Important Dates

2017 Champion: Patently Nuts (71.5 points)
2018 Season: March 29 - September 30

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Turnabout is fair play

Sheffield gets released by the Tigers. If Sheffield isn't worth a roster spot to the Tigers (despite the fact that they're paying him $14 million either way), is he still worth a roster spot for Spencer?

Also, Joba is having trouble with his velocity (from the NY Daily News):
"Scouts who have watched Chamberlain this spring are puzzled with his lack of velocity. In his last outing against the Phillies, the fastball was clocked between 88 and 92 mph. He labored so much that one scout wondered if Chamberlain was healthy, or concerned that a shoulder problem that landed him on the DL last year was going to resurface. Another scout noticed Chamberlain slowing down as he was ready to uncork a pitch."

Can the real games start so Schadenfreude fest 2009 can come to an end?

Monday, March 30, 2009

The good news continues for Bill...

Joey Devine failed to complete his scheduled inning Monday and said afterwards that his elbow "didn't feel quite right."
Devine didn't have his usual velocity today, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, so it appears rather likely that he's DL bound.

Bill's MI Fetish

Alexei Ramirez left Monday's game in the third inning with an apparent left knee injury sustained sliding into home place.


Ramirez clearly had a cut on the leg. The White Sox will have to hope that's the only problem. It's a huge drop off offensively to Brent Lillibridge at shortstop, and it remains to be seen if manager Ozzie Guillen trusts Wilson Betemit at the position.

Projected Standings - ERA and WHIP

The two projection system differed slightly on ERA and WHIP. Our league's average ERA according to PECOTA is 4.17. According to the Chone projections it is 4.00. BP is also a tad more pessimistic with WHIP, predicting our league's average of 1.35 with Chone at 1.32. Again, Caleb's team had the largest variation in projections with a WHIP of 1.28 (chone) or 1.31 (PECOTA) and an ERA of 3.88 (Chone) or 4.19 (PECOTA).

Remember, the rosters were set to optimize wins, so teams with good middle relivers that could help out WHIP and ERA are not reflected in the projections.


WHIP

ERA
Taylor 1.29
Taylor 3.84
Caleb 1.31
Spencer 3.86
Spencer 1.31
Andrew 4.02
Bill 1.33
Caleb 4.04
Andrew 1.33
Kate 4.12
Kate 1.36
Bill 4.14
Luke 1.37
Luke 4.31
Mark 1.40
Mark 4.43

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Composite standings from mock draft central

These projections are available on mock draft central, and are a composite of projections from Basball HQ, Fantasy Sherpa, and Mastersball. Unfortunately, you can't see any detail (I guess they can't give it all away for free_. I would assume that some starting lineup spots are screwed up because of differences between the MDC position eligibility and Yahoo. Like I said, you can't actually see the details of the projections, but I would assume they actually have Donnie Murphy as my 3B and Brandon Wood as my SS, leaving Alexei Ramirez on my bench. Other teams may have weird starting lineups depending on keepers - I'm not sure how starting spots were filled, possibly by the order players were drafted in. Given those caveats, here are the standings:

Team AVG HR RBI SB R W SV K WHIP ERA Total
1 Bill McDowell 6 7 6 6 7 3 4 4 6 6 55
2 Kate Hopkins 7 5 8 2 4 6 5 2 7 5 51
3 Taylor Curtis 1 6 3 3 1 4 8 8 8 8 50
4 Spencer Wong 4 3 5 7 6 5 6 5 4 3 48
5 Andrew McDowell 5 4 4 5 5 2 7 6 3 4 45
6 Mark Zocchi 3 8 7 8 8 1 3 1 2 1 42
7 Caleb Murphy 8 1 1 1 2 7 1 3 5 7 36
8 Luke Murphy 2 2 2 4 3 8 2 7 1 2 33

WTF?

"The Detroit Tigers placed left-handed pitcher Dontrelle Willis on the 15-day disabled list with an anxiety disorder on Sunday...

But Willis said he has been feeling well on and off the mound.

"I have no idea, but [the doctors] didn't like what they saw in the blood," Willis said."

Looking for a 3B

I'm looking for a 3rd baseman of just about any quality. I'm willing to deal a closer (Lyon or Devine) or some power from 1B (Jacobs, Konerko), but could also trade an outfielder in a deal for a top tier 3B.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Looking for SP or MI

If anyone is looking to do some preseason trading, I'm looking for help at either SP or MI. No one is off limits on the roster, but I'd prefer to deal a closer.

Andrew

Friday, March 27, 2009

Spectacular

George Sherrill said Thursday that he would have no problem if manager Dave Trembley decided to start the season with Chris Ray as closer.

"He (Ray) has looked good this spring," Sherrill said. "If that’s something they want to do, that’s fine. All I want to do is win. I don’t care what my title is." Sherrill has allowed 17 base runners in 5 1/3 innings of work and admitted Thursday that his mechanics aren't yet put together. The ball is in Trembley's court now.

More on Wins

How different is win production between the top pitchers and pitchers you can pick up on the waiver wire? Inevitably, most teams will need to turn to waiver wire to find some additional wins when injuries occur.

The difference in wins production may not be as big as you think. I divided AL pitchers with at least 5 games started in 2008 into two categories: Pitchers with a VORP 15 and over (n=43) and pitchers with a VORP of -5 to 14.9. The later group was my best estimate of the type of pitcher you could find in the free agent pool on any given day (e.g. Glen Perkins, Jarrod Washburn, Dave Purcey).

In the 15+ group, pitchers earned wins at a clip of 7.1 wins per 100 innings pitched. In the -5 to 14.9 group, pitchers earned wins at a rate of 6.0 wins per 100 innings pitched. Using these "waiver wire" pitchers for 300 innings would return approximately 18 additional wins, much higher than my original estimate of 10-12.

However, while these pitchers can out with wins, they will most likely kill your ERA and WHIP:

VORP 15+ VORP -5 to 15
WHIP 1.27 1.50
ERA 3.71 4.97


So, the wins are out there, but at what cost?

Projected Standings - Wins

For today's projections, I will switch to the pitching and examine wins. In order to keep it simple, I looked at the top 8 players on each team in terms of projected wins and added them together. The only exception I made was for closers.

Last year, wins was a closely contested category. I narrowly beat out Bill and Caleb with 82 wins to their 81 and 80. The projected win totals are dependent on playing time, so it is important to consider the inning pitched totals when looking at these projections. I would have to look at the data, but adding 300 innings to the totals, using replacement level pitchers, I am guessing would yield an additional 10-12 wins.

edit: I did not have enough pitchers starting for Spencer in the original post. Updated totals below

W IP
Luke 71 1187
Caleb 70 1140
Spencer 64 990
Taylor 63 1010
Kate 58 933
Bill 57 958
Andrew 56 915
Mark 50 897

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Mystery statistic


So, what is this statistic that Kate is lagging so far behind in? Should she just give up on the season now?

Maybe not. In the draft, Kate took less than half as much time as the next quickest picker. She's a decider.

Also, the season needs to start so I can look at real baseball statistics.

Enjoy, Taylor

Justin Duchscherer (elbow) didn't last an inning of a minor league game Thursday and is "virtually certain" to open the regular season on the disabled list

ESPN Projected Standings

This table has been updated. I incorrectly had Jose Guillen's stats twice, replacing Luke Scott's stats. Although their totals are similar, Luke Scott has less playing time, so this hurts Taylor most in RBI, where he goes from 7 points to 4.


R HR RBI SB AVG K W SV ERA WHIP Total
Bill 8 8 8 6 6 4 2 8 5 7 62
Taylor 2 6 4 1 2 8 4 7 8 8 50
Caleb 6 2 3 2 8 5 8 3 4 6 47
Kate 3 3 6 3 7 1 5 6 6 4 44
Luke 4 5 7 5 4 7 7 1 1 3 44
Mark 7 7 5 7 3 2 3 2 3 2 41
Spencer 1 1 1 4 5 6 5 4 7 5 39
Andrew 5 4 2 8 1 3 1 5 2 1 32



A few caveats about the standings. First off, Caleb is projected to exceed his IP count by 40 innings. Also, because I didn't factor in backups, teams starting injury prone (or currently injured) players simply don't have as many counting stats. The one exception I made was that I had 2 CI for Caleb - Darric Barton and Ryan Garko, because neither was projected to get much playing time. Also, I don't think the ESPN standings are gospel. They probably overrate older players, assuming they will continue at past levels of performance, so my offense totals in particular may be overrated, as I have Konerko and Dye and major parts of my offense. Finally WHIP is very, very close in the 4 to 7 point range, with Spencer, Kate, Caleb, and I all having WHIPs of 1.24 or 1.25, but mine is projected to be the lowest by a tiny bit, so I ended up with the extra 3 points.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Balance

As Mark goes through his projections category by category (I have my own done, but don't want to steal his thunder), I thought I'd post something based on the ESPN projections. Let's take a look at where teams are getting their points.

Difference
Bill 10
Mark 16
Andrew 8
Taylor -17
Spencer -15
Kate -1
Caleb -6
Luke 5

Positive numbers are teams that are hitting focused, while negative numbers are teams that are pitching focused. Amazingly, despite having Teixeria and A-Rod, Spencer still tilts towards pitching. This is mostly an artifact of his extremely weak middle infielders (Casilla, Izturis, and Punto). Taylor, on the other hand, tilts towards pitching because of an unbelieably strong staff, with the top two closers and two upper tier strikeout pitchers, in Greinke and Kazmir. Mark's team is the most offensive (you would thought it would be Spencer, what with A-Rod and all), but that is because of a very weak pitching staff (projected 12 points out of 40), finishing in the bottom two in all pitching categories but wins and ERA. We'll see how the other projections treat Mark's team, but ESPN hates his pitching staff.

Congrats to Kate for putting together the most balanced team (and projected to be reasonably competitive as well), with only a one projected point of difference.

Waivers

What's the deal with waivers? Are we just doing the yahoo thing (i.e. pick up anyone who is a FA whenever we want, waivers are for players that are dropped, added to the league)?

Projections - Home Runs

The first installment of the 2009 projections will be in home runs (being my best category, I thought it appropriate). I had to just make my best guess with the starting lineups, but I felt they were pretty straight forward for the most part.

To calculate HRs, I used the average of the PECOTA and Chone projection systems. As a league total, PECOTA predicts 1,525 HRs and Chone 1,618. Caleb's team had the largest difference in the projection systems, with Chone predicting 188 and PECOTA 151 (+37). Players with a large difference between Chone and PECOTA were Weiters (-16), Posada (+9), Ortiz (+9), A-Rod (+9), and Snider (-9).

HRs
Bill 228.0
Mark
222.0
Taylor 207.5
Andrew 198.0
Luke 192.0
Kate 181.5
Spencer 173.0
Caleb 169.5

edit: I realized that I did not give Bill a 3b in my original projections... Now with Wood (20 HRs), he is the projected HR winner.

Certainly have to give Taylor props for ending up with the third best HR projection. Even though all of the big sluggers were kept, 10 of his 12 position starters are projected with double digit homeruns and 6 of the 12 projected at 19+.

Draft Results

I uploaded the draft results to the Yahoo (!!!) league page. There were two players that I could not locate - Chad Cordero and Donnie Murphy. Taylor and Bill get proxies for the time being.

edit: Donnie Murphy was used as a proxy for David Murphy, draft results corrected

Also, the Draft Results on the Yahoo page are not accurate to the round. I just added the players to each team without regard the round they were supposed to be drafted in (I couldn't do the trades predraft) so the "official" results are below:

R1 P3 Andrew McDowell Miguel Cabrera
R2 P6 Andrew McDowell Carl Crawford
R3 P3 Andrew McDowell A.J. Burnett
R4 P6 Andrew McDowell Brian Fuentes
R5 P3 Andrew McDowell Justin Verlander
R6 P6 Andrew McDowell Frank Francisco
R7 P3 Andrew McDowell Mike Aviles
R8 P6 Andrew McDowell Xavier Nady
R9 P3 Andrew McDowell Alex Rios
R10 P6 Andrew McDowell Adam Lind
R11 P3 Andrew McDowell Brandon Morrow
R12 P6 Andrew McDowell Mark Buehrle
R13 P3 Andrew McDowell Ty Wigginton
R14 P6 Andrew McDowell Rafael Perez
R15 P3 Andrew McDowell Koji Uehara
R16 P6 Andrew McDowell Erick Aybar
R17 P3 Andrew McDowell Yuniesky Betancourt
R18 P6 Andrew McDowell Nick Swisher
R19 P3 Andrew McDowell Akinori Iwamura
R19 P4 * Andrew McDowell Manny Delcarmen
R20 P6 Andrew McDowell Kurt Suzuki
R22 P6 Andrew McDowell Jacoby Ellsbury
R23 P3 Andrew McDowell Evan Longoria
R24 P6 Andrew McDowell Matt Wieters
R1 P6 Bill McDowell Jason Bay
R2 P3 Bill McDowell Bobby Abreu
R3 P4 * Bill McDowell John Lackey
R3 P6 Bill McDowell Jermaine Dye
R4 P3 Bill McDowell Joakim Soria
R5 P6 Bill McDowell Scott Baker
R6 P3 Bill McDowell John Danks
R7 P6 Bill McDowell Paul Konerko
R8 P3 Bill McDowell Jered Weaver
R9 P6 Bill McDowell Dustin Pedroia
R10 P3 Bill McDowell Ian Kinsler
R11 P6 Bill McDowell Brandon Lyon
R12 P3 Bill McDowell Mike Jacobs
R13 P6 Bill McDowell Nick Markakis
R15 P6 Bill McDowell Brandon Wood
R16 P3 Bill McDowell B.J. Upton
R17 P6 Bill McDowell J.P. Howell
R18 P3 Bill McDowell Kendry Morales
R19 P6 Bill McDowell Jorge Posada
R20 P3 Bill McDowell Brett Anderson
R21 P6 Bill McDowell Mark Teahen
R22 P3 Bill McDowell David Murphy
R23 P6 Bill McDowell Alexei Ramirez
R24 P3 Bill McDowell Joey Devine
R1 P7 Caleb Murphy Ichiro Suzuki
R2 P2 Caleb Murphy Vladimir Guerrero
R3 P7 Caleb Murphy Victor Martinez
R4 P2 Caleb Murphy Michael Young
R5 P7 Caleb Murphy Kerry Wood
R6 P2 Caleb Murphy Roy Halladay
R7 P7 Caleb Murphy James Shields
R8 P2 Caleb Murphy Hank Blalock
R9 P7 Caleb Murphy Placido Polanco
R10 P2 Caleb Murphy Jhonny Peralta
R11 P7 Caleb Murphy Joe Saunders
R12 P2 Caleb Murphy Jason Kubel
R13 P7 Caleb Murphy Denard Span
R14 P2 Caleb Murphy Jesse Litsch
R15 P7 Caleb Murphy Ryan Garko
R16 P2 Caleb Murphy Takashi Saito
R17 P7 Caleb Murphy J.D. Drew
R18 P2 Caleb Murphy Clay Buchholz
R19 P7 Caleb Murphy Brad Penny
R20 P2 Caleb Murphy Daric Barton
R21 P7 Caleb Murphy Jarrod Saltalamaccia
R22 P2 Caleb Murphy Rich Hill
R23 P7 Caleb Murphy Chris Davis
R24 P2 Caleb Murphy Cliff Lee
R1 P2 Kate Hopkins CC Sabathia
R2 P7 Kate Hopkins Robinson Cano
R3 P2 Kate Hopkins Joe Mauer
R4 P7 Kate Hopkins Vernon Wells
R5 P2 Kate Hopkins B.J. Ryan
R6 P7 Kate Hopkins Howie Kendrick
R7 P2 Kate Hopkins Carlos Guillen
R8 P7 Kate Hopkins Jim Thome
R9 P2 Kate Hopkins Chien-Ming Wang
R10 P7 Kate Hopkins Melvin Mora
R11 P2 Kate Hopkins Jason Bartlett
R12 P7 Kate Hopkins Brad Ziegler
R13 P2 Kate Hopkins Jeremy Guthrie
R14 P7 Kate Hopkins Magglio Ordonez
R15 P2 Kate Hopkins Torii Hunter
R16 P7 Kate Hopkins Chris Ray
R17 P2 Kate Hopkins Jon Lester
R18 P7 Kate Hopkins Josh Fields
R19 P2 Kate Hopkins Juan Rivera
R20 P7 Kate Hopkins Justin Masterson
R21 P2 Kate Hopkins Brandon Inge
R22 P7 Kate Hopkins Marco Scutaro
R23 P2 Kate Hopkins Felix Pie
R24 P7 Kate Hopkins Shin-Soo Choo
R1 P4 Luke Murphy Matt Holliday
R2 P5 Luke Murphy David Ortiz
R4 P5 Luke Murphy Chone Figgins
R5 P4 Luke Murphy Bobby Jenks
R6 P5 Luke Murphy Daisuke Matsuzaka
R7 P4 Luke Murphy Orlando Cabrera
R8 P5 Luke Murphy Josh Beckett
R9 P4 Luke Murphy Jason Giambi
R10 P5 Luke Murphy Gavin Floyd
R11 P4 Luke Murphy Coco Crisp
R12 P5 Luke Murphy Hideki Matsui
R13 P4 Luke Murphy Jed Lowrie
R14 P5 Luke Murphy Andy Pettitte
R15 P4 Luke Murphy Dioner Navarro
R16 P5 Luke Murphy Aaron Hill
R17 P4 Luke Murphy Mike Lowell
R18 P5 Luke Murphy Anthony Reyes
R20 P5 Luke Murphy Octavio Dotel
R21 P3 * Luke Murphy Sean Gallagher
R21 P4 Luke Murphy Carlos Quentin
R22 P5 Luke Murphy Nelson Cruz
R23 P4 Luke Murphy Ervin Santana
R23 P5 * Luke Murphy Ben Francisco
R24 P5 Luke Murphy Taylor Teagarden
R1 P5 Mark Zocchi Grady Sizemore
R2 P4 Mark Zocchi Justin Morneau
R3 P5 Mark Zocchi Adrian Beltre
R4 P4 Mark Zocchi Brian Roberts
R5 P5 Mark Zocchi Derek Jeter
R5 P8 * Mark Zocchi Matt Garza
R6 P4 Mark Zocchi Gil Meche
R7 P5 Mark Zocchi Mark DeRosa
R8 P4 Mark Zocchi Jack Cust
R9 P5 Mark Zocchi Kelly Shoppach
R10 P4 Mark Zocchi Troy Percival
R11 P5 Mark Zocchi Curtis Granderson
R12 P4 Mark Zocchi Josh Hamilton
R13 P5 Mark Zocchi Elvis Andrus
R14 P4 Mark Zocchi Russell Branyan
R15 P5 Mark Zocchi Dan Wheeler
R16 P4 Mark Zocchi Kelvim Escobar
R17 P5 Mark Zocchi Joel Zumaya
R18 P4 Mark Zocchi Armando Galarraga
R19 P5 Mark Zocchi Nick Blackburn
R20 P4 Mark Zocchi Miguel Batista
R21 P5 Mark Zocchi Mark Lowe
R22 P4 Mark Zocchi Hideki Okajima
R24 P4 Mark Zocchi David Price
R1 P1 * Spencer Wong Mark Teixeira
R1 P8 Spencer Wong Alex Rodriguez
R2 P1 Spencer Wong Felix Hernandez
R3 P8 Spencer Wong Mariano Rivera
R6 P1 Spencer Wong Johnny Damon
R7 P8 Spencer Wong Billy Butler
R8 P1 Spencer Wong Delmon Young
R9 P8 Spencer Wong Andrew Sonnanstine
R10 P1 Spencer Wong Kevin Youkilis
R11 P8 Spencer Wong David DeJesus
R12 P1 Spencer Wong Fausto Carmona
R13 P8 Spencer Wong George Sherrill
R14 P1 Spencer Wong Jose Arredondo
R14 P3 * Spencer Wong Jeff Clement
R15 P8 Spencer Wong John Smoltz
R16 P1 Spencer Wong Alexi Casilla
R17 P8 Spencer Wong Cesar Izturis
R18 P1 Spencer Wong Francisco Liriano
R19 P8 Spencer Wong Nick Punto
R20 P1 Spencer Wong Travis Hafner
R21 P8 Spencer Wong A.J. Pierzynski
R22 P1 Spencer Wong Gary Sheffield
R23 P8 Spencer Wong Joba Chamberlain
R24 P1 Spencer Wong Travis Snider
R2 P8 Taylor Curtis Scott Kazmir
R3 P1 Taylor Curtis Jonathan Papelbon
R4 P1 * Taylor Curtis Joe Nathan
R4 P8 Taylor Curtis Mike Napoli
R5 P1 Taylor Curtis Alex Gordon
R6 P8 Taylor Curtis Erik Bedard
R7 P1 Taylor Curtis Pat Burrell
R8 P8 Taylor Curtis Carlos Gomez
R9 P1 Taylor Curtis Justin Duchscherer
R10 P8 Taylor Curtis Mark Ellis
R11 P1 Taylor Curtis Asdrubal Cabrera
R12 P8 Taylor Curtis Grant Balfour
R13 P1 Taylor Curtis Jose Guillen
R14 P8 Taylor Curtis Luke Scott
R15 P1 Taylor Curtis Franklin Gutierrez
R16 P8 Taylor Curtis Zack Greinke
R17 P1 Taylor Curtis Jeremy Bonderman
R18 P8 Taylor Curtis Chad Cordero
R19 P1 Taylor Curtis Dana Eveland
R20 P8 Taylor Curtis Carlos Pena
R21 P1 Taylor Curtis Kevin Slowey
R22 P8 Taylor Curtis Jose Lopez
R23 P1 Taylor Curtis Aubrey Huff
R24 P8 Taylor Curtis Adam Jones