Answers to fantasy baseball questions (and much more) since 1996
peter Ron Shandler did the heavy lifting. He collected a bunch of player projections (but not mine) and commented on them.
I copped his charts of other people’s projections and added mine.
The lesson, I think, is that all of our projections could be wrong, but we mostly agree on what they are. That qualifies as information.
Jeff Passan, a workaday baseball writer writing for Yahoo, does a fine job identifying the issues at play (and their importance) as we approach this year’s collective bargaining negotiation.
I didn’t anticipate that with Ian Kinsler going down with a bum finger that Gary Matthews would be called up right away. Knowing what I know now, especially given Matthews’ three-run triple tonight, take him over the recommended Kevin Millar. . . Wait! I recommended Millar instead of Matthews and Millar hit two homers, drove in four runs. Sweet! As usual, you should sort it all out for your league.
Elsewhere in this week’s model, frank discussion about Jeff Francoeur, the breakout (break down?) of a trade of big players (for educational purposes only), and some chatter about some Hots and Nots.
Be there! As some of us used to say in college.
Cleveland 91-63 at Kansas City 52-101 7:10pm ET
In the Guide I wrote about Cleveland farmhand Jason Stanford: “He was arrested in September for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and then missed his court appearance. It’s too bad, since control was always one of his bests qualities.”
Today Stanford called the magazine’s publisher and said he hadn’t missed the court date. The Baseball Think Factory page above has links to Cleveland Plain Dealer stories about the original arrest (JS made disparaging comments to a man wearing a pink shirt, apparently, which led to a bit of a brawl) and the court announcing after Stanford apparently missed his court date that they’d written the wrong date on his appearance ticket. So it wasn’t his fault. The links don’t work, however, so I’m basing this on the postings on the BTF page.
I’m certainly sorry for drawing on the mistaken AP story originally and am happy to point out the error while wearing pink (actually salmon) slacks.
This story for mlb.com isn’t hard hitting journalism, but Marty Noble’s thing is getting into ballplayers’ heads. Cliff Floyd’s head (as well as his injured parts) has always seemed to get in the way, and now we know that Floyd has had a meeting with Randolph like the one Mickey Mantle had with Ralph Houk nearly a lifetime (if you’re me) ago. Floyd’s redemption is emotionally told, and if he can hold up all season long again he’ll make fool of those of us who thought he could only do that in one season out of four.
Good pictures from the 60s and 70s, up close and bushy haired. Bobby Murcer and Soupy Sales!?! Didn’t Soupy get in trouble telling the joke that starts, “When my wife and I go to a baseball game, I kiss her on the strikes, she kisses me. . . .?”
Major League Baseball : News : Major League Baseball News
I mention this only because yesterday, when Chris Shelton tripled twice in one game, I wondered how often that had happened. Last year’s triples leader, Jose Reyes, had 17 triples. That’s one every 10 games or so. Today we learn that it’s been 50+ years since someone tripled twice in the same inning, a much more difficult feat.
STLtoday – Sports – Columnists
We used to get pissed off at baseball writers who wrote dopey stuff informed by the game’s common wisdom, much of which wasn’t all that wise. Now we continually find, and this example is one of many, writers whose main talent seems to be to be able to convert the various Baseball Prospectus metrics into somewhat-analytical prose. He analyzes Juan Encarnacion’s prospects using Eqa, criticizes his fielding based on his Davenports, and then questions the sabermetric wisdom of the Age 27 peak, since Encarnacion posted his highest Eqa as a 29 year old.
I’ll let you (and the good citizens of St. Louis) judge if this is worthwhile information. My problem isn’t that it is or isn’t, we’re still trying to sort out which objective information is useful and which isn’t, but that these tools in the hands of the lazy or the dunderheaded end up the basis for all sorts of thoughts that are just as wrong as the old ideas.
Like writing a column about Juan Encarnacion four days into the season that judges him based on some hypothetical ideal ballplayer and how his four-day stats compare, rather than describing what he does well and what he does poorly. Encarnacion may not be all the player he could be, if he did things differently, but he does enough things right to be a legit major leaguer. Getting all high and mighty about his style of play is goofy, probably lazy, certainly dunderheaded.
Dodger fans may dig this exhaustive study done before Spring Training camps opened, but we all should be aware that such work is out there. I’m glad it is, though I also shake my head in wonder.
MLB – Chicago White Sox/Kansas City Royals Box Score Friday April 7, 2006 – Yahoo! Sports
Garland owners have to be pleased that he struck out more batters than innings pitched.