Toldyaso.
It doesn’t matter whether your game is roto, Strat, Scoresheet, or fantasy NASCAR: Drafting for value is the right way to go. Cute little strategies might help to break a tie, and a mastery of bidding psychology can matter at the margins, but sound player evaluation is the name of the game. Between the PECOTA projections and the Will Carroll Walking Injury Database, we felt that Team BP was in an in ideal situation to leverage our edge in information into success in Tout Wars. The results so far have been affirming: in spite of some disappointing individual performances, we’re in first place by a healthy margin.
It’s too soon, of course, to come to any conclusions about how the standings will end up–hell, it’s early enough in the season that Carl Everett hasn’t even been suspended yet. Still, there are a few take-home lessons from the season thus far, as embodied by some of our more successful acquisitions and strategies.
Angels: Star Performer: Much like Dirk Diggler in the closing scene of Boogie Nights, the Anaheim Angels’ bullpen has been a bright, shining star this season. First in the AL in Adjusted Runs Prevented–and third in the majors, overall–the Anaheim relief squadron is essentially the only thing keeping the team afloat at this point, save Garret Anderson’s continuing quest to make statheads taste their own bile.
Cubs: Lineup: The biggest lineup concern continues to be at third base, where
Mark Bellhorn has not been able to get it going. Bellhorn provides two valuable skills–power and patience-which theoretically can trump a low batting average. Unfortunately, thus far he is showing no power at all (five extra base hits in 28 games) and is hitting just .214. Although I am sure this is making Jeff Bower giddy, Dusty Baker is less amused.
Tigers: Streaks: The Tigers stood at 3-20 in late April at the end of their road series with the AL West. But stop the presses! They’re on a four-game winning streak! Here’s how they have done against the AL East:
Home vs. Baltimore: 0-3, 9 runs scored, 22 runs against
Home vs. Tampa Bay: 1-2, 13 runs scored, 13 runs against
At Baltimore: 3-0, 22 runs scored, 11 runs against
I’ve been talking lately to fans of different sports, and thinking about what makes baseball fans–seriously fanatical baseball fans, the people who would identify baseball as their favorite sport and might have to think about it if you asked them who the runner-up was–different.
Baseball is so special, in its season, that it seeps into the follower from day to day and week to week. Football fans, for instance, get one three-hour game a week and then speculation on who’ll be the starting quarterback and other scraps of news. Baseball offers us nearly a game a day, each day a fact: my team won or my team lost. There’s news, streaks broken and started, debuts to watch, slumps, hot streaks, every morning you get up and read something new in the sports section.
There’s one particular baseball play that I don’t get: First and third (or
bases loaded) and two outs, ground ball hit to a middle infielder who throws
to his double-play partner for a force at second base. Most of the time,
you’ll see the runner slide into the bag, and the times he doesn’t, it’s
because he’s nowhere near it when the play is made.
Why?
Sliding has two purposes: avoiding a tag and decelerating into a base you
can’t legally overrun. While the above fits the latter category, it’s a
situation where the cost of deceleration is greater than the penalty for
overunning the bag. If a runner instead chose to sprint through second base
and keep heading for third, he might be safe–I don’t know, let’s say one time
in 20, but I think it would be more than that–but every time he was
safe, a run would score, with the runner likely being out in a tag play on
his way to third base.
I suppose you could argue that the runner slides in case the middle infielders
botch the play, but I don’t buy that, because an error gets made there about
as often as I eat tofu. It seems to me that teams are “giving up”
here, where a more aggressive approach–running through the bag and making the
turn–could steal a few runs a season. This wouldn’t apply all the time; some
plays are going to be close enough to warrant a slide, and on others the
runner isn’t close enough to bother. But on maybe 40% to 50% of these plays, a
meek slide into second base reduces the chance that the run will score for no
reason other than politeness.
Is there something I’m missing, a rule dating from the days of John McGraw’s
Orioles that disallows this practice? Or is it something from the Big Bob
Book of Unwritten Rules, with its pages and pages of crayon drawings?
I usually try to start off light. I give some fun fact, share a bit of my day, joke about my coffee addiction, or riff on what I like about UTK–that it feels more like me talking to a friend than a big, formal column. Tonight, I’m somewhere between angry, dumbfounded, frustrated, exhausted, and just laughing at it all. As much as injury information and performance analysis is a true disruptive technology–remember that phrase–in baseball, the old school is hanging onto the reins and playing craps with the future of players and teams. Let’s get to the destruction.
I guess PECOTA warned us with the 19.5% attrition rate. I even suggested it might happen. But I sure didn’t see it coming this quickly. After a 28-pitch, breaking ball-filled inning, Josh Beckett was pulled “as a precaution” after complaining of stiffness and pain on the inside of his pitching elbow. Anyone want to venture a guess as to what these symptoms suggest? The Marlins already have Beckett headed to see Jim Andrews. I don’t think Jim gives volume discounts, but he should consider it. The Marlins have treated Beckett with a gentler hand than they did A.J. Burnett. Beckett did cross the 100-pitch barrier in each of his last three starts (6 innings/107 pitches, 7/115, and 6.2/105), but none of these are outrageous counts.
So let’s compare Beckett’s efficiency to that of say, Mark Mulder. Mulder has thrown three straight complete games–a big no-no in the age of strict pitch counts, right? How did Rick Peterson allow this? Simple. Mulder went 96 pitches in two starts, and 105 in the last. Pitch efficiency is looking more and more important. To get back to Beckett, he is headed to Dr. Andrews and we should know more shortly. Until then, try to breathe, Marlins fans. Try to breathe.