Balance, Daniel-San

Several years ago the Pickled Pecklers proposed that all the teams in BABI throw in all their cards and start over. There is so much inflation that has built up over time, we thought it would be fun to have a complete auction where everyone starts exactly even. The owners debated this mightily, and then we were mightily hooted down.

I specifically remember a conversation with Mr. Leaguer in which he explained what he liked best about our game. He said that the most challenging aspect of keeper-style fantasy sports is to balance the needs of the current season against the needs of future seasons.

Toward the end of the season those still in the race trade away some of their future for an improved chance at the present. In many years, dump trades have indeed ruined teams for the next year. The deals will, generally, improve the futures of the dumpers, though less than they would hope. This is the most obvious and dramatic moment of adjusting the balance between years.

Each spring we face those questions as well. Contract extensions require evaluations of the needs of this year against the needs of next season. Mr. Leaguer faces an extension decision on Hanley Ramirez, currently at 11-08. 16-09C? 21-10C? 26-11C? There is no right answer. Well, no, that’s not right either. There is a right answer, and we’ll be able to confirm it in October, 2011. In the meantime, Mr. Leaguer has to decide just how much in profits in 2008 he’s willing to sacrifice for future years.

The Pecklers have already decided to extend Eric Byrnes from 13-08 to 18-09C. Hitters are usually a lot easier than pitchers. But now we’re evaluating Adam Wainwright.

CARTWRIGHT!

Wainwright is currently at 4-08. We got a trade feeler this week for him, and the feeler said he assumed we would extend him. It’s a close call, and when you are talking about pitching, close calls should more often than not be decided against the extension. We asked this question on Shandler’s forum area, and got some interesting responses.

Two guys writing for HQ both responded that we should extend him to $9. They saw this move as buying an extra year, and we’d still have a “nice profit” as they each put it. Let’s assume he’s worth somewhere between $13 and $16. Big profit for one year, smaller profit for two years.

Then a fellow named Kevin wrote an intriguing entry leaning against extension. I quote:

I think that you should not. Ignoring any discount rate applied to future seasons (which I generally do not ignore), if we call Wainwright a $15 in your format (that's what the custom valuator says), if you have him for $4 this year that's $11 in profits. If you have him for $9 this year and next, that's $12 in profits. Virtually identical, and you still need to factor in:

- The discount rate, which like I said before, I generally don't ignore completely

- The fact that you lose the ability to cut Wainwright should he implode on you this year. I watched it happen to my arch-rival with Jose Lima in 2000. It was an unmitigated catastrophe for him not to be able to get Lima off of his roster. Wainwright had a nice year overall, but he also has the power to suck for extended stretches - his ERA though his first 10 games last year was 5.59. All I'm saying is, do not underestimate the value of the put option, especially in a close decision.

Fantastic advice, I think, and against what I would call the conventional wisdom. His reference to the put option is so easily ignored with pitchers. Hitters can’t hurt you too much, but pitchers can be painful. Geo believes you should virtually never extend a starting pitcher, possibly for just that reason. He got awfully lucky last season when he extended Myers. As bad as the Cappers season was last year, it could have been a lot worse.

I also suggested in the forum that we have a competitive keeper list. I hear you: “There the Pecklers go again, pumping up their keeper list.” We base this on having both Pence (The Glassman) and Loney at $5 contracts this year, both likely to be $15 in 2009, plus we have our pitching anchor, Webb, entering the last year of his contract. We have to have a good chance this year, and run with it, because we can see some major negatives for 2009 unless we draft brilliantly. BRILLIANT!

To this, Kevin added: You're telling me you have a competitive keeper roster. Then try to win this year! The decision is close, save that $5 and spend it on upgrading a $15 hitter to a $20 hitter!

We followed this once. We had a great keeper list, and we didn’t extend anyone. We used all that extra money in the draft. We had a great team that season, but we ended up with almost nobody we could trade. When our team got a lot of injuries near the end, we couldn’t fix things, and we finished second. Some of those guys we could have extended would have still been tradable. It was a mistake, and it was the closest we ever came to winning it all.

Of course, in order to be able to be the recipient of dump deals, you have to have some guys dumpers want. You can’t just have a bunch of players at the right prices. So in some respects having that extra $5 can be a negative, because it doesn’t force you to find a couple of those cheap guys who might have great trade value.

We’re not decided on Wainwright. He’s probably not very tradable at $9-09C. He’s probably a good keeper in 2009 at that price, though. And we want to find the right balance between 2008 and 2009. We always want to be competitive. Of course, we want to win it all, too. And when we do, we’re going out for real food after the season, food that the Bums will say “I’m glad the Pecklers won so we don’t have to eat that fru-fru crap.”