Week 7: The Haves and the Have Nots

 

We’ve suddenly got a backlog of blog photos! Robert took a trip to Gulf Shores last week with his wife’s, Felix’s, family last week. The skies looked sunnier there than on Robert’s fantasy team as he lost to Max.

Next up is Dean who won a triathlon over the weekend. I have no jokes for this one because it feels like a bigger deal than anything I’ve done in the memorable past. So, atta way, Dean. Do you give swim lessons?

Dave continued his charge up the power ranks with an eye popping 10.29 EWW last week, the largest EWW of the season. Dave is in what I described as a 4-week hot stretch, and as we learned from the last blog, his hot streaks last exactly 5 weeks, so therefore he’s got one more great week in him (Michael checks the matchups this week, closes laptop).

Paul is also on a heater right now, scoring the second highest EWW of this season at 10.17. 

Week 7 EWW Data

So why were we able to have two EWWs that were so high this week? Well, a few of us really had a bad week. Michael, Keith, Cory, and Arthur were all below 5.5, that’s the greatest number of such weeks since 2023. No bueno. So that skewed the week-to-week averages that fuel the EWW values a little lower, allowing two great weeks from Dave and Paul to really pop. Finally, Max also showed signs of life with a 7.63 EWW and has kept his YTD Power Rank number at a reasonable 7.14, he’s not out of it yet.

I was thinking this week about draft value: Who capitalized on it? Who blew it? What players have busted already?

I ran the numbers comparing players’ YTD values, like Aaron Judge has been a value of $56.80 (based on a draft day budget of $300 each for ten teams), while the last player drafted, Will Warren, has actually been about as good as advertised with a value of -$0.64 (though pick 299 has actually ben an $8 player, Jameson Taillon). Ok and remember that each draft pick had an inherent value based on the projected stats we should have been able to acquire then (the #1 overall pick was projected to be worth $46 whereas the number 10 pick was worth $26, etc). OK so then I binned each team’s draft picks by top 100, 101-200, and 201-300, ignoring players that haven’t played yet, and I wanted to see how things have fared:

Player Profits by Team

First thing I noted was that we all have lost value on our draft picks since we made them. This makes sense. I’m only checking players that we left the draft room with and how they’ve fared. Michael hasn’t had to eat all the bad Charlie Morton stats…oh wait Max has, but I digress. Names like Joc Pederson or Connor Wong, who have been worth worse than -$20 haven’t really hurt Keith or Robert, respectively. But now let’s talk about the segmented picks.

In the top 100 picks, we’re really just trying to avoid the busts, but many of us haven't been able to. Marcus Semien, Anthony Santander, Salvador Perez, Aaron Nola have just been killing Dean, Michael, Dave, and Cory.

In picks 101-200 yeah we’re looking to avoid busts, but it’s also time to find the breakouts. Nathan Eovaldi has been a blessing to Michael, Pete Crow-Armstrong will probably get a Holiday card from Dave, whereas Arthur and Kevin would like their money back on Ryan Walker and Jurickson Profar (I think the Braves want a piece of the money-back-from-Profar, too).

Finally, the last 100 picks are all about finding the breakout, so who crushed it there? Max’s Merrill Kelly has been great. Cory’s new Philly Jesus Luzardo has made the Marlins fans grumpy, but last but not least Byron Buxton has had the season and health for Dave that Max wanted him to have in the 2010s, tah dah.

So, you can see there’s something for everyone in the data, and I can share the player-by-player stuff if anyone wants to see it. My big takeaway here is that Dave has pulled more value from his draft than the rest of us, and it’s a big part of the reason why he’s crushing us right now. But don’t be distracted from Max. He shows very well on this chart too, the problem why it hasn’t translated to the standings is because he was starting from such a lower draft capital to start, his slight gains on the rest of us from a (gulp) good draft, have not materialized to a good Power Rank.