Brock for Broglio

Jeff Euston (Founder of Cot’s Contracts) has built one of the most referenced baseball resources on the Internet. Want to know how long Jose Reyes is still cost controlled? What about the special perks associated with Zito’s 7/$126M.M? All of this information can be found at Cot’s Contracts.

Can you share some information about yourself: background, career, etc?

“I’m a baseball fan near Kansas City, and when I’m not following the game, I work as an attorney. I grew up in both KC and St. Louis, so those are the teams I grew up watching. My first baseball memories are playing catch with my dad and being impressed by the size of the big crown scoreboard in KC.

What was your inspiration for starting Cot’s?

“I started the site in 2005 because I didn’t know of a source where a fan could find out a player’s contract status. Like most fans, my friends have running conversations about how teams should spend money, and we’d get bogged down trying to find out when a player became a free agent or how many years were left on his contract.

I had tracked contracts for a few years, with the thought of possibly working as a player agent. I’d thought about making the information available on-line, and a blog seemed to be an easy format. The site is named for Cotton Tierney, who was my great grandfather’s brother. I have a copy of his 1923 contract with the Phillies. The salary was just $5,000, but many of the other terms are largely the same as those found in the uniform player contract used today.

What fun or interesting opportunities have come your way through Cot’s?

“The site has generated much more of a response than I ever expected. I get feedback every day from everyone from fans, media members and fantasy owners to agents, front office executives and grad students writing dissertations on economics.

It has been fun seeing the site mentioned in a number of places, including Baseball Prospectus, Maury Brown’s bizofbaseball.com web site, SI.com and Bill Simmons’ Page 2 column at ESPN.com.

What are your long term goals for the site?

“I’d like to eventually include a spreadsheet summary of each team’s financial outlook going forward. I’d also love to catalog more historical contract information for notable players from the past.

How do you gather gritty details about these seemingly more complex contracts?

“My sources for financial terms are usually Associated Press stories reporting the signings or stories by the local writers who regularly cover a particular team.

The beat writers are a great source for bonuses or perks, but it varies by city. All the details of Johan Santana’s deal were public almost immediately, for example. But the details on an extension for, say, Kansas City’s David DeJesus trickle out a few days later, if at all. I occasionally get tips or specifics from agents or people working in the game. Also, USA Today’s Salary Database is a great source for annual salaries.

What is one of the most unique contract structures you’ve seen?

“Well, the Rays gave Troy Percival a vintage car this past off-season. The Royals’ ill-fated $55 million extension for Mike Sweeney included a unique clause that guaranteed the final three years if KC finished .500, and, at the other extreme, Curt Schilling had a 2007 option vest when Boston won the 2004 Series. (MLB apparently frowns on those types of clauses now.) Players coming over from Japan routinely get a big package of perks now: flights to and from Japan, translators, massage therapists, a housing allowance. Several veterans have hotel suites on the road written in to their deals. But my favorite is Astros owner Drayton McLane giving Roy Oswalt a bulldozer the year after he won Game 6 of the 2005 NLCS.

What would your best advice be to somebody looking to start a baseball website?

“Write about what interests you, whether it’s a player, a team, statistical analysis, scouting, amateur baseball, fantasy baseball, the draft, the business side of the game or anything else. There are other people out there with the same interests.

What’s one strategy in fantasy baseball that might be underrated or under utilized?

“Well, this isn’t groundbreaking, but a player’s contract status can be an important factor when it comes to playing time opportunities. You might gain a small edge over your competition if you know where a player was drafted, how much an organization has invested in him, how many options he has remaining.

 
I’d like to thank Jeff for his time; both by answering these questions, and building an invaluable resource. Beyond the contractual information at Cot’s Contracts, there’s some great articles, and information about the many different waiver and draft processes in Major League Baseball.

This system has given me a massive advantage on my competition, and I hope you find it as valuable.

This article is written–under the assumption–you’re already familiar with using a feed reader. If not, you can find a detailed explanation of how to subscribe to blogs, and use a Feed Reader here.

THE SYSTEM:

1. Del.icio.us Bookmarking

If you don’t have a delicious account, you can make one here. (It’s a simple User/Pass/Email with no spam and free) Make sure to install the delicious toolbar on your web browser.

Short video explanation of Del.icio.us:

Here’s how to use Del.icio.us to filter out junk, and store vital information:

• When you’re going through your feed reader, and you find something important, simply “tag” the content with the name “to_read” by clicking the “delicious” tag on your browser.
• You can quickly go through a days worth of updates this way, storing important and relevant information. This functionality is important when you are subscribed to many blogs and news sites. And as a fantasy baseball manager you should be subscribed to many resources.
• When you are done bookmarking your information with the tag “to_read”, close out your feed reader.
• Go to your delicious bookmark page, and read the content from your bookmark page. This will save you a lot of time; plus, it will keep information important to you consolidated in one place.

Next step…

Integrating the power of Stumble Upon:

Here’s a short video about Stumble Upon: (turn up the volume for this video)

Now go make a Stumble Upon account by clicking here. (just enter a name/email/pass no spam and it’s free)

The video explains how awesome the tool is, but I’m going to show you how to use it specifically for finding new content.

Here’s how to discover hidden gems with Stumble Upon:

• Once you have a Stumble Upon account, and the toolbar installed, the only buttons you’ll need are “Thumb Up”, “Thumb Down”, & “Stumble”
• Now when you visit the content you tagged with Del.icio.us, simply vote a thumbs up by clicking the thumbs up icon on the Stumble Upon Toolbar.

Essentially what you are doing is telling the Stumble Upon system that you want to find content like this in the future. The more you vote, the smarter the algorithm gets.

Here’s the 4 step system in review:

1. You find a blog/site you like (I recommended 101 good baseball blogs here.) You subscribe to those blogs/sites with your feed reader.
2. You receive many daily updates in your feed reader. To filter through all of the updates; you use the delicious bookmarking tool to tag important information with the tag “to_read”
3. You use Stumble Upon to vote on content you stored in delicious by clicking the thumbs up button on the Stumble Toolbar.
4. After voting on content with Stumble Upon the system will began to learn about the types of content that is important to you. Then all you have to do is click the “stumble” button on the toolbar, and the system will launch you to new fantasy baseball content.

I’ve found many quality resources with this system. Pretty cool..eh?

If you have any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them in the comments.

Tom Tango, (aka Tangotiger) runs the Tango on Baseball website, where you’ll find a large number of research devoted to sabermetrics. He works as a consultant for major league teams in hockey, and has worked as a consultant in major league baseball. Born and raised in Canada, he now resides in New Jersey with his family.

“Looking back my first memory of baseball was the Bucky Dent game; though I was watching the Sox that whole season. I was 10.

Back then, we had no cable. We used to get the signal on UHF 22. So, that’s how I became hooked on the Redsox: it was the only team outside of the Expos that was broadcast in Montreal. That, and the sight of the Wall.

That’s how you get fans: get them young, and make it seem like what they are watching is special. And in the late 70s, Montreal was a great sports town. The Olympics in ‘76. The Canadiens had arguably the greatest team in all of sports history, reeling off 4 straight Stanley Cups. The Montreal Alouettes were Grey Cup contenders.

The Expos were a team of destiny. Unfortunately, that destiny was Blue Monday. And the Montreal Manic (soccer team) were on the verge of setting the city on fire. Nothing like being indoctrinated into the world of sports in a city of championship-caliber competition at such a young and impressionable age.

“Working in MLB is not this exciting venture. You are just this cog on the wheel, paid as much, and given as much attention. The GM is the power broker, and everyone else is just a helping hand. That’s why the GM gets paid millions, and everyone else gets paid at a discount compared to similar jobs in corporate America.

My goals are to have a dialogue with people open to looking at data in new ways, and avoid those who will argue in the face of mounting evidence. The former group you can come to a reasonable basis for discussion, while with the latter, there is no middle ground. I have no aspirations to work in an MLB front office, any more than I’d like to work for Oracle, Accenture, or IBM.

“I wouldn’t call it exciting, but the coolest thing was getting feedback from Tim Raines’ lawyer that Raines really liked our website for him: Raines30.com

Michael Lewis had also contacted me regarding a book he was writing (Moneyball). He mentioned that the A’s front office actually was reading my research. That’s around when I heard of other front offices reading my stuff. A few contacted me for work. And when we published our book, there were orders from several teams, including multiple copies for a couple of the teams. We self-published the original edition, so I could see the orders coming in. Kinda neat.

“There are two main components:

• player valuation, and
• player acquisition

The valuation part is really easy…

 

The basic formula for hitters is:

HR/10 + SB/10 + xH/10 + R/30 + RBI/30

 

And for pitchers, it’s:

W/5 + SV/10 + SO/50 + xER/10 + xWHIP/15

 

The acquisition part (drafting, bidding, keepers, etc) is a tiny bit harder. I’m sure the Ron Shandlers of the world would be in a better position to give guidance here. But, I don’t really see it as an issue.

“The “experts”, fantasy, reality, media, fans, etc make things out to be so much harder, but it’s quite the opposite, once you shed your biases and authoritative persona.

You use a simple forecasting engine to get your numbers, a simple dollar generator to get your fantasy dollars, and you are on your way. I have to believe that if you play with typical fans that you can get at least 10% ROI. That is, if every team has to spend 100 million$ on players, then you should be able to get at least 110 million$ worth of players for that money, if not alot more. That doesn’t guarantee success, but it certainly gives you a great start.

 
I’d like to thank Tom Tango for participating. He was surprisingly accessible while working with me to put this together. I’d highly recommend visiting his site at Inside the Book - no man combines the beauty of numbers and baseball more seamlessly.

This list is compiled of the best progressive baseball blogs, and resources.

These resources have been invaluable to me. I’m subscribed to every one of them, and much of the commentary posted here is inspired by their innovative ideas and intellect.

What am I missing?

Last week I introduced a series with this data. I decided to scrap the series; there’s already enough sites giving detailed analysis of players and their expected production this season. Here’s the information:

Any surprises? I didn’t expect Fenway to be so stingy to left handed batters.

Excerpt from his site:

The main uses of the MLB Mock Draft Software are (but not limited to):

1. Running practice mock drafts against the computer, where the computer drafts for all of the other teams.
2. As a tool to use during your live draft to help manage your draft process and pick the best possible team.
3. To analyze a team that you already drafted using some other draft method.

——-> Download it Here (Free)

Shawn Hoffman’s Wall Street analysis of major league baseball is one of my favorite reads. I was thrilled when he agreed to answer some questions for us, and share a little bit about his background, and the correlations between fantasy baseball and Wall Street.  

“ I was born and raised in New York City, but was coerced into being an all-around Pittsburgh fan by an overbearing mother. For three years, I worked as a statistical consultant for the University of Michigan baseball team, where we accomplished some things under the radar that I’m extremely proud of. I’ve had a bit of experience working as a Major League office gopher, and I’m currently working as a partner in a web startup that has nothing to do with sports. My greatest passions are business and baseball, and the blog allows me to satisfy both. My favorite baseball players of all-time are Matt Stairs, Frank Thomas, and Barry Bonds, and my favorite non-baseball athletes are Hines Ward and Mario Lemieux.

“ Peter is on a very, very short list of media figures I would actually like to meet. I don’t always agree with everything he writes, particularly when it comes to sabermetrics and analysis. But he’s one of the few journalists in sports today that does his job (breaking stories, bringing readers inside the industry, etc.) incredibly well, without feeling the need to play GM or constantly criticize people.

I think the article you’re referring to is further proof that the world is shrinking very fast. We started this blog in September as a self-indulgent way to hear our own voices, and a couple months later Peter Gammons is mentioning it in his column. I really believe that anyone who does not create some sort of web presence for himself or herself is missing an easy opportunity to get their names out there and connect with people they never would have otherwise.

“ Know who you’re dealing with. There are generally two types of trading partners: those that are competent, and are willing to make mutually beneficial deals, or those that are incompetent, and can be taken advantage of.

With good trading partners, try to look for depth on their team, and your own. That’s the easiest way to make a deal that benefits both sides. Usually these trades can get done pretty quickly, since you both have done your homework. With bad trading partners, exploit their weaknesses. What players are they misevaluating? What information are they not aware of? These are also usually the owners that make trades just to make trades. 

I generally like to stick by my guns.  I make very few trades, unless I’m totally blown away. As soon as a draft ends, people are already making offers. What’s the point? Why pick a guy if you’re just going to trade him five minutes later? Pick the players that you think will help your team the most, and stick by them, because your first evaluations are usually your most thought out.

“ It sounds funny, but fantasy baseball is more like a stock market than the real player market is. Real life teams succeed primarily by drafting and developing their own players. If we consider players to be “stocks,” this would be like saying that the best way for a hedge fund manager to succeed is by starting a number of his own companies.

With fantasy baseball, though, there are no long-term contracts, no marketing investments tied to certain players, no human egos to massage, etc. You are creating a short term portfolio, and each player is essentially his own stock. You have six months to extract as much value out of that portfolio as possible.

With any type of portfolio, you need to constantly reevaluate your own holdings, as well as others’. A great stock today might be a dog tomorrow. If Albert Pujols ends up having Tommy John surgery, his value tanks, just as Apple’s would if Steve Jobs were hit by a bus. That possibility has to be priced in when you decide whether to draft Pujols with your first pick.

“ One great thing about fantasy baseball is that there is no questioning a player’s value. Whatever he does, it’s worth a certain amount of points, depending on your league’s criteria. No arguments.

On the other hand, a negative aspect of fantasy is that these criteria are usually more in line with Bill Plaschke’s view of the world than Bill James’s. I.e., stolen bases are worth as much as home runs.

The key is proper evaluation, regardless of your league format. This is something I have had trouble with when I do fantasy drafts, because I have never been able to force myself to take Juan Pierre over Lance Berkman. But in many leagues, Pierre has been a more valuable player in certain years.

One tenet that spans both worlds is the inherent unreliability of pitchers. Even with everything going his way, I can’t imagine taking Johan Santana in the first round this year, nor would I have signed him to a real-life contract through 2014. With pitchers, you need to rely more on quality out of quantity. I usually stack my early rounds with position players, dabble with maybe 2 or 3 starting pitchers in the first 10 picks or so, and pick my relievers last. Unless you’re in a 20 team league, you should be able to find decent relief pitchers late in the draft.

“ What we want to do with the Data Project is collect any and all financial info we can, but with a particular focus on league and team data. The benefits of this kind of project are almost endless, but the main goal from a sabermetric point of view would be to improve existing Marginal Revenue Product calculations. This would allow us to put a real price on free agents, draft picks, etc. The systems that exist today are far too general to have any real meaning.

Right now, we’re determining what the best platform would be to make the data publicly available for people to use and contribute to. There are several new open database sites that have wiki functionality, but we want to make sure we have the best possible framework before we move forward.

I want to thank Shawn for answering these questions for us thoroughly and insightfully. I’d recommend reading through the archives at his blog Squawking Baseball and subscribing to his feed. He provides a unique take on all things professional baseball.

For those of you reading this via your feed reader, you’re going to have to visit the page to see the graph. It’s an embedded Google Doc.

Yesterday we looked at batters who were unlucky in 2007. Today we look at batters who were lucky in 2007. The higher the “OPS-PrOPS” the more lucky that batter was last season. And the more likely they’re to regress in 2008.

I’m going to use PrOPS developed by JC Bradbury to highlight unlucky batters in 2007 by position. If you want to read more about the nuts and bolts of PrOPS you can here.

All you need to know in this context - is the further “negative” from 0 the more unlucky the batter was last season. Going forward into 2008, the batter’s OPS should be more in line with his PrOPS (Predicted OPS) from last season.

* Positions are clickable

Tools:

1. Line Up Analysis Tool
Enter in a lineup, and see what the lineup’s average run production would look like.

I like to re-arrange team batting orders, and see which ones spit out the highest run totals.

2. StallValue System
Enter in your league settings, and get player dollar values based on your scoring format.

3. Baseball Monster
This player rater updates throughout the regular season. It’s like ESPN’s but offers more customization.

4. Pitch F/X (Read the primer first)
Take a look (pitch by pitch) at any given hurler. See what pitches are thrown, where they’re located, and how effective the various pitch types are.

Downloads:

5. 2001-2007 entire (individual season statistics) in XLS format
Make sure to have last season’s statistics open–during your live online draft–for quick reference.

6. 2008 Player Projections: Marcel | CHONE | ZiPS
Each system has its own strengths and weaknesses. Use all three player forecasts for better precision.

Resources:

7. 2007/2008 Team Transactions
Whose been designated for assignment, placed on the DL, signed, and/or extended?

8. Hit Tracker
This amazing website keeps track of HR distances using a comprehensive system that measures ballpark dimensions.

* This page will be updated as new feedback and commentary comes in. Don’t miss out: Subscribe Here.