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Tape Measure Blasts

davidbloom — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:24:01 +0000

I have been busy putting together my fantasy teams and now I am just emptying out some good links I have collected over the past few weeks:

I want the “Truth” for 2011!

davidbloom — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:37:28 +0000

We can forecast on how we think a player will perform in each category. Some of these statistical categories reward playing time (i.e. HR,RBI,K,W) , where others are based on the success rate (AVG,ERA)

Everyone has their secret formula about how they make these projection, but the bottom line is we will be happy just knowing the numbers are close. We do not need to know how close the number are , we just care that we are within the range of the actual numbers .

ESPN

XM Baseball Sport Radio

davidbloom — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:14:18 +0000

After being on Sirius a few years ago, I finally made it back to Satellite radio. This time on the XM wing of the company.

XM 175:

http://www.facebook.com/MLBNetworkRadio

http://www.Twitter.com/MLBNetworkRadio

First Pitch
Weekdays 7 am – 10 am ET
Jim Memolo and Rob Dibble

Power Alley Jim Duquette and Kevin Kennedy
Weekdays 10 am – 2 pm ET

Inside Pitch Casey Stern and Jim Bowden
Weekdays 2 pm – 6 pm ET, Saturdays 10 am – 1 pm ET

MLB Tonight (MLB Network Staff)
Weekdays 6 pm – 8 pm ET

MLB Roundtrip
Weekdays 8 pm – 12 am ET

Minors and Majors Grant Paulsen
Sundays 8 am – 10 am ET

Remember When Ed Randall and Rico Petrocelli
Saturdays 8 am – 10 am ET

MLB Roundtrip Saturday Grant Paulsen
Saturdays 1 pm – 4 pm ET

Baseball Today Holden Kushner & Jim Duquette
Sundays 10 am – 1 pm ET

MLB Roundtrip Sunday
Sundays 1 pm – 4 pm ET
Talk about the news of the day and get insight on your team’s roster moves from former GM Jim Bowden.

Home Plate Jeff Joyce & Jeff Nelson
Weekends 4 pm – 7 pm ET

XM 147:

http://Twitter.com/siriusxmfantasy

http://www.facebook.com/siriusxmfantasysportsradio

7 am ET - RotoExperts w/ Scott Engel & Adam Ronis
10 am ET - SiriusXM Fantasy Basketball w/ Dennis Scott
11 am ET - RotoWire Fantasy Sports Today w/ Jeff Erickson & Derek Van Riper
2 pm ET - SiriusXM Fantasy Baseball w/ Steve Phillips & Jeff Rickard
5 pm ET - SiriusXM Fantasy Drive w/ Kyle Elfrink, Kay Adams & Ray Flowers
8 pm ET - Fantasy Baseball Tonight w/ Craig Mish

Ray Flowers on his web site is offering free fantasy information

2011 NL & AL LABR Draft Results

davidbloom — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:35:39 +0000

The 2011 LABR (League of Alternative Baseball Reality) drafts are all finished now after a weekend in Arizona.

1. PREAMBLE

We the people of the League of Alternate Baseball Reality (LABR), in order to promote the great game of fantasy baseball, prove all GMs idiots and obtain the biggest bragging rights in the nation do ordain and establish this constitution of the League of Alternate Baseball Reality.

2. OBJECT

To assemble a lineup of 24 National League or 23 American League baseball players whose cumulative statistics, compiled and measured by the methods described in these rules, exceed those of all other teams in the League.

3. SCORING

LABR uses a Ranked, Rotisserie Based Scoring System

The National League finished its auction draft (http://tinyurl.com/45ndqgt) which took place on Sunday March 6th. The American League draft finished up on Saturday.

The LABR is made up of professionals/ writers from the baseball publications industry. The LABR draft, when it takes place, is not open to the public. In years past they used web site all-star stats to run the LABR leagues. Here is this years NL ownership:

Clay Davenport, Baseball Prospectus (6th year, 2 titles)
Greg Ambrosius/Shawn Childs, NFBC (18th year, @VuFantasyBBcom)
Steve Moyer, Baseball Info Solutions (12th year, 1 title)
Steve Gardner, USA TODAY (7th year, 1 title, @sgardnerUSAT)
Eric Karabell, ESPN (7th year, @karabellespn)
Dalton Del Don, Rotowire (4th year, @daltondeldon)
Brandon Funston, Yahoo (4th year @1befun)
Doug Dennis, Baseball HQ (10th year)
Bob Radomski, Sandlot Shrink (9th year, 1 title)
Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton, Rotoworld (10th year, 3 titles)
Tristan Cockcroft, ESPN (8th year, 2 titles, @SultanofStat)
Derek Carty, The Hardball Times (3rd year, 1 title, @THTFantasy)

Why I am Taking Eric Young Jr in all my leagues

davidbloom — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 12:52:18 +0000

The excellent Roto site Fantasy Phenoms comes out each year with their “Our Boys” . Some alums from last year include Clayton Richard and Carlos Gonzalez. This year one player they are suggesting is Eric Young Jr:

The need for speed stole only 17 bags in 2010 but has stolen between 46 and 87 bags in each of his last four minor league seasons. Ey Jr received a lot of playing time in the second half and stole 11 bases in only 140 AB. If given a chance, he should steal 40.

Negative HR Splits Let’s take a look at which batters have been experiencing positive and negative trends since the break in the homerun department. Jose Lopez 107 – He’s usually a big second half guy. Be patient.

American League 2011 LABR Draft Results

davidbloom — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 12:27:47 +0000

The 2011 LABR (League of Alternative Baseball Reality) drafts are taking place this weekend in Arizona.

1. PREAMBLE

We the people of the League of Alternate Baseball Reality (LABR), in order to promote the great game of fantasy baseball, prove all GMs idiots and obtain the biggest bragging rights in the nation do ordain and establish this constitution of the League of Alternate Baseball Reality.

2. OBJECT

To assemble a lineup of 24 National League or 23 American League baseball players whose cumulative statistics, compiled and measured by the methods described in these rules, exceed those of all other teams in the League.

3. SCORING

LABR uses a Ranked, Rotisserie Based Scoring System.

.

Yesterday, the American League branch of the LABR took place. Today, the National League does its auction draft.

Steve Gardner, USA TODAY (7th year, 1 title, @sgardnerUSAT)
Chris Liss, Rotowire (6th year, @Chris_Liss)
Brad Evans, Yahoo (3rd year @YahooNoise)
Dave Adler, Baseball HQ (5th year)
Larry Schechter, Sandlot Shrink (7th year)
Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton, Rotoworld (10th year, 3 titles)
Lawr Michaels, Mastersball (3rd year, @Masters_Ball)
Jason Grey, ESPN (8th year, 2 titles, @Jason_Grey)
Greg Ambrosius/Shawn Childs, NFBC (18th year, @VuFantasyBBcom)
Nick Minnix, KFFL (2nd year, @NicholasMinnix)
Perry Van Hook, Fantasybaseball.com (3rd year)
Tom Trudeau, Bloomberg Sports (1st year, @Tom_Trudeau)

All Time Great

davidbloom — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 15:11:42 +0000

In a 1972 article that appeared in the Boston Globe titled “Aaron May Set HR Record, Can’t Equal Ruth’s Slugging” , the reporter Harold Case conducted an interview with fan and local statistician Harold Paretchan. In setting the HR record, Babe Ruth did it in 8399 at bats. At the time, Aaron was going on almost 11,000 at bats when he was getting close to the home run record. Mr. Paretchan noted Ruth had a HR once every 11.76 at bats, compared to 16.35 for Aaron.

Harold R. Paretchan Sr. was an inhalation therapist with a flair for baseball statistics who devoted his retirement to trumpeting the contributions of scientists he thought were overlooked.

He wrote the book World Series: The Statistical Record .

Prospect Grand Prix 2011

davidbloom — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:06:25 +0000

Unless your name is John Orelud, each baseball player has to go down to the minor leagues, and work his way up the food chain. It is not an easy journey for a player trying to force his way onto a major league roster. Every step along the way, the minor league players performance is analyzed and scrutinized. The players results are compared to the their peers in the current season, and historically to any player who has come through a similar path.

The game of projecting a player’s career based on minor league numbers is not an easy one. For every success case such as an Evan Longoria, there is another player on the other side of the spectrum that fools the critics. Anyone remember when third baseman Andy Marte was rated as a better prospect than David Wright? There are tons of examples out their of players who lived up to the hype, and those who were utter failures:

Jesse Foppert, Joel Guzman, Andy Marte, Sean Burroughs, Greg Miller

Todd Van Poppel, Brien Taylor, Darren Driefort

However, each year we pay attention to these players known as a prospects, phenom, young talent, the future, what ever name you want to give these guys. Some of these players make it, some do not. Another factor in all of this is opportunity. There are some players who did not shows up on the big time prospect lists and go on to have wonderful careers as late bloomers. Matt Holiday is one guy in this mold. Jason Bay is another. How can we forget Big Papi started his career out as with Twins? Johan Santana certainly didn’t start with the Twins organization either.

Now, one last thing that you can’t put a number to (at least yet) is a player make up. The player who has a good head on his shoulders and can get over the failures from previous day, and move on and get past the bad day is better equipped to be successful. The game of baseball is one of always making adjustments and dealing with failure.

With this mind, when you think prospects, think about the combination of talent, opportunity, and makeup. These three together give you an indication of what kind a player you have.

CBS Sports Top 100

BP Future Shock 2011

Baseball Digest Prospect Sandwich

Call To Pen

Braves Top

MLB Prospects

Prospect Watch Starters

Top Prospect Alert (by team)

Keith Law’s rankings

Scoutingbook.com Prospect Matrix

Prospect Portal

Top NL Only Prospects

Counting down the 100 Names You Need to Know

davidbloom — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 01:14:51 +0000

Each year, USA Today comes out with their 100 names you need to know for the upcoming season. This is a good resource of getting to know some of the minor league players that are usually at that point of their career where they are ready make a big impact at the major league level.

Here are a few of the players making the 2011 top ten of the “100 Names You Need to Know:

#1 Aroldis Chapman

Bullpen is the answer to the first big question about the Cuban flamethrower for this season. That’s where he’ll pitch, though the Reds aren’t ruling out a future role in their rotation. The next question revolves around when and if he could take over for closer Francisco Cordero, who is entering the final guaranteed year of his contract ($12 million option for 2012) and allowed baserunners last season at the highest rate of his career.

#2 Craig Kimbrel

Kimbrel, 22, got a taste of key late-inning situations late last season and in the playoffs. His 14.4 strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate through three minor league seasons was impressive enough, but he boosted that to 16.9 in his 25 combined regular season and playoff innings in the majors last year.

#3 Freddy Freeman

Freeman will show up this spring with the first base job and expectations he can be as impactful as Heyward. A lefty like his close friend Heyward, Freeman’s best attribute might be his defense, though he finished in the Class AAA International League’s top 10 in batting before turning 21 in September. His 18 homers last year dispelled concerns the 6-5, 225-pounder might not develop big-time power.

#6 Logan Morrison

Florida has plenty to chirp about with its trio of young studs on offense. Twitter-happy Morrison – and not Mike Stanton or Gaby Sanchez – remains eligible for our list thanks to his late-July 2010 call-up. Morrison moved to the outfield last year after older Sanchez beat him out for the Marlins’ first base job.

LABR 2010 USA Today Sports Weekly Is Out

davidbloom — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:15:40 +0000

http://usatodaysportsweekly.newsstand.com/