file. Thanks again. - Jonathan (5/20)

response from Guru:
Welcome aboard, newbie-Gurupie!

I can't really tell how many trades managers are using each week. But most weeks, I use my entire allotment, usually in search of the best gains, but sometimes to avoid injuries or expected losses. I try to pick up players that I expect to increase for multiple weeks. It's not always easy, but it certainly is the most profitable.

Swapping from "one-start" pitchers into "two-start" pitchers probably has a good expected gain ratio, but isn't necessarily the way to do it - since no pitcher starts twice two weeks in a row. If I'm looking for guys who will appreciate over multiple weeks, then that means I'm going to need to hold some pitchers through one-start weeks.

Each season, the SW game changes somewhat, so each year brings some new ideas. I certainly continue to learn as I go along, which is part of what makes this fun. If it ever reduces to pure science, then I'll probably lose interest. So while there's a wealth of useful tidbits in many nooks and crannies of this site (in particular, you should gradually work your way through last year's Base Advances articles), the best way to learn is to play the game. - Guru

Guru:
So I've taken your advice and am working hard this early part of the baseball season to increase my team's value rather than trade for starts. What should be my target increase, per week? While the mantra of increased net worth has certainly gotten through to me, I haven't seen any analysis about the value of those increases to me. For example, while I should look for obvious increases (such as an injury which moves someone into a starting position), should I use a trade if I think someone's price will go up only a bit? What's my benchmark here?

Also, as we move into buying the "star" players for our teams when we can afford them, it seems to me that this will cause price drops among the moderately-priced players with their sell-offs. Won't this mean that their relative value will increase? I'm not saying that I should cherry-pick all season with the mid-level players, but it seems to me that the attraction to pick up a cheap position player who might be going into a home series against a lower level team would increase as their price drops. Or, maybe this is a moot point when we get to the point to afford the sure money players. Your thoughts, please. - Fred C. (5/20)

response from Guru:
With the pitching so distorted this year, I'm not sure what the benchmark should be. I've averaged a bit over $5 million per repricing, and there are a few Gurupies who have outdone that by a $million per week.

At this point, I'm starting to pick up hitters that, barring injury, I should be content to hold for the duration. These guys aren't likely to produce the biggest weekly price gains, but they should start to show a steady, gradual weekly increase. Today, the value of those hitters is about $70 million. For my pitching staff, I'll probably want to allocate $15 million to one slot for pitching rotations, so the balance will go for the other four pitchers. Guys like Ortiz, Garcia, etc. will probably remain on the cheap side all season long, so they will probably comprise the other four pitching slots, with upgrades if/as funds permit. This type of roster could be assembled for about $100 million or so, and I should reach that sometime in June.

So with that as my objective, the key is to get there using as few trades as possible - since any trades left over can be used for pitcher rotations. By the end of this week, I'll probably have about 5 of my hitting slots locked up.

Will this strategy be good enough for a top 100 finish? I haven't figured that out yet. But it seems like the best realistic objective at this juncture.

You should probably go through the same process. Figure out the hitting roster that you're going to try to obtain, and then work toward assembling those players - by the end of June, if at all possible, since at that point, pitching rotations will probably be the way to go. That roster may very well include someone who will remain cheap throughout - like a Chili Davis, for instance. He's unlikely to finish among the top four outfielders. But for the bucks, he may make sense. The ultimate decision will be based on how much you have accumulated, and on what fits best at that time.

Gains aren't the true objective. Getting better players is the objective. - Guru

Guru:
I thought starting pitching was supposed to be the best way to get points. Not yesterday (Wed)! No fewer than 8 starters had negative points, another potential negative (Jim Abbott) had his game rained out, and another starter (Witt) got a big +2! And, don't mention the closers. Instead of their usual 70 point games, at least 4 closers got huge negatives. - Rich M. (5/20)

response from Guru:
Of course, we all had Fassero, Nagy, and Brian Rose.

(We did, didn't we?) - Guru

Guru:
I've been using a new strategy in the SW game:

allocate 15m to one of the pitching slots
use all 5 trades to fill spot with best pitcher of the day.

In this way you can have Pedro, Big Unit, Schilling, Cone and Smoltz (sorry) on your staff. With the returns those guys bring in, who needs hitters! Does this strategy have a name and if so have you written a column on it? - James A. (5/18)

response from Guru:
That's essentially the classic pitcher rotation strategy. It works great if the scheduling works out. But there are ways to make the rotations more efficient, and I did write an article on that last season. (see Pitching Rotation)

If you can live with the hitters you drafted, then it works great. Most people can't.

The top 10 pitchers currently average 145 SWP per start. If you can average 6 starts per week under your strategy, that slot should produce about 850 SWP per week. To be in the top 100 worldwide (SW site), you'd have needed to average about 1550 SWP per week. So, you need the other 13 slots to produce 700 SWP per week. Assuming the other players have 6 eligible games per week, that's 117 per game, or about 9 SWP/G per player. Players producing at that level cost about $3m apiece, so that implies a total roster cost of $54 million. Under optimal assumptions, the strategy seems to work so far.

But I doubt if 1550 SWP per week will suffice for the entire season. And achieving optimal conditions is rare. With 20/20 hindsight, it would be easy to assemble a roster that meets all of these conditions. But to do this from day one is much more challenging.

Still, the evidence suggests that a number of teams are using this type of strategy very effectively. - Guru

Guru:
I find it surprising that you have had so much negative feedback about SW baseball when I feel the Ballpark game is much more worthy of scorn. I really liked their basketball game, but rarely did even Jason Kidd reach the $2.5 mil price. There are what, 20 players in baseball at that price? The price inflation far exceeded that of their basketball game. If you didn't grab a hitter at the beginning of the season at a reasonable price and ride him to $2.5 mil, then you are left out and might as well give up now. To me, standing pat with your hitters and then using the "two starts and you're out" formula for pitchers doesn't make for an interesting game.

What I object to is the poor pricing of position players in the Ballpark game compared to SW. Brook Fordyce is the minimum $500k in SW and is over $1M in Ballpark. That means he is about half the price of the good catchers in Ballpark and one tenth the price in SW. Even at one tenth the price of Jason Kendall in the SW game, I bet more owners have Kendall than Fordyce.

Take Todd Greene and Todd Hundley for example. Have either of them performed well enough this year to double in price? Greene has gone from $570k to $1,336,000. Ridiculous, especially considering he has been hurt and suspended. Ridiculous when you consider Kevin Appier is $760,000 right now and earned 50% more points.

I do have a question. I haven't had a catcher on my team in weeks and I have noticed that most of the tops teams are missing one or even two position players. Statistically, is this wise? I think it is because there are no cheap players worth owning. What do the numbers say? - Charlie C. (5/18)

response from Guru:
I do find it frustrating that there doesn't seem to be a good alternative for hitters other than buying low and holding forever. Perhaps there needs to be more reward for dropping a player who is at a big gain - like increasing the salary cap by the amount of the gain, so a comparably valued player could be added.

The other problem is that, because trades are unlimited and have no cost, the pitcher swapping strategy dominates the game. I suspect some more tinkering will be needed for next year's version, Maybe there should be a season-long limit on the number of pitching starts. At one point, I didn't think that was needed, but now I think it would add a helpful dimension.

It might also make sense to require a complete roster. There's really no statistical magic in owning a complete roster. If you want to spend more on pitching - where you get the efficiency of the "two starts then trade" strategy - then it can make sense to keep a hitting slot open, especially if there aren't any eligible players who can produce a comparable BPP/$ ratio. I happened to pick up Santiago in the draft for $650,000, and since he's averaging almost 12 BPP/G, that's attractive relative to pitching returns. But there is no advantage inherent in the number of players owned. The key is to maximize points on the total investment of $18+ million, regardless of how many players that comprises. - Guru

Guru:
I agree with your strategy of going for value in the early stages of the game. It is exactly how I won my division last year, although the game was different. However, it is difficult to be disciplined and not make "pitcher for a day" trades to gain points, especially when others in your division are doing just that and you see your team continuing to slip. With that said, at what point during the season do you think you should start worrying about points and forget franchise value. - Fox5 (5/18)

response from Guru:
You never really stop worrying about points. You just have to try to figure which strategy is going to produce more points. Using a benchmark of 3 SWP per game per $million, a $500,000 gain today should still produce about 180 SWP over the balance of the season. That's still a bit more than you should realistically expect to realize on most pitching trades, especially if you don't have enough trades saved to produce a truly efficient "pitcher rotation."

But if the gains opportunities don't seem obvious, you might be better off to pause and accumulate some trades for a rainy day. There will be plenty of time to swap pitchers. In spite of your psychological desire to improve your current standing, there's no need to swap pitchers now. In fact, if you can hold back some trades, maybe you can make your competitors overconfident. - Guru

Guru:
I have a thought on why players at the Echelon site seem to have a drop 2 weeks after a hot streak. It seems like they use a 2 week average like you in helping to determine price changes. In basketball, if a players 2 week average changed significantly (a game much better or worse than average no longer counted in the past 2 weeks,) their price would show a gain or loss based on that, even if their past game performance didn't warrant it. - Cliffhanger (5/18)

response from Guru:
I haven't tested this yet, but I probably should. I just wondered whether anyone else had done any meaningful analysis. - Guru

Guru:
I have an interesting fact for you. I've noticed that there is only one major league team that doesn't have a player priced over 6,010,000 in Small World's pricing system. That team is the Kansas City Royals. It is hard to believe, considering that they have players producing the way that Febles, Beltran, Sweeney, Dye and all the others have produced. I personally have lived on the cheap cost of these players and received great production per million dollars. I realize that pitchers are more expensive than hitters, but their staff has Appier and Rosado (One is a big name, the other is productive). Talk about a small market team not getting noticed! Then look at the Baltimore Orioles - they have little production but their players are priced very high. The small market teams get the short end of the stick in fantasy sports also. - Mike H. (5/18)

response from Guru:
Initial pricing is largely based on the prior year's production. When a team relies on cheap, young, and untested talent, those players will tends to be priced on the low side. If they do produce, they turn out to be the bargains. Of course, that also means that some day soon they'll probably be playing in Baltimore. - Guru

Guru:
After reading your new feedback posts, I have made an interesting observation and probably have an unpopular response, which is sure to generate even more feedback if you decide to post it.

It seems to me alot of managers have done an awful lot of Complaining about how the Smallworld Baseball game is weighted "unfairly or unproportionately" in pitching. I am by no means a fantasy game expert, but I do know this much - the winning manager of any sports fantasy game won the contest because they, #1 read the rules of the game, #2 understood "completely" the rules of that game, and #3 most importantly used the rules and scoring system to their maximum advantage. PERIOD. So my advice to all those managers who feel the scoring system is unfair or unjust, quit complaining, and play the game to the best of your ability, given the rules and scoring system WE ALL PLAY UNDER. I'll guarantee you that the 50 top managers agree completely (no, I am not one of them). - Rich P. (5/15)

response from Guru:
I agree with your conclusion, though I think it's still fair to critique the framework. Hopefully, next year's game will benefit from this year's constructive criticism. - Guru

Guru:
I disagree with you...points are not always points. If a player has 500 points by playing above his potential by hitting a few more homers than expected and another guy has 500 points but is playing his normal game...I think the 2nd guy is a better choice for my team.

I think outfielders like Stewart and Lofton are more effiicient at scoring points than outfielders with pure power and no speed. If a guy goes in a slump...I'd rather have a guy with speed who can get a walk and a stolen base than a home run hitter who likely is putting up goose eggs day after day. So while you think points are points...I would respectfully disagree. - Pat V. (5/15)

response from Guru:
A valid point. I don't know if history would indicate that speedsters are less susceptible to periodic volatility vs. sluggers. But even so, I think a program that would allow you to select players based on the underlying statistical compnonents is unlikely to get much use. And it would greatly increase the volume of data that I'd have to store online.

If you're looking for speed vs. power, most of the sports stats sites provide sortable stats based on each stat. Try using those as a preliminary screening tool. - Guru

Guru:
One more note on Plateau players: Russ Ortiz seems to be burning up the charts and has given us several 1,000,000 dollar gains and some loose change, while amassing almost 1000 SWP to boot. Here is the problem. - Gains vs Points - the question we would all love to know the answer to. Ortiz is looking like a 10,000,000+ player and shows no sign of slowing down. Once he reaches his plateau and maxes out his value around 6,500,000( just an example) he will still be a great deal even though he will give back some of the dollars you earned before, so the equation has changed. Negative Gains vs Points... Are you willing to take a hit in the bank account to earn big points, or jump ship to up and coming plateau players such as Brock, who never will achieve as many points but the gains are still there? - Joel S. (5/15)

response from Guru:
Actually, guys like Ortiz can turn out to be continually valuable in both respects. The key is timing.

Suppose you figure Ortiz is due for some profit taking - perhaps as the result of a weak outing. So you drop him. If you're right, just pick him back up at the cheaper price, and you've got more potential gains if he regains form. Freddy Garcia may be another example, especially if he can continue to show his early season productivity. Although you could just hold on throughout, if you can play his price correctly in both directions, you can benefit from more than 100% of his gains! - Guru

Guru:
I think I have the answer to the early week trading syndrome. My belief is that there are a lot of "weekend players" out there, people who only have time to play the game on the weekend. These people login on Saturday or Sunday, look at the charts, and make their trades. Since the charts are sometimes a day behind, they are likely to be looking at Friday's stat totals, but could be looking at Thursday's. This may explain why the big movers are based on early week stats, and the small movers are based on late week stats. This would explain why Cone (pitching on 5/6) went up 290K while Brock (pitching on 5/7) went up only 120K despite using that start to crack the top 50. Another good example is Bottenfield, he went down 680K and had a +168 point game on the 10th. - Rich M. (5/14)

response from Guru:
I sure there are some "weekenders" who have the influence you suggest. However, based on the traffic at RotoGuru.com, weekends generate less than half the volume of an average weekday, which suggests to me that a lot of managers are accessing the web through work, rather than home. I doubt if weekend trading has enough volume to drive the results we've been seeing.

I think the bigger reason is that there are a lot of impulsive managers who can't stand to save a trade when it could be used immediately. Teams that got off to a weak start (due to a lousy draft) probably used up their initial allocation well before the first repricing, and have been playing catchup ever since. In particular, there are a lot of younger players (age 10-15 or so) who don't have the discipline to ration trades until the end of the cycle. Even my own 14-year old son often finds himself tradeless well before the week is over - in spite of my sage counsel. (But then, did you ever listen to your Dad when you were 14?) - Guru

Guru:
NBA playoff rounds usually start 2 days after completion of the 1st round for each matchup. Thus if the #1 and #3 seeds both sweep, and the number #4 & #2 seeds both win in 5 games, it is possible for the #1 v #3 2nd round to start 3 days before the #4 v #2 seed matchup (thereby getting in 1 or 2 games ahead of time) - Rob T. (5/13)

response from Guru:
This will make efficient management of the round-to-round turnover all the more difficult to plan. Another challenge! - Guru

Guru:
Currently I have a $70 million value. I am pretty happy with my trading for gains, but I have a couple of related questions:

At 3rd base, it has been very hard to get good gains. I have Beltre right now but I am only a couple of million away from Tatis or Williams, clearly the best so far this year at 3rd. The question is--do I make a simple adjustment to my roster and get the extra cash needed for one of those top players or do I hold Beltre expecting he will have slightly better gains? (I do not need a direct answer on how to manage my team, but the general question is-when do you forget about gains and just take the guy who produces the most points at the position) I mean, eventually, I would expect new leaders to emerge at the position, so how valuable is it to have the current leader if he is not increasing in value?
The final question is based on pitching. I remember last year you wrote an article about closers vs starters. Well, this year there is no balance. With the new 21 points/IP the starters have a huge advantage. Is this true or have I just been misled because no closer has emerged yet. I mean, last year, Nen and Shaw were in the top 5 up there with Maddux and Martinez for a good part of the year. Are closers now worthless?

- JW (5/12)

response from Guru:
Good questions.

At 3B (or any position), it sometimes makes sense to bite the bullet and plunk down the cash to get the best player. This is usually my strategy when the gains opportunities seem limited with other players at the position, and the best player is easy to figure. At third this year, Matt Williams and Tatis have been the front runners. But it would surprise me if they stay at the top. Guys like Castilla, and Chipper Jones, and Scott Rolen should ultimately emerge. That's not to say that Williams or Tatis couldn't have a career year, but it's way too early to assume that their early performance can be sustained for the next 4.5 months. So, I wouldn't be inclined to rush after them, especially if Beltre is still providing good value for the money.

Clearly, starting pitchers have a big point advantage this year. But that doesn't make closers worthless, unless you have unlimited cash to spend. There are a number of closers who are priced attractively, and offer good value for the money. But don't expect any closers to be among the top five pitchers in points. That would be remarkable.- Guru

Guru:
Regarding SW baseball: Things this year are indeed much different than last. I have been trying to build my roster value...as have my other friends. The result of our work has been lower rankings than we are accustomed to having.

I think the key might be that pitching is weighted so differently this year than last...with more points for innings and wins and no deduction for losses. Pitchers that would bomb out last year are scoring decent points for mediocre performances this year.

Also...it seems like there are more overachieving mid-priced hitters this year. Tatis, Stewart, Glaus, Stevens. I think the way to play this game might be to saturate your starting lineup with the best starting pitchers you can. Then load up your cheap hitters...Beltran, Febles, Dunston, Barrett, etc. Then...pick your roster value up at the hitter position and don't trade for any pitchers.

Save as many trades as you can...maybe alternating a no-trade week into the mix. In the end...you have all the benefits of the great pitching, your roster value is still climbing...and you will have enough trades that you can switch 5 pitchers a day near the end of the year.

I think there is a tendency for people to squander trades by getting pitchers. Let's say earlier this week you picked up Schilling and Pedro. You benefited from their good starts. Let's say you have two trades left for the week. You decide to pick up Smoltz by trading Schilling. Then you pick up Johnson by trading Pedro. On the surface it looks like you are getting two more pitching starts from great pitchers. However now you are out of trades and Schilling and Pedro pitch on Wednesday! So in reality...you would have no extra starts from your pitchers for the week! In the first scenario...Pedro, Schilling, Johnson, and Smoltz pitch for the week. In the 2nd scenario...Pedro and Schilling each pitch twice. Thus...you have gained nothing...all starts being equal...but have lost two trades.

I think you do a fine job with your site. The assimilator is great. I think it would be great if you developed another program that would be in a sense a "shopping sight for players". We would input our player need for our team. Let's say I want a player with a certain speed and certain power playing a particular position for this amount of money. I could input these parameters and a program would then display...based on current statistics or SWP points...player recommendations for my team. What is your thought on that? - Pat V. (5/12)

response from Guru:
Most of your points are a rehash of points that I and others have made already, but some certainly bear repeating. It's especially important to manage your trading for pitching starts as efficiently as possible, and you point out a common inefficiency in the approach of many managers.

As to your last request, I don't get the point. In the SW game, there is no need to distinguish between speed vs. power, or even pitching vs. hitting. As I've said before, "points is points." Seems to me that since points are all that matters, the tools I provide should be pretty sufficient.

In other words, no. - Guru

Guru:
Some thoughts I was having on the SW Hoops playoff game: It seems like it is best to hold back trades until the second round if possible. Any first round trades are likely to only net 1 extra game per trade, while in the second round you have the potential to pick up two extra games due to the longer series. While the person in first place in our division has used 2 trades, the 2nd place and 3rd (me) place folks have not used any, and don't plan to until after Wednesday. Once into the second and third rounds, people forget that those rounds may last up to 10 days, and I think anyone who is out of trades in the beginning of those rounds will suffer. In fact I am even toying with the notion of holding back alot of trades for the finals. My thought is even though you won't be able to overcome convergence, you can make sure you have all 10 spots on your roster going, which should give you a boost at the end over someone who can't fill those spots. (Just how hard that will be I haven't determined, which may not make it a viable strategy.) At this point it seems to me the only trades worth making would be to drop people who are 0-2 and picking up people who are 2-0, since you can be sure you will get at least three games even if the series turns around, and most likely 5 games minimum (1 for 1st round, and 4 for second). - Robert T (5/12)

response from Guru:
Your logic is generally sound, with the caveat that it assumes that there is some scarcity value to trades. I haven't yet been able to project whether I'll want more trades in the next few rounds, or whether I should be aggressive now. The risk is that if I find that I have too many trades in mid June, it will be too late to get the most out of them. But, since it's not a life and death situation, I've been willing to figure this out on the fly, rather than doing some painstaking projections. - Guru

Guru:
A note on "paralysis by analysis," if you please...

Today's (5/12) repricing blurb focuses on the thing that I think many of us are having problems with - trying to predict price fluctuations for these young pitchers. I, too, have jumped the gun on a few of these guys and sold them before they reached their peak (Bottenfield, Jimenez, Garcia), or failed to buy because I thought their value had topped out (Russ Ortiz). I think that this underscores a point you have made all along, which is that the trading masses seem to a) trade early and b) lag behind a bit. So, applying this point loosely to the discussion on Snyder (you avoided him because his two upcoming starts were vs. Cleveland and the Yankees), I think that you have done yourself a disservice by avoiding him based solely on that fact. The average trader either cannot or will not process so much information. I tend to think that looking at TOO much data will just end in frustration (it sure has for me). As for Pedro, he may indeed come back to earth, but as long as everyone is trying to get him, I'll ride that price wave, too. Such is the advantage of having cash on hand.

The outfield game is giving me fits, too. I dumped Cameron after a poor week and recent price gains, only to see him jump more than $400K. Too many cheap players putting up points, I guess. The tough part is finding out who gives you the **most** SMP/$/EG. - Britt (5/12)

response from Guru:
I didn't expect "the masses" to avoid Snyder based on the tough matchups. In fact, I knew I was leaving some gains on the table by avoiding him. If I had unlimited trades available, I'd have probably picked him up. But I thought there were other attractive opportunities, so I conceded Snyder to the rest of you. As a Cleveland fan, I hate it when one of my pitchers has to face the Tribe, anyway.

My stance on Pedro is mostly because I missed the boat, and I don't want to jump on too late. As I said, I had the same problem with Sosa last June, but fortunately recovered most of the damage by the end of the season. If I already owned Pedro, I'd certainly ride him as long as I could, however. "Pedro Power" was painfully evident in the updated rankings this morning. Pedro got more than 200 SWP yesterday, and my team ranking dropped about 7000 overnight.

I also find that others take heart when I confess to having difficulties. So, if Snyder and Pedro turn out to be the keys to success this year, you can all feel like you outsmarted me. I can take it. (But I'd rather not have to.) - Guru

Guru:
I have a question regarding the time you make your trades. As you well know, price increases are driven by early week trading. Are you part of that "early week trading", or do you wait until late in the week and look back at what the best ones were?

I noticed last week that I ran out of trades. I wanted to trade Larry Walker for Carlos Beltran. Of course there is a price difference here. So I was left with 6 million from Sunday until today. I would like to avoid this type of thing.

What do you suggest? - Matt S. (5/12)

response from Guru:
While it is important to understand how trading flows are being driven, I think you can trade more efficiently by deferring to the extent possible. Unless it factors into the timing of pitching starts, I usually do my trades on Tuesday night. I look at the position lists at the beginning of the week to assess who I think will get the most action. But I wait until the end of the week to see who has sustained the pace. I also look at who the likely buys will be at the beginning of the next week. This helps ensure that I get at least two decent price increases out of a buy. But, it also means I miss owning some hot players (that others have already bought), and it also means I may be holding on to some "cooling" players a bit too long. Maybe this is part of the reason for my modest point production. - Guru

Guru:
You briefly discussed SW baseball strategy the other day, and I've been meaning to share some of my thoughts on that dimension. Basically, I am tremendously disappointed in the game design. I think that the only way to compete effectively is to engage in a number of pitcher rotations. Personally, I cannot predict price movements effectively enough to warrant 5 full trades per week solely on this basis. Therefore, I think the best strategy is to only make a few moves to maximize roster value (in other words, buy players for the long haul except in rare cases). However, this will inevitably leave you with a number of extra trades. With the increased emphasis on pitcher scoring, these extra trades mean a lot more directly in terms of points.

Aesthetically, pitcher rotations as a part of the strategy do not appeal to me. However, as long as I am competitive, I'll put up with it a bit.

The really bad news is that some teams have done extremely successful rotations so far, and they could be very difficult to catch. However, it is a long season; last year I was ranked in the 300's through July, but came back to finish very strong. The balancing act continues! - Victor D. (5/12)

response from Guru:
I must confess I also find the pitcher point imbalance, and the resulting emphasis on pitcher rotations, to be less interesting than prior years' games. But, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

The thing we all have to keep in mind is that this is a marathon, not a sprint. The season is just approaching the 25% mark. The saying goes that "slow and steady wins the race." I sure hope so - especially the "slow" part! - Guru

Guru:
I was wondering if you had any type of explanation for the Bobby Witt story. I picked him up last week when he was in the top 50, supposed to pitch on Thursday and under 3 million dollars. Expecting a nice little cash pick-up plus a start.

He goes up somewhere around 200,000 - not as much as I was hoping for. He ends up pitching on Friday gets 10 measly points, dropping out of the top 50. Now he's not supposed to pitch until Friday this week. I was forced into keeping him for this price change but expecting him to lose some value. Instead, this week he goes up 750,000.

What is up??? - Spaz's Boys (5/12)

response from Guru:
Good question. I guess it just goes to show it usually pays to keep your Witt's about you. - Guru

Guru:
First - Congratulations to the Bethesda Panthers, not only for topping the Guru leader board, but for being the Small World Champ. Finishing strong is putting it mildly. My team (94 Crawfishers) faded in the stretch run but managed to stay ahead of one of your teams. Lucky the season wasn't a day longer.

NBA Playoff question: Theoretically the first round games could end as early as May 13 (not probable), but very well could be over before May 17. Does the next round start almost immediately after the previous round is complete, or is there a gap if all series finish early. Nice to have some idea, when looking at trade usage through the playoffs. - Steve H. (5/9)

response from Guru:
I dunno. Anyone? - Guru

Guru:
You know how there was that calculator for Small World Hoops? Are there any for Small World and Ball Park Dreams? I am too lazy to figure out my own point totals at the end of the night and would love to have a calculator. Thanks in advance if you know of any... - Mike W. (5/8)

response from Guru:
Anyone made one yet this season? - Guru

Guru:
I thought I'd relay what I thought was kind of a cool story. My friend and I play all the Smallworld games and use your site daily, and we compete in all the games, with one of us getting the edge towards the end each time. For Smallworld Hoops, he had a lead for a while, but I had more money and was making up the margin towards the end. I had calculated how close I was on the last night, and it all depended on whether Don MacLean could get 20 points to see who would win. He scored exactly 20. So, after battling all season, his team and mine finished tied at the top of our division, exactly 14,639.5 points, with very different teams, and tied for #230 worldwide. I can never recall seeing anyone tied at the top of a division exactly even during the season, let alone at the end, after never being tied all year. - Todd (5/8)

response from Guru:
On to the playoffs... - Guru

Guru:
I was thinking about the new pitching formula that SW uses for the baseball game. Basically, I was asking myself-should I stack my roster with mostly top pitchers(priced in double figures) and then round out my lineup with the remaining cash? As roster value increases, so will the value of my hitters. So, in some ways the game is better than last year. Here's why: If I buy $50 million worth of pitchers- that would currently leave $20 for nine hitters. So, right now, my hitters average about a $2.2 million salary. However, when the roster gets to say, $90 million, there will be $4.4 per hitter, at $100 million, $5.5/hitter, etc. My point is--the game can create a balance between trading for starts and price gains as the optimum strategy. By improving the quality of hitters with say 3 of your weekly trades and trading for say, 2 starts, the combination of the two seems to be the best strategy. Since you get new trades each week, this strategy will go on for the whole year. For managers who only trade for starts, their value will not increase by much--but for those who combine the two, they could have the same prices for pitchers, but just slightly less starts. With the tremendous increase in hitter value--this strategy of combining the two should be better. So, in summary-there are two separate games--one is the pitching, the other, the hitting. By trading for starts and gains among the 5 given trades one should come up with the best overall strategy. What do you think? - J.K. (5/7)

response from Guru:
I don't see why you'd want to use any trades for starts at this point of the season. If you can find gains opportunities, why not use them all for gains now? Trading for starts will be just as profitable in August as it is in May. But gains are more valuable now than they will be later. - Guru

Guru:
I just wanted your opinion on the repricing methods for SW/CNN. It seems to me that many of the pitchers are way overpriced. Just to name a few, Jeff Fassero, Matt Morris, Jamie Moyer all around 10 million, more then any everyday player. I know this goes back to the fact that scoring is skewed in favor of pitching. Anyway, with prices of some of these pitchers so high, I really don't see a whole lot of trading involving them, so their prices stagnate. Shouldn't SW take into account that no one is buying these players and lower their prices? It makes it hard to upgrade pitchers when anyone who has shown anything close to a consistent performance is sitting around 10 million. For instance, in all my baseball genius (actually it was more like dumb luck) I picked up Steve Avery in my original draft. He is pitching well and racking up the points for me, but I'm still a little nervous about him. He is 27th among pitchers in SWP, but 155th in price. Why does SW not incorporate inactivity into repricing? - John A. (5/7)

response from Guru:
Don't know. I've raised the issue several times before, and it is a frequent topic in feedback letters.

Maybe someday... - Guru

Guru:
Having won the overall SmallWorld championship with the help of some lucky breaks at the end, I remain as excited about making your Hall of Fame as about winning SmallWorld. I made many mistakes this season (e.g., not buying Mobley or Nesby when ridiculously underpriced, holding Kukoc for 3 games waiting for him to get healthy enough to play), but the biggest one was undoubtedly not entering the CNNSI site where the prizes are much better. Thanks again for all the stats and schedules - I downloaded your tables nearly every day into spreadsheets which performed further evaluations and rankings. - Jay S. (5/6)

response from Guru:
Thanks, Jay. If I couldn't repeat, I'm glad another Gurupie claimed the throne. - Guru

Guru:
I noticed in your daily blurb that Torii Hunter had a big gain and that you thought it was due to the grand slam he had. I am almost positive that it is b/c he squeaked into the top 50 for the first 2-3 days of the week as well as his big hit. I think that is how I found him since I make my trades early on b/c that seems to be when prices are most influenced. - JC (5/6)

response from Guru:
In fact, I suspect it was his slam that pushed him into the top 50.

I guess this goes to show that you should look at the entire top 50, not just the top of the list. - Guru

Guru:
With the new price change (players can only go up one million dollars at a time) players no matter how good they are will hit a plateau. For example, Chili Davis... He has been burning up the $$ charts but is now slowing down, not because his production has slowed down but every active trader probably has picked him up, thus a plateau. Once this happens, even if he smashes all the records in the record books, he will only be worth that much. Now, if he has a slump, a lot of people might dump him, his price drops 1,000,000. If he gets hot again his price can only go back up 1,000,000 so again he has hit the plateau. Kind of makes the game seem unbalanced.

Question - If your team is filled with these "plateau players", your points per game per million is skewed drastically because of this apparent oversight. Is this a problem or am I missing something? - Joel (5/3)

response from Guru:
Yes and no.

Players who start out on the cheap side, but turn out to be theoretically worth much more (like Chili Davis), do have a difficult time reaching "fair value". If he has topped out in price, then he is probably a few million below where his true value might belong.

But, I think this has nothing to do with the $1 million weekly cap. Why? Because I think that excess buys are carried over into the next pricing period. If 1500 managers bought Davis in week #1, and this amount of buys would produce a $1.5 million price gain, then the extra $.5 million is carried over into the next week's gain. The weekly cap doesn't limit the potential gain overall; it only limits the pace at which the price can rise. I suspect the intent is to try to keep prices from over-reacting.

The issue you raise, though, has been present in all recent Smallworld games. Players that start out too cheap tend to remain cheap throughout the season. If you own these guys, are your points "skewed drastically"? I'm not sure what you mean. But, these are guys that will tend to produce more points for your dollar, so if you own a lot of them, you should have a more productive roster. If so, it should improve your ranking. And as far as I can tell, that's a favorable "skew". - Guru

Guru:
Can you tell me some open RotoGuru divisions, or where I can find the division search which you had posted on the daily blurbs quite a time ago? - Justin (5/1)

response from Guru:
Here's a link to the Smallworld division search page. - Guru

Guru:
How many Smallworld Points Per Game Per Million do you aim for? During the Hoops season, you told us in a blurb, and I realized I wasn't getting enough out of my team, so it really helped. - Matt S. (5/1)

response from Guru:
I hadn't really benchmarked my teams yet, but your question prompted me to do so.

My SW team currently has an average of 4.2 SWP/G/$m. My CNN team is more like 3.6. That makes sense, because as you get into higher priced players, the ratio tends to decline.

I think baseball averages tend to be a bit more variable, particularly early in the year for pitchers. But the same benchmark of 4 SWP/G/$m still seems like a reasonably good target to aim for. - Guru

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RotoGuru is produced by Dave Hall (a.k.a. the Guru), an avid fantasy sports player. He is neither employed by nor compensated by any of the fantasy sports games discussed within this site, and all opinions expressed are solely his own. Questions or comments are welcome, and should be emailed to Guru<davehall@home.com>.