BaseballHappenings.com

2011 World Series: Rangers vs. Cardinals

davidbloom — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:20:41 +0000

It’s World Series time in baseball. For many baseball fans, this means that your best friends for the next week straight are your high definition television and the coziest spot on your couch. The World Series marks the best four to seven games of the year featuring the two greatest teams in baseball. And this year those teams are the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers.

The Cardinals are clearly the underdog in the 2011 World Series, which is nothing new from every other series they have played in the 2011 Playoffs. The Cards fought their way to a spot in the NLDS, being pulled in at the last minute as the National League wild card. The momentum from their end-of-season winning streak has carried them well into the playoffs, as they beat the Phillies 3-2 in the NLDS and the Brewers 4-2 in the NLCS. They now lead the World Series with home field advantage 1 – 0 against the Texas Rangers.

The Rangers were a top contender all season long in the American League. Finishing the regular season ranked 1st in the AL West and 2nd overall in the American League to the power house New York Yankees, the Rangers have proven to be a force in this post-season. The Rangers stomped the Rays in the ALDS with a 3-1 series win, and then went on to beat the Tigers four games to two. Now returning to the World Series for the 2nd consecutive year, they are looking to clinch the win and take home the title. This will be the first series in the playoffs where they will not have home field advantage, so winning on Cardinals’ soil is a must if they want to claim the trophy.

Best of seven wins this final series and we’re only one game in. Game 2 will be held at Busch Stadium tonight at 8:05pm (Eastern Time) with pitching lineup Jaime Garcia (STL) vs. Colby Lewis (TX). Tune in and watch the best action in baseball. If you’d rather be at the stadium for the full experience, World Series tickets are still available! Game on.

Pirdie FAAB Time

davidbloom — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:39:43 +0000

Jason Pirdie is in the major leagues. He is the poster boy of what the former Rays regime did with their high draft picks. As a career minor league journeyman, he was summoned when Pagan landed on the DL.

NL Fantasy says: “Jason Pridie got the start in CF with Angel Pagan hitting the DL. I would expect Pridie to split time with Willie Harris while Pagan is out of action”

Dirty Mets says : “Jason Pridie who played center as a call up for DL’d Pagan, had a tough time. It’s not like he had any errors tonight but had an adventure covering some ground on two rockets hit beyond his reach that would result in doubles.”

LoHud says ” Pridie, once a top prospect with the Twins, is more of a glove than a bat in center field. He starts tonight, and it will be interesting to see if he gets regular time there, or if Harris/Hairston share it as well. This isn’t a prospect situation anymore, in terms of Pridie. But maybe, a team with the defensive struggles of the Mets just wants a great glove out there right now.”

Pridie has been showing some power with the AAA Bisons .

This is the best the Mets organization has to offer?

PawSox blog mention on Jason Pridie

Catchy phrase “Pridie and Prejudice“

What a difference a Bay makes. Sure, but what about the Murphy blunder

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:

Ready for launch on the 2011 season

davidbloom — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:24:59 +0000

With spring training winding down, teams are scrambling to finalize their rosters to “Go North” for the upcoming season. Likewise, fantasy owners have to make decisions on keepers, and who to target based on what has taken place in the Grapefruit and Cactus league action.

This brings me to the annual “who are these guys” list of players from the spring who have performed well in camp and are not really household names:

Jeremy Reed 391OBP .525SLG .377AVG
Ryan Roberts 621OBP .674SLG .512AVG
Nick Evans 388OBP .435SLG .339AVG
Chris Denorfia 451OBP ,600SLG .422AVG
Wilson Valdez 426OBP ,500SLG .380AVG
Jonathan Herrera 436OBP ,592SLG .367AVG
Albert Gonzalez 392OBP ,396SLG .354AVG
John Mayberry 355OBP ,625SLG .286AVG
Aaron Cunningham 373OBP ,565SLG .326AVG
Brandon Boggs 322OBP ,434SLG .264AVG
Daniel Descalso362OBP ,455SLG .318AVG
Zack Cozart417OBP ,576SLG .394AVG

Roster depth charts and spreadsheet from mlbdepthcharts.com

Here is Astros projected lienup.

This post great sampling on the best box scores .

Relief pitching tiers. [more]

Hoop Picks 2011

davidbloom — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:15:45 +0000

The USA Today always does a good job with their March Madness coverage and this year is no different with their team by team capsules for the East Region , Southwest , SouthEast , West .

The scoresreport site picks Ohio State to win it all, and makes use of statistical analysis for picking the winners with :

Sagarin Ratings for regular season rankings
Basketball Prospectus / Ken Pomeroy for Pythagorean calculation

For example, take this match up where he selects George Mason overVillanova based on Sagarin predictor (Pomeroy calculation) numbers:

George Mason 26-6, 17-3. Bid: Colonial at-large 84.60 (.5102) / Villanova 21-11, 9-9. Bid: Big East at-large 85.72 (.4873)

Nate Silver of the New York Times picks Ohio State in his bracket, and tells us his prediction methodology:

Sagarin’s ratings for USA Today. We use the “predictor” version of Sagarin’s ratings that accounts for margin of victory in past games. Although Sagarin has never fully disclosed his methodology — it is most likely based on an iterative process — these are among the oldest power ratings and have a long track record of success.

– Ken Pomeroy’s ratings. Unlike Sagarin’s ratings, Pomeroy’s account separately for offense and defense. They probably have the soundesttheoretical basis of any of the systems, and have performed well.

– Third are the LRMC ratings — LRMC is an acronym for “logistic regression, Markov Chain” — designed by Joel Sokol of Georgia Tech. LRMC is a relatively new approach, but it has performed well in recent years. (Sokol also provided me with retroactive versions of his ratings going back to 2003). It is probably the most emperically-driven of the four systems, using the results of home-and-home series during the regular season.

– And finally, the Sonny Moore power ratings, which have been published since 1974. Although Moore’s ratings are superficially similar to Sagarin’s, they have some novel features, such as more heavily weighting the results of recent games.

The games tip off today and here is the schedule:

Other sites:

college hoops

NCAA RPI

http://bracketology101.blogspot.com/

http://www.thehoopsreport.com/

http://sec.floridatoday.com/

Hoops updates from twitter

marchmadnessmix.com

I used the Rick Wolf/Glenn Colton auction draft model

davidbloom — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:51:36 +0000

The League of Alternate Baseball Reality (LABR) includes experts from the fantasy sports industry. The Rick Wolf and Glenn Colton ownership team has 3 championships in ten years in the NL only league. I looked at the Wolf/Colton roster composition , and decided to use their model as I approached the Carolina Baseball League (CBL) Auction draft (03/13/2011). Based on their roster, it seems the strategy was not paying a lot for pitching, and using most of their money around five high end batters who provide multiple categories.

The Wolf/Cotton team spent $148 on five high end bats that included:

$39 Joey Votto
$32 Andrew McCutchen
$30 Matt Holliday
$29 Hunter Pence
$18 Aramis Ramirez

For our draft, Hunter Pence and Andrew McCutchen were not available. I spent $145 for six primary bats:

$39 Joey Votto
$37 Justin Upton
$39 Matt Holliday
$10 Pedro Alvarez
$10 Cody Ross
$10 Logan Morrison

Like Wolf/Colton, I have both Votto and Holliday. For their Aramis Ramirez selection, I already had Pedro Alvarez for that slot. I considered Cory Hart for the Hunter Pence slot, but decided with his injury to move the money else where. Instead, I combined Cody Ross and Logan Morrison for $20.

On pitching, Wolf/Colton went with three good starters who were nicely priced, and a high end closer:

$20 Brian Wilson
$16 Jonathan Sanchez
$13 Matt Garza
$13 Ricky Nolasco

For my pitching, I had a similar makeup but I went with two closers:

$20 J.J. Putz
$11 Matt Latos
$13 Tommy Hanson
$10 Kyle McClellan
$10 Travis Wood
$6 Craig Kimbrel

Here is my roster for opening day:

Pos Edit Active Batters Salary

C Hernandez, Ramon(C) CIN

4 C Thole, Josh(C) NYM 6

1B Votto, Joey(1B) CIN 39

2B Young, Eric(2B) COL 10

3B Alvarez, Pedro(3B) PIT 10

SS Renteria, Edgar(SS) CIN 2

MI DeWitt, Blake(2B) CHC 2

CI Overbay, Lyle(1B) PIT 9

OF Holliday, Matt(OF) STL 39

OF Morrison, Logan(OF) FLA

10 OF Ross, Cody(OF) SF

10 OF Upton, Justin(OF) ARI 37

OF Venable, Will(OF) SD 4

U Hairston, Scott(OF) NYM 5

Bench

Bench (3B) Baker, Jeff(2B,3B) CHC 3

Bench (SS) Emaus, Brad(SS) NYM 10

Bench (OF) Jackson, Brett(OF) CHC 10

Bench (U) Gibbons, Jay(OF) LA 2

Pos Edit Active Pitchers Salary

P Hammel, Jason(P) COL 7

P Hanson, Tommy(P) ATL 11

P Kimbrel, Craig(P) ATL 6

P Latos, Mat(P) SD 11

P Marquis, Jason(P) WAS 1

P McClellan, Kyle(P) STL 10

P Putz, J.J.(P) ARI 20

P Wood, Travis(P) CIN 10

P Young, Chris(P) NYM 1

Bench (P) Luebke, Cory(P) SD 6

Bench (P) Mejia, Jenrry(P) NYM 7

Bench (P) Rodriguez, Henry(P) WAS 5

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.