Youkilis walks all the time, and Sandoval walks very rarely. You said walks were an impactful stat and you brought up their plate discipline. I think the fact that one guy walks at double the rate of the other guy is pretty relevant to those points.
Was anyone arguing that Youk was better at the plate? If you said they were vastly different players with similar value I would not have commented. But calling someone “Youk lite” implies that a player is similar but worse to him. On that you couldn’t have been more wrong.
Well, we were talking about the Red Sox offense as compared to last year. It isn’t like Ortiz hit 320 with 40 hrs last year. Whether he is better or worse than last year depends on how much you think the 2nd half rebound was a fluke. There doesn’t seem to much reason to think Ortiz will be marketability worse than last year. And if he is I’m sure the Red Sox can find a replacement. Cameron isn’t as good as Bay, but he isn’t a slouch at the plate either. The difference is probably not as big as you think. Beltre had a poor year offensively last year, but he did it while playing hurt and in a terrible park for him. Look at his numbers when healthy and/or when playing on the road. He should at the very least be as good offensively as Lowell was last year. Besides, it isn’t like they don’t still have Lowell. Add in a full year of Victor Martinez and a competent shortstop and the Red Sox offensively should be comparable to last year. Youk being the only quality bat is too crazy to be worth comment on.
I’d say they both should be about the same as last year. I agree on your expectations on the players, but that is based on age curves rather then teammates abilities.
I wouldn’t say approach is meaningless in fantasy baseball. It helps to figure how players will perform given changes to their environment. For example, a big bopper batting behind Pablo would likely would result in a vast decrease in his walks, while Youk would be minimally effected.
I was going to go completely homer on this, but it looks like Hawkeyeop coevered most of it. Pending injury and performance fluctuation (of course), the mid point for projected runs for the Red Sox this year is something like 20-30 runs less than last year. They were 3rd in the majors last year in runs scored, and 30 runs less than that would still have them… 3rd in the majors.
Youkilis walked in 13.1% of his plate appearances in 2009. He averages 12.4% for his career. Sandoval is at 8.2% and 7.1% respectively. Yet their career OBPs are .391 and .381 respectively. The MLB average is 8.6% or so. I disagree with he premise that Sandoval walks rarely, the stats say that he’s nearly average. Impressive for a “free swinger” with a .330 average with little protection in the lineup. Youkilis is good but not other worldly, elite walk rates are in the range of 15%+.
When you look at the two players fantasy stat lines they are very similar. I simply don’t understand why my comparing the two is in any way worthy of scorn.
From a fantasy perspective using our scoring metrics they are very similar. Last year, a career year for Youk, they ranked 25th and 27th overall among batters according to Yahoo. For combo 1B/3B guys in a fantasy discussion I’d say my assertion is very accurate. Factoring in the relative strength of their teams and the body of work for Youkilis calling Sandoval Youk Lite made perfect sense.
Your weighing the memes of Youk, Greek god of walks, and wild swinging Kung Fu Panda as the only relevant comparison is pretty myopic, especially when in the light of statistics the differences aren’t nearly as stark and the perception would have you believe.
That’s the party line that Red Sox nation is selling of course. It’s perfectly defensible but you have to admit there are a ton of “ifs” in there. Youkilis had a career year. Ellsbury had a breakout season yet still only had an OPS of .770. You could make an equally strong case (stronger?) that both guys will fall back to the pack as you could that Beltre and Cameron will step up. JD Drew played 137 games last year, this year based on his track record it seems like a lock that he only manages 100 games for fewer. Are we certain that Martinez won’t regress to 2008-2009 Indians Martinez? He wasn’t exactly lights out in Fenway last year and did most of his damage on the road, what will a full season in the AL East bring?
To Beltre and Cameron. Yeah Beltre was solid on the road last year, but how was he in Fenway over his career, hmm? Let see: .179/.299/.232/.531… never mind that. People are rapidly talking themselves into Beltre this season, just like every season, and in just about every season they are sorely disappointed. And the Mike Cameron of 6 teams? Well, everyone loves reminding people how bad the NL is compared to the AL East and Cameron is coming from a 6 year stint in the NL. It’s been a while but Cameron is a .220 hitter in Fenway and his 2009 second half OPS was just .743, .795 for the season. So talk about Papi’s second half resurgence if you want but that cuts both ways. Nevermind the hilarious hypocrisy you demonstrate in criticizing my comparison of Sandoval and Youkilis while you have the audacity to claim that Cameron’s .795 OPS is in any way a replacement for Bay’s .921. Considering the AL average for OPS is .770 I’m going to say that yes, Cameron is a slouch compared to Bay.
It’s a seriously glass half-full view to say that the Red Sox offense isn’t markedly worse than it was last season.
Are you saying you aren’t a believer in Aubrey Huff?
For fantasy purposes they were very similar last year, and I definitely agree they present a very comparable profile when they’re side-by-side in a draft queue. And I don’t think anybody deserves scorn for saying so.
I don’t think anybody deserves scorn for saying that they’re actually very different hitters and that that might matter for fantasy purposes, either, though. Where it begins to matter, I think, is that Sandoval’s had less than 800 career at-bats, and swings all the time, and has a .350 career BABIP, which isn’t otherworldly high, but it’s very high for a guy who isn’t selective. If he’s just been lucky, and he’s actually a .310 hitter instead of .335, that OBP is going to come down because he doesn’t walk as much (yet, anyway). Same as Youkilis’ .550+ slugging comes down if those just-barely-homers he hits start to drop off.
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(6) Chase Utley
The computer picked this for me as I was late, but I like the pick. Taking care of the always shallow 2B with the #1 at this position is nice. -
(29) Víctor Martínez
Ditto for this pick. -
(40) CC Sabathia
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(63) Justin Verlander
If Verlander can have a year like last my top-line starters are in the top tier of our league. If not, well, fuck. -
(74) Carlos Lee
Didn’t really like this pick, but playing in that joke of a park could produce big numbers. -
(97) Matt Cain
I didn’t really like the hitters available, so I went with more SP. I think that Cain will have a big year. That being said he hasn’t exactly been all that sharp in spring. -
(108) Elvis Andrus
This was a mistake. I had him at the top of my queue for later, and went to eat dinner thinking I had enough time in between picks. -
(131) Ryan Ludwick
I love Ludwick here. I think that with AP and Holiday in front of him he will have plenty of pitches to hit. -
(142) Jorge Cantú
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(165) Mark DeRosa
Provides needed flexibility. -
(176) David Aardsma
I felt he was the best of what was left of the closers. meh. -
(199) Rajai Davis
Provides little except for stolen bases and an average OBP. -
(210) Cody Ross
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(233) Jhonny Peralta
I needed some false security for my Andrus pick. -
(244) David Price
After a rocky start last year I thought he really turned it around the last half. This is a bonus pick for me as there is really only upside. -
(267) Jeremy Affeldt
Holds are so unpredictable. I just went after what I thought would be the #1 guy with a chance to get some saves. -
(278) Kevin Gregg
I really waited to long for a second closer. -
(301) Jack Cust
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(312) Scott Feldman
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(335) José Mijares
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(346) Bobby Seay
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(369) Pat Burrell
I’m hoping that Burrell can return to his '08 form. -
(380) Chris Dickerson
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(403) Ryan Garko
I agree with you. However, if (and its a big if) Ludwick, Ross, and Derosa can return to their previous years numbers I think my team will be middle of the pack in Slugging. Hopefully slugging around the 460’s. After going back and looking at last years stats, and league standings I will probably be middle of the pack on all the hitting stat categories.
In the pitching categories I hope to make up some ground. With the exception of Saves, I think I can compete near the top in every stat.
Hopefully I can make the playoffs and get lucky. 
One of these days I’ve love to do a Head-to-Head style league in both NBA and MLB. There’s something really special about the week-to-week competition in NFL leagues and watching games on Saturday with a potential win or loss hanging in the balance would be so much more fun than the 162 game roto grind.
Maybe one of these days there actually will be playoffs to contend for!
The other MLB league I’m in does head-to-head. It does lend itself to more friendly trash talking. The standings format is W-L-T, and in the end you have a lot of ties (with triples, holds, and in this league hit-by-pitches being hard to come by).
I just browsed the Yahoo settings for H2H leagues and was surprised that there were 3 different styles.
Standard, Points and One-Win. Not sure which would be the most interesting method to play. I dislike the idea of ties and I suspect that the latter two would limit those more than most. Though maybe ditching the obscure stuff and sticking with our scoring rules might keep those to a minimum.
Maybe next year we can get one of those off the ground, maybe adding in Auction too.
I’d be interested if we did two things - made it a two-week competition, and did something to prevent streaming, like use a transaction limit.
What’s streaming? And what’s your argument for the 2-week thing out of curiosity?
In head to head, you can punt 4 categories, since all you have to do is win 6-4. To aid that, people will stream pitchers, by adding everyone they can with a start that week, which dominates Wins and Ks, lets them load up on top relievers during the draft for Saves, and maybe eek out an ERA/WHIP victory - but that doesn’t really matter, since they’ve invested zero in SPs and focused on hitting the entire draft.
H2H is an inherently broken system, unless you tinker with it to alleviate it. It’s a poorly designed “bridge” that fantasy football players came up with so they wouldn’t be fish out of water. What it did was create loopholes that savvy fantasy baseball players can use to destroy the casual footballer, making him never want to pay attention to baseball ever again - because he comes up with the excuse of “you can’t win unless you log on 10 times a day - see what happened to me?”
Seems like it’d be easy enough to control that. Either buy using a non-standard scoring format or a combination of transaction limits, roster deadlines and waiver priority to make streaming pitching of limited value.
Hell, a batting only H2H league could be fun.
I’ve been waiting for **Jimmy Chitwood ** to come back and do his commentary for my team. Looking at my team makes my head hurt. With Ellsbury, Upton, Pedroia, Youkilis, hell, even Zimmerman, all available, the computer’s first pick for me was a guy who is going to be on the DL to start the season. Terrific.
I’ll do a bit of a write-up on my sorry-ass team (or, in xkcd style, my sorry ass-team) once I can look at my lineup without wanting to cry.
That won’t stop me from mocking the other picks, of course. At least I have an excuse (the computer sucks!). You guys were actually making these picks as living, breathing human beings? Reyes in Round 2? Suzuki and Jeter in Round 2? What is this, 2001? You guys still on dial-up or something?
I think you are confusing cause and effect. From Fangraphs “Just 40.5% of Sandoval’s pitches seen crossed over the plate, the lowest rate in the majors by far (Kendry Morales had the second-lowest Zone%, at 43.7).” Of those pitches out of the strike zone Pablo still swung at 41.5 of them (average is 25%). Pablo has a decent walk rate because he gets intentionally walked/pitched around a lot and thrown a ton of balls, not because he is patient. The numbers aren’t as stark (though still significant) because you are going to throw strikes to the guy who takes a ton of pitches and you are going to throw balls to the one that swings at everything.
He is no Rich Aurilla.
I just got through four more and then accidentally clicked on a bookmark instead of the tab that has the draft results, and the entire thing is gone. I am pretty fucking disgruntled at this development.
I cannot believe that I did that.
WWBPD*?
*What Would Bobby Plump Do?
He wouldn’t have clicked the freaking bookmark like a chimpanzee.
Right then. Sigh.
Isotopes
- (13) Tim Lincecum
- (22) Matt Holliday
- (47) B.J. Upton
- (56) Curtis Granderson
- (81) Billy Butler
- (90) Joakim Soria
- (115) Jered Weaver
- (124) Howie Kendrick
- (149) Russell Martin
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(158) Martín Prado -
(183) Roy Oswalt -
(192) Erick Aybar -
(217) Leo Núñez -
(226) J.A. Happ -
(251) Magglio Ordóñez -
(260) Phil Hughes -
(285) Michael Brantley -
(294) George Sherrill -
(319) Kevin Kouzmanoff -
(328) Scott Downs -
(353) Rick Ankiel -
(362) Fernando Rodney -
(387) Chris Young -
(396) Carlos Gómez
Little bit of a risky offensive play, although the Butler pick in 5 was a good recovery from the possibility of ending up with not much thump at the corners. Granderson was the only 30 home run hitter on this roster, which is a little bit of a concern. That’s not to say there aren’t good players here – I like Aybar more than most and Prado seems to be undervalued for a guy who’s demonstrated he can hit – but I don’t know if it all hangs together well enough. Holliday can’t continue to be the guy he was in St. Louis, so even though he’ll hit I don’t think he’s a surefire anchor across the board. I think both Upton and Granderson will be significantly better, but in exactly what ways they’ll be better it’s hard to be sure. Upton has come apart in a way that I’ve never seen before, as he just abandoned entire facets of his game from year to year.
Of course, much of that uncertainty is a result of taking Lincecum first, so you’re starting at about a 16% head start in several pitching categories. It’s a solid staff and there isn’t much fault to find. Happ might have been a little early and will probably regress but will still be worth having as a 4th starter. Hughes would probably serve you better as a bullpen guy, but either way I think he’s a great guy to get in the second half of a draft like this. Across the board this is a very solid group – every pitcher in the top 9 has a WHIP 1.26 or lower, starter or bullpen, and that’s a level of depth I don’t think anybody else has.
Individually, nothing really jumps right out at me as an incredible steal or mistake, but I like the Sherrill pick.
The Spirit of Shea
- (14) Troy Tulowitzki
- (21) Adrián González
- (48) Dan Haren
- (55) Shin-Soo Choo
- (82) Jonathan Broxton
- (89) Carlos González
- (116) Rickie Weeks
- (123) Julio Borbón
- (150) Miguel Montero
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(157) Kyle Blanks -
(184) Todd Helton -
(191) Chris Davis -
(218) Ryan Franklin -
(225) Stephen Strasburg -
(252) Ben Sheets -
(259) Jon Rauch -
(286) Joe Blanton -
(293) Brandon Wood -
(320) Wade Davis -
(327) Randy Ruiz -
(354) Orlando Hudson -
(361) Nick Masset -
(388) Sean Rodriguez -
(395) Scott Podsednik
God, this is such a fun team. It seems like the strategy was clearly to just take the guys with the best rates value at every spot, and I think it worked out pretty well. If you’re going to take a shot at Chris Davis, it’s good to be able to do so in a lineup that is populated with OBP balloons. Of course, it isn’t really this simple – are a lot of these guys’ numbers small sample anomalies and is it totally crazy to believe they’re each and every one going to be worth the pick, probably, but I think they’re mostly very good players taken at pretty reasonable spots. I’d venture a guess that based on the profiles of the guys he ended up with, this was more of a case of identifying the players he wanted and just going and getting them than it was of reading round-by-round values or anything. Like I said, I really enjoy this team.
On the pitching side, again, I think it’s a commendable effort just on entertainment value. Blow some people away with a prime starter, grab a few holds and saves, and then try to fill up innings with some hog like Blanton. Strasburg as a part of that approach is really fascinating – how many innings does he throw, and how much of an adjustment does he require (i.e. will it take two batters, or four) before he’s contributing to the blowing away part? The downside, kind of like the potential downside for the batters but multiplied by like 50, is that this is a team that wouldn’t have covered half of the innings cap last year. A lot can go wrong with that strategy, and even the accomplished members of this staff have some warts; this team’s going to end up getting a significant number of innings from replacements. It’s risky, and I can think of several ways it could go to hell, but I sure am glad there’s a team like this in the league.
Petelin
- (15) David Wright
- (20) José Reyes
- (49) Nick Markakis
- (54) Jason Bay
- (83) Bobby Abreu
- (88) Mariano Rivera
- (117) Alexei Ramírez
- (122) Álex Ríos
- (151) Carlos Beltrán
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(156) Billy Wagner -
(185) Conor Jackson -
(190) Bobby Jenks -
(219) Brad Lidge -
(224) Octavio Dotel -
(253) Jeff Niemann -
(258) Justin Duchscherer -
(287) Freddy Sánchez -
(292) Miguel Olivo -
(321) Alcides Escobar -
(326) Lastings Milledge -
(355) Troy Glaus -
(360) Bronson Arroyo -
(389) Allen Craig -
(394) Sean Burnett
Surprise Mets attack. I can see the attraction. Offensively, though, it has to be worrisome that you aren’t allowed to be surprised if you only get 30 home runs total out of your first three rounds, even though you spent each of them on offense. What’s the deal with David Wright? Has there ever been a player who just stopped trying to hit home runs because he was psyched out? Is that a reasonable thing to have happened to a great player? What if he talks Jason Bay into being afraid of the fences, too? On the other hand, of course, there’s the question of whether the Mets could possibly manage to find new ways to disappoint, and so you’re buying a little bit low on all of them. And Beltran I liked a lot – he’s one of a bunch of guys on this offense that has a really diverse skillset where you get a little of everything. That’s a good way to avoid getting screwed by big fluctuations. Overall, though, I think the hitting profiles as a little weak if we assume the middle ground for all of these guys.
Pretty snazzy relief corps, though other than Burnett they’re all ostensibly saves guys and no holds. I always have trouble evaluating teams that go really light on starters, especially if they have relievers that aren’t lights-out. I don’t think I see this as a major contender, though.