Fantasy Royalty – The Over $40 Crowd

Second of the series.

At the 2007 BABI auction, 9 players went for $40 or more. No one keeps a history of this, but that has got to be a BABI record. I remember that in my first ever BABI auction, the 2 most expensive players (Reggie Sanders and Greg Maddux) went for $36.

Eight of the twelve teams purchased one player for over $40, and Cartel, in rebuilding mode, bought two. Here is the list of these players and their stats (HR/RBI/SB/BA), for both 2007 and 2006:

Albert Pujols – 59 (Cartel)
2007 -- 32/103/2/.327
2006 --49/137/7/.331

Big Al dropped in all 4 categories, and substantially in homers and RBI’s. He’s down to 2 steals. He had 16 in 2005.

Jose Reyes – 58 (Any 9)
2007 -- 12/57/78/.280
2006 --19/81/64/.300

Reyes is down in every category except stolen bases. Of course 78 steals from one player is a category winner, and Any 9 not only won steals by 8, they finished 39 steals ahead of the 3rd place team. I imagine, though, that Kenny 9 would have preferred those 2006 numbers. Reyes had 681 at bats, so the drop in BA has a huge effect.

Carlos Beltran – 47 (Cartel)
2007 – 33/112/23/.275
2006 – 38/116/18/.276

These are pretty comparable seasons with slightly less power, slightly more steals. His price may have been inflated because he just tore it up in the games before the auction.

Miguel Cabrera – 47 (Hobo)
2007 – 34/119/2/.320
2006 – 26/114/9/.339

The new American Leaguer had more power, but less steals and BA. The seasons are relatively equivalent.

Carlos Lee – 44 (Bats)
2007 – 32/119/10/.303
2006 – 37/116/19/.320

Lee was down in 3 categories including 9 fewer steals. He only increased in RBI’s, by 3.

Aramis Ramirez – 44 (Rips)
2007 – 26/101/0/.310
2006 – 38/119/2/.291

He was down substantially in the power categories and got no steals. His BA did climb. He spent some time on the DL in 2007, though he did get over 500 at bats.

Jimmy Rollins – 43 (Busch)
2007 – 30/94/41/.296
2006 – 25/83/36/.277

The MVP went up in all 4 categories. He was 28 years old, so he was primed for a career year. I admit in my preseason analysis, I said that he was overpriced at $43. Now he looks like the only likely keeper among this group. Interestingly, if Rollins had his 2006 stats instead of his new improved stats, Busch would have finished with exactly the same number of points.

Juan Pierre – 41 (Pounders)
2007 – 0/41/64/.293
2006 – 3/40/58/.292

It was my impression before looking at these stats that Pierre had declined from 2006, but the stats are almost the same. I imagine Kevin was happy to sacrifice the 3 homers for the extra 6 stolen bases. He’s probably more keepable than our Keeper Analysis intimated.

And finally, Derrek Lee – 40 (Pecklers). I discussed Derrek Lee in my previous post. His 2006 injury made comparisons difficult, though he certainly underachieved our expectations.

These 9 hitters are the cream of the crop, but who among them was really worth what was paid? Big Al was certainly not worth $59, a figure that expects 40+ homers and 120+ RBI’s in addition to several steals. The two Cubs, Ramirez and Derrek Lee, had nice enough seasons as well, but their relative lack of power and limited speed (make that no speed for Ramirez) suggest prices in the thirties.

Beltran and Carlos Lee both produced power and speed, though less power for both and less speed for Lee. Beltran went for $47, more than his numbers really suggest. And Lee went for $44, less than the $40 price tag he was thrown back with. It’s nice to have guys with power and speed, but these are truly premium prices paid.

Reyes and Pierre are the speed guys. At $59 Reyes needs to hit better. Those monster steal numbers put him into the 40’s, but to go into the 50’s, particularly the high 50’s, a player needs to bash too. Pierre at $41 probably earned what his owner had hoped, particularly given the premium we pay for speed.

That leaves Rollins, who had less power than Pujols, Beltran, Cabrera and C. Lee, but threw in 41 steals as well. That’s a package that’s worth the money, if you can count on it.

And that brings up the most important issue on paying in full for the top guys: their prices are inflated to represent the surety of performance. There is an insurance cost built into the prices of top guys. You can get more stats per buck out of less expensive guys, but in theory, ignoring injury risk, there is more risk of obtaining the predicted stats as you move down the food chain.

Look at Pujols: those numbers represent his worst season EVER! Those are still mighty tasty figures, probably worth high thirties. He provided decent power numbers and a BA that can carry a fantasy club. If that is the downside, that is worth a premium.

Even Derrek Lee, coming off his injury, had a pretty good season. It’s not what you hope for, but it wasn’t Andruw Jones at a buck less hitting .222. Generally, barring injuries, you’ll get decent stats from these guys.

Here’s an amazing statistic that skews the results: nobody on this list was seriously injured. Ramirez had the fewest plate appearances – 506 AB’s plus 43 BB’s for a total (excluding HBP, SAC and SF) of 549. The next lowest total was Carlos Beltran with 623. The three speed guys, Reyes, Rollins and Pierre were all over 700. One significant injury to any of these guys would demonstrate their true downside. The teams who bought these players were quite lucky, even if their stats weren’t quite what they hoped for.

One last thing to note: the Bums had none of these guys. In fact, they had no one in the thirties either. My theory about paying up for the big guys is that you will get good stats, but you will pay dearly for them. To put together a winning team, though, you need to have several guys outperform their price. That is pretty tough to accomplish when you pay over $40 or $50. Only Rollins did it in 2007.

Tomorrow: the $30+ players.