Changing Our Layout
2007-06-28 14:05:00
We will be changing the layout of the blog slightly to make it more user friendly. We are going to post the title of the article with a short summary, and to read the whole article just click on the "read more" link. We tend to have long posts and this will allow readers to browse a lot more easily. If any readres have thoughts I will consider them of course!! I hope this makes our blog a little more user friendly. this will be on a going forward basis, but i will try to amend the more recent posts. I hope you all like it .
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Is Eric Byrnes a "Lemon?"
2007-06-28 14:04:00
Taking a Look at whether Eric Byrnes is a "lemon" His owners can only say WOW at this point; what a first half of a season! In an earlier post I discussed the trading of "lemons" for "cherries." One type of lemon is a guy who is far outperforming his typical standards. So, is Eric Byrnes a "lemon?" As you may know from my prior posts, Byrnes' owner has been shopping him all around the league, and has just posted another trade for him (the prior one discussed in the post about Failing To Have a Plan was successfully countered.)His stats to date are tremendous; 12 HR 42 RBI 14 SB .313/.360/.510. He is in the Top Ten on playertrack.com (see Rob Reed's BaseballGeeks site). Clearly this is an outstanding performance. But it is not one that is likely to continue, at least in the "slash" stats.According to The Hardball Times, his BABIP is a lusty .343, the norm is .300. Career wise, his hit rates and contact rates are as follows:2003: 29% Hit Rate 81% Contact Rate2004: 32%-83%2005: 25%-82%2
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What Happened to Matt Cain?
2007-06-27 16:44:00
Has Matt Cain regressed from last year or is he unlucky?? The answer may be surprising.I drafted Matt Cain in two shallow mixed leagues in the hopes that he would continue and build on last year's performance:IP W L ERA WHIP190 13 12 4.15 1.28Cain also struck out nearly a batter an inning, and the era was inflated by a 69% strand rate, which means that his relievers allowed 31% of Cain's baserunners to score (75% to 80% is the norm). Cain also had a strong second half in 2006, striking out over a batter an inning, with a 3.36 era and a 1.21 whip. Cain's hit rate was 29% (.290 batting average for balls in play) for both halves of the year, which means that the gains were attributable to skill, not luck. The main concern going into 2007 was the high walk rate: 4.1 per 9 inn.So far this year:IP W L ERA WHIP96.3 2 8 3.46 1.31Sure, the W-L record is disappointing, but the ERA is only .1 higher than his strong second half of 2006. This year, the relatively low ERA is more due to luck than
Trade Posting Rules and Fair Trading
2007-06-27 08:06:00
A look at whether trade posting rules, generally used in tougher leagues, might benefit your league.Just to go back to my prior post on the owners in my high stakes league that have no apparent plan, and the story of Cortes, I wanted to make a point about "strategic moves" and commitment. In any strategic conflict or "game" to use game theory terminology, the eventual outcome of a game can often be discerned by the parameters. This happens because of the assumption that both parties are looking to maximize their return. So, in a game where the order in which participants act is determined beforehand, the party who acts first can usually divine what his opponent will do by looking forward and reasoning back.However, what might seem like a predetermined outcome can be changed, by the use of a "strategic move" by the party to act second. Essentially, he can signal to the other party that he will do X or Y even if it does not necessarily maximize his return. The only way this works, howeve
Read more: Trade
, Posting
, Rules
, Trading
DiceK and the Rookie of the Year
2007-06-25 12:51:00
Looking at how Japanese plyers have fared in ROY voting, and predicting how DiceK will do this year. There is a perception among the cognoscenti that Japanese players have a more difficult time winning the Rookie
of the Year (ROY) award, based upon the fact that many voters do not consider them to be true "rookies" because of their service time in Japan's Professional Baseball League. Will this "perception" affect (Andrew DiceK) Matsuzaka's ROY prospects for 2007. (Has Berman used this obvious permutation yet?) First, let's examine whether in recent history a deserving Japanese ROY candidate was denied:In 2000 and 2001, the AL ROY awards went to Kaz Sasaki (then age 32) and Ichiro (then age 28). Sasaki, with 37 saves, won by default, beating out a weak field headed by Terence Long, Mark Quinn (the Eskimo?) and Bengie Molina, who had a sneaky-good rookie campaign with .739 ops in 473 at bats. Ichiro romped in the ROY voting (27-1 1st place votes over CC Sabathia) and even won the MVP
The Up and Down Year of Ian Kinsler
2007-06-25 10:54:00
It has been a roller coaster ride for his owners. What can you expect going forward?? A big rebound.(Ed Note: The day after this post BaseballHQ did their own look at Kinsler. I guess they are reading this blog!) It has been a roller coaster for Kinsler this year. After a very hot April, he has cooled down considerably. What can we expect going forward?? Here are his monthly splits:April: 9 HR 22 RBI 4 SB .298/.379/.667May: 1 HR 5 RBI 3 SB .174/.248/.278June: 3 HR 5 RBI 4 SB .242/.338/.452Forget Jekyll and Hyde, he has been Bonds and Neifi Perez. The surprise is that he was a model of consistency last year after May:June: .253/.322/.443July .293/.358/.434Aug: .273/.328/.373September: .267/.327/.444The difference?? Merely statistical variation, or "bad luck." In 2006 his contact rates ranged from 81% to 87% in the months above. In 2007, they have been 85%, 79% and 90% respectively. This variation in contact rate has led to a large swing in hit rate, which is currently at a piddling 2
Looking at Save Percentages
2007-06-23 15:44:00
Some pretty poor advice from a podcaster on closers and save percentages. Here is why his advice is flawed. On a podcast recently one fantasy website maven was discussing the save percentage stat. The recommendation was to only view as secure in their jobs those closers that had 90% save percentages; namely they save 90% of the opportunities. Otherwise, they are to be considered vulnerable. Some specific targets were Jose Valverde, Todd Jones and a few others.Clearly this is lazy advice. 90% is way too high a standard and in any event save percentage should have very little to do with your evaluation of whether a closer is vulnerable or not. For reference here are the career save percentages for a few closers:Trevor Hoffman: 89%Mariano Rivera 88%Lee Smith 82%Jeff Reardon 77%John Franco 81%Troy Percival 86%Tom Henke 85%There are some obvious factors that are more important than save percentage that are not news to anyone, but just to point them out:Skills (K rate, BB rate, Hit rate etc
Has Justin Verlander Turned the Corner?
2007-06-21 06:13:00
Has Verlander become an Ace?? Well, almost. Here's our view.Fresh off his no-hitter there has been a lot of buzz around Verlander. I thought it might be interesting to take a look and see if he has become the stud that fantasy owners have hoped for.Right now it appears he is still a step short of stud status. His numbers as of today look to all the world like he is a top 5 or ten pitcher:8-2 2.90 ERA 1.16 WHIP 7.4 K/9IP.However he has been helped by a low hit rate of 27%. BaseballHQ has his xERA (expected ERA)at 3.83. The Hardball Times has his xFIP (his expected ERA independent of fielding) at an even more pessimistic 4.40. I think the record here indicates that he has been lucky so far.His skills are very solid but not at elite status, confirming the somewhat pessimistic view of the HQ and Hardball Times metrics: 7.4 K/9IP, 3.2 BB/9IP, 2.3 K/BB ratio. These numbers reveal that he still has a bit of an issue with his control. However he has shown very nice gains over his short caree
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I Made a Trade!
2007-06-20 20:55:00
It's been too long since my last post. When I did, I was "taking stock" of my team, with the hopes of remaking my team for a run at the money spots. Well, life got in the way; some good (weekend in Atlantic City) and some bad (death in the family).Fortuitously, in my NL only league, an owner decided to dump, and posted a "fire sale" type email last Friday. I had responded that while I don't have the kind of keepers to net me a Ryan Howard, I did have three "B" list keepers in John Maine (at $6), Chris Duncan (at $3) and Alex Gonzalez at ($5).The email was ignored for a week, but the owner responded today by listing his remaining non-keeper players. Turns out, he had just completed a blockbuster-type deal in which he obtained an $8 Hanley Ramirez.My situation: I'm 6th in a tightly bunched race from 3rd to 8th in my 11 team NL only league. I'm solid in pitching, first in saves and near the top in whip/era. While I could use some wins, I really need hitting. I'm in the bottom 3rd in
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Where Did All These Great Catchers Come From??
2007-06-20 14:16:00
Those of you who haven't been playing this game for a long time may not be aware of how bad this position used to be. If you were in an NL or AL only league there were years when there were only one or two good catchers in the entire league. I should point out, however, that though there are lots of good catchers out there, in my high stakes league I have Rod Barajas and Miguel Montero in the NL and Dioner Navarro in the AL (in addition to one of the guys below). Ugh. I cannot recall when there have been this many good fantasy catchers out there, and we are NOT even including Joe Mauer, Brian McCann, Ivan Rodriguez or John Buck, who do not merit this discussion at least so far this year.Here are the top contenders for this season:Russ Martin-.292/.361/.404 8HR 43RBI 11SB. Many analysts think he is the most valuable fantasy catcher, and it isn't hard to see why. 11 SB from the catcher position? He is John Wathan with actual hitting skills. It is hard to imagine that he will continue t
Read more: Great
, Catchers
Cristian Guzman is Actually Valuable??!! Not for Long...
2007-06-20 06:43:00
How could this happen?? Fantasy Owners are well aware of his history of execrable performance, so I won't repeat it here. Lets see what he has been up to this year:2007: 1 HR 10 RBI 2 SB .325/.379/.461 in 169 PA. Perhaps the most amazing stat is his walk rate of 8%. It is typically around 5%. Moreover, BaseballHQ has his xBA at a solid .285, and he has an 87% contact rate. Is this genuine improvement?At first glance it appears so. However, lets look a bit closer. He has a 37% hit rate and a .368 BABIP. These are unsustainable numbers. He has 50 hits in 169 PA, with 154 AB. At an 87% contact rate, that means he has put the ball in play 134 times, with 50 hits. But if we normalize his hit rate/BABIP to 30% or .300, he would have only 40 hits. So we have a difference of a mere ten hits. While significant in terms of his stats right now, ten hits should hardly negate years of terrible performance.Moreover, he is hitting ground balls 61% of the time, far more than he has historically. In t
Read more: Actually
The Perils of Failing to Have a Plan
2007-06-19 06:24:00
There is a new team in one of my leagues, and based on their recent trade postings it appears that they have little in the way of a cohesive plan.When he was charged with the duty of taking Mexico from the Aztecs, Hernan Cortes came up with a unique plan. He was faced with an army that was outnumbered, that was grousing about their plight, that was undercutting him to each other. Essentially, his army still had the hope that they would go home to Spain. Cortes had a problem; how could he galvanize this army into fighting a winning battle against a superior force? He started burning their ships, so that they had no choice but to fight. With no ships the army would have to abandon all hope of returning home and would now be forced to fight to win. This plan succeeded.There are two lessons for the Fantasy General from the story of Cortes, both of which were not followed by the owners mentioned above. The first is to actually have a plan. This is the simpler part; you need to decide what y
Rafael Furcal's Paradox of Reliability
2007-06-18 09:45:00
In my high stakes league a team posted a trade involving Rafael
Furcal, so I took a closer look at Furcal. He was one of my main targets going into my auction; my auction plan involved me getting one of the group of Furcal, Reyes and Rollins as "Plan A" with various default positions depending on what happened. It just goes to show that you are better off being lucky than good. I got Rollins and not Furcal, but it could easily have gone the other way.To date, Furcal has hit 1 HR. However aside from power it appears that the rest of his season is in line with what could reasonably be expected from his hitting. His SB are down also, with only 7 to date, which appears at this point to be a function of his opportunities; a 20-25 SB season is still within the realm of possibility with some offensive improvement. But can this be expected?Currently, his line is as follows: 1 HR 25 RBI 7 SB .285/.352/.376, 89% contact rate, 9% BB rate, 32% hit rate, 0.93 walk/strikeout ratio. Shandler h
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Jon Daniels the "Boy Genius"
2007-06-18 06:47:00
Pete Pascarelli struck a blow for the old guard in his ESPN Baseball Today podcast on Wednesday. He was discussing the Rangers' foibles, and with obvious derision stated that their mistake was hiring a "boy genius" like Daniels
, and that "like other boy geniuses he has had a problem making good decisions." I, like other statistically inclined Generals, immediately thought that Pascarelli was pulling a Murray Chass. But was he right??Daniels clearly got off to a bit of a rough start, making both the Soriano trade and the Adam Eaton trade. We can have our doubts about the Soriano trade, and perhaps in an alternate universe Soriano boarded an Oceanic Air flight and ended up on an island with Yunjin Kim and Evangeline Lilly (though that is my dream, not his), while Wilkerson ended up as a perennial All- Star. But it appears to me that, for now, Daniels has righted his ship.The Rangers' starting pitching stinks but none of those guys were brought in by Daniels. All pre-existed his tenure
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Some of My Favorite Baseball Quotes
2007-06-14 12:38:00
With Generals Finkelstein and Tomasulo on my back about writing too much and too seriously, I thought I would lighten it up a bit by naming my favorite baseball quotes.1. Lenn Sakata, after a game winning hit, was asked by a reporter "what were you looking for in that situation." Answered Sakata, "Something white, coming through."2. "I would love to have a guy that always gets the key hit, a pitcher that always makes his best pitch and a manager that can always make the right decision. The problem is getting him to put down his beer, come out of the stands and do those things."--Danny Murtaugh3. "Being up all night with a girl never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for that girl that does him in"--Casey Stengel, (not, apparently, speaking to A-Rod about his strip club visit).4. You know it's summertime at Candlestick when the fog rolls in, the wind kicks up, and you see the center fielder slicing open a caribou to survive the ninth inning." --Bo
Read more: Favorite
, Quotes
Looking at Torii Hunter
2007-06-14 08:18:00
Needless to say Hunter
has been a huge surprise, one of the top five fantasy players this year. As of this moment he is at 14 HR 53 RBI 10 SB .312/.351/.571. I must have missed it when he turned into Justin Morneau. I was listening to the Baseball Geeks podcast (which is one of the very few worth listening to) and they were mentioning the Player Track rankings, with which I am not familiar. So I took a look and sure enough Hunter was ranked at number 2 (!) Can he maintain this pace or anything close to it?He has a 34% hit rate. This should, in theory, revert back to his career norm, and he has almost always been in the 29% or 30% range. However, unlike is the case for pitchers (who in most instances will revert to form) a great hitter can maintain a hit rate above 30%; they are simply talented enough to do it. Hunter though seems unlikely to maintain his .312 BA. 34% is out of the normal range for him and well outside of the normal "noise" one would expect from a statistical perspectiv
A Note on "Strategy" versus "Tactics"
2007-06-13 13:59:00
One thing I notice in my daily reading is that there are many many sites and blogs devoted to tactics, but very little devoted to strategy. There is a distinction between the two that I think many people miss, and i is why we hope that this blog will be valuable to its' readers.The term "Tactics" pertains to the everyday moves that you make. It could be the trade of a player, moving guys up or down, taking advantage of roster moves and news etc. Most of what you read on fantasy baseball pertains to tactics. Anything that helps you in the management of your team in the short term is basically an issue of tactics. These are obviously of vital importance, and we do address tactics here on occasion, though not to the degree of most fantasy sites of blogs. This is because there is no shortage of this information.Strategy
, on the other hand, pertains to your long term view of your team, and the overall plan that your tactics are meant to put into action. Here, there is a decided dearth of i
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Follow The Leader Strategies and A Recent High Stakes Trade
2007-06-13 08:21:00
In the America's Cup in 1983, Dennis Conner committed a fatal blunder, based on his failure to use a "follow the leader" strategy, leading to the first loss by America in that event. Essentially, the basic strategy in sailboat racing when you are the leader is to follow whatever the trailing boat does. In this way the trailing boat can never gain on you; if he has the wind you will also, if he doesn't well neither will you, but he still cannot gain. This is a dominant strategy in game theory parlance. In that event, Conner had a 3-1 lead and in what should have been the final race, he kept his boat to the right of the course. The opposing captain, hoping to get lucky by gambling on a wind shift, sailed to the left. The rest is history.I always thought this was a fascinating story and a good lesson to any strategist. When you have a dominant strategy or a simple strategy that will work, then you are making a blunder in failing to use it. If you have a dominant strategy you ne
Read more: Trade
, Leader
, Strategies
, Recent
, Stakes
Looking at the Diamondbacks' Young Players
2007-06-12 18:59:00
Going into my high stakes league auction I was enamored, as were many others, at the potential of the Arizona young players. I traded a $13 Ervin Santana for a $7 Stephen Drew, I kept a $7 Carlos Quentin, traded a $4 Reed Johnson for Jose Valverde, auctioned Miguel Montero for $5, Edgar Gonzalez for $2 and Juan Cruz for $1. After my auction I "invested" in a Diamondbacks
hat, and have watched a good portion of their games on Extra Innings. Have they rewarded my faith?? In a word, no. Here is how they all look so far:1. Stephen Drew--I talked about him in a prior post, namely that he was overrated, most likely, based on his actual performance. I took a chance on him, and figured that I would be able to dump him if he didn't pan out. But going into the auction I must admit that I was swayed off of my opinion by all the stuff I read (so much for the "independence" prong of expertise). To date, he still hasn't improved much, if at all, since my trade. He is at .240/.302/.346. At least th
Read more: Players
Evaluating some OFs in a Mixed League
2007-06-11 10:06:00
In my 12 team, non-keeper mixed league I needed to pick up an outfielder. Below are the main guys that were under consideration. Of course there were more but these were the only guys with serious consideration. For background here is the offensive point structure:1B - Singles1 point2B - Doubles2 points3B - Triples3 pointsBB - Walks (Batters)1 pointE - Errors-1 pointHP - Hit by Pitch1 pointHR - Home Runs4 pointsR - Runs1 pointRBI - Runs Batted In1 pointSB - Stolen Bases2 pointsThe guys under consideration:Chris YoungRyan ChurchMark TeahenRandy WinnHere were my thoughts on each guy:Chris Young--Clearly he will not be hitting for a high batting average this year. He is batting .253, and his xBA is only .255. That OBP hurts in traditional roto, but in a head to head points league, his combo of power and skill is valuable. With the above point structure a power hitter with low OBP is likely to be more valuable than a singles hitter. Young has above average power and only a 27% hit rate so
Read more: Mixed
, League
Taking Stock - 2b/ss/3b
2007-06-10 14:00:00
In the past week, my NL only team caught fire, nosing into 4th place, only 4 points out of first. All of those gains were given back by Oliver Perez, Francisco Cordero and batters going 6 for 41 on Saturday. I'm not worried about Perez/Cordero, but I am worried about my hitting. If I'm going to compete this year, now's my time to make a move, so I intend to complete "taking stock" this week, and to try to get a deal done within two weeks.I'm not thrilled with my 1B situation, which I analyzed in a post a few days ago. Moving right along, the rest of my infield situation is ok at best:Second BaseJs. Valentin, Mets, 5 s2I auctioned Valentin as a source of cheap power, and understood that he could be a drag on average; with 25 hr potential, getting him for 5 at the auction seemed like a steal. He started off well, then got hurt, and has now returned to the lineup. I missed a chance to get Damien Easley in the FAAB draft the Wednesday after Valentin's injury. I bid 8; Easley went for
Read more: Taking
, Stock
Offense and Defense as a Fantasy General
2007-06-08 13:34:00
"Those who excel at defense bury themselves away below the lowest depths of the Earth. Those who excel at offense move from above the greatest heights of Heaven. Thus they are able to preserve themselves and attain victory."This is one of my favorite Sun-Tzu quotes and has surprisingly profound applications. But since we are Fantasy General
s, we must look at how this applies to fantasy baseball.The import of the quote is clear; the road to success lies in knowing yourself and then taking advantage of your strengths in the best possible way. One who excels at defense will bury themselves below the earth; from what better position can such a person defend themselves?? You avoid defeat and disaster by taking advantage of your peculiar skills. One who excels at offense moves from the heights of Heaven; how better to take advantage of your offensive skills. The army that moves like this will be like a ton against an ounce.How to take advantage? Well, as a Fantasy General you must of course
Read more: Offense
, Defense
Tempering Your Enthusiasm For Minor Leaguers
2007-06-08 12:35:00
I am sure that many fantasy players are now curious about how or when they can acquire the recently drafted players, dreaming of getting next year's Tim Lincecum or Chad Cordero. I once played in a league that allowed you to pick up any player at any time as long as they were under contract. That means that in that league you could pick up David Price as soon as he signed even though he never threw a pitch. In fact what happened was that the owners would snatch up these guys as soon as they were able. Occasionally this strategy worked, but more often it blew up in their face. Even outside that league, many players put undue emphasis on picking up minor leaguers.On his BaseballHQ site, Ron Shandler wrote an excellent piece on Thursday. He made the observation, that those in mixed leagues have no reason to be following minor leaguers. This is advice that I have long followed myself and intended to write today regarding the draft until he stole my thunder.In one of my leagues this year,
Read more: Enthusiasm
, Minor
Part III--Josh Beckett
2007-06-07 19:39:00
Continuing my analysis of some big name players that I believe will continue on their current pace, thereby thwarting the wisdom of the "buy low, sell high" cliche, lets take a look at Josh Beckett
.Of course, we first must consider the blister/avulsion, a recurring theme with Beckett. If your risk tolerance is low then by all means avoid him. But let's take a look at what can be expected if he stays healthy.His hit rate is 29% and his strand rate is 71% both about what would be expected. He has 8.3 K/9IP, 2.3 K/9IP representing excellent core skills. This data indicates that his performance is not generated by luck, except for possibly his Wins total; which in most cases is largely a factor beyond any pitcher's control.His historical record is interesting; 2006 clearly is an outlier, in terms of skills:2003: 9.6 K/9IP 2.7 BB/9IP2004: 8.8 K/9IP 2.8 BB/9IP2005: 8.4 K/9IP 2.9 BB/9IP2006: 6.9 K/9IP 2.1 BB/9IP2007: 8.3 K/9IP 2.3 BB/9IPSo what do we have?? We have a pitcher who had improve
Baserunning strategy, and "Infield in" redux
2007-06-07 15:52:00
Last night's Mets-Phils game was extremely painful to watch, and even more painful for Endy Chavez. For those of you who don't know, the Mets squandered 6 innings of shutout ball when Heilman gave up a 3 run job on a 1-2 count in the top of the 7th. The Mets rallied in the next inning, getting runners on second and third, with none out, down by one.From 30 years of data, compiled and presented by wallkoffbalk: http://winexp.walkoffbalk.com/expectancy/searchhome teams have won at a 71.1% rate (59/83) when faced with that situation. The Mets pinch hit Julio Franco in the pitcher's slot. The Marlins did not play the infield in, even at the corners.Allowing the run to score while getting the out at first is a fairly win neutral play, with home teams winning at a 69% rate (306/442) with a runner at third, one out, in a tie game.If the runner at third is does not attempt to score, and the batter is out at first base, then with runners on second and third, one out, the win expectancy drops
Fantasy All Stars - Infield (Continued)
2007-07-01 18:49:00
The Generals continue with their fantasy All Star awards for the first half. First BaseNL - The Fresh Prince of Miller FieldAB R HR RBI OPS299 57 27 66 .982Right now, he's the second best (to ARod) fantasy hitter in baseball. No NL 1B comes close. He hits homers in bunches, and takes out unsuspecting second basemen with belly flops in the infield. This year, Pujols has some catching up to do (not that he's incapable). Fielder's hit % is only 28, so there's even some upside for a higher average in the second half. Will he hit 60? Pujols, Ryan Howard and Fielder makes for an exciting big 3 at 1B in the NL.AL - Justin Morneau MINAB R HR RBI OPS286 50 20 61 .903The AL crop is really thin this year, with Morneau's 20 home runs beating K Youklis BOS - (the greek god of obp - .416) and his 502 slg. Morneau's .279 avg is suppressed by a .27 hit rate, and his "Baseball HQ" xba is 313. HQ projects another 20 HR and 60 RBI's for the 2nd half, which w
Fantasy All Stars - Infield
2007-06-30 09:47:00
The Generals examine the Fantasy All Stars for the first half, and their prospects for the second half, beginning with Catchers. With the All Star break rapidly approaching, it's time to look at the best fantasy performers at each position. For purposes of this analysis, we will only look at this year's performance. No automatic bids for just showing up. To make this list, you need to be the best performer thus far.Catchers:NL: Russell Martin (LAD)This one is easy. Martin is having an amazing fantasy season:AB R HR RBI OPS271 45 9 51 .845 . . . AND 13 SBs!!A .300 hitting 20-20 catcher? Fantasy Gold. The Baseball HQ indicators of base performance indicate that his performance is sustainable. His xba is .303 vs. a "real" avg of .298. His power and speed ratings are at above average levels for an mlb hitter, let alone a catcher. There's a strong argument that powered by his lofty sb totals for a catcher, he is the best fantasy catcher in baseball right now. Tw
Some Fallacious Thinking About "Second Half" Players
2007-06-29 12:24:00
Looking at how to analyze alleged "second-half" players". In a recent podcast, a fantasy baseball "expert" was discussing the expected rebound of certain alleged "second half" players. The podcaster listed certain pitchers that he thought would have second half rebounds. Why am I mentioning this as a fallacy?? Well, maybe it is true in some instances, but here, specifically are the players mentioned by this podcaster:Matt Cain, Erik Bedard, Kelvim Escobar, Jon Garland, Joe Nathan, Francisco Cordero, Francisco Rodriguez.These are all very talented pitchers; with the possible exception of Garland all have tremendous skills that needn't be addressed here; we all know them. The premise of the podcast was that these were all "second half" players, because they all performed appreciably better in the second half last year. Do you see the problem here? Just to look at one or two here (since the point is easily made) here is a look at Joe Nathan. As I am writing this he has a 2.59 ERA, 1.40 W
Read more: Second
, Players
The Big Picture
2007-07-04 08:25:00
A short note on the genesis of this blog.Now that we have settled in here at the blog, I wanted to just discuss what our mission here is and why I started the blog. The genesis of the blog was the proliferation of bad advice out there, and the dearth of any serious advice to those who are looking at The Big Picture
. I listen to lots of baseball related podcasts and radio shows, and have always found it interesting that most fantasy GMs appear to lack a basic plan or idea for their team's big picture.Sadly, this is a problem endemic not just to fantasy baseball but to the world in general. There are just too many people who want a formula; they would rather be given a recipe to follow than to develop one on their own. People blindly follow their political party, or argue for political positions without even a modicum of thought as to what is going on in reality. Others look to psychics and frauds for advice instead of considering the reality of the world and what these con artists are
Holding Tight On James Shields
2007-07-03 08:27:00
Its all good, fellow owners of James
Shields
, so don't worry.With three straight losses, and a ballooning ERA, Shields' owners may be starting to get nervous. Lenny Melnick on his podcast with Paul Greco, addressed Shields as a sell high candidate. I agree with this, if you can get full value, but if you are trading him because you are worried about him, then let me assuage your fears.Arguably his best performances have come during this losing streak. Though he has seen a bit of a correction in his hit rate, which is to be expected, here are his key indicators for the three game losing streak:6-20 5IP 4K 0BB 6-26 7IP 11K 0BB7-1 6.1IP 10K 0BBYou can't do too much better than this in the skill department, 25 Ks and NO walks. The 7-1 game was against an excellent and hot Cleveland lineup. Homeruns killed him in these three games, he let up 5 HR.Granted, he has a bit of trouble with the home run ball; his flyball rate is a bit high at 42%. However his groundball rate is 41%. His HR per
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