The Z Files: Minding the Gaps

As was discussed last week, when you make a draft pick or auction purchase, you're not acquiring the player, you're acquiring the first player to occupy a roster spot. Sometimes the individual is active from Opening Day until the final game of the year. Sometimes he's deactivated before the season starts and replaced by a reserve.

One of the goals of drafting is to get a positive return on your investment. A means of doing this is taking advantage of the market inefficiency derived from the above. For example, a player with a history of IL stints is projected to miss at least 10, and probably more, games. Yet his projected earnings and resultant rank will assume he's on the active fantasy roster all season, when in fact he can be replaced when he's on the major league IL. The player may be expected to earn $15 (7th round) on his own, but when the production of his replacement is added in, the roster spot may return $18 (5th round). As such, drafting the player in the 6th round or paying $16 offers profit potential. Another way of exploiting this market inefficiency is to put a premium on players eligible at multiple positions, so that you can plug in the most productive replacement possible when a starter goes down.

Obviously, neither of these are groundbreaking. However, last offseason I put pen to paper and quantified the added production for injury-prone and multi-eligibility players. I'll leave it to you to review the calculus in depth, but here's a synopsis.

Rotisserie stats are worth the following in common leagues:

If a batter is out for two weeks and his replacement goes 11-for-42 with one HR, four RBI, three runs and a steal, in a 15-team league, he added

(1 x .38) + (4 x .17) + (1 x .48) + (11 x .37) – (42 x .09) = $2.34

This may seem like a lot. If you multiply $2.34 x 13, you get $30 and a player of that ilk should produce more than the above stat line. However, this is free production. The replacement level was already accounted for during the draft or auction.

The other table needed for the ensuing analysis shows the expected earnings for each draft pick in a 15-team draft.

With this in mind, here are some batter suggestions to consider outside the Top 75:

Jeff McNeil, 2B/3B/OF, New York Mets

Tie goes to the multi-eligibility player early on in drafts, or maybe you move them up a few spots on your cheat sheet. Once you're past the fifth round, it's viable to jump players legal at two, or in McNeil's case three, positions up a full round. His ADP in 15-team leagues is late round 6, akin to a $17 player. Research shows about $20 worth of stats can be added to a club with diligent in-season management using position flexibility. It usually takes about six players with multi-eligibility to pull this off, so each one contributes around $3-$4. Relating this to a draft, this makes McNeil a $20 player which is mid-to-late round 4. Sure, you can wait until the sixth, but depending on your roster construction, there's nothing wrong with adding some batting average stability in the fifth while also beginning the position eligibility chain to tote up that $20 of "free" stats. By free here, I mean activated from reserve or acquired via free agency/waivers. The fact McNeil is legal at three spots means it may only take five players to assemble your chain. The idea of a chain is regardless of the position needing a replacement, you can move players around and activate the best available substitute. The bottom line is you can play ADP chicken and hope to get McNeil in round 6 and add an extra $4, at the risk of being sniped, or you can choose McNeil a round earlier and still add a couple bucks of profit to your roster.

Trey Mancini, 1B/OF, Baltimore Orioles

Mancini's ADP is almost a round later than McNeil's, so the math is similar. The reason he's included is many overlook 1B/OF dual eligibility, or perhaps don't consider it as important as some other combinations. This is a mistake. Not only is an infield-outfield bridge necessary to complete the chain, more outfielders emerge from the available player pool than at any other position. More are needed, but that's besides the point. Having Mancini facilitates picking up the best free agent at either position.

Miguel Sano, 3B, Minnesota Twins

Sano belongs to the first class of players discussed above, those expected to visit the IL. Looking at several projections, his average games played is 132, so he's expected to miss a month. Let's be conservative and add three weeks worth of stats to his roster spot. Using the $2.34 above, an extra week means the substitute adds between $3 and $4.

Sano's ADP is late round 8, equal to $14. Add on the added production and we're looking at a $17-$18 roster spot, corresponding to late fifth, early sixth. Accelerating Sano to the seventh or paying $15 or $16 still adds profit. Playing ADP chicken may mean a competitor reaps the benefit.

Justin Turner, 3B, Los Angeles Dodgers

Like Sano, aggregate projections show it's fair to add three weeks of another player's stats to Turner's roster spot. Turner's ADP is late round 11, akin to a $10 player. Adding $3-$4 lands him in round 8. Keep in mind, the delta between expectations of adjacent players lessens as you slide down the snake, accounting for the extra round to work with for Turner. Taking him in round 9 or 10 delivers more stats than you lose relative to the ADP.

Lorenzo Cain, OF, Milwaukee Brewers

Add Cain to the three-week replacement list. His ADP lands him late round 12, early round 13, a $9 player. The bonus stats elevate him to mid-ninth, giving an extra round of wiggle room compared to Turner.

Alex Verdugo, OF, Boston Red Sox

Here, we're working blind since it's unclear how long Verdugo is expected to be out. He's currently off the board mid-round 14, an $8 player. Keeping the same three-week bump brings him to late round 10. 

Starlin Castro 2B/3B, Washington Nationals

Currently, Castro is being drafted after the 16th round. Something not discussed yet is the utility of flexible players during the draft. Thus far, the math only considers in-season roster management. If you have both middle and corner open, not only does Castro add in-season bonus stats as part of an eligibility chain linking middle and corner infield, he lets you choose the best available MI or CI with a later pick. If you're feeling really frisky and trust the Marlins will play Jon Berti, and that Berti will run, he's available around the same time as Castro but has 3B/SS/OF eligibility.

Shohei Ohtani, UT/P, Los Angeles Angels

Let's have some fun and go off-book, so to speak. In many formats, Ohtani is rostered by one team with the ability to use him as a hitter or pitcher, but not both at the same time. I've seen some attempts to assign a ranking, but none consider the free aspect of his "other" stats since the replacement level for that other roster spot is already covered during the draft or auction.

With Ohtani out until mid-May, that maxes out his starts at 18 or so. Let's be conservative and call it 16. Using a few different projections sources and comping Ohtani to pitchers projected for 32 starts with similar numbers yields a price tag of $10 for those 16 efforts.

We know Ohtani will be the designated hitter for at least five weeks, probably 25 games. Giving him 16 instead of 18 starts suggests Ohtani will be available to bat for 10 more games, so that's 35 games or about 120 at-bats he can add to a team with the stated rules. Prorating his batting projection to 150 AB renders .283 with six HR, 18 runs, 20 RBI and three SB. Using the conversion table for a 15-team league, we're looking at $12 of free batting loot.

The caveat is you can't just add the pitching $10 and the hitting $12 and say Ohtani is a $22 player, or mid-round 3 player in this format, which not so coincidentally resembles the NFBC. If Ohtani wasn't occupying that utility hitting spot, someone else would be contributing stats. The notion is he's better than the other guy. The stats that matter are those added stats coming from Ohtani.

Let's assume the utility player is the last batter drafted, since it's known Ohtani will fill that spot on occasion, the plan being to replace the weakest possible batter. Again using aggregate projections, Ohtani will take the place of someone projected to hit .250 with four HR, 15 runs, 17 RBI and one SB, worth $7.75. This means Ohtani generates $4.25 of extra stats. Adding this to his $10 from pitching puts Ohtani at $14.25, corresponding to mid-round 8, or an ADP of about 112. I promise I didn't fudge these numbers to make this work, but the most recent NFBC 15-team ADP for Ohtani is 110. There's a lot more downside risk than room to over-produce in this scenario, but the NFBC is doing a great job estimating what Ohtani potentially adds to a roster.

Before calling it a day, it's important to point out this is all carried out using the ADP as the "projection". As I've been hammering home, where you rank the player drives where you draft him. With the above players, the starting point was the ADP; it should be your rank. The landing point after adding the free stats is based on your rank. Now, the ADP is a tool to help gauge where you want to draft the player. Of course, this is always the case. However, this exercise adds in a form of "upside", over and above that availed by the player's talent. You don't want 23 injured and/or multiple-eligibility players, but if they fit your team construction and don't interrupt draft flow, they're a great way to add some free profit (is that an oxymoron?) to your club.