December 2006

Column: Boras is still draining the well

Yahoo! News

Because of the way I have Word Press set up I lose sight of the site when I blog it. I have to fix that, but for now let me cite (my daughter, by the way, is studying homophones) this story for citing a stat (number of pitchers to average 18 wins per year for seven straight years since 1969) while only giving the answer for six of them. Did the writer do it because the other six would support or undermine his overall argument? Do you think.

I can’t be sure until I figure out who the others are, but I have a strong suspicion.

Mainstream Media
Players
Statistics

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Marcel 2007

The World’s Greatest Baseball Performance Projection System

Those of us who spend a lot of time making baseball projections have to tip our cap to Marcel the Projection Monkey. Marcel doesn’t spend that much time, even though time doesn’t mean that much to monkeys.

The point of Marcel the Monkey projections is that most of the information a projection system can contain is available in three year weighted numbers, with factors that adjust for age.

Those of us who make better projections (usually) than Marcel have to be humbled by how close he comes to besting us.

Projections
Resources
Sabremetrics

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Straight Draft Post Mortem

Baseball HQ

The link is going to take you to a page that requires a subscription of some sort to baseballHQ.com. I’m going to tell you what Ray Murphy’s straight draft research tells me that’s of interest to all of us: Fantasy teams that finished higher, on average, than other teams in the National Fantasy Baseball Championships had younger players than teams that finished lower. They also had players who had lower reliability scores (Shandler’s system) than other teams.

I’m fairly confident that the whole idea of reliability scores is a crock. Well, not in intent, but as a measurement. Manny Ramirez earns $31-$33 every year, until we decide that’s a reliable benchmark, and then he doesn’t. The problem with all ballplayers is that by the time they can be judged reliable, they’re old enough to become unreliable.

Ray’s conclusion is right, however. You need to stock up on the reliable players, and then take chances when the choice is between a reliable mediocrity and anybody else whose pulse might beat proudly.

I know, you knew that, but seeing the excellent numbers the NFBC throws off really helps. Which is a good reason to become a baseballHQ.com subscriber. For smart fantasy baseball analysis (and lots of it) there’s no better site.

Fantasy Sites
Roto
Strategy
data

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The Official Matsuzaka Prediction Thread

BBTF’s Newsblog Discussion

Somebody will average these all out, dropping the guy who’s predicting 29 wins (and a 1-0 loss on the last day of the season). I remember that last year around this time we were having similar discussions about Johjima (except we weren’t sure if his last name had an “h” or not). I’ve been working on an updated set of predictions for all players (not just positively valued ones) for a game mlb.com is putting out, and discovered a little too late that I didn’t have a Dice-K projection (he was far from signed when the magazine went to bed). So, here it is:

200 IP, 3.74 ERA, 17 wins, 9 losses, 55 walks, 180 strikeouts, 23 homers, 1.21 WHIP.

That’s a tweener, probably worth about $25 in an AL only league. I think he could be much better, but injury risk and the real chance that he’s not going to dominate would cause me not to chase him. I have him in the magazine at $14, but now that he’s signed and the adrenaline is flowing I’d go to $18 probably. Depending on what we see in spring training.

Japan
MLB
Players
Projections
Statistics
The Guide

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HUMMIN’ SLOWED BY STRUMMIN’

Guitar video game hurt Zumaya’s arm

I’ve watched people play this game in Best Buy, and it sure looks like fun. Good to know it wasn’t the 233 100 mph or faster fastballs he threw that did him in.

Funny
Injuries
Players

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Athletes’ unbeatable foe

Credit the Los Angeles Times

Regular visitors know that my problem with anti-steroids and PED rules is that they’re impossible to administer fairly, and fly in the face of the self interest of almost everyone involved (that is, we like extraordinary athletes, athletes like to win, and they are paid to be better than everyone else).

This LA Times series doesn’t convince me of the credibility of all its witnesses, but it clearly shows the problems with the present testing procedures.

Needless to say, if you can’t trust the tests, then what’s the prototcol for?

Drugs
Mainstream Media

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