Posted by Henry on June 25, 2008 at 9:00 am
When Aubrey Huff plays in a National League park.
Dumb mistake. Huff, who sports first- and third-base eligibility in many leagues, did not play yesterday in the Orioles interleague game at Wrigley Field. So far this season, Huff has played 6 games at first, 10 at third (9 starts), and 56 at DH. He’ll probably play in the infield today or tomorrow, but I hate this kind of guesswork. I’m just going to bench him.
Posted by Henry on June 17, 2008 at 10:39 am
New York Times political columnist David Brooks offers his own take on Tiger Woods today — Tiger the zeitgeist:
The ancients were familiar with physical courage and the priests with moral courage, but in this over-communicated age when mortals feel perpetually addled, Woods is the symbol of mental willpower. He is, in addition, competitive, ruthless, unsatisfied by success and honest about his own failings. (Twice, he risked his career to retool his swing.)
During the broadcast of Monday’s playoff round, Nike ran an ad that had Earl Woods’s voice running over images of his son: “I’d say, ‘Tiger, I promise you that you’ll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life.’ And he hasn’t. And he never will.”
The most interesting phase of Woods’ career is yet to come. That is the point at which he gets old. And then, like the ancients – Jack Nicklaus at the 1986 Masters, or Beowulf against the dragon – he’ll need mental toughness not to augment his physical gifts, but to overcome his physical decline.
Posted by Henry on June 16, 2008 at 6:36 pm
As I described in an earlier post, one way I’m trying to get an edge in pitching is to attack the WHIP category. As baseball fans, we are conditioned to focus on ERA, which means that control pitchers with average ERA are often available. Find one on a decent team and you have a chance to pick up wins as well.
Now my WHIP strategy centers on two Minnesota Twins: Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey.
Both are young players whose minimal hype (compare them to Joba Chamberlain or even Andrew Miller, for example) has helped them slip under the radar. Yet they both have great potential. Slowey, in particular, has astonishing minor-league numbers, a 1.94 ERA and 0.85 WHIP over 397.1 innings.
I signed both pitchers on May 12. Slowey has pitched seven starts for the Buckets while Baker has had three since coming off the DL. Here are the results:
Slowey: 7 starts, 3 wins, 43.1 IP, 29 Ks, 4.44 ERA, 1.19 WHIP
Baker: 3 starts, 0 wins, 18 IP, 13 Ks, 3.00 ERA, 1.33 WHIP
These aren’t great stats, but not shabby, either. Remember the context — these are free agent starters signed to fill the fifth and sixth spots in my rotation. In my mind, Slowey remains the more interesting prospect. He’s managed to post that 4.44 ERA and 1.19 WHIP even with a disasterous June 8th start in which he gave up 8 runs, 10 hits and 1 walk in 3.0 innings. One bad start out of seven I can live with.
Posted by Henry on June 12, 2008 at 1:14 pm
How sweet it is to see Nick Swisher — who I drafted with the 132nd pick of the Mynci Draft, who I stuck with through a bad April and worse May, who was shunned by the experts (scroll down to “The five big fallers I’m on board with”) — how sweet it is to see Swisher become this week’s hot pickup. Yesterday he lead all hitters in ESPN leagues with plus 16.1% ownership. Today he’s up another 5.6%. Thanks for noticing.
Posted by Henry on June 11, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Talking about free agent pickups in the market efficency post, reminded me of a well known problem in probability, often illustrated by way of romance.
A woman (or man) dates a number of potential spouses in sequence, where N is the maximum number she will encounter in her “dating life.”
The question for our heroine (Myrtle) as phrased by John Allen Paulos in Innumeracy (1988) is this:
When should I accept Mr. X and forego the suitors who would come after him some of who may possibly be “better” than he?
The answer, based on conditional probability is wonderfully precise. After rejecting the first 37% of the potential maximum, Myrtle should pick the first one that surpasses all that came before.
For example, if Myrtle predicts she’ll encounter 10 eligible suitors in her dating life, she should reject the first three before looking for Mr. Right. If the first three rate 5 1 2, and number four rates 6, she takes him. If not, she tries number five, then number six, and so on, until she either says yes or runs out of suitors.
For fantasy baseball, as with romance, this is a totally unhelpful model. Most free agent adds are driven by multiple factors including position eligibility, injuries, and statistical needs.
But let’s try it out anyway.
We can model the question several ways. For example: Say you decide to try one new free agent each week. At the end of the week you either keep that player for the rest of the season or drop him for someone else. Assume that every player you drop is grabbed by another owner in your league and no longer available.
When should you stop churning?
In a 25 week season the answer is 25 x .37 = 9.25, or week nine. Leading into weeks one through eight, you always drop your free agent (note that for week one, you start by dropping your most unfortunate draft pick) and add a new one. Leading into week nine you evaluate your current free agent against all previous and keep him if he rates “the best” (whatever that means).
Another scenario centers on the problem of the sixth starter. Perhaps you play in a weekly head-to-head league with a seven game-start limit and playoffs. Your goal is to assemble the best starting pitching squad possible by the last week of the season, the championship. You want a sixth starter for that match to ensure that you hit the game-start limit.
Assume that you give each free agent pitcher three starts before you drop him and try another. That sets N at about 12, which means that free agent starter number five is the first of the lot you consider keeping (12 x .37 = 4.51).
Paulos gets the last word (for his scenario and mine):
Then comes the hard part: living with Mr. Right.
Posted by Henry on June 10, 2008 at 1:41 pm
A. J. Mass devotes a column to the nonsense of home and away splits:
As we always say here at “Playing With Numbers,” stats that identify trends in past performance don’t guarantee the same trends in future performance. But at some point, the proof clearly is there in your proverbial pudding, and it might be time to earn your just desserts.
No, no, no, no, no. There is no proof. There is just a probability distribution. The randomness that underlies these numbers means that the average player’s home/away split has no more likelihood of continuing forward from this moment than does its opposite.
Take a look at Vladimir Guerrero, one of the players on Mass’ poor home list. Does Guerrero have a bad history in Angels Stadium? No. In 2007 his home vs. away OPS was .954 vs. .946. From 2005 through 2007 (now our sample size is getting reasonably significant) the difference was .969 at home and .925 away.
Given Guerrero’s historical stats, the most likely thing to happen in the coming weeks and months is a return to the mean. Do you really want him on your bench when that happens? Look at your keyboard. That’s a board with which to hit yourself when Mass’ advice loses you a matchup.
Posted by Henry on June 4, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I quote from the Jacoby Ellsbury profile on Squidwho, the site that makes Wikipedia look like the New England Journal of Medicine:
One scouting report compared Ellsbury to “a better version of Johnny Damon. I say a better version because he has all the same baseball talent, but a better arm, and minus the greed and ***holeness.”
Thanks for the memories, Johnny.
Posted by Henry on June 4, 2008 at 12:08 pm
In the comments to my Efficient Markets post, Shayne points out that one way to apply market efficiency thinking to fantasy baseball is to minimize transactions and line-up changes. You can’t outguess the market so don’t try.
He’s right. If you’ve evaluated and signed a particular player for a particular reason you should be ready to ride out the slumps. Over time the better player should produce.
The gambling strategy I propose applies to the players who are marginal to start with. If you need to get lucky to win your league (which you probably do), you need to find the marginal player with the biggest upside among the larger group of the consistently marginal.
Good luck on that.
Posted by Henry on June 2, 2008 at 4:09 pm
There has been a lot debate in the Mynci this week about a trade that just went through: Derrek Lee for Prince Fielder.
The general mood amongst us onlookers was anti-Fielder. Given that, it’s interesting to see that ESPN analyst Matthew Berry ranks them 19 and 24 in his current player rankings, with Fielder on top.
A more theoretical question was whether or not the swapping of two similar players at the same position was even worth the trouble. The future owner of Prince Fielder provided a pretty interesting answer:
Lee has gotten off to a fantastic start and he gave some good times. But now I think he is overrated… I think [Fielder] is going to get going again. I think Lee is going to level off. As for upside, we’re in a keeper league and Fielder is a potential keeper. It is faith in the big fella, a reaction to vegetarian jokes, and I’d like to make my fantasy team be a team that I like. I don’t particularly like Derek Lee, I like Prince Fielder…
The future owner of Derrek Lee summed it up:
I think what it came down to is he felt more comfortable with Fielder and I with Lee.
Why not have your fantasy team be a team you like? That is a profound question. I haven’t got around to writing about yet, but now I’m going to start putting my thoughts together.
Posted by Henry on June 1, 2008 at 4:53 pm
In past years, Kevin Youkilis was always a solid first baseman of last resort.
He was okay for average and great for OBP, if you played with OBP. And even if (in past years) he didn’t hit for power, the Boston Red Sox offense give him lots of opportunities to score and drive in runs.
This season, everyone knows about Kevin Youkilis. If you need a good average
