Every March, at least a few readers ask me “Why don’t you just use the PFM instead of your bids, Mike?”
Over the years, I have answered this question a few different ways. But today I thought I’d take a different approach. Inspired by a reader question last month, I decided to take the Player Forecast Manager's valuations for a 15-team mixed league and apply them to Baseball Prospectus’ My Model Portfolio exercise from March. As a reminder, this is what our authors did in that series.
In the “My Model Portfolio” series, the fantasy staff will create its own team within a $260 auction budget using Mike Gianella’s latest mixed-league Bid Limits for 2017. The scoring is 5×5 standard roto. The roster being constructed includes: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, 5 OF, 2 UTIL, and 9 P.
The Process
In this case, the process is simple. I took my mixed-league bids, took the valuations the PFM spit out for a 15-team league, and posted the results below. I started by using the 23 players who had the biggest differential between the PFM valuations and my bid limits, and kept adding players with less of a differential by position until I reached $260 in salary. As a reminder, every “winning” bid below equals my published bid limits plus one. One-dollar players on my team are those who were not listed in my bid limits.
The only change I made to this exercise is that I added a second catcher to the team and removed the second utility player, since my bids are designed to mirror the Tout Wars mixed-auction format. At the end of the season, I want to test this team not against the model portfolio teams but rather the mixed Tout Wars teams.
The Offense
|
Position |
Player |
Bid |
PFM $ |
|
C |
25 |
$31.21 |
|
|
C |
10 |
$20.22 |
|
|
1B |
15 |
$22.15 |
|
|
2B |
5 |
$14.25 |
|
|
3B |
7 |
$15.26 |
|
|
SS |
6 |
$14.63 |
|
|
CI |
9 |
$15.43 |
|
|
3 |
$11.81 |
||
|
OF |
22 |
$28.54 |
|
|
OF |
22 |
$28.78 |
|
|
OF |
19 |
$25.79 |
|
|
OF |
15 |
$27.21 |
|
|
OF |
8 |
$14.75 |
|
|
UT |
8 |
$15.06 |
|
|
Total |
174 |
$285.09 |
The PFM is far more conservative on the top players than I am, so there are no Mike Trouts on this squad. This goes against what Bret Sayre typically does in Tout Wars mixed, and the approach I tend to take in shallower auctions. Sanchez at $25 is the anchor for the team, but the PFM also is betting on a comeback from McCutchen and for Hamilton to finally achieve his potential.
This is a fairly risk-averse team. Where my bid limits are somewhat cautious with Joseph and Travis, the PFM believes that they’ll be solid contributors. Calhoun and Ellsbury are not the most exciting players, but the PFM thinks that they will at least contribute at the levels they did over the last few years.
The Pitching
|
Player |
Bid |
PFM $ |
|
42 |
$49.54 |
|
|
10 |
$17.15 |
|
|
10 |
$15.61 |
|
|
10 |
$15.79 |
|
|
6 |
$12.73 |
|
|
Michael Shoemaker |
4 |
$9.48 |
|
2 |
$9.69 |
|
|
1 |
$6.40 |
|
|
1 |
$7.63 |
|
|
Total |
86 |
$144.02 |
You can’t argue against purchasing Clayton Kershaw. While my bid limit sits at $42, it is admittedly a compromise with at least three separate goals: trying to spread money across a pitching staff, building in some risk because he is a pitcher, and also giving deference to Clayton Kershaw. I have no qualms with spending $50 or more on him in a mixed format.
The PFM spits out mostly veterans, which isn’t surprising. A former AL Cy Young winner, a reliable-yet-aging workhorse, and a solid arm who had one poor year with the White Sox back up Kershaw at $10 apiece. This is a very strong base for a pitching staff. With a pitching staff like this, my strategy typically would be to bottom out with one dollar starters and spend $77 on the entire staff.
The Prediction
This is the section of the model portfolio where our staff came up with predictions for their teams. For a league that doesn’t play out, going with a balanced team is a solid approach. Something the PFM cannot do that a human can is look for one-dollar fliers that the PFM puts below replacement level. Someone is going to get this year’s Aledmys Diaz—we just don’t know who that is yet.
I will revisit this team at the end of the regular season. Like any “test” of the PFM, it is far from perfect, but this is the goal of the PFM: to build a hypothetical team that is a successful fantasy franchise.
Thank you for reading
This is a free article. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Subscriptions support ongoing public baseball research and analysis in an increasingly proprietary environment.
Subscribe now
However, when it comes to the star players PFM definitely doesn't fit my league's market. It's more of a relative ranking at that point and I can pick what I want to spend and who I want to target.