The Misleading Yearly Statistics

[DOUGHBOYS]

This is the time of year when folks start reciting stats to back up players. They'll do this in chat rooms of drafts, on message boards, podcasts, the MLB Channel, everywhere.
It is all blah, blah.

Yearly stats mean little when the season begins.
Let me tell you a story.
Last year, I was in a head to head fight with another team in my Main Event league.
It was the middle of September and my starting pitching was getting shredded.
Chris Sale had carried me most of the year, but he faltered with a lot of late starts.
Madison Bumgarner was more of a project for the Giants in watching his innings, when coming back from his tricycle injury, then being the horse he was supposed to be.

Long story short, my best pitcher over the last three starts was a FAAB pickup, Kyle Gibson.
Trusting Gibson was tough, but he was a hot hand.
On September 17, he was scheduled against the Blue Jays.
I had doubts.
Toronto was hitting well, Josh Donaldson and Justin Smoak were especially hot.
But, I chose to go with Gibson who, at the time, I trusted more than others with a lot better stats for the season.

I died with each bad pitch.
He gave up a single to Carrera.
A homer to Donaldson.
Two batters, two runs.
He then would walk batters and gave up another hit.
By the time the first inning was over, it was 4-0.
The top of the second saw Donaldson hit another bomb.
5-0.
I cursed Kyle Gibson.
I cursed Bob Gibson.
I cursed Henry Gibson.
And I cursed Mel Gibson.
I wished I'd never heard the name 'Gibson'.
A fantasy horror.

That horror movie turned into a fairy tale.
The Twins scored seven runs in the bottom of the second inning. Seven!
Three things were on my mind as they scored those runs...
1. Did the Twins trust Gibson to run him back out for the third inning....
2. Would I be better or worse for it one way or the other...
3. Could I really get a W out of this mess.....

The Twins did trust Gibson to come out for the third inning.
He was a different pitcher.
He mowed down the Blue Jays for four innings.
He did not allow another hit and struck out eight batters.
When he left the game after six innings, the Twins were ahead, 13-5.
I won my league by half of a point.
It wouldn't be a win at all if that game had gone differently.
One game, one night, millions of circumstances.
None, captured by yearly statistics.

We square peg yearly statistics into the round hole of daily or the weekly play that is our game.
For three or four weeks last year, I trusted Kyle Gibson, a 5 something ERA guy over a year, more than Chris Sale or Madison Bumgarner who had ERA's that started with a 2 over some of their career.
We forget that baseball ebbs and flows.
'Experts' like to use the word 'regression'.
Regression happens in season. Not just from season to season.
Chris Sale in September was not the same Chris Sale as in April.
We may look at our drafts as pieces of art after completed.
The season takes that art and shits on it.
And from that bowel movement, players like Kyle Gibson emerge.
Players like Gibson are never 'projected' well.
Nobody would ever defend him using his yearly stats.
But, players like him can become invaluable over short periods of time.

We tend to think of players in overall worth.
Yearly statistics do that.
They leave out the guts of the fantasy season.
The day-to-day injury, the slumps, the bad weather.
Even a second or third round pitcher can be benched if he has turned in two or three consecutive clunkers and is facing a good team in the next match-up.
Yearly stats don't reflect that.
We scoff at comparisons such as Yu Darvish and Kyle Gibson.
Yet, Gibson was doing something Darvish was not doing.
Winning.
In fact, we can use yearly stats in saying that Gibson won 12 games, Darvish only ten.

Our fantasy seasons are broken down into 27 weeks.
Each week, like a new chapter in a book.
We have the same characters or players. Each getting into trouble or shining.
While each chapter also introduces new characters from FAAB.
For a short time, those players are invaluable.
And their yearly statistics will never agree.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Just to follow up a bit on this theme....

I see Jarrod Dyson and Rajai Davis and Ben Revere taken in a lot of DC's.
There is only one reason we select these players and that is their speed.
At a later point of the draft, they have more stolen bases than any other players on the draft board.
The problem is applying those stolen bases.
None of these players can be counted on to start two games of a three game series.
The truth is that we look for at bats or 'chances' first when making lineups.
The more chances we have at a home run or stolen base, the better.

Applying these speedsters to get their stolen bases is difficult.
They'll be a defensive replacement or a pinch runner.
Problematic for us in that although they had more steals than any other players on the draft board, those steals will come while riding our bench.
No help.

Maybe, in the future we could have league statistics.
As of now, we can look at every team's statistics. And that's all well and good.
What I'd like to see is batting and pitching stat leaders for the league, while those players were in starting lineups.
A lot of the top players would mirror the stats used for MLB, but as the players we choose get more difficult to choose, there'll be a noticeable difference.
If Dyson stole 30 bases during the 2018 season, it would be interesting to see how he finished among each of our fantasy league leaders.
Again, I know that we can see other teams fantasy usage of players, it would just be nice if it mirrored league leaders like MLB.
Our usage of players as opposed to a players yearly stats are vastly different once getting past the top layer of players.