Answers to fantasy baseball questions (and much more) since 1996
It was a great, dominant outing. But it was only two innings, ahead of putative Sox closer Pineiro’s meltdown. Francona says he’d like Papelbon to be his closer, but the doctors say he’ll do better as a starter. If that’s the case, why didn’t he start today?
I know I’m spitting into the wind, but this isn’t over yet.
The real work here is in the original post, but David Pinto’s take on Buck Showalter seems exactly right to me. He’s able to get a team close, but it is his departure that is the catalyst for actual success.
Not that it looks like the Rangers are that close. But in these days of parity it won’t take much to move them atop the AL West.
I stopped my BP subscription a year or so ago, not because I didn’t enjoy the writing of many of the BP guys, and didn’t value their observations, but because it was all getting a little familiar. For free, I’d attend every day, but having to pay made it a little easy to stay away.
I’ve been surprised how few times I’ve felt like I was missing something since. I still read the newsletter and the beginnings of the stories, and I’m still awfully impressed by a lot of the work that goes on at BP, but I end up feeling like I’m already on their page, I don’t need to be hectored about this and that.
But the lede to this story is choice. Or as my friend Fleming Meeks has said, cherce. Jim Baker discovers an orphaned pool of BP stats about teams and their rate of being shut out. What I learned is that the 1981 Blue Jays were shut out 20 percent of the time.
These days that seems pretty much impossible, but things in baseball change. 1981 was the dawn of Rotisserie baseball and baseball’s age of statistics. I have no other point than at this moment I wish I could read the rest of Jim’s story.
This story correctly points out that the Tribune company is putting lipstick on a pig before selling it (not just the Cubbies, but the whole shootin’ match), but fails to note the tax advantages that accrue to new franchise owners. In short (and I’m not accountant, so don’t expect too many details), for the first five years after buying a team new owners can depreciate the expense of salaries, which amounts to a substantial tax break.
Which is why so many owners get into baseball, last five years, and then start complaining about all the money they’re losing and move on.
Tigers dazed and confused – MLB – Yahoo! Sports
I’ve spent enough time praising Jeff Passan this year that he should have his own category, but not yet.
This analysis of the Tigers’ woes makes for nice theater (read: column) but ignores the reality. There is no hope of really measuring a team’s abilities (and disabilities) in a seven-game series.
That fact makes it hard for baseball writers who have to maintain the pretext of, um, what may we can best call “inevitability.” But as sports consumers we shouldn’t buy into the drama they have to create to do their jobs. Not that it isn’t entertaining, and even sometimes meaningful, but because the purveyors of this news make it hard to tell the difference.
Jeff Passan hits with another tear jerker, though this one is really only happy news and a fun read for fantasy fans. Even before I started playing roto one of my stated goals in life was to some day own a big league team. That seemed the only way to get into the business. But then, as now, it turned out that there are other paths, as my friends Keith Law, Tony Blengino and Ron Shandler have demonstrated. For me, ownership is still probably the best route, but you might find another way. If you’re interested.
I’ve been tied up on the Fantasy Football Guide 2006, which wraps up this week, to think much about baseball, but I’ve noticed the Pirates the last two nights. One reason is because the offense on my Tout Wars NL team is accidentally built around the Pirates’. (Note that until yesterday this was one of the main reasons I was floundering in the second division.) I rostered Sean Casey and Craig Wilson, then added Freddy Sanchez in the end game, and Jose Bautista in the reserve round. A month in, when I needed a DH, Ronny Paulino seemed like the best pickup, on the chance that he’d stick even after Ryan Doumit came back (something there was talk of in Pittsburgh). Last night these guys combined for 11 RBI and hit better than .500. Tonight Jose Castillo is doing most of the damage, but my guys hit .350 with 3 RBI and 7 Runs. Most importantly, they all played, and I’ve moved back into the First Division. Go Pirates.
Todd Helton is quoted in this story as saying that the humidor helps the Rockies on the road: “Before they used the humidor, breaking pitches did not break as much at Coors as at sea level, so when the Rockies went on the road, they had to adjust to breaking pitches that actually broke.”
Do balls coming out of the humidor break more than those kept in the outside atmosphere? I don’t see why they should. The issue is how far the ball goes when hit, no?
Maury Brown does a good job of explaining how increased revenue sharing came to be, and hits the nail on the head with his conclusion. The real question he doesn’t take to the end of the road is why we’re better off with 30 major league teams, rather than real big-league teams in the top 16 markets and a system of Quad-A affiliates in contracted cities like Minneapolis and Kansas City and Miami and, uhm, Oakland.
Do I have the cities wrong? Competition is good, no?
John Hunt, who should need no introduction, Deric McKamey, the minor league expert at BaseballHQ.com, and Dave Studeman, of HardballTimes.com, have joined Graphical Pitcher author John Burnson to create Heater, an online magazine about baseball. While in the first issue Hunt and Studeman write fine “early season roto” columns, the heart of the Heater are the 30 pages of team statistical profiles and charts, and the umpteen more pages of position breakouts (as well as a page tracking minor leaguers).
Heater will be coming out each week, and for the fantasy player or the hard core baseball fan the wealth of charts, graphs, timelines and other details about this week, last week and next week, as well as a whole lot more stuff (I’m really just scratching the surface) is organized in an exacting and pleasing way. It’s like the back stats pages of Sports Weekly were totally rethought and reorganized to actually present the data in a way that made it easy to find trends and nuggets about players and teams. Radical.
In a word, all of it is useful, all of it is easy to understand, none of it is presented anywhere else in so fine and complete a manner. Don’t take my word for it. There is a sample copy at the link above. You’ll then have to decide if your money is well spent for this sort of thing. I’m hoping it is, because as long as they keep putting this stuff out my job is going to be a lot easier (and I’m going to look a lot smarter).