Fantasy Baseball Weeks 21 & 22

Sorry that I have not updated my results. Mostly because week 21 sucked. I did not lose, nor did I win. Imler and I tied at five apiece. He beat me in pitching, except strikeouts. I would like to mention that his team only recorded 16 Ks, which makes it easy to win that one…

Anyways, the day that Cole Hamels pitched I forgot to start him. He picked up a win, and had a very low WHIP, which would have tied us in wins and probably gave me WHIP (he beat my .02.) I know this is a lot of maybes, and I am not making excuses. Part of the fantasy atmosphere is making sure you always start the right players. My mistake, so instead of winning the week 6-3-1, we tied.

This week I beat Miley Cyrus and Me 6-4. This one was too close for my liking. My team played okay, but nothing fantastic. The pitching was superb, but the hitting slacked off a bit at the beginning of the week and was in a hole that became very hard to dig out of.

Anyways, this week begins the playoff. The regular season saw me finish in forth place with a record of 101-104-15. Singer, Ryan, and Gideon were all above me, by a very large margin. They all had over 116 wins.

The playoffs are looking pretty grim. This week I play Lumberjacks, who beat me 3-5 early in the year, but I beat him 7-3 a few weeks ago. If I make it out of the first round, I then take on Singer, who pounded me 8-1 and 7-3. I have come to the conclusion that to beat him that week, I may need to adopt his strategy. If only to hopefully pick up the better pitchers and leave him with pond scum. I am already at a huge disadvantage not getting saves, I might as well try to rack up the wins.

Anyways, good luck to everyone in the playoffs!

Author: Ngewo

31 thoughts on “Fantasy Baseball Weeks 21 & 22

  1. F fantasy baseball and F all you in the playoffs…dang man i lost by .004 percentage points..Gideon I hope you lose in the first round.

    Anyway, how about a look at the MLB MVP race? I cannot find ANYTHING except for a few blog entries on the races, so maybe I’m the only one who cares? Cy Young is pretty much over with Webb and Lee, but I think this is the most highly contested MVP race in quite some time. If I had my own blog that people read I would post this…but I don’t so forgive me Josh.

    Here are my top 4 in each league so far (I am actually keeping a daily log on the race).

    AL
    Morneau
    Quentin
    Youkilis
    Hamilton

    NL
    Braun
    Pujols
    Wright
    Berkman

    There are a lot of fancy stats that I have seen that cleary point to Berkman, and I agree that he is a very valuable player. However, Carlos Lee still has more RBI’s than him and he has been out for like a month, and the Astros S.U.C.K. (it’s tough to say any team sucks considering the Pirates’ 11 game losing streak) – I digress. Berkman is definitely a top contender, but with Fielder having an off year and the Brewers making an incredible run, how can Braun not be the top candidate? People are also mentioning Chipper and Holliday but no way…Ludwick is having a good season but if you had to pick which player was more valuable to the Cardinals it is hands down Pujols.

    In the AL, my sleeper picks are Morneau and Youkilis. It seems every time I look at the Twins’ boxscores he knocks in 2 or 3 runs. He is definitely playing well during the span the Twins need him most. If the hapless Twins make the playoffs there is no doubt in my mind he wins. If the White Sox make it, then I say Quentin probably wins. As for Hamilton…it’s a shame he has fallen apart. He has never played a full season so it’s not so unexpected. ARod, Cabrera, and Sizemore are having decent seasons but aren’t close to the top in my opinion. So that’s it. I’m obviously valuing playoff contention over just stats…Thoughts?

  2. Offord…I think you are pretty close with your picks. I also have no problem with you writing your own post, hell maybe I will copy it and put it on the main part…

    In the AL, I think the voters will give it to Morneau, his stats are pretty close to Quentin’s right now (Quentin has a higher OPS+ by 3 points right now)…Unfortunately for Quentin, he plays with Dye, who is also having a MVP caliber season (his OPS+ is only 5 behind Morneau)…

    Yeah, it is a shame about Hamilton, but it’s also the same thing that is happening to McLouth right now. Just have not played this many games before…

    In the NL, it would seem that Pujols has to be the leader right now. His OPS+ is 192, a good 20 points higher than his competition. I do not know if you look at OPS+ and how it works, but I like it because it considers park factor and how much better someone is against the rest of the league.

    I have a problem with saying that a player on a none contender does not deserve the MVP. To me, and this point gets argued over many times, is the award should go to the best player in the league.

    If most people think that Berkman is the best player in the league, but do not vote for him because the Astros suck, well then what happens next year when Brandon Moss hits .400, belts out 85 HRs, 190 RBIs, 47 SBs, but the Pirates finish in next to last with 89 Losses? Does that mean he would not deserve the MVP…I know it is a ridiculous hypothetical, but that is the problem I have with just voting for someone on a contender.

    You are right, the Cy Young award will most definitely go to Webb and Lee, although it would have been cool to have CC in the NL all season…he would have made it interesting.

    As an aside, I decided to look and see where Nady and Bay would be if you combine their NL and AL stats, 139 and 131 respectively. Nady would be in contention with Morneau and Quentin, how funny is that.

  3. In the MVP race, i have to remove the youk from competition, since he is kind of dropping off a little bit as of late, but you have to be realistic about things, he is the 3rd best offensive player on that boston team and only the 3rd or 4th best overall on that team now that papi is back healthy. Here’s my predictions for the AL, the top 2 change if Chicago loses out on the division to minnesota.

    AL: 1. Carlos Quentin 2. Dustin Pedroia 3. Justin Morneau

    Honorable mention: Josh Hamilton, Carlos Pena, Kevin Youkilis, Joe Mauer, cliff lee

    I’m not even going to bother putting up Hamilton, Youk, or Mauer who others are whispering about now. Pedroia leads the majors in Hits, runs scored, is going to be a 20-20 man this year, may still drive in 100 runs is top 3 in doubles and leads the american league in average, i don’t think youk can brag about being in the top 5 of any of those categories. Youk may be the emotional leader of boston, but Pedroia is currently their best player.

    In the National League, even with Pujols’ ridiculous season he’s having right now leading the majors in average, slugging, ops and giving the cards a change to make the playoffs, i think it’s him that comes out the winner. If houston was still in the playoff hunt and had a better team, i would say berkman, but right now I have to give it to Pujols 361 BA, 469 OBP!!! are you kidding me?! Those are yankee legend type numbers or roided bonds type, those are just amazing. If the cardinals make a final push and make the playoffs Pujols runs away with it, if they don’t it’s a closer race with braun involved.

    NL: 1.Pujols 2.Braun 3.Berkman 4.Wright 5. Ryan Howard

    I was actually considering a webb or CC but it’s too hard for a pitcher to be a teams most valuable player with so few games actually played. The MVP should always go to an everyday player, the only exception is if a pitcher gets 30 wins, or gets 20 wins and 20 saves shutting down teams when he is most needed and playing atleast 80 games 35 of which are starts, which will never happen. I put Ryan Howard up there because he is productive in spite of his 230 average and his soon to be major league record 250 thousand strike outs. Anyone who can drive in 120 runs and blast 40 something home runs while only having a 230 average and all those strike outs, has to be clutch and that’s why Howard should be involved in the talk.

    Honorable mention: aramis ramirez, matt holliday, carlos delgado, chase utley, hanley ramirez

  4. See the link I posted in the NFL picks entry…

    I agree that Pedroia is catching if not passing Youkilis, but I still think Youk holds a slim lead…Taking everyone’s input into consideration, it seems that our choices are Morneau/Quentin, or Pujols/Braun.

    What about CC’s chances for NL Cy Young? I just saw something about it being a three way chase between him, Webb, and Lincecum, but I think Webb has to be the clear favorite since the rest of Arizona’s staff is mediocre yet they lead the division, mainly because of him.

  5. Know how I said that the Cy Young was pretty clear cut, well I decided to do a little research, looking at a multitude of factors, but mostly using ERA+, which brings park factor, and weighs players against the rest of the league (100 is an average pitcher…) Also, ERA+ is basically hitter independent, it takes into account the things a pitcher can control, so Wins become somewhat useless because a guy can pitch a complete game and have 0 ER and still lose…

    Of the names I have heard tossed around, only a few were somewhat shocking when actually looked at closely.
    AL
    Lee 190
    K Rod 177
    Dice-K 161
    Halladay 159
    Lackey 139
    AJ Burnett 95!

    NL
    Lincecum 165
    Dempster 153
    Santana 152
    Volquez 148
    Hamels 148
    Sheets 146
    Peavy 145
    Webb 143
    Haren 140

    Obviously, Cliff Lee is right now hands down owning the AL, but the NL is not so cut and dry. Lincecum is in the unfortunate situation that his team is god awful, and yet he still wins, that goes for Volquez as well.

    Webb in reality is not that much better than Haren, yet has more wins. Johan Santana, who everyone will say did not pitch that well this year is having another fantastic year, but unfortunately the Mets do not like to score runs for him, and unless he CG’s it, the bullpen just throws it away…Actually Cole Hamels is in that same boat as well…

    Sidenote, CC Sabathia’s combined is 155. His NL ERA+: 303! He is absolutely destroying the NL, scary.

    Kern…I have no problem with your NL list, except you should remove Howard. You are missing someone who fits what you said, but does it better, Adam Dunn. OPS+: 134 over 106. Chase Utley is having a better year right now than Howard.

  6. Sadly, the Cy Young winner 90% of the time is the pitcher with the most wins, and since Webb has that AND a respectable ERA I still think he is a shoe-in

  7. Yeah, I know. For some odd reason, the sports writers have never figured out that W-L are out of the pitchers hands, especially he leaves the game. How many times has Hamels gotten a ND because he left in the 8th, tied 1-1? Do not look it up, my luck it will be once, haha.

  8. Nah you’re right, Hamels is a great pitcher and I think he will at least 1 Cy Young in the future…If we’re going best and most reliable pitcher, the one you’d want in game 7 of the world series, I’d go Santana in a heartbeat. Not that that matters whatsoever

  9. I agree with you on that one. If Santana were on say the Angels team right now, he’d probably have over 20 wins…granted that’s a huge IF, but c’mon, how does a team blow that many leads for one pitcher? Haha…

  10. I don’t know what OPS+ is, unless it’s just that Dunn’s OPS is slightly higher, but i’m looking at actual production, he has more home runs (39-35) and over 30 more RBI’s (119-88), plus he has played for the phillies all season, Dunn was seen as expendable by a team desperate to get anything they could get for him before the off-season. When it comes to that part of the argument, i would have to say you lose despite that ridiculous OPS+ stat that will probably make no sense to me at all. On top of that, I could also argue that chase utley is having that kind of season due to the fact he is hitting in front of Howard, and is just a product of a really good line up, but he has been productive the entire season. Howard has played every game this season with better power numbers across the board, he only trailes utley by 10 runs I believe. Utley is a better gaps hitter I’ll give him that, but anyone who can drive in 120 RBI’s while hitting 230 is probably the best clutch hitter i’ve ever heard of, which in my mind gives him the slight edge on Utley. If you look back on Howards MVP season you will see that utley is putting up similar numbers as to that year, but again Howard won because of his production in the HR department and RBI’s, granted his AVE was 70 points higher than it is now, but when it comes to winning ball games and the final vote, people look at HR’s and RBI’s, they are the most important statitistic when it comes to someone’s candidacy at MVP. This is why Howard is more worthy than Utley, in my mind.

  11. Kern…ugh, I do not know where to start. First off your argument that you will dismiss a statistic because you do not understand it is a bit flawed. I mean, I do not understand how the circulatory system works, does not mean I will just disregard it…

    Anyways, that aside. RBIs are a horrible stat. Yes, I understand that old sportswriters think they are the best stat ever, but seriously, how can you control how many people are on base when you come up to bat? Do we punish Adam Dunn because his team sucks balls and could not reach base when he was up?

    Also, there have been some studies, I will try to find them, but there is no evidence that their is anything like “lineup protection”…but that is not an argument I feel like having. I mean, you do not believe in math or science, I would not want to strain your mind too much. Yeah, that was harsh, I apologize.

    My reason for using OPS+ is that it brings park factor into consideration. It is just OPS, but adjusted to compare players better. You can easily look up on baseball-reference.com in their glossary section how it works. I used this stat because the original point Offord brought up was who we thought should win the MVP…if I could vote, I would use these statistics, not the typical RBIs and Runs…

    But, since you are old fashioned, and unwilling to try new things. Let us compare Dunn and Howard:

    Howard Dunn
    HR 39 35
    RBI 119 88
    BB 69 107
    K 182 139
    AVG .236 .240
    OBP .325 .393
    SLG .502 .524
    OPS .826 .917
    OUTS 420 341
    Yes, Howard has more HR (by 4, which we say cancels out Dunn’s .004 point lead in AVG). Howard does have more RBIs, but also he makes way more outs for his team. 182 Ks! Only 69 BB?? Is he Juan Pierre here with that OBP? Dunn gets on base almost 40% of his at bats. What is the worst thing a hitter can do? Make an out, correct? Well OUTS is calculated as such: Outs = (AB – H + CS + GIDP + SH + SF)

    I am not saying that Dunn’s name should be on any MVP list, but neither should Howard’s…

  12. Yes that is true. After Kern’s post I did some fancy analysis – you know, the usual Pathusian growth model, some pythagorean theory, complex matrices, and just for the heck of it, game theory – and I was able to conclude that Adam Dunn was not on the Phillies, and that he was indeed on the Cincinatti Reds. No need for thank yous, I do this time consuming work because it is my obligation to the public. Why waste my intellectual capacity, I often ask myself.

  13. I did a little digging myself after your little rant degrading all of poor ryan howards production, and from what i’ve come across you can’t fault a man for striking out as often as he does when it comes to creating runs for his team throughout the course of the season. It is amazing how little difference it makes for his team in the entire season even if he does demolish the strike out record, that it’s quite laughable. If you were to put all the plays of every player in their career in a “play ball! vacuum” so to speak, all the strike outs, bunting, sacrifices make no difference and almost completely throws out your argument. The one thing that stalls me here is your walks and on base argument, which aparently seems to be the most important statistic when it comes to helping a team win their said game throughout the course of the season. Here’s one of the articles i pulled up http://www.dugoutcentral.com/blog/?p=1687

    I would also like to add that throughout the regular season Adam dunn has hit in front of or behind a future hall of famer and very productive rookies for much of the seaon, his numbers should be better than they are and they just aren’t. For the majority of the season Adam Dunn hit in the 5 hole and it was the most productive spot in the Reds line up. But the 4, 6, and 7 spots in the line up were right on par with the 5th spot (highly occupied by Dunn)all season. So, if Dunn’s walks are such a big deal, why does he in fact trail ryan howard on runs scored as well? Also, the Reds 6 and 7 spots are more productive throughout the course of the season than are the Phillies 5 and 6 spots, not by much, but still all the same, more productive, which would be the 2 “producing spots” in the line up directly behind Howard(Phillies clean up hitter most of the year). I know he isn’t, but if Ryan howard was batting 260 and had 10 more walks than he has, we wouldn’t be having this debate at all, it’s amazing what a week of games can do for an MVP race!

    You also have to look at who makes their team better. Adam Dunn even now while being with the D-Backs hasn’t made them a scarier line-up and that’s what he was brought over to do. Dunn has only 3 home runs in what is almost an entire month with the team. He was playing in a thought as a high powered line up in Cincy that struggled under his hurricane like swing and misses and is doing the same thing in Arizona. If you were to remove Howard from the line up in Philadelphia, i guarantee that team would not be in the race right now for their respected division. The entire line up would struggle more 1-8, Chase Utley wouldn’t even be a fart in the wind when it came to MVP whispers, and Pat Burrell of all people would probably be calling it a career after this year he would’ve been so bad. If you use your OPS+ stat which compares how hitter friendly the parks are, etc.? Then that kind of eliminates that part of the stat since both parks these big guys play in are very hitter friendly. Can you honestly say that if you were to put Adam Dunn’s current numbers and say he was in the Diamondbacks line up for this entire season, he could honestly be considered a better candidate for MVP than Howard? I don’t think you can.

  14. I also wanted to note, that comparing the 2 big guys stats with runners on (because lets face it, if there is someone on first they are in scoring position for these 2).

    Adam Dunn: 14 hrs
    66 RBI’s
    .262 Ave
    .419 OBP

    Ryan Howard: 18 Hrs
    96 RBI’s
    .279 Ave
    .371 OBP

    Not that big of a difference in OBP here by my reckoning(i like the word reckon), and once again more productive, so that’s how Howard has 30 more RBI’s than dun this year, who’d a thunk?!

  15. Wow.

    First off, neither Howard or Dunn are MVP candidates so it doesn’t matter. Secondly, the Phillies were in first place before Howard came back to the team. Since, they have lost their division lead and Utley has fallen apart. That’s my common sense argument…I don’t know how Dunn even came up in this discussion…you can’t be an MVP when you’ve played for two different teams unless you are far and away the best player in the league, which he is far from.

    Anyway, I spent my free time at work today coming up with a formula to take into account for all important pitching statistics. For now, I’ve weighted each stat equally which I won’t in the end, and I have yet to get the numbers for ‘park factor’, but the analysis so far yields the following results:

    Sabathia 13.38
    Webb 12.25
    Santana 12.24
    Lincecum 11.99
    Sheets 11.88
    Hamels 11.82
    Dempster 11.80
    Peavy 10.77
    Volquez 10.25

    More details to come tomorrow…

  16. Kern…I am not trying to say that Howard sucks, only that he has had a poor season by his own standards. The previous two seasons, he has been a much better hitter than Adam Dunn. As of right now, he is becoming another Dunn, who just does not walk. Offord is exactly right, there is no point in arguing about either one of them because they are not a MVP candidate.

    You did forget to mention how many PA’s they had during those very small samples…that’s the biggest problem with any runners on situation, it becomes a small sample, and unless you hit a HR, then a lot of it is luck. I mean, let us say that Dunn crushes one off the wall, but the 3rd base coach holds the runner at third, (unless it’s Beasley then he sends Dunn to score and wonders why the inning is over…) Again, that is not Dunn’s fault.

    I guess I should reiterate that I am not advocating Dunn as an MVP or anything, I only ever said that Howard should not be on that short list.

    Anyways, I will finish this out by saying, I hope Ryan Howard goes back to playing more like he did the previous two seasons so we can both agree that he is much scarier hitting .320…

    On a sidenote, did you guys see that Pujols BABIP is some ungodly number, I think Pujols might be the ANTICHRIST…

    Offord…I would love to see what your formula was for that, or you should email that to Bill James or Pete Palmer (I think that is his name)…maybe you could invent an entirely new pitching metric.

  17. What is BABID? Batting Average when Bathing in Dollars?

    FYI, my metric is far from anything remotely exact or even accurate so far, but in the end isn’t that what all metric’s are? Take whatever you want from the numbers and forget the process involved with their creation…

  18. Offord…yes, that is exactly what BABID is: take a players BA and divide by their salary. Derek Bell has the greatest BABID ever.

  19. Do you think Home Runs park factor is more important than Total Runs? I feel like Total Runs is more likely to be influenced by the home team’s offense, while home runs will be more averaged and actually show how a park affects that pitcher.

    Also, to properly account for park factor, i guess I’d need to add up the park factor for each of the individual pitcher’s starts…it wouldn’t be accurate if I used it as a total for a pitcher if he pitched most of his games on the road, right? This is going to take a while…

  20. Offord…I would be inclined to agree with you on that, although I am slightly hungover today, so my brain is not working properly yet.

    And yes, that could take awhile…

  21. The debate wasn’t whether or not Howard was in the MVP race, it was Howard shouldn’t be because Dunn’s OPS+ is better…anyways, i prefer to discuss football statistics, i’m better at those because there aren’t as many. I can’t believe you came up with your own metric at work offord. Do you have as much time on your hands as i do??? All i do is sit around and read all day. And I think someone who should be thrown into the BABID convo is pat meares, come on, .7 plate appearances for like 50 million dollars has to be up there with dereks bell no plate appearance, 40 million and a shut down mode…priceless

    There’s a lot of productionless players you can buy, but for everything else there’s cam bonifay.

  22. Kern…if I may quote you:
    “NL: 1.Pujols 2.Braun 3.Berkman 4.Wright 5. Ryan Howard”
    That was your list for MVP…I just pointed out that all the reasons you listed for Howard were more applicable to Dunn. Anyways…

    Ahh, Cam Bonifay, made me shutter reading that. He should be like Sauron, “he who shall not be named.”

  23. Someone needs to come up with a top ten worst moves the Pirates have made since Leyland left…

    I am working hard on my metric, officially named Pitching Performance+ (PPP). I compiled all the strength of schedule and home run park factor stats…so im up to like 13 variables right now…still got lots to do on it though, but I’m off to a meeting…

  24. Top ten worst moves? The Aramis Ramirez trade has to be up there. What did we get in the deal? I think 2 parking spots at Wrigley and a case of gummy bears.

  25. Yes but I think the parking spots were in fact mislabeled handicap spots. But don’t worry, we gave them to Matt Morris as a parting gift.

  26. Actually Matt Morris sits at home all day eating Cheetos and counting his money. Nothing like paying a guy $9 million to not play….hell I could do that.

  27. I posted my metrec standings in the group blog post, but if you want to know the variables taken into consideration I’ll list them:

    ERA, ERA+, ERC, ERA with runners in scoring position, WHIP, batting average against, home run park factor, wins, winning percentage, tough losses, run support, and strength of schedule.

    If you want to see the exact formula I can give you that too.

  28. Offord, I do not need the formula, I might copy your other comment and this one and turn it into a post. Someone might want the actual formula…

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