I was ready to stick with Anibal Sanchez this week. Sure he gave up six runs in the first inning against the Mets, but then he shut them down for the next five. That seemed to bode as well as anything for his Saturday start.

Tuesday, we learned the Phil Hughes was being called up to start for the Yankees and that was it for Anibal Sanchez.

Hughes, like fellow prospect Ian Kennedy, is a strikeout talent who has stumbled badly at the major league level. The question is when he’ll get his act together. For comparison, Jonathan Sanchez came out of the minors with 11.9 Ks per nine IP and posted a 5.01 ERA in his first full major league season.

The difference, in my mind, is control. In 330 minor league innings, Hughes has had a WHIP of 0.92 and 2.2 walks per nine IP. Jonathan Sanchez had 3.5. Even this season, with his 2.60 ERA, Sanchez has already walked 12 in 17 IP. I’d rather gamble on Hughes.

Comments (0)  |  Filed under: Fantasy Baseball, Player Analysis

Comments (0)  |  Filed under: Art, Poetry

The Putin-backed candidate for mayor of Sochi speaks at a ceremony “commemorating the Armenian genocide during World War I, a crucial gesture to the city’s large Armenian population.” Former grandmaster Gary Kasparov, half-Armenian himself, somehow moved from signing autographs to taking over the podium:

Two minutes and 33 seconds into Mr. Kasparov’s speech, a local official stepped forward and said his time was up. Mr. Kasparov turned to the crowd with an incredulous look.

“What’s happening?” he said loudly. “I cannot speak? Maybe it’s better to be silent?”

Zuzwang.

Comments (0)  |  Filed under: Life

Derek Jeter misplays Jacoby Ellsbury’s pop fly in the 8th.

That title is straight from Joe Castiglione’s radio call.

But Dustin Pedroia strikes out. Inning over.

Oddly, Joe Girardi brought Mariano Rivera in after Jonathan Albaladejo got one strike on Ellsbury.

Comments (1)  |  Filed under: Baseball, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees

Over the last few seasons of head-to-head fantasy baseball, I’ve increasingly looked for the long play. The long play is the player not yet producing who could make the difference late in the season when it counts. The long play is the rookie callup, the once and future closer, the rehabbing warhorse.

I’ve tabbed a few long plays already this season. I drafted John Smoltz and slotted him to the DL. Actually, that hardly qualifies. The DL-stash of a 22nd round pick is no hardship. I drafted Pablo Sandoval on the hopes that he gains catcher eligibility at some point. That has cost a little more, as Sandoval has started slow and will be no better than an average corner infielder even when he gets better.

Now here’s two more to think about.

First, Ben Sheets. Milwaukee’s former ace could be back in August, but he’s not currently signed by any major league team, which means he’s not DL-eligible. If you sign him, you use up a roster spot for nothing. Once Sheets gets a contract, the run will be on. You need to sign him just before that happens. For now, I’m laying off.

Second, Matt Wieters. The number one prospect in all of baseball is ranked by ESPN as the 10th best catcher and the 179th pick overall. But his eventual callup to the majors still looks a month or two away, especially with the minor but worrisome hamstring strain he suffered this week. In the Mynci, Wieters just landed on the waiver wire. For me, this is a long play worth the intervening zeros. Wieters is in. Sandoval is out.

Comments (0)  |  Filed under: Fantasy Baseball, Player Analysis, Strategy

What are the odds that the standings below end up exactly the reverse order at the end of the season?

American League East:

Toronto 7-3
Baltimore 6-3
Yankees 5-5
Tampa Bay 4-5
Boston 3-6

American League West:

Seattle 7-2
Oakland 4-5
Texas 4-5
Los Angeles 3-5

I’d say not bad.

Comments (1)  |  Filed under: Baseball

I’ve added Safe Signup Form to the WordPress Plugin Repository. Safe Signup Form is a WordPress Plugin that will forward a form submission to an email address, while preventing most automated attacks.

I developed Safe Signup Form using some key functions from Elliot Back’s WP Hashcash. WP Hashcash is an elegant anti-spam plugin for blocking automated submissions to WordPress comments. What I wanted was a signup, contact, or registration form with the same protection — a mechanism that blocked robots without forcing users to identify a Captcha image or answer an unnecessary question.

The PHP to write and process the form was not hard to develop. I focused most on giving administrators control over the instructional, error, and success messages that create a good user experience.

In the process I made a few tradeoffs. Since the form is called via shortcode rather than a filter, the administration messages are not automaticaly formatted. Administrators can apply HTML code as they see fit or even write javascript or CSS to the form.

This brings up a second tradeoff. Where Elliot Back hooks his javascript call to the WordPress wp_head function, I simply write mine at the end of the form code. His approach is standards compliant. My approach targets the call only where it is required and is common practice for AJAX applications and Google-style widgets.

Comments (0)  |  Filed under: Coding, Plugin

Chris Carpenter goes on the DL.

This is why Carpenter didn’t get drafted until the 190th pick in the Mynci draft and was averaging around 180th in ESPN drafts until this past week, when he jumped to about 140th.

Tough break. But he’ll be back.

Comments (0)  |  Filed under: Draft, Fantasy Baseball

Good news for boys (is bad news for girls):

A new study conducted by researchers at Michigan State University suggests that playing video games helps foster the development of visual-spatial skills among middle school students. Cultivating the ability to think visually is crucial to excelling in fields like engineering and surgery…

(h/t Instapundit)

Comments (0)  |  Filed under: Life, Science

…but does ESPN really need to devote its home page scoreboard to a weekday leaderboard? There’s baseball being played.

Comments (2)  |  Filed under: Golf

The twelve Mynci teams drafted 23 players each. Our opening day rosters, including 11 players on the DL, totaled 287 players. I’ll call these “value” players.

The table below shows the number of value players per major league team, the first player(s) taken and in which round.

The results are hardly surprising. The Red Sox, Angels, and Devil Rays should be quite good. The Blue Jays and Padres should be mediocre. However, there are some interesting stories within the data.

• The Angels are tied for second in total number of value players, but lack superstars, with the aging Vladimer Guerrero and John Lackey not taken until the 5th round. The Angels are the only team whose entire starting rotation was drafted or signed by opening day.
• In contrast, the Mets had only ten value players, but three first round draft picks.
• The World Champion Phillies had nine value players, and two first round draft picks. Notably, all but one of the nine players were taken by the end of the 10th round.

I will note that because we use keepers, the first player taken data is somewhat skewed by scarcity. Matt Holiday in Oakland would likely not be a first round pick in an actual draft; but was a keeper for a team with few better options. Except for Carlos Lee, Alfonso Soriano, and Justin Morneau, all the other 1st, 2nd, and 3rd picks listed below were keepers.

Comments (4)  |  Filed under: Baseball, Draft, Fantasy Baseball

What I like best about the Mynci is the collective depth of experience. The core group of managers has been playing together for more than six years. I won it all the year my daughter was born. She just turned five.

There’s nothing like the humbling notice that a manager as obsessive as yourself just picked up a free agent you have never heard of. RFP does this regularly. He just signed Trevor Cahill. I checked Cahill against Baseball Crank’s ESWL and all I found was this (my emphasis):

The A’s perennially get more Win Shares from players I don’t include in the preseason EWSL charts than almost anybody… Of course, their young rotation could have substantial up- or down-side, especially a volatile power arm like Gonzalez or the highly touted Cahill and Anderson (although Gallagher may be the best bet for a step forward of the group).

Comments (2)  |  Filed under: Fantasy Baseball, Player Analysis

Baseball Crank has begun posting his established win share levels reports for 2009.

In brief, the win share levels use statistical algorithms to analyze each MLB player’s share of his team’s wins:

Win Shares seek to measure a player’s total contribution to a team’s bottom line win/loss record, in the case of non-pitchers through combining batting and fielding contributions. The system makes the assumptions that a team’s total wins can be rationally connected to its runs scored and allowed. Thus, each player is assigned a share of the team’s total wins based on his contribution to scoring and preventing runs.

Baseball Crank produces two numbers. The raw EWSL number for each player identifies a specific rating for data from the the last three years. Raw EWSL reflects past results. The adjusted EWSL number attempts to project the future. This means quantifying an appropriate number for rookies with a starting job, and adjusting for age.

The age adjustments provides one of the most basic parameters for predicting player performance. Before the age of 28 or 29, players tend to improve each year. After 30, they tend to decline. Sometimes dramatically. Individual projections, here as with any expert evaluation, are not that meaningful. But you still have to deal with the odds.

Comments (0)  |  Filed under: Baseball, Fantasy Baseball, Player Analysis, Resources