This article is part of our The Long Game series.
I dove into the subject a little the last time out, but let's talk some more about that thing you hate. Let's talk about the nasty piece of business that ruins all your auction plans, that makes you cry as you pay too much for a player who you didn't even want in the first place. Let's talk about inflation.
Inflation is what happens in a keeper league when a significant number of players get protected below the value they're projected to produce. It's fairly easy to calculate. Add up everyone's starting budgets, subtract the salaries of all protected players, then divide by the starting budgets minus the projected value of all the protected players. The actual formula looks something like this:
(Starting budgets – protected salaries) / (Starting budgets – protected values)
Basically, you've dividing the amount of money at the table by the amount of talent at the table. If there's more money than talent, then prices go up. That seems pretty simple in theory, but in practice, inflation becomes a very hard thing to manage and juggle in the heat of the moment during an auction.
First and foremost, that inflation isn't going to apply equally to all players. A $1 endgame buy is still going to cost $1, even in a league with 20 percent inflation. A $2 endgame player will still cost $2. Even a $5 buy is probably going to be $5. At the end of an auction, relative remaining budgets and your
I dove into the subject a little the last time out, but let's talk some more about that thing you hate. Let's talk about the nasty piece of business that ruins all your auction plans, that makes you cry as you pay too much for a player who you didn't even want in the first place. Let's talk about inflation.
Inflation is what happens in a keeper league when a significant number of players get protected below the value they're projected to produce. It's fairly easy to calculate. Add up everyone's starting budgets, subtract the salaries of all protected players, then divide by the starting budgets minus the projected value of all the protected players. The actual formula looks something like this:
(Starting budgets – protected salaries) / (Starting budgets – protected values)
Basically, you've dividing the amount of money at the table by the amount of talent at the table. If there's more money than talent, then prices go up. That seems pretty simple in theory, but in practice, inflation becomes a very hard thing to manage and juggle in the heat of the moment during an auction.
First and foremost, that inflation isn't going to apply equally to all players. A $1 endgame buy is still going to cost $1, even in a league with 20 percent inflation. A $2 endgame player will still cost $2. Even a $5 buy is probably going to be $5. At the end of an auction, relative remaining budgets and your competitors' maximum bids are what drives pricing, not inflation.
At the other end of the scale though, 20 percent inflation doesn't necessarily mean that a $30 player will go for about $36. You should be so lucky. Instead, his salary will probably push up to and even tip over the $40 plateau. All those extra dimes and quarters not being spent on the small fry get saved up and shoved in when the top names come up for bid.
The higher the inflation rate, the more severe this effect will be. For instance, in the RotoWire Staff Keeper League (the SKL), which is entering its 10th season, here are some of the salaries of players bought at auction last year:
Miguel Cabrera $68
Adrian Beltre $51
Jacoby Ellsbury $49
Evan Longoria $46
Justin Verlander $42
Hunter Pence $40
David Price $39
Masahiro Tanaka $34
James Shields $31
Jonathan Lucroy $30
Insane, right? But due to the league's structure, where both minor leaguers and reserve draft picks end up with very low initial salaries if they become active players, inflation in the league is crazy. Downright ratchet, even. That not only results in huge bidding wars on elite talent, or for players who carry positional or categorical scarcity concerns (catchers, closers, speedsters, etc.), it also makes for some interesting protected lists. For instance, someone kept Felix Hernandez at $38, and in a league where Verlander tops $40 at the table, can you really blame them?
In leagues like this, where inflation is sky-high, I always try to keep one thing in mind before I make a bid. Is there any chance the player can actually earn this salary? I don't mean even a good chance. I mean any chance at all.
A couple of years ago, Chris Liss did a fun little exercise where he compiled the stats on what would have been the greatest fantasy baseball seasons in history, if fantasy baseball had existed as long as baseball itself. The names you'd expect to be on it are there (Ruth, Cobb, Hornsby, etc.) but among the modern players, Larry Walker's 1997 season stands out. A .366 average in a ton of at-bats, 49 home runs, 33 steals, 130 RBI and 143 runs; and that incredible season, aided by Coors Field at the height of its offense-boosting powers, was still only worth $66. Alex Rodriguez's 54-HR 2007 season? Only worth $61. Alfonso Soriano's near-40 HR/40 SB 2002 season? $53.
Now, those values were calculated based on a 12-team only format, not an 18-team mixed league, but you get the general idea. For a player to earn at least $50, he's going to have to do something fairly extraordinary, if not historical. And Miguel Cabrera, Hall of Fame talent though he might be, isn't going to earn $68 no matter what he does.
Even in leagues where inflation isn't quite as extreme, it's easy to get sucked into a dizzying bidding war if there's only one great player available at a position, or only one guy left on the board who seems likely to steal 40 bases. Keeping in mind the question of whether a player can possibly earn back that salary or not can save you from making a bid you'll regret later.
The problem is, you have to spend your money somewhere, and anybody good is going to be too expensive. So who should you target? Again, it comes back to that question of what's possible. Your targets in inflation-plagued leagues should be players who actually have a chance of earning back their inflated salary, and the higher the chance, the better. Certain kinds of players, for various reasons, tend to fall into the sweet (or at least less bitter) spot of getting bid higher than their projections, but lower than their vaguely-plausible production ceiling, and these are the players you should be looking at. I tend to group them up as follows:
The Red Cross Brigade
These are players who are coming back from a serious injury, or who have checkered track records when it comes to staying healthy, but who also have seasons on their resumes, at least somewhat recently, that provided some big-time value. The uncertainty surrounding their ability to stay off the DL keeps their price tag a bit lower, but if they do manage to stay in one piece and produce at or near their best, they'll be players you were happy to go the extra few bucks on. Players who fall into this group for me in 2015 include Carlos Gonzalez, Mat Latos, Prince Fielder and Ryan Zimmerman.
The Roy Hobbs Specials
Roy Hobbs Specials have seen their level of play decline from some pretty impressive heights, but they aren't so old that a comeback season seems ridiculous. If you buy Chris Davis for his power, for instance, you're running the risk of another sub-.200 batting average, but if he returns to the .270-plus level he was at the two seasons prior, you've struck gold. Other players who fit this bill include David Wright, Dustin Pedroia and, if you have a really high risk-tolerance, Justin Verlander.
The New Kids In Town
Players who change scenery in the offseason can cause some fantasy owners to get nervous. A hitter moving into a pitcher's park, or vice versa, can produce an over-reaction that reduces the bidding on them. An NL pitcher moving to the AL, and losing all those perceived automatic K's from opposing hurlers (even though the decline is fairly negligible), can also be affected by this. And then there are the players who simply needed to get a fresh start in a new organization, and nobody knows how they'll respond to their new surroundings. Players who fall into this category include Jeff Samardzija, Justin Upton (and all of the sluggers the Padres imported this offseason) and Jason Heyward. This also applies to any high-profile Japanese or Cuban imports. Jose Abreu went for $37 last year in the SKL. In retrospect, that was a bargain.
The Plain Vanilla Gang
Some players are consistently good, but they've been at it so long you kind of forget they're there. They're no longer the sexy young up-and-comer, they're just old reliable veterans. For the same reasons that players like this can have a lower ADP in a redraft league than they should, inflation tends to hit them less than it might if they were a few years younger. A player who's shifted down the defensive spectrum can also duck the worst of inflation's ravages, as a bat that was special at a premium position becomes just another stick after his move and might get overlooked. Players in this group include Albert Pujols, John Lackey and Joe Mauer.
