peter

Fantasy baseball advice for those who ask.

The Rotoman’s Regulars League Draft

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Sunday night we held the seventh annual Rotoman’s Regulars League draft. The league is a 20 team Yahoo 5×5 league. Rosters are 20 deep (four reserves), so 400 players are taken. This is a very tough league with very smart, tough competition, both in the draft and all season long. And the all season long part is crucial. Though the league has weekly waiver claims it has daily ups and downs, so maximizing one’s reserve list and streaming players and pitchers on off days is essential. I made a respectable showing the first year, but each subsequent year things got worse until I decided to take a break. I hate sucking. This year I decided to return. I missed the guys and in spite of my suckiness at it, I like the format a lot.

How’d I do? Sucky. Here’s the team:
Jorge Regulah Roster

Here’s what happened:

1. Miguel Cabrera (1B): The seventh pick overall comes after the big boys, but before you can legitimately go after someone like Mauer or Lincecum. I mean, you could, but it doesn’t feel right. So, I went after the guy I think is the best of the big boys who isn’t a big boy. He’s the right age, he’ll be helped having Johnny Damon hitting ahead of him (but maybe not Austin Jackson), and he has a lot to live down after last year’s disgraceful exit.

2. Pablo Sandoval (3B): Waiting 26 picks for a second guy is frustrating. All the obvious names went off the board. I didn’t want an outfielder and I don’t trust Mark Reynolds or Ben Zobrist at this point, and I had a first baseman already. So, it was Sandoval for me. He’s young, so maybe there’s upside, but he plays on a crappy team offensively in a bad ballpark for hitting, so he’s risky, too.

3. Brian Roberts (2B): I was glad he was around. I wanted a middle infielder who ran. What I didn’t want was a guy who’d had his first workout of the spring hours before because of a bad disk in his back. I’d read about his problems earlier in February, but somehow missed the reports of escalating malady. If I’d known I would have taken the aging statesman, Derek Jeter. Roberts says he’ll be okay, so there’s that, but players aren’t doctors. My fingers are crossed. And I took a 2B in the reserve rounds, just in case.

4. Denard Span (OF): Okay, time for an outfielder, because there were no appropriate shortstops or corners. I added three to my queue: Andre Ethier, Andrew McCutcheon, and Denard Span. All three were available as my turn approached, but then they went down on order: McCutcheon, Ethier, and–on my turn–Span. The guy I missed was Hunter Pence, who I like a tick better, but the reality is that I like Span more than most, and I got him.

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Get Off My Lawn – Minor League Ball

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by John Sickels

John writes one of those tough screeds that sound, about halfway through, like the complaining crap of an old man. But John isn’t nearly as old as he thinks he is, and what he’s writing about is something I hope all of us who care about baseball and stats and the data have already thought about.

The point is that thanks to Pitch FX and the efforts of BIS and MLB and everyone else scoring baseball games,we’re getting a ton more information about every pitch in every major league game. And the automation of this process promises even more in the coming years.

Much of this data, thanks to MLB by the way, is available to everyone, and so it has become a happy sandbox for baseball fans with a fondness for math.

John’s gripe, if you can call it that, is that all these analysts are sorting through the data and ending up with micro conclusions that don’t really mean much to someone watching any particular game.

What I would add is that we know an awful lot about baseball because of the things we’ve learned before this great outpouring of pitch by pitch data. Much of what we learn after all the new data has been processed and tested and used is going to support the observations of those who watched the game closely before all the data was known.

When I’m grumpy I wonder why I’m reading yet another study that confirms what we already knew about this or that baseball situation. But that doesn’t mean those studies aren’t important. We gain the most knowledge by testing everything, each situation and contingency and viewpoint, and then see what shakes out. Confirmation means as much as a fresh idea.

Despite all the noise out there, that’s what’s happening now. John recognizes that, but he’s honest enough to point out that it makes him weary. Me, too.

Convince your league to replace BA with OBP

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Rotographs

In standard 4×4 and 5×5 leagues, OBP is clearly so much superior a rate stat to BA and we all know it, that I’m shocked everyone hasn’t made the change. Once you’re tried it you’ll never go back, because players values actually reflect their values (minus defense) in the major leagues.

But it’s hard to get people to change, which is why only one of my leagues use OBP instead of BA. We’ve talked about making the change in Tout Wars, but since part of the league’s goal is to offer draft guidance, it isn’t going to happen until you all switch over. Get going!

Rob Neyer on McGwire

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Here’s Rob’s piece.

My opinion about PEDs has changed over the last five years or so. Some of that has been because I learned more about the PEDs, and in large part it is because I saw the way the athletes accused and convicted of PEDs use reacted. Badly, of course. The trials and investigations and testimony all helped show that the players knew where the guilt was, even when naifs like me were defending them.

So, we had our villain. Finally.

Of course, when I put it that way I start to get all wishy washy again. This really isn’t a story of villains and, presumably, heroes, but rather a story of lots of similar but not identical people undergoing pressures that are similar but not identical. Talk about the despicable union protecting the drug takers ignores the many actions over the years by the owners to control the players and limit their compensation. In this context the slow to emerge drug rules reflect ownership’s desire to get an upper hand on the players, and the players (union) protecting their privacy and civil rights.

In any case, I don’t think McGwire is the hard Hall of Fame case. Even with his spectacular power accomplishments, he’s not a clear cut Hall of Famer. Discount him for PED usage and it’s easy to keep him off any HOF list. Bonds and Clemens are the real deal, on the other hand, Hall of Famers before they took the drugs. The big question is whether their induction will open the door to the boderline cases like McGwire.

A Stupid Story by Rob Biertempfel

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This story out of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review alleges that future Pirate Jose Tabata isn’t the age he says he is, backs that up with a vacuous quote from Pirates GM Neil Huntington saying that he’s heard rumors, and then says that there is no evidence that Tabata’s papers (which show that he is 21) are illegitimate.

I have no idea how old Jose Tabata is, but I would like some bit–a tiny little bit–of evidence from someone making allegations. Without it, I waste my time reading the allegations, and then I waste more time writing about the stupidity of publishing conjecture. Oh, I just did. Sorry.

Player Projections, some notes

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My friend Todd Zola makes an excellent point about Player Projections today in a story at SI.com.

I bring this up because I’m working on the projections for Patton $ Online, which we’ll be releasing next week. People ask how that set of projections is different than the projections that appear in the Fantasy Baseball Guide 2010 (on newsstands now!), and a big part of it goes to Todd’s point: Most player projections are similar when it comes to the evaluation of the player’s talent, it’s often in the playing time that they vary.

When we’re putting the Guide together in December, there are still hundreds of free agents available. While it’s easy to project playing time for the guys who are sure to be starters, because we know they’re going to get 550-650 AB if they’re healthy (and obviously a similar dynamic is in place for pitchers), but for guys on the edge, who may platoon or even be benched, playing time is hard to predict until they’ve settled on teams.

The Patton $ projections incorporate all the team and league changes into the mix, and are updated during the spring to reflect the most recent changes. In addition, the Patton $ projections include more detailed categories, like extra base hits for hitters, and homers allowed for pitchers.

Ode to Chris Liss

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Many years ago, a lifetime perhaps, I got into a pissing match with Chris Liss about the serial comma (or, as Vampire Weekend calls it, the Oxford comma). But who really cares about that?

Back then, Chris Liss also wrote a story for the Fantasy Football Guide about how our brains are way more adaptable than formulas and other pedantic bs we create for fantasy sports. We think better than we compute, was Chris’s point, and we would be smart to rely more on our brains than any formulas. I said then and I say now, I think he’s right.

Tonight I read something else from Chris: http://www.rotowire.com/baseball/features/2010_LissStrategy.htm

The story linked here, about how Chris won Tout Wars Mixed and the Yahoo Friends and Family League that Rotowire (Chris’s domain) runs, is excellent.

Chris also wrote a story for the Fantasy Baseball Guide 2010 (on newstands now!), the magazine I edit, about the same stuff.

My point is that Chris is pretty much right. Our brains are quicker and more fluid than any formula we could create. You still need to know your league, and know the players (all the players) and how rostering them will change your team—which is what my earning and cost values and other objective measures provide—but once you’ve internalized that data, you can do better on your own than poring over some cheat sheet.

Good stuff.