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Baseball Prospectus | Articles | Breaking Balls: A Game of Numbers

Derek Zumsteg does the math that confirms what I already knew: Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter of all time. And he does it gracefully, as he should, without dismissing the awesome spector that is Babe Ruth. Hardly essential reading, but a good job.

Major League Baseball : Ask Rotoman

This one is feeling bad, with the recommended Paul Byrd already taking a hit, but there is much to say about the Marlins’ rotation, hitter keepers for next year, a thought about replacing Alfonso Soriano, and a musical question: Is it really collusion if no one gets hurt?

The Fantasy Huddle’s Message Board

Because of some timing issues and because I’m busy putting the baseball magazine out in October and November and thus have little time for writing about football, I’ve changed the links for the football discussions to point to The Fantasy Huddle.

Jesse, who runs the Huddle, will be posting updated links each week for free football info on the front page of his site, and will host the discussions using the same fine Boards2Go software we’ve been using at Ask Rotoman for baseball.

And speaking about baseball, the usual gang should be checking in at the Ask Rotoman discussion board, where the Cy Young awards are already a subject for debate.

Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Box Score

Great games pitched by Ryan Vogelsong, Chris Young, Aaron Heilman and others are a reminder that late in the season pitching performances generally improve. Pedro Martinez owners will surely disagree, but when the games don’t mean anything the pitchers definitely get the upper hand.

Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Mets’ mess: Howe and why

There are some provocative statements in this story. Black Jack’s conclusion that a team only wins when it builds through the organization stokes some flames. And then it seems wholly reasonable.

Major League Baseball : Ask Rotoman

The new one is up, with a list of potential keeps for next year, a look at whether Abreu, Sheffield or Berkman is the guy to commit to for three years, and discussions about Bobby Madritsch and the Joses Reyes and Contreras.

Ask Rotoman’s Football Message Board

Someone asked for it, and it’s up now. Rotoman’s Football Discussion Board. There’s a link now at the top of www.askrotoman.com. Or bookmark the real page.

Ask Rotoman Home Page

Some long overdue tweaks of the design (but still yellow) and the adoption of Blogger’s commenting system lead to the loss of a lot of comments you have made over the past year. I’m sorry about that, but I hope this new system will be more stable.

Note also the direct link to Football Discussions in the top navigation bar.

CREATiVESPORTS.com > Mike Ladd’s High and Tight

We have an ever-increasing pool of fantasy information out in the world, but it is hard to compile and thus rarely referenced. I’m talking about the actual results of actual fantasy leagues.

Mike Ladd of CreativeSports.com has a story in today’s newsletter that analyzes the early-round drafting strategies of the players in the World Championship of Fantasy Baseball drafts and looks to see if any particular strategy is a winner.

It’s really not a huge surprise that no distinct three-round strategy emerges as a clear winner. The sample size issues, as Mike points out, would make it awfully hard to draw strong conclusions even if there was a lot of agreement from league to league. And there isn’t. But I do think it’s meaningful that the first pick in each of the top ten team’s drafts was a power hitter.

And while this story won’t blow your mind, it is a very solid effort that points the way to increasing efforts to find out what actually happens in fantasy leagues. There is still too much debate about position scarcity, for one.

To read the story you have to sign up for the Creative Sports newsletter, which has useful info and entertaining writing almost every day.

Major League Baseball : Ask Rotoman

It’s actually nice to be back in NY after being away all summer, or maybe it is just being home. This week’s column is out, with a look at various marginal closers, the value of a game played and a passing glance at individual hitters facing good and bad pitching teams, and a long annotated list of September call-ups, with comments about how much impact they may have.

The end of the year is a time when the questions I get are often too individual to matter to most readers, so if you have any questions that might apply more widely please send them in to peter@askrotoman.

Thanks.