Seeing as my previous post is generating a lot of interest, I thought I’d go back and quantify player value, and compare that with average draft position.

Assuming a standard 12-team draft with 21 rounds (Yahoo! fantasy baseball parameters), 252 players will be taken. So the formula I came up with was this:

Value = (Projected fantasy value) / (252 – ADP)

Projected fantasy value was generated using my PRS model, taking into account four major projections (PECOTA, ZiPS, RotoAuthority, and CHONE), and ADP was taken from the excellent (and free) fantasygameday.net resource. Admittedly, this is just a rough first pass equation. But the results are interesting:

Most undervalued players at each position (out of the top 12)

C: Bengie Molina, Geovany Soto, Jorge Posada

1B: Joey Votto, Adrian Gonzalez, Albert Pujols

2B: Kelly Johnson, Dustin Pedroia, Dan Uggla

SS: Jhonny Peralta, Michael Young, Orlando Cabrera

3B: Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Fields, Ryan Zimmerman

OF: Melky Cabrera, Josh Willingham, Matt Kemp

SP: Pedro Martinez, Jered Weaver, Tim Hudson

CL: Matt Capps, Rafael Soriano, Huston Street

What does this tell us? These players will probably overachieve relative to where they are being drafted; they are the underrated around fantasy baseball leagues everywhere. So they are the likely bargains to be had on your big day. Happy drafting!