Week in brief

No big long update this time, just the tables. Mark gained lots of points this week, Spencer and Andrew were the big losers. Mark also pitched a ton of innings, helping him close the gap in projected innings considerably.

Another weekly update

I don't have the full stats with me today (I left my thumb drive at home), but I did put together a table that is kind of interesting.
The at-bats are starting to even out, except for Spencer, who is about 200 AB behind everyone else. If you're wondering why my average is so low, I'm in the middle of the pack for number of hits, and 50 at bats ahead. So, I just need all of your teams to go 0/40 for the next couple of days.

Thanks to Casilla being on the DL and Andrew plugging in Octavio Dotel into his starting lineup, the projected IP are starting to come down. Although Andrew is currently in 4th place for strikeouts, the table shows that he simply didn't draft enough high strikeout pitchers, and Mark and Spencer could end up passing him. Mark is also starting to catch up in projected IP. Of course, he's in a bit of a weird position projection wise as all of his starters pitch on the same day. His projected IP will shoot up, then slowly decrease, and then spike up again, so I'm not sure what day would probide the most accurate projection, but I only update the IP, AB, and H counts on Fridays, so we're just going to go with that.

At the current pace, I'll end up leading Ks. Of course, that could easily change now that I don't have Matsuzaka, but my K/9 is starting to pull away. Assuming that Matsuzaka isn't hurt for a significant period of time (and looking now, he just went on the 15 day DL, good thing Clay is ready to come back), and Spencer can catch up in IP, Spencer could come from behind and give Caleb some trouble in strikeouts.

Also, I can't quite figure out why Luke is leading in Ks right now, but doesn't lead in projected Ks without the IP limit. It must have something to do with the way Yahoo calculates the projected IP limits.

Do yourself a favor and check out...

this amazing video of mariah carey throwing out the first pitch at a game...


http://www.aarongleeman.com/2008_05_25_baseballblog_archive.html#6984130545438318398

Projected Standings

We are now about 1/3 through the season and it's high time I released the updated projections. These projections are not perfect, and I will discuss the main flaws I find in them a bit later. For now, let's take a look at the current standings:

		Batting					Pitching
Rank	Team	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	W	SV	K	ERA	WHIP	Total
1.	Dusty'sBaseCloggers	5	5.5	4	5	3	5	6	4	5	5	47.5
2.	Berkeley Hoboes	6	5.5	5	6	1	3.5	5	5	4	2	43
3.	YOOOUUUK!	3	4	2	2	4	6	2	6	6	6	41
4.	Don't Trade Roberts!	4	3	6	4	5.5	3.5	1	1	2	1	31
5.	Mandrew&the VORPIES	2	2	3	1	2	2	4	2	3	4	25
6.	AAA Legacy	1	1	1	3	5.5	1	3	3	1	3	22.5

Caleb has had a great start to the season. There are no major deficiencies in his team, his lowest category is a 3 in average. Spencer on the other hand has been decimated by injuries and has fallen to the bottom of many of the counting categories.

The projections are based on everyone's roster set this week. Any players that are on the DL are not counted in these projections. Because future injuries cannot be accounted for, I chose to leave the current injured players out for balance. Also, especially in some of the weaker positions, starting rosters change weekly. This week I am using Jason Bartlett, next week it may be a different free agent. In any event, I leave it up to you to decide how these intangibles will affect the projections.

Without further ado, here are the Projected Standings:

	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	W	SV	SO	ERA	WHIP	TOTAL
Caleb	4	3	3	4	2	5	6	4	5	5	41
Luke	3	1	2	1	5	6	3	6	6	6	39
Bill	5	6	5	6	1	4	1	5	4	2	39
Mark	6	5	6	3	6	3	4	2	2	1	38
Spencer	2	2	1	5	4	1	5	3	1	4	28
Andrew	1	4	4	2	3	2	2	1	3	3	25

Plus/Minus from Current Standings:

	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	W	SV	SO	ERA	WHIP	TOTAL
Caleb	-1	-2.5	-1	-1	-1	0	0	0	0	0	-6.5
Luke	0	-3	0	-1	1	0	1	0	0	0	-2
Bill	-1	0.5	0	0	0	0.5	-4	0	0	0	-4
Mark	2	2	0	-1	0.5	-0.5	3	1	0	0	7
Spencer	1	1	0	2	-1.5	0	2	0	0	1	5.5
Andrew	-1	2	1	1	1	0	-2	-1	0	-1	0

Luke comes in strong in the pitching categories, nabbing 27 of the possible 30 points, but still not enough to beat Caleb. Caleb is projected to fall the hardest over the last 2/3 of the season, but still has enough momentum to carry the lead through to the end.

Bill also sees a sharp drop, mostly from saves. Picking up Wheeler could help if Sherrill's production comes back to earth. The biggest absolute change is from my team, projected to gain 7 points. With 25 of the possible 30 points in offensive categories, I could make a run at the lead if the bats can heat up and if Putz picks up the pace.

Also to note: As Bill pointed out in an earlier post, innings pitched should even out by the end of the season. This will help people's counting stats who are behind in innings and may or may not help the ERA and WHIP. It's hard to know how that will work as people insert more 6th starters into their rotation as the season wears on. It's pretty interesting that there is absolutely no point movement in ERA.

I am sick of the weekly league

Yesterday, Monday, the day after we set our weekly line-ups, three things happened:

1) Gary Sheffield pulled an oblique muscle after 2AB's in his game vs. the angels.

2) Scoscia revealed that Figgins may have to go on the DL.

3) Wedge revealed that Hafner might have to go on the DL.


Now all of these are injury prone players, but it's total BS that I will now be missing another week's worth of AB's because of the timing of this news. I know we all have to deal with it, but it doesn't necessarily even out. I guess the lesson is that injury prone players hurt you even more in this type of league. But this seriously must be the 9th or 10th time this season someone has gotten hurt (or revealed they won't be coming back as planned) on Monday or Tuesday (Ellis and Kendrick being 2 other recent examples).

Week ending 5/23

Well, it is Friday, so it is time for another weekly update. I have some AB, H, and IP stats for this week, but only for Monday through Friday. They didn't end up being particularly meaningful (e.g. thanks to scheduling quirks, Mark ended up with 3 2/3 IP in that stretch), so I didn't include them in this post. You'll probably see them next week.

Again, let's start with the current standings.

Pretty big changes from last week, with Caleb picking up a ton of points, and Youk and Spencer dropping a bit. Here are the weekly changes in points.


Looking at the raw weekly stats, Caleb had a huge week in saves, and one of the top performances offensively. Not a ton of strikeouts for him, but the three folks below him (Andrew, Spencer, and Mark) didn't have a ton more K's either. However, it is starting to look like Youk!!! and I are starting to pull away a bit in strikeouts.




As Spencer pointed out in a post last week, one of the key things to keep an eye on for strikeouts is IP. Right now, Caleb, Andrew, and Luke are all projected to be over the IP limit. I'm right around the IP limit, and Mark and Spencer are well under the projected IP limit, due to injuries. However, unlike AB, you can catch up in IP with the use of 2 start pitchers, and fewer relievers. As Spencer and possibly Mark catch up in IP, Caleb may have to keep an eye on strikeouts, possibly switching to high K rate middle relivers, which would help his ratios as well. Although it may still be a bit early in the season to worry about that.

Another interesting thing this week was that all of a sudden everyone seemed to be stealing a lot more bases. The return of Figgins couldn't have come at a much better time for Spencer, as he had Caleb pass him in SB this week, and has Mark nipping at his heels. I'm surprised that Spencer hasn't been more competitive with steals - in the preseason he looked like he would be neck and neck with me in SB, and that was before he picked up Carlos Gomez, who could steal 50 this year. Kendrick, another potential SB contributor, continues to be on the shelf with leg injuries, but could help once he gets back on the field.

Stolen Base Chart

Incredible

Fenway Park, Section 37, Row 22. May 19, 2008.

Not ideal seats for a cold and windy night game with the wind whipping off the Charles and circling through the bleachers. Sitting approximately 400 feet from the pitchers mound, I witnessed what I figured I'd never see in my entire life - a no hitter.

Last year Spencer and I almost saw a no hitter by Felix Hernandex at Diasuke's Fenway debut. Felix (also on my fantasy team that year) pitched beautifully through 7 before giving up a single to JD Drew with none out in the bottom of the eighth. Even though the game wasn't going the Red Sox way, you couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed that the no-no was no more.

Flash forward 13 months later.

It was immediately clear from the start of the game that Lester was on tonight. He was taking batters deep into counts, but was not giving in. He made good pitches with 2 and 3 ball counts and kept the Royals from making any decent contact. The only well hit ball came in the 4th inning - a liner caught on the dive by Jacoby. There was another ball hit sharply, but directly at Youk. After the end of the 5th inning, the thought of the no hitter began creeping in. At the end of the 6th, a time when many people leave the stands on a cold night with a comfortable lead, the bleachers were still completely packed. The scoreboard was just there starring at you

KC 0 0 1

... could this be it?

Top of the 9th, Lester comes to the mound to pitch - 113 pitches in at this point - is received by a standing ovation, flash bulbs popping off, impossible to not feel like this is my one and only shot at seeing this happen. I felt good going into the inning. Esteban German and Tony Pena were due up - both Mendoza line hitters. Of course, Lester probably has his worst sequence of pitches of the night and walks German on 5 pitches. I'm thinking at this point if he walks another and his pitch count approaches the 130+ mark, is he going to get pulled? That would have been tragic, but how much can you really push it when the Sox are already thin at SP?

Lester of course gets out of the inning on his 130th pitch and Fenway goes nuts. Everyone jumping up and down as if we just won the pennant. Outside on Lansdowne, the celebration continues. Just an incredible scene.

It probably just an anomaly, but out of the last 6 no-hitters in the American League, 4 have been from Red Sox pitchers and 3 of those were at Fenway. Strange.

Also looking to trade OF

So, thanks to some waiver wire work and the trade with Spencer, I now have lots of OF. I'm looking for an upgrade at CI.
Quentin, Murphy, and Guillen are all available; I currently don't have the roster spots to start all of them. Thome could also be available, as I'm still looking to upgrade batting average.

The last week

First, let's start off with today's standings. Although they're easily accessible, it is nice to have for reference throughout this post.

So, instead of putting up new charts for the season, I've put together some tables and charts that summarize the last week. Over the last week, my team was the big winner, gaining 5 points, while Spencer's team was the big loser, losing 3.5 points. Saves is very close at the top, with 2 teams at 26 and 1 team at 28. There will probably be a lot of day to day movement in saves for awhile.

Spencer had an off week offensively, only scoring 20 runs and driving in 22, but he did manage to steal 6 bases., including 3 by waiver-wire all-star Carlos Gomez. Although my team didn't pick up any points in stolen bases, I opened up a larger lead thanks to Carl Crawford (3 SB) and Ian Kinsler (4 SB, and now on pace for 45 for the season). Mark had a big week offensively, led by Sizemore (6 R, 3 HR, 6 RBI) and Josh Hamilton (4 R, 1 HR, 8 RBI), who continues to drive in runs at a preposterous rate and is now on pace to drive in 173. A terrible pitching week, which included an increase of 0.57 in ERA and a full tenth of a baserunner in WHIP kept Mark from gaining any ground on the leaders. One caveat about the rate stats is that because I'm not keeping track of IP and AB you can't make direct comparisons between teams with the weekly changes. For example, if my batting average increased by .001 (to .252) and Spencer's dropped by .001 (to .275), he actually had a higher batting average in the last week than I did. This effect should diminish as the season progresses, but for now we can't make direct comparisons.

Another major trade

Spencer picks up another potentially high end starter, although Verlander has an awful lot of questions associated with him. Initially I wasn't quite sure what to make of this deal. Based on names alone, it seems like Spencer comes out ahead, but Verlander has been absolutely horrible so far this year.

For Caleb, the deal addresses his weakness in the outfield, without giving up any players that he was currently starting every week. Damon should be good for a 10 to 15 homerun season with 20 bags, which is looking like it will be a competitive category, especially with Spencer giving up Damon. He'll contribute with runs, but he won't contribute much to RBI totals or address the problems with average. Eveland is a solid, albeit unspectacular starter, pretty much the exact opposite of Verlander. Although he won't offer lofty strikeout totals, he and Greg Smith provide solid fall back options if injuries or ineffectiveness pop up with his pitching staff. I'm not sure Blalock is worth much in this deal. With such a small sample size before he got injured (again), it is hard to say whether or not he had turned a corner, or was just having a hot streak.

For Spencer, this is another attempt to roll the dice on pitching. As I commented before, the only way Spencer is competitive this year is if his pitching staff manages to turn it around. Verlander showed last year that he has the ability to dominate, and the team keeps saying there isn't anything physically wrong with him. I did hear Keith Law say that Verlander seems to be tiring very early in games, as early as the 3rd inning, and that perhaps the IP on a young arm are starting to catch up with him, just like they did for Bonderman. Also, it isn't as if Verlander has been unlucky this year. His strikeouts are way down (5.0/9) and his walks are way up (3.7/9), leading to a QERA of 5.40, not particularly different than his current ERA of 6. However, even if Verlander doesn't turn it around, Spencer ends up with a potentially valuable keeper in Saltamacchia.

Overall, I think I like this deal better for Spencer than for Caleb. He gets the high risk / high reward gamble relatively cheaply (Damon can easily be replaced in his line-up), and I'm just not sure that Caleb is significantly better off after this trade. He could have held onto Jose Guillen and waited on a Verlander turn around. Thanks to some good work on the waiver wire he had the pitching depth to wait it out. Although the stolen bases will definitely help, but I think the price was too high for a marginal upgrade.

For those that care

Here are the pitching metrics per 9 innings, updated from below. You should be able to click on them to actually see them.

As Bill mentioned, Innings can potentially be made up, where AB's and played games probably will not. I guess my hitting table would be more interesting with AB's rather than games played...

On the hitting side...

It's striking how similar these numbers are here. There are a few exceptions (Bill's Steals per game, Andrew's lack of HR's and runs per game) that are notable outliers from the rest of the data, but the /game rates are again pretty consistent. If Caleb had played all of his games, he could really be in the driver's seat in hitting categories. If I hadn't had 5 guys on the DL and sit on my roster missing starts, I could be right in the mix hitting wise.

Disparity in innings pitched is an interesting metric to look at because it can lead one to say:

1) Once I have an equivalent number of innings to xyz team, I'll be right with them in Wins and K's

or

2) My pitchers blow and last 4 innings, therefore I have 50 IP less than everyone else.
In my case, it's most likely 2, but my K rate actually isn't so bad relative to everyone else's.

Here you can see that Youuuk deserves to be in the lead for k's/inning with 0.8 per inning, vs Don't Trade Roberts 0.6 per inning. Andrew on the other hand is tied for the worst K rate in the league, but is in 4th place with over 40 innings pitched more than Mark.

Wins per inning is strikingly similar with everyone but me coming in at .06 or .07. I'd argue that I have been a bit unlucky at wins this year - haven't picked up any vulture wins from my relievers and even though I have by far the worst staff and plenty of blow-up starts where a win is not likely, I've also had plenty of quality starts not turn into wins. Interesting that everyone else is so consistent here; Andrew did you do some analysis on wins at some point and if we were all where we should be?

Bloggy Bloggers

I generally find the Fire Joe Morgan blog pretty good, but their love-fest for Barry Bonds is pretty disturbing to me. Time for the FJM writers to be subjected to a FJM style ripping.

We all know Barry Bonds is a bad dude. Does illegal whaling in Japan in the off-season, helps cars hit old ladies crossing the street, has a huge collection of pirated LaserDiscs. Crusty sportswriters -- I'm giving you this one. Not defending Barry's character.

Actually, most people hate Barry Bonds because he cheated, lied about it, and acts like a complete jerk off at every opportunity he gets and now is whining that nobody wants to hire him. Forgive us, for we are mere plebeians in the shadow of FJM wisdom-infinite.

I'm starting to wonder what the fuck some of these teams are thinking.

Really? Do you have to be reminded who Barry Bonds is? Would you sign Darth Vader to the Rebel force just because he is bad-ass with the light saber? Perhaps, just perhaps, ownership does not want Barry Bonds on their team because Barry Bonds is insane and a criminal. An insane criminal filled with animosity at all aspects of baseball - other players, coaches, managers, owners, the media, and, oh yeah, the fans too. He may be the most polarizing player in baseball history. But yeah, his OBP is through the roof (and we all know that in FJM land OBP is the equivalent of sex with a supermodel)!

You know how many Cardinals hit 28 home runs last year? One. His name was David Eckstein. ("David Eckstein" is what I call Albert Pujols.)

Barry Bonds Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) last year was 6.2. This is a damn good WARP, but six more wins would have placed the Cardinals at 84-78 and still a game behind the Cubs for the division... and that's assuming that Barry's defense would not have lost them any games.

How many 43-year-old outfielders OPS-ed 1.045 last year? Or .999 the year before, at age 42?

I get it now... FJM thinks Barry Bonds is an ageless baseball god. His stats are good, I think we all can agree on this.

Cool. He's a jerk. We get it. Someone should probably sign him, though, because when he plays baseball he's damn good at it.

Somebody should not sign Barry Bonds. I will lose all respect for that team, the game of baseball, humanity, etc. if Barry Bonds is signed. FJM has jumped off the deep end here. I understand that their stitch is to use statistics, logic, and good research to debunk many of the idiots writing about baseball, but this goes too far. Maybe, just maybe, when somebody fundamentally alters the integrity of the game we should look beyond their statistical contribution to a team. When an employee of a profession tarnishes the image, reputation, and credibility of their profession that employee should not expect to be rehired. Wouldn't happen in any other industry. Does FJM have no moral compass?

Fausto on the Block

I've decided that I've had enough of Carmona. His total lack of strikeouts just kill me, even though his ERA and wins are great. I'm looking for MI or CI or OF, preferably with some speed. If anyone is interested, let me know.

Blockbuster

Big time deal between Bill and Spencer that will undoubtedly have big consequences in the Standings. I believe that Bill stole this one. He gets two incredibly solid, veteran player who consistently put up All Star numbers year in year out. He gives up Dice-K, who is having a great season and Hafner who is struggling with a .215 batting average. Dice-K is not replaced in this deal, but the added BA value of losing Pronk and adding Young and Manny will be significant.

The problem I see in the deal is that Spencer trades two great players, Manny and Young for one player having a great year (not sure Dice-K is an "ace" yet) and one player having a terrible year. Too many eggs being placed in one bucket for my liking.

Down goes Wells.

I didn't want to say anything sooner for fear of jinxing myself, but I'd gone all season without a DL trip. So much for that.

I was already in need of an outfielder, and it looks like I'm more so now.

I've got a bit of a glut of decent SPs, so I'm gonna go ahead and put all of them on the trading block, including Beckett. Now's your chance to get the best fantasy pitcher in the AL. Or to buy low on Verlander. Or to grab the amazing Daniel Cabrera and Cliff Lee. Or the eversteady and underrated Javier Vazquez. Or Joe Blanton, who I don't even like. Or the young Greg Smith. Or Nick Adenhart, who kinda sucks. All I require is players with OF eligibility.

Delmon Young

When is this guy going to start resembling the guy that Baseball Prospectus projects at a 19.4 VORP? The bat chucker has hit a grand total of four (4), yes FOUR, extra base hits in 125 at bats. To be fair, this is one more than Johan Santana and Micah Owings. He is slugging a whopping .302. I used a keeper pick on someone with a MINUS 2.9 VORP. Amazingly, he is not the worst Keeper of the season so far (min 50 ab, 20 ip).

VORP
-10.9 Justin Verlander
-9.8 C.C. Sabathia
-8.3 Robinson Cano
-2.9 Delmon Young

Good days and bad

More charts today, this time I'm posting WHIP and ERA. Again, like average, WHIP and ERA are still extremely volatile.

http://picasaweb.google.com/wgmcdowell/YouThrowLikeAGirl/photo?authkey=7_cOP5qSYq4#5198464398334026210

http://picasaweb.google.com/wgmcdowell/YouThrowLikeAGirl/photo?authkey=7_cOP5qSYq4#5198464406923960818

Luke is easily leading the pack in both WHIP and ERA, with all of his pitchers, with the exception of Brian Bannister, pitching extremely well. Halladay and Felix have been at the upper ends of their expectations, and waiver pickup Ervin Santana has been spectacular.
In the past week or so, both Caleb and I have each had some very, very good days. From 4/30 to 5/2 my pitching staff managed a run of good games that took a full 0.5 off my ERA and 0.1 off my WHIP. Yesterday, with only two starters pitching, Caleb managed to take 0.2 off his ERA and 0.05 off his WHIP.
Spencer, on the other hand, was not quite so lucky. With three starters imploding on one day, his WHIP rose from 1.38 to 1.45, and his ERA jumped an incredible 0.56, from 4.66 to 5.20.
Even with Luke's considerable lead in the pitching categories, a blow up on par with Spencer's would put him right back in the pack for ERA and take away most of his lead for WHIP. Fortunately for Luke, it is pretty difficult to field a staff that pitches 18 2/3 innings, giving up 42 baserunners and 24 earned runs.

OK this isn't even funny anymore

Michael Young left Wednesday's game in the first inning with a left hip injury.

Young appeared to hurt himself on the swing that produced a fly out in the top of the first inning and didn't take the field defensively in the bottom of the inning. Ramon Vazquez replaced him at shortstop.

W...T.....F

Despite beginning his minor league rehab assignment with five hits in six at-bats, Howie Kendrick (hamstring) is not expected to return from the disabled list until next week.
Kendrick continues to feel soreness in his hamstring. "He felt good to a certain point," manager Mike Scioscia said. "It's moving in the right direction, but we're not quite there. He's going to be evaluated today to see how it feels."

Highly enjoyable

http://blog.baseballdigestdaily.com/blog/_archives/2008/5/7/3679542.html

walking randy johnson on 4 pitches...hilarious.

The promised pretty pictures

So I have a week and a half of daily data now, ready to be presented in pretty pictures. We'll start off with one I call "The Deathspiral" (batting average). Batting average is still very volatile, especially if you get very lucky or unlucky for a few days. Over the last 4 days my team has batted under 0.170. This is a good way to quickly annihiliate your batting average.

Alright, we're going to try linking to Picassa instead...

http://picasaweb.google.com/wgmcdowell/YouThrowLikeAGirl/photo?authkey=7_cOP5qSYq4#5197354700929723474

Right now, homeruns are also very tight. Early on it looked like Caleb my run away with the category, but he hasn't been able to build on his lead since I started keeping track of the stats. The middle of the pack is extremely close right now, with 4 teams within a few homeruns of each other.

http://picasaweb.google.com/wgmcdowell/YouThrowLikeAGirl/photo?authkey=7_cOP5qSYq4#5197356655139843170

Let me know if those links work for you, of if they're protected somehow...

Injuries

I know the team I drafted is injury prone (Sheffield, Kendrick, Manny, Blalock) BUT -- this is getting a little excessive. I currently have A-Rod, Blalock, and Borowski, and Hughes on the DL, plus Kendrick and Figgins coming off injuries and missing substantial time, plus random things like Carlos Gomez getting hit in the head. Meanwhile Bill's entire lineup is healthy. Let's see SOME sense of balance here.