Baseball Game Theory: Round 2

On February 1st, Beyond the Box Score published the results of the SB Nation baseball game theory simulation. The idea was to see how faux-GM's would select players, with the caveat that if two people picked the same player, nobody would get him. A number of strategies were deployed, to varying degrees of success. Overall, 92 players (out of 150) changed teams, and 38.6 percent of the vote didn't count.

Most teams stayed away from the truly elite players, as they were afraid of wasting a selection on someone like Mike Trout, or Paul Goldschmidt. But for the most part, that backfired, and a host of valuable players remained unclaimed.

"The reigning MVP's, Bryce Harper and Josh Donaldson, received a total of zero votes. The reigning Cy Young's, Jake Arrieta and Dallas Keuchel, received a total of zero votes. Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, Carlos Correa, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Miguel Sano, Francisco Lindor, Manny Machado, Sonny Gray, Miguel Cabrera, Chris Sale, and a host of other elite players, received zero votes."

It was fascinating to see, and after the results were revealed, most of the participants were distraught. They couldn't believe the number of players that were left, and immediately regretted their ballots. As a result, a few people reached out to see if we could simulate another round, so they could atone for their mistakes. Thankfully, all 30 original participants were willing to go through the process again, but this time, the results were worse.

As a reminder, the rules are as follows.

1) Any player is fair game. Free agents, minor leaguers, and big leaguers. The pool of players is restricted to those that are, or have been in MLB organizations already. This means that recently defected players (The Gourriel brothers for example), or soon to be posted players are off limits.

2) GM's are prevented from picking a player that's already in their organization. Teams like the Cubs and Mets would have had an enormous advantage over the other 28 teams, as they simply could have cast votes for their respective core five's, and blocked anyone else from having a chance. While it's still difficult to secure a player like Kris Bryant, or Jacob deGrom, allowing a team to submit votes for their own players would have made it impossible.

3) If a team successfully steals a player, his current contract comes with them. So if a team were to acquire Giancarlo Stanton, they would have to be able to afford his salary.

4) The most important rule; no communication between GM's. While SB Nation's previous GM simulation was built upon a dialogue between different teams, allowing GM's to talk to each other about their picks would have completely defeated the point of the exercise.

Overall, 76 players were moved, a decrease of 16 players from the first round. Four teams wound up with all five players they selected; two got four; nine got three; seven got two; seven got one; and one team wound up with zero.

Of the 150 total picks, 74 were for the same player, which translates to 49.3 percent of the vote not counting.

In the table below, red text signifies that a player was selected at least twice, making the pick null and void. The table is arranged according to the team that picked the player, not the team that lost the player.

	1st pick	2nd pick	3rd pick	4th pick	5th pick
Arizona	Dansby Swanson	Aaron Blair	Touki Toussaint	Tyler Skaggs	Justin Upton
Atlanta	Salvador Perez	Maikel Franco	Miguel Sano	Yoan Moncada	Tyler Glasnow
Baltimore	Trevor May	Michael Pineda	Jean Segura	Francisco Cervelli	Michael Conforto
Boston	Yu Darvish	Adam Wainright	Anthony Rendon	Yasiel Puig	Rich Hill
Chicago (NL)	Matt Carpenter	Chris Archer	Noah Syndergaard	Corey Kluber	Brendan Rodgers
Chicago (AL)	Xander Bogaerts	Troy Tulowitzki	Joey Votto	Christian Yelich	Raisel Iglesias
Cincinnati	Addison Russell	Matt Harvey	George Springer	Michael Brantley	Dallas Keuchel
Cleveland	Paul Goldschmidt	Matt Duffy	Mookie Betts	Hector Rondon	Marcell Ozuna
Colorado	Byron Buxton	Lucas Giolito	Dallas Keuchel	Manny Machado	Dillon Tate
Detroit	Anthony Rendon	Jose Fernandez	Chris Archer	Byron Buxton	Raul Mondesi
Houston	Joey Votto	Christian Yelich	Jose Fernandez	Alex Colome	Blake Snell
Kansas City	Giancarlo Stanton	Carlos Carrasco	Jake Odorizzi	Garrett Richards	Julio Urias
Los Angeles (NL)	Gerrit Cole	Orlando Arcia	Craig Kimbrel	Corey Kluber	Yu Darvish
Los Angeles (AL)	Jacob deGrom	Robinson Cano	Chris Archer	Starling Marte	Russell Martin
Miami	Noah Syndergaard	Jacob deGrom	Steven Matz	Robinson Cano	J.D. Martinez
Milwaukee	Chris Archer	Clayton Kershaw	Kris Bryant	Brandon Belt	AJ Pollock
Minnesota	Javier Baez	Jake Odorizzi	Tyler Glasnow	Danny Salazar	Eddy Julio Martinez
New York (NL)	Chris Archer	Francisco Lindor	Manuel Margot	Christian Yelich	Enrique Hernandez
New York (AL)	Drew Smyly	Aaron Nola	Robinson Cano	Joey Gallo	Giancarlo Stanton
Oakland	Andrew Heaney	Ken Giles	Ketel Marte	Nomar Mazara	Carlos Correa
Philadelphia	Giancarlo Stanton	David Price	Max Scherzer	Zack Greinke	Clayton Kershaw
Pittsburgh	Julio Urias	Justin Bour	Rafael Devers	Colin McHugh	Erasmo Ramirez
San Diego	Lucas Giolito	Lewis Brinson	Corey Seager	Alex Reyes	Bradley Zimmer
San Francisco	George Springer	Corey Seager	Dellin Betances	Andrew Miller	Jake Arrieta
Seattle	Jose Fernandez	Anthony Rizzo	Andrew McCutchen	Marcus Stroman	Chris Sale
St. Louis	Jason Heyward	Anthony Rizzo	Kris Bryant	Addison Russell	Kyle Schwarber
Tampa Bay	Manny Machado	Marcus Stroman	Roberto Osuna	David Ortiz	Corey Kluber
Texas	Travis d'Arnaud	George Springer	Jake Odorizzi	Kyle Seager	Jose Abreu
Toronto	Chris Archer	Chris Sale	Noah Syndergaard	Francisco Lindor	Carlos Carrasco
Washington	Jacob deGrom	Giancarlo Stanton	Blake Snell	Lucas Duda	Kyle Schwarber

In this round, the participants were less afraid to go for elite talent, but that undoubtedly backfired. Bryce Harper and Josh Donaldson still received a total of zero votes, but both Cy Young winners were picked (only Arrieta was moved), and both ROY's were taken (only Correa was moved).

With 76 players stolen, the average team had to deal with losing 2.5 players on their respective rosters.

	Players lost	Players Gained	Net change
Arizona	4	5	1
Atlanta	3	4	1
Baltimore	0	5	5
Boston	7	3	-4
Chicago (NL)	5	2	-3
Chicago (AL)	1	3	2
Cincinnati	1	2	1
Cleveland	3	5	2
Colorado	1	1	0
Detroit	2	1	-1
Houston	3	1	-2
Kansas	2	1	-1
Los Angeles (NL)	2	3	1
Los Angeles (AL)	3	2	-1
Miami	2	2	0
Milwaukee	1	2	1
Minnesota	2	3	1
New York (NL)	5	2	-3
New York (AL)	3	3	0
Oakland	1	5	4
Philadelphia	2	3	1
Pittsburgh	4	4	0
San Diego	1	3	2
San Francisco	2	3	1
Seattle	2	1	-1
St. Louis	3	1	-2
Tampa Bay	3	2	-1
Texas	4	3	-1
Toronto	3	0	-3
Washington	1	1	0

During the first round of the simulation, the Padres and Tigers were the only two teams to make it through without losing a player; but that wasn't the case in round two. San Diego lost Manuel Margot, and Detroit had to part ways with their newly acquired outfielder Justin Upton, and J.D. Martinez. Baltimore was the only team this time to not lose a player, whereas last round the Rockies stole Kevin Gausman.

Once again, the Red Sox had the worst luck, as they had seven players stolen. Yoan Moncada, Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, Craig Kimbrel, David Price, Rafael Devers, and David Ortiz are all on the move, which was an improvement over the first round where they lost nine players.

The most frequently selected position player was Giancarlo Stanton, with four votes. In the first round, only the Phillies took a risk on him, but this time they weren't alone, as the Royals, Yankees, and Nationals tried to acquire him. As for the pitchers, Chris Archer was taken a whopping six times. He didn't accrue a single vote the first time we went through this process, but teams clearly noticed that, and hoped that they were the only one.

Perhaps the most interesting strategy that was played this round was that two teams picked the exact same players, with a third picking four of their original five. The thought process was likely that they assumed teams would stay away from previously picked players, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. Of the teams to deploy that line of thinking, the Phillies had the best result, as they still wound up with David Price, Max Scherzer, and Zack Greinke.

This round seemingly didn't have a clear winner,  although Oakland has a strong case. They successfully stole five players, and all of them were from division rivals. Their biggest get was undoubtedly Carlos Correa, who they would have under control through 2022.

At least for this year, this will be the final iteration of our game theory simulation. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did overseeing it. Thanks again to all our participants, and like last time, a few of the faux-GM's should be adding their thought process to the comments section.

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Matt Goldman is a Contributing Editor with Beyond the Box Score and MLB Daily Dish. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheOriginalBull.