rwperu34's 2024 Year In Review

[rwperu34]

This is going to be a long post, so I'm going to break it up. I'm going to cover my overall results (spoiler: they were terrible), the market, and my list. I'll post the new material in the comments and update the OP as I get it written. As always, questions and conversation are welcome.

Results

Let's be clear from the start. I did not make enough money this "fiscal" year to survive without other income. I was fortunate that my Spring Training gig was up up and away (as the old saying goes), so the business is still on track to grow in 2025. With a "normal" Spring Training either the business would have to shrink or I would have been looking for other income.

My cash ROI was a paltry 2.5%. That is terrible (says Captain Obvious)! I did not break into the black until September 6th, over 11 month after I started and 24 days before the end of the year. I had expected to be two months ahead of that pace. In a "normal" year I would expect this to be north of 20%, if not 30%. The last two years were 43% and 47%.

Roll over inventory is up in part because I ran out of time, and in part because I decided it was ok to take some of my profit as extra inventory. My listed inventory is roughly 17% higher than it was at this time last year. If we say the cash value is 50%, that would be another 8.5% in return. In that scenario my total ROI for the year is about 11%.

Lastly, I had credit card rewards of 2% on most of my spend for the year. This is one area that is definitely going to increase next year, because I just picked up the 3% rewards Paypal card.

Cash wise I am a little lighter than when I started my buying for last year, but that was more mid October. I should make up most, if not all of the shortfall before I start my buying. Hopefully that will be within two weeks.

One other area of "down" for me is how many times I cycled through the cash. If you take cash + 50% of listed inventory + credit, last year I went through 3.2x, this year 2x. Even if you remove the credit component (which I didn't really use) I was still at only 2.2x this year. For 2025 I want to get that back closer to 3x.

The Market

When things are going really badly, it can feel like those conditions will last forever. I'm not impervious to those feelings. At the worst of it this year I had all these plans to scrap everything and completely revamp my process. Once I got a couple of months away from the bottom and was able to analyze, I realized that I was just missing a bunch of sales in Feb/Mar/Apr due to the extremely weak market for sellers. Those missing sales turned into a painful, but necessary extra round (or two!) of price cuts.

My Price Index is down 15-20% overall since I started buying last year. I've made money in similar or even more bearish markets. What happened to make this year different? It was a few things;

-The market hit its nadir later than recent years. Still within the range or normal, which is any time between the end of the regular season and Thanksgiving. This year the turning point was Thanksgiving.

-The market hit its peak earlier than normal. Opening Day, give or take a couple of weeks is "normal" peak. This year peak came in mid February, as pitchers and catchers were reporting. Given the late bottom, that is a very short window of rise, leading to a lower than normal peak. The overall market peaked lower this year than it did in 2022...a year in which it dropped 40% overall!

-The market did not stay at peak for very long. By not very long, I mean it started falling immediately. And not some slow fall either. It was so rapid that by early April it had giving away all of the pre spring training gains. By May it was down 10% for the year (and 15-20% since I started buying!). Luckily it leveled off at that point.

It was so bad that in early April I went through and made a 15% across the board market adjustment. By the end of the month (maybe three weeks later), I decided I needed another 15% across the board adjustment. This is before even accounting for performance adjustments!!! which are inevitable and almost always down.

I was simply behind the market every step of the way this year. In order to be ahead of the market, I would have needed that first round of prices cutting to be on Valentine's Day. Who in their right mind is going to slash prices right before was is typically the best 6-10 weeks of selling for the year? I have always said the optimal market for me is one that is flat or up slightly year over year, but with a strong and predictable seasonal cycle. This year was down with a weak and unpredictable seasonal cycle.

The List

Ah yes. The fun part that everybody has been waiting for. There are two ways to judge the list. First is average gain. This is a solid estimation of my forecasting ability. In that regard I did extremely well this year. I haven't tallied up everybody yet, but my guess is the average player that made my list is up by quite a bit. The second is weighted by dollars. This is the important one for how much money I make. In that regard, I did poorly. I'd give much more weight to the second way of judging the list so would say my list did poorly, but not a complete failure.

Pitchers

I'm starting here because this is where I did well. Very well. Very very well. This is what used happened to me in fantasy. I'd finish 2nd in pitching every year...including one year where I literally did not draft a single starting pitcher! I think it's just it's much easier to suss out who is dominant among pitchers. From there you're just betting on the randomness of health.

1) Mason Miller-Let's do the happy dance! This one was a big win. He's up 4x, and my ROI was >100%. I think he's overvalued at this point, by quite a bit. Closers don't get any attention in the hobby, and he plays for the A's. Not the Oakland A's, just the A's.

2) Nick Lodolo-He ended up flat on kind of a down year. Between stints on the IL he was really good to start the year, going 8-3 with a 2.96 ERA through the end of June. That allowed me to sell off a lot of stuff. I'm down slightly, but will call this one a win because I've still got a lot of quality stuff, including a 1st Bowman Auto Red Refractor /5.

3) Caden Dana-Another big win where my ROI is already at 100%. I haven't sold a single card of his since June because I thought I was out. As I was putting the Profit Box together I found a couple of 1st Bowman Auto Refractor /499. He's up about 2.5x on the year.

4) Taj Bradley-My spending here actually exceeded Miller by quite a bit because I was able to continue to buy him throughout the year. I was still picking up cards of his in June! His year wasn't super great, but after missing a month and a half, he got off to fast start. It culminated with a 32 IP 1 ER run that lowered is ERA to 2.43 in late July. Overall his price is up about 30% year over year and he didn't peak super high either, but it still ended up another big win. I've still got a TC Auto Red Refractor /5 to boot.

5) Reid Detmers-This one actually only ends up only a small loss despite an ERA of 6.70 and a demotion that saw him put up a 5.50 ERA in AAA. What happened is his first three starts made Sandy Koufax look like Reid Detmers. That allowed me to sell a lot of stuff at target price or higher. If not for the soft market at that time, I might have been able to eek out a win here. As it is I've got more listed inventory than I'm out $. He's only down 20% for the year, but that's on super low volume. If a normal amount of his stuff were hitting the market right now I suspect he would get crushed. This is a perfect example of how the randomness of order of events can affect success or failure. If those three dominant starts had been his last three, I would have been crushed.

6) Tarik Skubal-Let's see. Pitching Triple Crown. Check. Looming unanimous CYA. Check. 7.5x price appreciation. Check. Does anybody remember the time that guy thought I was crazy for thinking Skubal was a better pitcher than Clayton Kershaw? I wish I could have scored more in the offseason, but older cards tend to be lower volume and cheaper cards tend to be lower volume and he was both.

One other dude worth mentioning is Jackson Ferris. He got traded in the offseason pushing me into "win" territory already. Then I was able to recover plenty of cards that I had sold off and he performed well enough for me to win on those too!

Pretty much every lucky bounce I got this year went to pitchers. That sucks because they are so much cheaper than positional players. Even if I counted all of my spending on Taj Bradley for the entire year, he still would only make honorable mention among position players.

The List

#1-Junior Caminero-What I was hoping for: Win ROY. What happened? The Rays inexplicably sent him to the minors to start the year, then inexplicably called him up a month early so he can't win ROY next year either. He was already falling in the offseason to the point that he was down as the market was hitting its peak. Then he started the year injured forcing his price down farther. Once he started playing he was only OK, coming in a little light on AVG. He's down about 50% and I've still got a ton of stuff left. This one is a loss, although I still have a path to profit.

#2-Brady House-What I was hoping for: Make his big league debut, maintain rookie eligibility, play well enough to secure a starting spot for 2025. What happened: He was on his way to securing 2 out of 3, then I went on a string of vacations, lost track of things, and came back to a .200 BA, .040 ISO, and 30+ K% in September. I think he's still on track to be a big leaguer, but this was a down year, no doubt. Unlike Caminero, he never really had a time where he was selling well, so I've recovered a very small amount of what I spent. Since his price is down 50%, this one is a big loss.

#3-Xavier Isaac-What I was hoping for: Continue his march toward middle of the order masher. What happened? He continued his march toward middle of the order masher. This is one where the market really killed me. He started off a little slow, but by mid May was on fire. He stayed on fire for an entire month. Fangraphs even bumped him to the top 10. Fangraphs is out of their mind, but if you had told me all of that before the season, I would have expected a huge win here. Don't get me wrong. I sold plenty of cards for more than I paid, enough to book a small win, but all in all this one was a disappointment from the financial perspective. He tailed off a bit at the end in AA, but overall his prospect status improved from the 60s to the 30s. All of that netted :checks notes: a 40% drop in price over the year.

#4-Josue De Paula-What I was hoping for: Be a consensus top 50 prospect heading into next season. What happened: He is a consensus top 50 prospect for next season. The story is similar here to #3 Xavier Isaac, including the small win. The main difference is De Paula had his hot streak earlier, hitting the top 50 by Opening Day...without even having played a game. His performance was of the good rather than great variety, but he improved his prospect stock in both my eyes and that of the main sites. Ending up up flat year over year is just the market slapping me across the face.

These two really hurt. For the most part I got what I was looking for and ended up with only small wins.

#5-Anthony Gutierrez-What I was hoping for: Establish himself as a consensus top 100 prospect. What happened? He was pretty much Anthony Gutierrez, so not a top 100 prospect. The speed and defense and height (assuming he's actually 6'3" and not 5'11") are a solid foundation of a good prospect. The problem is he hit like Anthony Gutierrez. If he's going to be a top 100 guy heading into 2026, he's going to have to hit much, much better than Anthony Gutierrez. I think a good indicator of what the Rangers think will be whether he starts the year in AA, or the more likely repeat of A+. Either way, I've taken a big loss on this one, because I've only recovered 1/3 of what I spent and he's down 60% on the year.

#6-Leandro Arias-What I was hoping for: Spend the year in full season ball and don't embarrass me. What happened: He spent the year in full season ball, including getting a late season bump to A+. Whether or not someone is embarrassed is in the eye of the beholder. I've still got him as a "yes" on the yes/no scale, but he obviously needs big improvement to get into the top 100. I like to make a call on everyone, but this one is definitely a TBD, because I was always expecting any big gains to come in 2025. Even though it feels like I haven't sold anything of his, somehow I've recovered 2/3 of what I spent. I've got some huge cards left (golds, blues...etc) with multiples of everything. He's down 50% on the year, but that is on very light volume and high variance.

#7-Blaze Jordan-What I was hoping for: Be a top 100 prospect heading into next season. What happened: He forgot that when you're destined for first base, you're supposed to hit. He did not hit, so will not be anywhere near the top 100. He's still a yes on the yes/no scale, but that's about as far as I can go. I am continuing to lower my price to secure the big loss. He's down about 45% on the year and seems to be gaining somehow. I should run through what little I have left fairly soon.

HM-Michael Harris-I compared him to Corbin Carroll. Here's my quote;

My hope is as they regress toward each other that Harris goes up a little (or a lot), rather than just Carroll coming down.

Well, they both plopped on down years, Harris even more so than Carroll. Chalk up another loss, although it could have been much worse considering his price is down 40%.

HM-Kyle Tucker-As if you need another reason to hate the Astros! Tucker was off to a fantastic start, then had what the Astros referred to as "A shinburger, no big deal". Then about five days later they put him on the IL with no explanation. Then after he misses half the season amid silence, they finally tell us his shin was fractured citing privacy concerns as to why they didn't tell us sooner. Of course every big leaguer in the last 30 years has had every injury reported and the Astros eventually spilled it anyways (so much for privacy!). I'm not a big Trashstros guy, but this type of petty crap irritates me to no end. Overall Tucker was another big win for me even though his price is down 35% on the year.

HM-Moises Ballesteros-Had a very strong year hitting .289 with 19 HR, spending a little over half of his age 20 season in AAA. It's already a big win and I've still got a monster card left (BCA Orange Refractor /25). Of the four teams in the AFL I've seen so far, he is the only player with a swing I actually like.

HM-Gabriel Gonzalez-This is my worst pick ever. He was down 30% by the time I made the list, then continued to plunge as he started the year injured. He was down over half before he even set foot on the field! From there, it did not go well. He's down over 80% from this time last year.

Dudes I Wish I Had More Of

Rafael Devers-Pretty close to a typical Devers year, both for him and for me. He continued his march toward Cooperstown and I picked up a win, plus added some quality to my stash. He's down 28% on the year, which is the median for this list. It's also the exact amount that the median position (#13 overall) in my Price Index fell. I'm guessing that will be true for the rest of the guys I have prices on as well. If you held serve, you plopped 25-30%. Poor performance worse, good performance better.

Jefferson Rojas-This one was like the good ol' days of 2017-2021. He got hot in the offseason and was up quite a bit before he even started playing games, so I was already in really good shape. From there he got off to a hot start, cleaning me out before the end of April. This was a big win with nearly a 100% ROI. His year overall was not noteworthy and he is 20% cheaper now than this time last year.

Thing I Learned In 2024

Normally I give this one its own post, but the learning curve has really flattened for me. The one thing worth sharing that I noticed is, if I have a listed price on a player it saves me time when putting in a bid. The reason is I don't have to price check as often. The other thing is I have more confidence in players that have a starting price (ie their price right now).

On that note, I graded 230 positional prospects this year...a new record. I will put a price on about 175 of those. Then I graded 100 pitching prospects, up from my typical 5-10. About 75 of those will get a price. On the big league side I went team by team to create the "player pool" of 240 batters and 134 pitchers. I figure about 250 of those will get a price. That's a total of 500 prices, plus any 2024 Bowman Chrome guys, plus Bowman Draft, plus any teenagers from 2024 Bowman and the 2023 products that have yet to play in full season ball. It could be 550-600 prices total. That is a lot of work now, but it will save me a ton of time, especially in the runup to pitchers and catchers.