because i still care, thats why

Roto Scores: 09/07

J West: 39 + 29 = 68 (wow)
Brian: 25 + 34 = 59
Josh: 28 + 26 = 54
Travis: 26 + 21 = 47
Aaron: 36 + 9 = 45
Jeff: 17 + 28 = 45

My first though is that h2h rocks. We look and act like real baseball teams, without the atlanta braves' "nice year, now beat the astros 3 outa 5" bullshit ending. it's fair for a league of 32 teams, but not for us.

Over 6 months, i love how a team like aaron's is still in 3rd. there are lots of ways to get "wins" other than leading all statistical catagories. i used to want to sell surplus stats and pick up what i needed as the year went on (roto style), but now i think it's cooler to be able to hang each week even if you have weak spots, instead of slowly falling behind. let's hope the Mariner's pull an Aaron and take the wild card from the "better roto team" (yanks).

Watch out boys, my team is on fire and, oh wait, damn, it doesn't count for shit.

let's resolve that for next year, by using the playoffs or eliminating them alltogether like aaron did in football. it's a crime to have wasted baseball. Plus, if things stay on course, it looks like the playoffs are gonna seperate the men from the boys after all. I still say that they should go (what if j west caught the injury bug the last two weeks and lost to me in the playoffs because he was undermaned. is that just the way it goes, or is that wack? (i vote for the latter)). an unlucky week shouldn't cost u the title; that's why they play football

Keeper System

Decision time, we need to come up with some sort of roster rule preventing people like me from picking up every single hot rookie the day the season ends in order to keep them. I was thinking only the players on your team on Monday (sept 10) are eligible for the keeper system. Next year, we should probably make the date before the playoffs start, but I dropped the ball on that one.

Just to make some things clear:

We can still make roster moves after monday, we just can't keep anyone we don't have on our Monday roster for next year...so Josh, as much as it pains me, you can have Pence, but I'm keeping Hughes.

I think we decided that the number will be 5.

At the end of the year i will give everyone a list of their team and where their players finished according to "Yahoo Rank" not O Rank. This list will show every player on your team and what round draft pick they are worth.

If you want to keep a player worth a 1st round pick, you have to draft him with your first round pick.

If you want to keep two 3rd round players, you have to draft one in the 3rd round, and one in the 2nd round..you can only keep one player that is worth a 1st round pick. This keeps the distribution of elite talent flowing better.

Roto Scores

JWest is pulling away with this thing in all formats. No big changes; Brian's offense dropped, as did mine. Jeff got more power, I jumped 2 spots up in ERA, and JWest is climbing in steals.

Justin: 67
Brian: 57
Josh: 53
Jeff: 49
Aaron: 45
Travis: 44

using the playoffs

I may have figured out a way to use the last 3 weeks of the season, and still give the crown to the regular season champ. After next week, we post the w/l totals on the bloog. The 1 and 2 seeds (JWest and Aaron right now) get a bye, so let's give them the same score for the week. That way all 6 of us get a score that week, without making the top two seeds play each other, which would be dumb. Week 2 of the playoffs is easy because all 6 teams play, and the last week 2 teams don't play, so we'll figure something out, even if we have to score it ourselves. This way we use the playoff format but still just tack on w's and l's.

If you guys like this, all we have to agree on is what score to give the top 2 seeds. It should be a reward, but nothing over the top; it should mostly just guarentee they don't lose points. 8-7, maybe even 9-6. (Two of the other teams should score at least 8 points that week too, although we have seen someone win with 6-7 points). How about 8-6-1.

Maybe the tourney champ gets a 5 win bonus for winnng it all. Let me know what you think.

J.West 3.0 (Keeper System)

Here is how my keeper system works, even though Josh probably laid it out in one paragraph far better then I can.

At the end of the year we use some sort of player rankings based on performance (either yahoo rankings, or espn player rater) and then we divide the players up by 6s. Thus the players who are ranked 1-6 = a first round pick players 7-12 are worth a 2nd round pick, ETC...

At the end of the year, you can keep 5 players, no salary cap or anything like that. The only catch is that you can only keep one 1st rounder. If you have two 2nd rounders you want to keep, you can keep both of them, only you have to take one of them with your 1st round pick.

This continues throughout the draft, if you have two 4th rounders you want to keep, you can keep them, but you have to take one of them in the 3rd round and the other in the 4th round.

Like I said in my post yesterday, don't stress if you have 2 guys worth 1st round picks, as you can see just because a player is a 1st rounder this year does not mean he will be next year.

The advantage of this system is it will give different managers different philosophies when it comes to keepers. For example Aaron might decide to keep more of his elite talent, Like Reyes, Wright and Ichiro in the first three rounds, where as I'm going to keep some of my injured or under preforming players like Sheets (19th round) Atkins (12th) Pujols (4th).

Sorry this post was so long, any questions please post them and we can work them out.

Housekeeping

Some things to tie up as the season wears down. We need to take some votes, and hopefully all 6 of us check the bloog. get the word out, esp to jeff, who i have never seen on the bloog:

1) vote for JWest's keeper system.
in case you've missed the boat, his system takes the final rankings from this year, breaks the guys into groups of 6 to denote their round, and lets you keep up to 5 of your guys, in the round in which they are designated. If you want to take 2 guys from the same round, you have to use the pick from the previous round. This means that if you have 2 guys projected in the first round, you can only keep one of them. JWest's post will tell you more.

2) buy the trophy
i think aaron is in charge of this. the bats were cheap enough that we think (and we can vote) that we can get a new one each year, rather than pass the trophy from year to year. this leads to the next topic...

3) cleaning up the end of the year mess
i may be the only one who thinks this is a problem. we have casually talked about giving the title to the regular season champ, as a h2h league with only 6 teams has a chance for a pretty random playoffs. i agree, that with 10-12 teams, our ranks would be more significant, not everyone would get into the playoffs, and the playoffs would be less up to chance. however, i don't think we can do this without a unanimous vote. it's bad form to change the rules this late unless everyone is onboard. in the long run, with a small league, we really should try to override the playoffs and just keep normal score all the way until the end. any braves fan will tell u the playoffs are shit anyway; we just have to be organized as a league.

4) football draft
again, get up with aaron, soon

Preview to my Keeper System

In order to preview my keeper system(which I hope to roll out tomorrow) (which I suspect some might not like because you wont be able to keep as many elite players as you would like) lets take a look back at this years first two rounds of the draft, and how they rank up up to this point.

ROUND 1

1. Pujols - 15
2. Soriano - 71
3. Reyes -6
4. Utley - 23
5. Santana - 10
6. A-Rod - 1

ROUND 2

7. Crawford - 22
8. Howard - 36
9. Ortiz - 30
10. Wright - 8
11. Vlad - 27
12. M.Cab - 11

So as you can see only 2 of the players drafted in the first round are playing like first rounders this year. And only two second rounders are playing like 2nd rounders this year. So taking a keeper out of the "elite" players is just as much a gamble as anyone else. I really think the value to a keeper league is to be had in this years under preforming players.

For example, I would much rather gamble on Soriano and Howard as keepers this year (while their stock is low) then I would say keep Maglio Ordoniez.

keeper system 1.1

this one might be better, but you have to read the other first

Keeper System

Everyone has a budget of $24 (imagenary). There are only 2 types of players:

Vets: all players who was drafted in the open draft this year: $8

Rookies: anyone who was not picked up in the draft: $4

You can keep a max of 5 players.

For every year you keep a player, their cost rises $4.

Each player kept counts as a draft pick. (not totally sure what rounds keepers should count for yet, let's go with 1st round for Vets, 10th round for Rooks.)

Now by picking up a guy who went undrafted, you can keep him for $4 and loose a much less valuable pick, so not only can you keep young guys, but anyone no one trusted enough to draft (Magglio, Griffey, etc). after this year their value will go up $4 and cost a first round pick like anyone else. it's like signing a vet for the minimum and gettinng a nice return

keeper system

got stoned and came up with this. we could go in any direction, but this one sounds good. read on, more notes at the bottom:

Keeper System

Everyone has a budget of $24 (imagenary). There are only 2 types of players:

Rookies: anyone with less than (x#) of MLB service days: $4

Studs: anyone else you would keep: $8

You can keep a max of 5 players.

Each player kept counts as a draft pick. (not totally sure what rounds keepers should count for yet)

So, under this system, you can keep 3 studs, 2 studs and 2 rookies, or 1 stud and 4 rookies to spend your entire budget. You could also keep 1 stud, 3 rookies, and draft in the open draft one round sooner than if you kept the max of 4 rookies. You could keep no one and draft the first 3-5 guys in the open draft. Lots of possibilities.

At first I was trying to figure out a middle category of player for $6, but it’s not really worth it. This is simple and I think it still meets all of our criteria. The number of days that qualify a rookie need to be established. I think it should be over one year, but not by much. Find out how many days of service some young guy has who played parts of two seasons that may add up to a little more than 1 year, but the player is still a speculative keeper.

With prior knowledge of this, no one should be allowed to keep rookies this season. With an open draft, I let Pence go; I would not have if I had know this was keeper under this system. If I go get him now, it’s only because I knew the plan changed before everyone else. That’s probably not fair. I don’t really mind, and I doubt u will either.

So maybe this year everyone can keep 2 or 3, all same value, and next year the rewards for cultivating rooks take place. I just don’t see any other way around this pence example.

Brian and I were working on the draft pick compensation for keepers too. Which rounds keepers should count for, and that rookies should take a much lower round than the studs. Also, we should discuss limiting the number of years you can keep someone and/or making it progressively more expensive to keep the same person year to year.

Damn, i keep thinking of more stuff. maybe each year you keep someone, their keeper price goes up $4. Then each year you keep someone, he becomes harder and harder to keep until he either eats up your whole keeper budget or you throw him in the draft pile. if you trade a keeper, his price stays the same until he hits the draft. so if i trade you a-rod next year, he will cost you $12 to keep for 09. if no one keeps him in 09, he can be kept in '10 for $8 again. this promotes keeper turnover and strategy.

A lot could change for next year, as we have a good core group to build around. it would be nice to have 8 serious guys to thin the talent pool out a bit. Maybe we make big changes like this yearly, not all at once. i know justin is trying to get a contracts/salary cap system worked into the league. that could be cool too, even if it's not next year.

we can also talk about exploring roto for a year, making the draft an auction, doing it in person, and of course tinkering with roster size and scoring catagories.

if you didn't finish this post because it's dorky you should probably get out now

Get Well Soon Josh

Everybody wish josh a speedy recovery. As of right now he is down 10-3 to brian. I know it hurts josh but you will get through it i promise.

Get Well Soon,

Aaron

ps. I heard you had some sort of knee surgery. I hope that doesnt hurt either or something.

roto scores

Check this shit out

R HR RBI SB AVG OBP SLG OPS W SV K ERA WHIP K/BB K/9 B P T
TEAM LINCECUM 2 6 5 1 5 4 6 6 6 1 6 3 3 3 5 35 27 62
TURD FERGUSON 5 2 2 3 3 5 3 3 3 4 5 5 5 6 6 26 34 60
RENALDO BALKMAN 4 5 6 2 4 3 5 4 1 6 2 2 4 4 3 33 22 55
ATL SPEADWAGON 6 1 1 6 6 6 4 5 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 35 9 44
AUTODRAFT 3 3 4 5 2 2 2 2 4 3 3 4 2 2 4 23 22 45
HARRY&THEHENDERSONS 1 4 3 4 1 1 1 1 5 5 4 6 6 5 2 16 33 49


so i got a spreadsheet that takes our stats and turns them into a roto score (that's what that econ degree is for!), so how the hell to i get a spreadsheet to show up here?

Name change time

Well this could be taboo, but i think im gonna change my name to try and boost my karma. Lets see....

New Roto Scores!!

well, if i'm gonna be laid up in my apartment, at least i can do something usefull. I'll even break in down by hitting and pitching:

Bat Pitch Total
JWest 35 29 64
Brian 26 33 59
Josh 33 24 57
Jeff 16 32 48
Aaron 35 9 44
Travis 23 20 43

oh no

JWest is even leading in SAVES as of this post. Here he comes, the Oakland A's of the League.

we
are
all
fucked

Hot of the Press; New Roto Scores

Josh has taken the lead in the roto standings:

Josh 66
Justin 62
Brian 56
Aaron 49
Jeff 47
Travis 42

Looks like the Roto scores are starting to normalize to the actuall scores

Auction of the Prince

Anyone want Prince Fielder.

I'm accepting bids now.


P.S. I like that Jeff is using the trading block on Yahoo. Good play sir.

Biggest Busts of the year (besides me)

These are the players who have the biggest difference between their O-Rank and actual rankings, and it begs the question, how long are we willing to wait for a superstar to play to their expected performance, or should we just cut ties with them now.

Berkman 16 - 134 Travis
Ryan Howard 24 -187 Jeff
Vernon Wells 29 - 192 Jeff
A. Jones 37 -125 Jeff
G. Atkins 65 - 651 FA


Roy Oswalt 31 - 210 Jeff
King Felix 44 - 627 Travis
Matt Cain 62 - 620 Justin
Zambrano 87 - 890...ouch Aaron

On the flip side, biggest surprises

E.Byrnes 171 - 23 Jeff
BJ Upton 187 - 25 Jeff
Brandon Phillips 145 - 27 Josh
Youk 281 -33 Jeff
Ugla 107 -37 Jeff
Posada 173 -38 Aaron
M.Lowell 237 -39 Aaron


J.Shields 273-8 Josh
Brad Penny 301 - 64 Jeff
O.Perez 289-81 Aaron

Conclusions:

There are a few ways to look at this: Perhaps Jeff and Travis teams aren't as bad as the are playing right now and their star players will rebound. Aaron and Bryans teams aren't as good as they are and they will come back to normal.

Personally what I think is Travis and Jeff's teams will be rebound and do better. But I do think some of Aaron, Josh, and Brian's team will regress to the mean a bit. But I also think they should be rewarded for exploiting the free agent market so well.

I also hate how not volatile my team is, the are playing just like a middle of the standings team.

O well, hope you enjoi your weekly sabermetric post from me.

Why don't more people care about a great sport?

Since I'm continually being ribbed on this blog because I care about the NHL, I guess I should stand up and rightfully defend it. Josh and I had a long, productive discussion about the state of the NHL in America the other night. As alluded in the previous post, the number of people in the US who care about the NHL is probably a four digit number. I have trouble comprehending this, because I think that the product that the NHL is selling is fantastic. It's like the perfect marriage of basketball and football. It has the quick pace of a basketball game, with constant movement, but it has the physicality and infrequent scoring of the NFL, without a commercial break every 45 seconds. I know most people can't handle watching it on TV much, but anyone who has been to a live game in the last two years will tell you that it's a great game to watch, especially with all the recent rules changes that make it a much faster paced, more offensive minded game.

So why don't more people care about the NHL? Several reasons I suppose. As Josh pointed out the other night, it's a pretty poorly run business at this point. Bettman takes a lot of undeserved flack, because despite what a lot of people think, the lockout needed to happen. Salaries had ballooned and attendance had fallen to a point where the league and the teams were bleeding money. The lockout was necessary because the salary cap was necessary. But now there's a new dawn on the league, with a salary cap that keeps things in check, keeps the talent pool somewhat even (to prevent Detroit from stacking players every year), so what's the deal?

The league has a shitty TV deal for one. Most people don't even know what the Versus network is, much less can they find it on their televisions. There are a few later season games and some playoff games on NBC, but nothing like what the other leagues have, and no coverage on other networks like ESPN either (with the exception of some regional coverage). They've got to get a viable TV deal that will get them more exposure.

The other thing they need is some better marketing. They've got a product that I think is much superior to the NBA, yet the NBA is certainly outdrawing the NHL in most markets. The league needs a face. The NBA has a plethora of superstars to choose from, such as LeBron, Kobe, KG, and countless others that are the face of the league. The NHL could have this, because they have unbelievable young talent in guys like Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, and other marketable stars like Martin Brodeur, Chris Pronger, Ryan Miller, and the Staal brothers. The problem is that likely none of you reading this really know who any of those guys are. The league has to figure out a way to really spotlight some of these guys and showcase them. On a network that's not Versus.

Finally, the league needs less teams. Honestly, does there really need to be a team in Phoenix? Or South Florida? Those are probably two of the hottest places on the planet, the last thing they need is an ice hockey team. There are probably four or five markets that need to lose a team right now, such as Phoenix, Miami, Columbus, Nashville, and possibly even LA or Atlanta. These are markets that just don't seem to care enough about their teams to warrant keeping them around. (I know most people would probably group Carolina into that group as well, but Raleigh is crazy about that team and they routinely draw 15,000 plus to games.) These teams either need to be contracted, or moved into a market where they could really thrive. Not a new market like Kansas City, but somewhere like Hartford where the support is clearly there.

Honestly, one of the best things that could happen would be more new people watching games with people who know what's going on. The game is relatively simple to understand, most people just don't understand it and don't understand why they should care about it. It has a great history, and great action. Go to a game sometime, and check it out in person. I doubt you'll regret it.

More NBA!! (at least it's not hockey...travis)

1st: read JWest's comment on the last post. Priceless.

2nd: last Bill Simmons (BS) related post for a while. promise.

3rd: BS reminded me of this the other day. Remember in the golden days of our youth when the NBA was a big deal and NBC showed games every weekend? We're talking the Jordan years (i am slightly too young for the bird/magic years). All the NBC commercials for upcomming games were hyped the exact same way, for years. It went:

BULLS!! KNICKS!! IT'S THE NBA PLAYOFFS ON NBC!!

By now you're either humming the little promo song to yourself or you have no idea . Either way, it's really fun to announce lesser sporting events with this same formula. For example:

DUCKS!! SENS!! IT'S THE STANLEY CUP FINALS ON VERSUS!!
dada dada dum da da da...

I know, i'm still laughing. I actually had a really good chat with travis about the NHL last night. He knows his shit. The thing is, he is one of the 5000 people in North America who DOESN'T need to be sold on hockey. I am a huge sports fan, and i couldn't name ONE player on either team in the Stanley Cup finals. that's sad. and it's not my fault. the combation of over-expansion and the missing season left us with a bunch of nobodies playing an interesting game who's rules i don't understand and results i don't care about. might as well be ncaa lacrosse.

'CUSE!! BROWN!! IT'S THE NCAA LACROSS FINALS ON ESPNU!!

more simmons

i can't believe i forgot to tell JWest this, but bill really hates 90% of tv's color comentators. that's why he liked jeff van gundy so much during these playoffs. HE ACTUALLY KNOWS WHATS GOING ON BECAUSE HE'S IN BASKETBALL. bill said this made him realize that color men should have to retire after 10 years of not being in the sport; after that you just think your right all the time, but the game has passed you by. His first three mandatory cuts: tim mccarver (who i despise to no end), billy packer, and....joe morgan.

oh he gave amnesty to bill raftery pat summerall, and hubie brown, for obvious reasons (still spinnin'...)

Yahoo! Sports announcement

As I'm sure some of you have seen, there is a message at the top of the league page. It reads as follows:
Due to scheduled server maintenance, Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Games will be inaccessible on Wednesday, May 30, starting at 10pm PT and lasting approximately six hours. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

Yes, I realize that this won't go into effect until 1 a.m. right coast time, but I'm still mad about it. What if a west coast game goes into extras or has a rain delay. Do they really expect us to wait until the morning to see the outcome of a game, and how it affects our scores. That is just outrageous. I think I may suffer raker withdrawls.

Travis this post is of no concern to you since you always have to wait until the morning to see the outcome of games, unless you have purchased the raker since we last talked. If you still haven't, then maybe now is the time. It could turn your team around.

quote pt. 2

sorry, but bill is on fire today:

watching this Cavs-Pistons series is like pulling teeth. Have you ever seen a Final 4 team with worse coaching and a worse offense than the Cavs? It's like watching 5 complete strangers playing pickup with a drunk from the neighborhood yelling instructions at them.

simmons

today's quote

I will never get used to this: One of our most white-bread American cities roots for an NBA franchise named for a musical movement created by African-Americans. It's genuinely insane. You can brainstorm with your buddies all weekend to come up with a name for a sports franchise that makes less sense -- there's no way you're topping Utah Jazz. Not even with Dallas Indians.

Bill Simmons

Survey

it's early, and it pales in comparison to my love of fantasy baseball, by a lot, a lot, but is anyone in the league down for football in the fall? my best buddy here in the city is a skins fan and really wants in if we do. i justified it to the wife as being less intense from a time standpoint because they only play once a week and it's way down my sports depth chart (mlb, nba, golf and tennis majors, ncaabb, wsop, world cup, then nfl, tour de france, olympic swimming, mma, nascar, ncaafb, and hockey fights (the rest of hockey is down with horse racing and modern boxing as sports that should never be on tv again).)

let me know and rank your sports too if you're feeling it (stand up for hockey travis; i respect it, i just can't watch it)

for JWest

"Ken Griffey has put a strangle-hold on his spot in the 3-hole with power hitting like the mid-90s Griffey. As long as he stays healthy, there’s no reason to believe he can’t keep up this pace. He still has an inordinate amount of talent and he’s not decrepit yet…"

Mat Snyder TMR "Around the NL Central" 04/24

I love "inordinate amount of talent".

Too good to be true?

So i just got home and this is Adrian Gonzolez's line.

9/16
R/4
HR/4
RBI/9
SB/0
AVG/.563
OBP/.563
SLG/1.313
OPS/1.875

There is no way this is right. There was no double, or for that matter, quadruple header today. The score is only 1-5. How does he have 9 rbi when his team has 5 runs total. This sucks because at this point i have a 8-5 lead of Turd, and i know its all going to change when they fix this. Someone explain this to me...

only in NYC

also wanted everyone to know that i am going to a party to watch the ping pong balls drop for the NBA lottery today. it sucks memphis has a team; they are going to get an awsome player. i hope the celtics get one of them or there will be riots up north. Sleeper: watch phoenix a la atlanta get the 4th pic and add corey brewer. nasty.
phx suns next year: nash, marion, diaw, barbosa, kg, bell, and corey brewer. yes, nasty (oh this includes phx trading stoudamire and a pic for kg; it will happen)

griffey explanation

i touched on it in my response, but look at my of/utl spots:
vlad
beltran
soriano
manny
crawford
thome
the pronk

so even though i LOVE griff dog, he's still #8 on this list

but maybe the guy who starts corey patterson should give me a call, just sayin'

Updated Roto Scores

Justin 60

Brian 58

Josh 55

Aaron 53

Travis 47

Jeff 42

What does a guy gotta do to make Josh's team

So Griffey wins the NL player of the week, and that still isn't good enough to make the cut for Renaldo Balkman? So once again I will swoop in and pick up his trash then try to recycle it back to him. Don't forget Josh I still have M.Young.

lesson learned

if you're gonna light a fire under someone's ass for not bringing it in fantasy... make sure you're not playing them the following week.

Also, it's only a tie, but this was the first week aaron did not win his machup. And seeing as he only has mets and tigers on his team, his squad shall now be known as the Tits.

Aaron, you have great tits

Happy Birthday Aaron!

i only got this in on time because the clock on our bloog is on cali time. awsome.

Intervention?

Ok, we never see him on the bloog, he doesn't make any moves, he let ryan howard (dl) play all week even though he's been out for 10 days, and he won't drop carpenter (done for the year) or schmidt (worthless to our league now) to free up his bench. Is Jeff alive? More importantly, is he playing fantasy baseball? There's one in every league i guess. I was just hoping not ours this year. I mean, Travis isn't as cracked out as me for example, but we make deals and he is on top of his roster. That's enough for me. I still don't even know if Jeff has a computer.

Prove me wrong big boy

Oh I guess that Beckett deal last week is looking pretty good now huh? He ALWAYS hurts his fingers...

I still don't think your that far away from turning it around. get on it.

Ramirez singles to center

Sometimes i'll be on the Raker, and I'll see "Ramirez singles to center" or "Ramirez doubles to deep left". I love it, because I've had Manny for 4 weeks now. And every time I remember to look up the game status...it's Hanley Remirez standing on 2nd.

Karma

So I guess it is only fair that Houston Street is on the DL. I traded Justin for him a few weeks back in a deal involving Joel Zumaya, who promptly ruptured a tendon in his throwing hand and is out for 3 months.

What the f*&k was that

So i built my team around OBP, because as I've shown it is the most important stat. So how in the hell can my team have 45 plate appearances and not draw one single walk. In fact somehow my batting average is higher then my OBP, can anyone tell me how that is?

closer list

here u go lazy:

Hoffman
Putz
Reyes
Accardo
Meyers
Cordero

CLOSERS FOR SALE

i have 6 closers mowing guys down, racking up saves, and pitching clean innings. if your not jwest, give me a shout. (by the way, autodraft? gordon is done for the year bro, u should be calling me first)

Whats going on with the scoring...what if we were a roto league

Not so sure i like this whole head to head mach ups anymore, I ran the numbers to see what the standings would be if we had regular roto scoring

Roto Points/Games Back
Autodraft : 60 /5 games back
Team Lincecum: 60 /10 games back
Renaldo Balkman: 54 /10.5 games back
TheBobbyCoxExperienc: 53 /Leader
harry&thehendersons: 52 /18 games back
Turd F: 44 /7.5 games back


The Computer I'm on right now is not capable of doing a regression analysis, but if I had to guess, it wouldn't be good.

I don't know if i can live in a league where actual statistics don't translate to actual wins, maybe Joe Morgan was right when he said you can't compare things with statistics

The Bloog: Trading Block

I have a few guys im willing to talk about right now...let me know whos interested...

Chone Figgins
Mike Piazza
Jim Thome
David Weathers
Chin-Meng Wang

let me know what everybody thinks...

A Survey

So I'm on a kickball team this summer, composed mainly of girls and farries. Unfortunately, I am probably the most kickball-inclined person on the team. Which defensive position should i play to have the greatest impact on my team? Where will i be the most effective? thanks for your response

Team Lincecum

So its official I have to change my name to Team Lincecum in honor of my newest addition. And although he will undoubtedly be a 2009 all star team member, my man crush for him is so supreme it requires a name change... for a week at least. Don't share my man crush?


Lincecum allowed only one run in five AAA starts, going 4-0, 0.29 while holding opponents to a .119 batting average. He struck out 46 batters in 31 innings while walking 11.

He spent only 62 innings this year and last in the minors, where his final minor league statistics almost defy comprehension: 6-0 with a 0.99 ERA. He allowed 26 hits and 23 walks in 63 2/3 innings while striking out 104. THATS A 15.6 K/9

My video game self doesn't even have those kinds of numbers

Our league is worthless in the eyes of Joe Morgan

Sorry guys but according to Joe morgan our league is crap because we are basing our league on a little thing called statistics, and accroding to Joe Morgan on an ESPN chat:

"My point is you can't compare things with statistics."

Don't believe me here is the whole answer:

There are so many guys with long term contracts and guys who are into statistics. That's not their fault, because everyone hypes the statistics and talks about statistics. I'll give you an example, I saw a quote that Billy Hall had a monster year last year, but only drove in 70-something runs. He hit 30 HRs, but only drove in 70 runs. That's not a monster year, but that's how people compare statistics. My point is you can't compare things with statistics.

Sorry guys I don't know how else to compare out teams, maybe by the team who has the most players with cute uniforms....I'm open to suggestions.

Well I fucking love Manny

Seriously, name one guy who is more entertaining in the batter's box. I know, if he's not on your fantasy squad, or your not a Sox fan, or you're playing me this week, you have the right to say "fuck manny" or perhaps "fuck josh". But if you like baseball, you can't tell me it's not bad ass watching him hit a shoulder high pich about 400 feet to the opposite field and just throw his arms in the air, wathcing it go. Ken Griffey Jr may have had the prettiest homer swat of our generation, and we all love that Sheff bat speed, but for my money, I go with Manny. He makes baseball look fun. Kinda like those wonderful Bravos that are frequently discussed on this bloog. Sorry for the sappy shit, but between Manny and Soriano waking up and the Brett Myers as the Phila closer era beginning, I'm really into my squad. Too bad it won't matter b/c TBX is gonna put 5 points on the whole field b/c Jeff and his Radio Shack computer aren't quite ready to start "comming back on all our asses". Seriously, are asses are waiting. That's not a sexual thing, well, unless u need money for a new computer; then maybe we can work something out. I've said to much allready. (I'm such an enabler right now...)

by the way, thank's to everyone for the prompt denial of my trades. Quick bad news is way better than no news. Even jeff got back to me in under 24 hours, and he had to use carrier pigions. Autodraft, meanwhile, is on day four of no response. You would think a super computer could check it's own e-mail. Seriously brah, I'm always reading shitty poems in your away messages about how you hate your office job so i had an idea; PLAY WITH YOUR FUCKING SQUAD AT WORK LIKE THE REST OF AMERICAN DOES!!! you have no excuse. agian, jeff doesn't even have a computer that will stay on for more than 5 minutes, and yet...

Oh yeah, thanks again for Carl Crawford. You're a sweetheart. JWest offered me his entire pitching staff, an above ground pool, and a lifetime supply of tartar sauce for him, and i still won't budge. That's why i'll never give up on you, just hit "accept", and let's move on. be a buddy

The Bloog: I fucking love the Atlanta Braves

So there are so many reasons why i love the Braves. They have given me, aside from last year, 14 strait years of great regular season baseball. I have seen some of the best pitching ever all on one rotation. And lately, their team has been one of the more fun teams to watch. Whether its the Jones boys laughing at eachother, or Francoeur and McCann buying eachother late night T-Bell. And now, most recently the kid with the longest name in professional sports history, Jarrod Saltalamacchia. I have been waiting for today since i first saw him in spring training in '06, and finally today he got his first start, on his 22nd birthday. He was about 10 feet short of hitting a home run, got a walk, got hit by a pitch, got thrown out at home and won his first game to go up .5 games on the Mets. Watching this game on espn reminded me why i love this team, and this sport so much. Seeing Bobby Cox, and Andruw, and Chipper, and Terry Pendleton all hitting him on his helmet in the post game congrats, and Salty just having the biggest smile on his face made me think about how great this sport is over all the other big pros. These are all kids when they come in...and not like the only other sport you can start so young, the NBA, where the youngest ones are just the cockiest people on the court. Go Braves, Go Baseball.

First Nerdy/Sabermetric post of the year

Yes boys, this is the first post regarding regression analysis. For all of those of you who didn't pay attention in statistics class regression analysis looks and two seemingly independent variables and looks if one has to do with the other.

In this case we are looking at Winning Percentage, because that's what matters in our league.

The scale basically ranges from 0-1, the closer to 1 the better correlation there is, the better correlation, the more it matters.

R .79

HR .09

RBI .17

SB .32

AVG .70

OBP .80

SLG .32

OPS .65

So it looks like the most important stats so far are OBP and Runs, mainly because those

two categories are aggregates of other categories. You can't have a good OBP without average, and the more you get on base the more runs you will score and rbi's you drive in.

I guess I’m surprised about how little HR’s have to do with Winning Percentage. Every time you hit a home run you earn points in R, HR, RBI, AVG, OBP, SLG, and OPS. I guess its early and we are under a severe sample size warning, so funny things happen…like me being in second to last place.

The Bloog: Give me your struggling players.

I have decided to create a little bit of a side business within our wonderful league.

Do you have any players that just aren't reaching there full potential for you? Do you find yourself asking "Do I just stick with him? I know hes gonna heat up eventually." Well now there is something you can do about it, with a simple 1 week turn around.

Just sign your struggling players for The Bobby Cox Experience. This proven training program has turned around the fantasy careers of such former all stars as Garry Sheffield, and most recently David Wright. As said by Baseball Tonight's Fernando Vina, "I think Sheff is gonna have one of the best Mays in the league, (The Bobby Cox Experience*) has awakened a sleeping giant."

David Wright, who is batting .266 on the season with no homeruns since August of last year began this week benched, and thus begining The Bobby Cox Experience. Mr. Wright went 3/4 on Tuesday night with 2 runs and his first Homer; way to go David!

So give me your Drew's, your Wiggington's and your Carlos Delgado's. After going through my strict program of being benched...I will return your newly refurbished players to you in the best condition in this brief, but for some, excruciatingly long season thus far.


*Mr. Vina's comment was actually regarding Mr. Sheffield being hit by a pitch from Baltimore Orioles pitcher Daniel Cabrera. Mr. Vina has no association with The Bobby Cox Experience.

15-0

Thanks to an Alex Rios homer Aaron has acheived what I believe is the first 15-0 moment of the season.

Let the appropriate shit talking commence.

-B

P.S. Travis if you are reading this, these are the things you miss by not having the raker.

The Bloog: Any takers?

So im thinking about trading off some people. Everyone let me know what you think...make me some offers. I dont really know what i want right now as my team is lookin strong...but i like trades so.

Here are the players that I will consider:

Chien-Ming Wang
Alex Rios
Marcus Giles
A Pair of Underwear

Let me know whos interested...especially if 2.0 is interested in the Underwear trade.

Version 2.0

I think I will have to change my name from 2009 all star team to Version 2.0

G.Atkins
J.Zumya
A.Dunn
D.Dejusus
A.Rowand
M.Tex
D.Ardsmaa
P.Hughes
J.Weaver (the good one)
F.Cabrera

Oh shit it's 11:47!!!

I'm a little salty right now. Ashley and I take turns cooking dinner on Sunday nights with another couple we know. Once a month you cook, clean, buy booze, or do nothing. It's a good system. This was my week to cook, and by the time I put out dessert (strawberries with butter cookies and Pedro Ximinez sabayon; i know right) i realized i had no time to fuck with my squad and sweep the wavers one last time. Never mind the fact that Jwest opened up my head and snagged Rowand and Michael Young earlier today (Young is turning the corner right now, and he steals bases), but i was still sitting on Robbie Cano, the only regular in the majors hitting over 300 who can't get his slugging over 400. If we had a league where we were required to have two 2bs, he'd be awsome, but that solid average just isn't enough for the 2007 LOOG (by the way, the grammerian in me hates that second "O"; we don't live in the USOA, and I know who your english teach was Jwest). Anway, I mad a mad dash for that lunitic Gary Matthews Jr, and hoped for the best. Now enough about me, lets get down to business.

The Rundown
This is the league leader in each of the scoring catagories. Please tell me if the Raker allready does this so I can go back to my hot ass wife:

R: 63 (H&H)
HR: 16 (H&H)
RBI: 55 (H&H)
SB: 19 (Autodraft)
AVG: 297 (2009)
OBP: 407 (TBX)
SLG: 495 (2009)
OPS: 859 (2009)
W: 5 (Balkman and TBX)
SV: 11 (Balkman)
K: 59 (H&H)
ERA: 3.14 (2009)
WHIP: 1.15 (Balkman)
K/BB: 3.41 (TBX)
K/9: 9.25 (2009)

If you didn't like head to head more than roto, you should now. Balkman and Autodraft won their power catagories, but compared to H&H, everyone was a loser, the same happens with all the other stats. Hey man, if Seattle beats KC, and Boston beats NYY, they each get a win. A win is a win, whether the guy you beat is a bad ass or not.

Some final randoms:
A win migh be a win, but a K is not always a K; three different people won each of the three K catagories.
Jwest made it all week without a single W. Call him J est this week.
TBX gets the Robby Cano award for the biggest gap between average and slugging
I had 11 saves despite Hoffman and Wickman blowing 5 between the two of them.
Aaron had two blown saves and a loss from two pitchers in the same game in about an 8 minute period, as well as a mild stroke. The Raker says he is day to day.
Two catagories were up still up for grabs and changing during the 16th inning of the last game of the week.
Autodraft might be human; his bats have cooled (very slightly) and he's taking punches from the league like the ordinary gentleman that he is.
The trade between Jwest and Jeff proves that Jeff is in fact alive AND concerned with the goings on of the league
Aaron and Jwest would trade underwear if they thought if would help their teams.
A Rod might have 34 rbis for NYY, but he can't pitch for them, and New Yorkers still think he is a pussy. (at my local grocery store, they watch every Yankee game on Gamecast, and I heard him called a pussy twice this week; they will never like him)
On the flip side, Jose Reyes might be the most popular guy in the city right now. (well, and Renaldo Balkman of course).

Crazy Week

That is how every week should be


AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS
Justin: 297/364/495/859
Jeff : 280/363/493/856


Brian: 276/364/451/815
Josh: 265/361/451/812


TOP 10 Players
1. AROD (Travis)
2. Reyes (Aaron)
3. Rollins (Travis)
4. Kinsler (Justin)
5. A.Gonz (Justin)
6. Beltran (Josh)
7. Bonds (Aaron)
8. Cabrera (Justin)
9. Sizemore (Jeff)
10. K.Johnson (Josh)


Sorry Brian, Chipper doesn't come in untill 14

RIP Josh Hancock

Sorry to here about Hancock, but do you have to cancel the game tonight, doesn't Bud Selig know that I'm down 9 strikeouts this week. Rich Hill was pitching tonight. I think this post might solidify my place in Hell.

The BLOOG: Trophy Bat?

In talking with Josh we have come up with a few different ideas for the Trophy Bat.
He apparently is talking about getting an Ash bat from the guy that makes Barry's in Canada. While that would be pretty cool there are a couple problems with that. I would guess that they are pretty fucking expensive.

Here is the one that I found. http://www.xbats.com/products.asp?cat=10

Positives/Negatives for the xbat:

Positives: We could do any color combo we want. Maybe all black? Maybe all Cherry? Maybe a black handle with a natural barrel? We can decide this later. Also we can just get the name of the award on the front of the bat, and then find a place to engrave each of our names on the reverse side of the bat. Also you can send in a signature to have engraved on the bat. So of course we would do it with Jwest, being that he is the league comish...which could also be a good opportunity to just name it the Jwest trophy/cup/stick....

Negatives: Really only 1 in my book. Although a case could be made that it would cost $95.00 plush shipping to get it with the signature on it. But honestly between the 6 of us its not a big deal. The real problem is that terrible Xbat logo in the center of it. We could call and see if there is anyway we can get that not on there, but I doubt it.

Let me know what everyone thinks about it. For those who don't know how...there is a "post a comment" link under each The Bloog post.


Just had a bit of a revelation. I found some places that make some pretty good looking ones for a little cheaper.

http://www.promaplebats.com/shopexd.asp?id=42

Theres one.

But what do you think about possibly getting a new one every year. So if you win multiple years you get multiple bats? There is certainly something to be said though about the Stanley cup style trophy...I mean that is how you build a history. I dont know...leave your thoughts

who trades carl crawford anyway?

Here we go, the first post. I am quite pleased with our little league this year (name pending). I have some of the same concerns as TBX (thebobbycoxexperienc) but all in all I'd say we don't have much to complain about. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who gives the league a disproportionate ammount of my time each day. Am I the only one who uses his Raker as a nightlight? Maybe (it's that calming green glow). Am I the only one eating honeydew in his underwear at 330am? I hope so, but call jeff just to check...

As for the trophy, Balkman will totally pitch in for a real bat; not the Lousiville Slugger that we hit rocks with at the Ranch, but a ML worthy wodden bat. We can totally have a bat maker forge us one and maybe even put the league name (pending) on it for us. Do not tell me that bats are not forged. Do NOT tell me that bats are not forged...

Too late for serious baseball news, but know that Trevor Hoffman hasn't had a strikeout pitch for 5 years, and that I'll give him to ya for a KFC variety box and the cost of my NFL Raker this fall. What, like we're not all gonna play football now...

We'll laugh at all of this during the 2009 NBA fantasy draft...

Oh, sorry TBX, the title should read "what trades carl crawford anyway?"

The BLOOG

Well I would just like to say to everyone that I am really enjoying this League right now. Even though I am currently matched up with the cold, calculating, heartless machine that is Autodraft. However, there are a few things that I wish would change.


1. I haven't had the pleasure yet...but from what I hear Autodraft isnt the quickest to respond to trade offers. Thank god we arent set up to change rosters daily. I understand that he is the only one out of all of us with a regular ol' 9-5...but cmon man, is it that hard to check your fantasy page every 15-20 minutes?

2. I am really doubting the dedication of a couple of our members in the League of Ordinary Gentlemen. Rumor has it there are still a couple people/cold-heartless-machines that dont have the StatTracker yet...or as some of us have been calling it, "The Raker." You can only imagine how it makes us, the obsessed, feel when we know that some people arent throwing their social lives to the dogs for this league. Just get The Raker, it is way more fun for everyone.

3. While I love the name of the League as "The League of Ordinary Gentlemen", (Kudos to jwest for the classy blog or Bloog as it will now be known) we still need to come up with a name for our trophy. For those who dont know, the trophy is going to be an official wood bat, that we will have the winners name engraved in each year. From what I hear Brian is already shopping for a display case, and Autodraft is doing everything he can to not act like its already in the bag for him, which I admire.

This being my first Bloog post, I have to say to those of you who haven't yet, it definately helps you get some things off your chest. I expect to see pleanty of good things on here from, Josh's tirades, to Jwests worth while stats, to brian's worthless facts. Ill see you all in The Raker!

Yahoo Player Rankins

First off no one look at the stupid O-Rankings on the player page. They are completly worthless instead look at the column next to the O-rank called Rank. It shows who the most valuable players are in our league.

C: Joe Mauer (Brian)
1b: Adrian Gonzo (Aaron...shit)
2b: Ian Kinsler (Justin)
ss: Jose Reyes (Aaron)
3b: A-Rod (Travis)
OF: Vlad (Josh)
OF: Vernon Wells (Jeff)
OF: Carlos Beltran (Josh)
SP: Tim Hudson (aaron)
SP: Jake Peavy (Justin)
SP: Ted Lilly (Travis)
RP: Franciso Cordero (Josh)
RP: Papelbon (aaron)
RP: Al Reyes (josh)


So that puts the count at

Aaron: 4
Josh: 3
Justin: 2
Travis: 2...although something tells me Ted Lilly wont last
Brian: 1
Jeff: 1

4/26 Trade with 2009 All star team and Bob Cox

2009 trades Adrian Gonzo, O-Dog, and Schilling

for

Bob Cox: Mark Tex, J.Weaver(the good one), and Bill Hall.

So basically I traded 3 players who are all doing awesome...maybe a little too awesome wink,wink, for for 3 players who are playing like shit.

I still think Tex can 30+home runs and Hall can hit 25 home runs, and Schill's ankle may fall off.