Hitting for the Cycle #24
A Sunday Review - July 10, 2022
📖 What I’m Reading:
Know When to Act - @DynastyOneStop
For the dynasty/keeper players that have trading leagues, Nathan puts together a short and sweet reminder of when one should hold for contention or fold for next year. In my only trading keeper league this year, I have frequently thought about one of my favorite lines from Robert Rodriquez’s film “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” where one of the characters paces around saying “Need to make a move, but don’t have a move to make.” The decision for me was to fold for next year, and I quickly started trading assets away for early round draft picks and injured keeper players that were top 50 ranked this year for my league context (Welcome to next year’s team Jonathan India and Kris Bryant!) It’s hard to stand pat, and wait for the player you rostered to finally pick up the production pace. As Nathan points out in his article, you need to assess the ability to make gains in your standings. Perhaps now is the time to drop/trade certain players contributing in categories that your team has no realistic chance in moving up in (e.g., steals and/or saves). Take the time in the next week to determine what moves you need to make to win, cash or play for 2023.
🎧 What I’m Hearing:
Beat the Shift Podcast - FAAB Episode w/Scott Jenstad
The Beat the Shift podcast, hosted by Ariel Cohen and Reuven Guy, I’ve always enjoyed especially since the episodes start with a strategy section first. This week Ariel and Reuven welcome Scott Jenstad to discuss team/player evaluation and bidding guidelines as it relates to FAAB/waiver wire. Around the 8 minute mark, Scott explains what he believes most people overlook and waste time in their FAAB process which is not reviewing and evaluating their team first. With so many FAAB articles and Twitter posts discussing players that should be picked-up, we become too focused on the players we “need” to acquire instead of what our actual teams need to compete. In my opinion, you almost need to listen to the DFS adage of “lineups not players”. Scott further details how he evaluates his category and team positional needs, and that helps manage his time more efficiently when he reviews the available players on the waiver wire. Also, at the 15:30 minute mark, Ariel lays out what you should consider when dropping a player, and some of the steps he considers which include opportunity cost of holding onto a player on your roster due to injury or poor performance and the uniqueness of that player profile and is it readily available on the waiver wire.
📊 Metric of the Week:
Expected Weighted On Base Average (xwOBA)
Similar to wOBA, referenced in Hitting for the Cycle #8, xwOBA is a measure of weighting each hitter at bat outcome (e.g., single, double, etc.) by their run values. What xWOBA then does is it ignores the actual outcome of the at bat, essentially ignoring defense which is something a batter can not control, and layers in launch angle, exit velocity and the batters sprint speed. Again, what this Statcast metric is trying to evaluate is the quality of contact skill for that player, and what the result should have been based on the typical outcomes of the launch angle and exit velocity on that ball hit. Some folks like to use the difference between wOBA and xwOBA to state whether a player has been lucky or unlucky. You can take a look at the current wOBA and xwOBA leader from Baseball Savant HERE. As always, proceed with caution when you rely on just one metric when trying to predict the future.
💬 Quote of the Week:
“In theory, there is no difference between practice and theory.
In practice, there is.”
- Yogi Berra