{ Monthly Archives }

August 2006

Ask Rotoman This Week Aug 30 2006

mlb.com

I’m out of the Maine woods now, woods I was in last week shortly after posting and which is why I didn’t plug last week’s excellent Ask Rotoman column in these pages. This week’s is being promoted as an analysis of Juan Rivera, though in retrospect I don’t really pay enough attention to him. What I wanted to say, however, I said: Nick Markakis is a better alternative than Shawn Green. Also this week I advise against Chien-Ming Wang tepidly, before he threw seven scoreless innings against the team with the best record in baseball, I choose, tepidly, between three youngsters as freezes for next year and beyond (they’re Jason Kubel, Carlos Quentin, and Ryan Shealy). Plus there is chatter about Kevin Mench, who is getting an unmanly amount of playing time in Milwaukee, and a cage match between Delmon Young and Chris Duncan. Ouch.

2006 08 30

Ask Rotoman
Players

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When fantasy meets reality

Yahoo! Sports

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.

2006 08 26

MLB
Roto
Teams

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Instant Replay set to consign line disputes into history

Yahoo! News

This is a story about tennis and television technology implemented to correct erroneous calls by the umpires and judges. In the first tournament it was used in about one-third of the challenged calls were upheld.

I think baseball’s biggest problem (bigger than roids, bigger than Paul Lo Duca gambling) is that umpires do not consistently call balls and strikes the same way, and often blow the incredibly close plays they’re forced to judge. This is not a knock on the umpires, but I think as the game gets comfortable with using technology to make better calls on the strike zone and to review judgement calls on the basepaths, everything we think we know about the game is going to change in significant ways.

This is important, but I’m not sure what the right way is to handle the neighborhood play.

2006 08 21

News
Rules

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Judge: Fantasy leagues allowed to use MLB player names, stats – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

MLB – Yahoo! Sports

My opinion is that this will was the rational conclusion, and it will also prove to be the best one for the fantasy sports business and the leagues, too. MLB has plenty to sell beyond the stats and names, and they will benefit because the grass roots development of leagues and games won’t be squelched before they start.

2006 08 08

Fantasy Sites
Legal
MLB
News
Roto
Statistics

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The Physics of Ball on Bat

Alaska Science Forum

Thanks to James in Kansas City, this link is to a story that mostly recapitulates Robert Adair’s research on how far a ball might be hit by a human. So give props to James and to Robert Adair, but don’t snub the Alaskans who remind us of this question. Could it be true that none of the steroid enhanced sluggers of the past 30 years matched the distance of the besotted Mick?

2006 08 05

History
MLB
Players
Sabremetrics

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Ask Rotoman The Column

Major League Baseball : Fantasy : Fantasy

The new one went up yesterday afternoon, with a look at the demise of Chris Shelton and Dan Johnson, trading a phenom for a flake (a really good flake), and why you shouldn’t cancel even a really bad trade. Plus chatter about that flukey outfielder in Detroit.

2006 08 03

Ask Rotoman
MLB
Players
Rules

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