Peter O’Neil looks at luck and the game we play, sensibly concluding that a lot of decisions that look like skill in retrospect are the result of good fortune. Or vice versa. To not admit that is to draw false conclusions and overlook the ways our skills and hard work matter.
Blogs
Opening Day
I believe this site is called Fantasy Hurler, which is a good name.
And I actually agree with a lot of the snaps the somewhat funny writer tosses. Or should I say hurls?
And it may just be my mood right now (I’m still digesting the Arizona-Colorado game, in which I owned both starters), but I don’t think we have enough time for this.
But if you do, maybe you’ll enjoy it.
Obstruction ahead
Nicely articulated outrage here, based on a situation the Yankees have completely screwed up.
Of course, that’s why I much prefer fantasy baseball. It’s about players and the game, rather than the machinations of ghost banks.
Stephen Strasburg 3.5.09
This is one of a number of videos that Eun Park posted on John Sickel’s site.
After reading about Strasberg, seeing him is something of a let down. He seems to be short arming the ball, which is a way to gain some speed, at great cost to one’s arm. This clip is most interesting when the woman in the row ahead of Eun fluffs up her hair. The juxtaposition of hard working moundsman and sensual hair tossing is poetic.
On the other hand, this clearly wasn’t Strasberg’s best day, so it would be foolish to draw any conclusions. But watching this I wouldn’t give him $15m even if I had it.
Calling Out Will Carroll
raygu points out a Will Carroll chat yesterday (and quotes from it), in which Will ranks David Price and Steven Strasburg ahead of Clayton Kershaw. Obviously, what matters most is why you’re ranking them (and that isn’t clear from the excerpt, at least), but it also goes to the role of the expert and our belief in what experts say.Â
Those experts who play in the media pool have to come with new stuff all the time, because bold declarative sentences are what work best on radio and television (and in print, too, really). So they always have to be coming up with newest thing, rather than carefully tracking the long arc of the real thing as it’s happening. I’m not sure it matters whether Will has seen Strasburg play, because what we know about him is exciting (he throws harder than anyone ever, except for Sidd Finch and Paul Bunyan) Â and makes for a much better story than Clayton Kershaw’s right now (young pitcher is growing into his ability, showing he belongs in the big leagues, but is not dominant and maybe he won’t be, though we wouldn’t be surprised if someday he was).Â
Nick Kristoff takes a look at the efficacy of experts in the New York Times today. It’s well worth reading, especially when culling the preseason picks of us so-called experts. It isn’t that Will or Jim Callis or any other baseball expert you care to pillory doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. The problem is that whatever ability we have to forecast what will happen in the future is slight, on any subject, and so (to my mind) the discussion should be a fox-like series of explanations and equivocations. What’s possible, why, and why that might not happen.Â
But the world wants answers, because the entertaining bloviating of the hedgehog is seen as much more assured and credible–even though the studies Kristoff cites show they are more often wrong. Even, shockingly, the fox doesn’t know the subject and the hedgehog does.
[Ps. I don’t think Will is by nature a hedgehog. He tries to add nuance to much of what he says. One of the reason he’s been so successful, I think, is because he tells what he knows, and is usually pretty clear about what is conjecture. But in a chat or on TV or the radio, it works best to make the big statement, rather than a bunch of little nuanced ones.)
Miley Says: Breakout, We’re Going to Have Some Fun
Another piece for my friends from the tundra, with some preseason fantasy mongering. And a bit of fun, I hope.
She’s Deep, He’s Shallow: Why Fantasy Baseball Snobs Are Wrong – Fantasy Baseball Canada
I wrote this one for a new site started by some friends from the north. Enjoy.
Are Catchers Brittle?
It has always been a truism that Catchers get hurt more. I’m not sure this Roto Think Tank story about a Eugene Freed study goes very far to prove anything. But it does suggest that the opposite is true.
More math needs to be done over more seasons to be convincing, but the better argument (I think) is that catchers get hurt in fits and starts. Relying on a costly catcher may increase your risk, but getting real production from a dead position has its own rewards. The strategy changes if you’re trying to win one year, or every year.
Position Battles: White Sox 2B
It is rather amazing how much writing about fantasy baseball there is out there. When I see something wrong or awful I try to note it here, but much of it is informative and pedestrian, like this story. It features useful and well-reasoned summaries of the careers of Chris Getz, Jayson Nix and Brent Lillibridge, and comes to the conclusion that Gordon Beckham is best qualified for the job and probably won’t play there this year. It is also dry as toast, which is certainly better than witless humor, but it also reminds me there are only so many hours in the day…
Fantasy Baseball internet radio by Jeff Erickson
In about 45 minutes I’ll be on Jeff Erickson’s Fantasy Focus radio show, on blogtalkradio.com. I’ll let you guess what we’re going to talk about. If you get here late, the program is also a podcast, which should live on forever. Classic.
Here’s the show:
We had decided to talk about wonky subjects, which was fine by me. I’m resistent to the whole “who’s your best sleeper” approach to the radio. I have a few elaborations.
In NL and AL only leagues position scarcity gets figured in if you properly price your players using the proper pool. That is, you give everyone their relative price and you find that you only have 10 positive values for catchers, and you need 24/26. You delete all the other players with positive and negative values who aren’t catchers, until the 24/26 catchers are in your pool, and then reallocate the money, making the last catcher worth a buck. Catchers alone don’t get all the benefit of scarcity.
The same holds true in Mixed Leagues, but there are two differences. It’s much harder to draw the line at the bottom, so it’s a little haphazard who makes the draft list and who doesn’t when the catchers are added. And, mixed league prices aren’t linear, so the best players get paid more for being reliable and better than the abundantly replaceable players in the middle and bottom. So the best catchers’ prices go up because they’re the best, period, as well as because they’re catchers. I’m not sure how you would go about quantifying this. I guess aggregated real world results compared to linear prices would get you part way.
As to rules, I don’t have a dog in any rules fight. I think players should play a game that satisfies them and makes them happy. It’s fine if you want to promote dump trading, and it is equally fine to squelch it. I discuss different rules and wrinkles with an eye to solving problems people are having in their leagues, which doesn’t make them happy.
The sleepers I wrote down before the show were Cincinnati’s Ramon Ramirez and the Cardinals’ Joe Mather. You can find more at pattonandco.com.