Monday, May 18, 2009
Beside the Point
Just a little thing... I don't know if nobody noticed or if everyone noticed but nobody said anything, but on the roster view pages, the FP/G column always ended in zero (e.g. 4.20, never 4.23). I've fixed that.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Back Home Again
Back Home Again in IndianaAs most of you are aware, it's getting close to the time when the FNFT Commissioner's Office shuts down for a few days while Tief and Jacob go to the Danica Patrick show.
I will post the usual web updates (daily stats) through Wednesday this week, but after that... who knows. I am on a free trial of GoToMyPC courtesy of my Rush Limbaugh promotional special offer. I am taking my ASUS mini-laptop along (whose value has diminished to the point where I feel comfortable bearing the risk of it being stolen.) I have tested the laptop with GoToMyPC and while clumsy - it works. In fact, I did yesterday's web updates from the comfort of my patio while enjoying a cup of coffee and a scone right after my schvitz. I am going to try to make regular web update from Indy. I don't believe there will be Wi-Fi access where we camp (there wasn't last year), so that means I'll have to drive somewhere to make the updates.
Worst case scenario is that I won't make any updates until I get back Sunday night or Monday. Best case is that you won't notice that I'm gone. The likely scenario is somewhere in between. If there is no Wi-Fi where we camp, I wil certainly not be able to make updates on Sunday morning as it is impossible to drive anywhere in Indianapolis on race day.
As per usual, if something gets f-ed while I'm gone, just default to email and I'll sort it all out when I get home.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Follow the Walks
I've made an interesting discovery. I clicked open Grady Sizemore's Game Log this morning and saw the following:
Sizemore started the season hot but has been in a slump the last couple of weeks. If you look at the chart, you can see exactly what's happening. He hit 4 home runs in the span of eight days from April 16-23, probably thought he was all of the sudden Babe Ruth, and since has been swinging at every pitch he sees. You know that because of the walks. He had 11 walks in the bottom 12 games on the chart and only 4 in the most recent 12 games.
It strikes me that players probably score more points in games they draw walks than in games they don't - that walks are a leading indicator of success. But it doesn't take Einstein to figure that out. That's not unlike saying that players score more points in games they hit home runs than in game they don't. Duh.
So I did a little study to see if I was right. I pulled the game logs for all of the batters so far this year into Excel. I kept the games in which the batter had at least 3 plate appearances. I split them into two piles: games in which the batter had no walks and games in which he had at least one walk. There were 4,523 games in the first pile and 2,342 games in the second pile. Then I averaged the FNFT Points (FP) for each of the two piles of games, except in the "walks" pile I subtracted the number of walks from the point total - I wanted to only consider other plate appearances in those games; the ones where the batter didn't walk.
The "no-walks" group averages 3.43 points per game. They average 4.18 plate appearances per game for a ratio of 0.82 points per plate appearance.
The "walks" group averages 3.67 points per game (again, excluding the points from walks) in 3.25 non-walking plate appearances per game - a ratio of 1.13 points per plate appearance.
So, even eliminating the points from walks, batters score more FNFT points in games they draw walks than in games they don't. In fact, the average number of points per non-walk plate appearance is 38% higher in "walks" games than in "no-walks" games. That's a lot bigger gap than I was expecting.
(Running late - gotta get ready for work...)
Sizemore started the season hot but has been in a slump the last couple of weeks. If you look at the chart, you can see exactly what's happening. He hit 4 home runs in the span of eight days from April 16-23, probably thought he was all of the sudden Babe Ruth, and since has been swinging at every pitch he sees. You know that because of the walks. He had 11 walks in the bottom 12 games on the chart and only 4 in the most recent 12 games.It strikes me that players probably score more points in games they draw walks than in games they don't - that walks are a leading indicator of success. But it doesn't take Einstein to figure that out. That's not unlike saying that players score more points in games they hit home runs than in game they don't. Duh.
So I did a little study to see if I was right. I pulled the game logs for all of the batters so far this year into Excel. I kept the games in which the batter had at least 3 plate appearances. I split them into two piles: games in which the batter had no walks and games in which he had at least one walk. There were 4,523 games in the first pile and 2,342 games in the second pile. Then I averaged the FNFT Points (FP) for each of the two piles of games, except in the "walks" pile I subtracted the number of walks from the point total - I wanted to only consider other plate appearances in those games; the ones where the batter didn't walk.
The "no-walks" group averages 3.43 points per game. They average 4.18 plate appearances per game for a ratio of 0.82 points per plate appearance.
The "walks" group averages 3.67 points per game (again, excluding the points from walks) in 3.25 non-walking plate appearances per game - a ratio of 1.13 points per plate appearance.
So, even eliminating the points from walks, batters score more FNFT points in games they draw walks than in games they don't. In fact, the average number of points per non-walk plate appearance is 38% higher in "walks" games than in "no-walks" games. That's a lot bigger gap than I was expecting.
(Running late - gotta get ready for work...)
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Executive Decision
Now that the FNFT roster system is up and running, I have a handful of ideas for enhancements. As I've previously mentioned, I have an idea for a process to post trades. I'd like to show a notice about how many new messages there are since you last checked them. I'd like to enhance the message editor to allow for more formatting, links and what not. In the game logs, I'd like to highlight the FNFT games in bold. All of this stuff.
When I make updates to the system I do so by writing some computer code, posting it (called 'publishing'), then log on to the system and see if it works. Usually it bombs about 15 times before I get it right.
Well if it bombs for me, it's going to bomb for you too if you try to log in. I have also lost some data in the trial and error process (dates of a few of the early messages). Because of this, I have made an executive decision to not make any more changes to the system during the current baseball season. I'll save them all for the off-season and make them when system uptime isn't as important.
That means that I will continue to post trades manually. I'll program the trade posting system in the off-season and perhaps figure out how to make it better.
(Unless, of course, I change my mind.)
When I make updates to the system I do so by writing some computer code, posting it (called 'publishing'), then log on to the system and see if it works. Usually it bombs about 15 times before I get it right.
Well if it bombs for me, it's going to bomb for you too if you try to log in. I have also lost some data in the trial and error process (dates of a few of the early messages). Because of this, I have made an executive decision to not make any more changes to the system during the current baseball season. I'll save them all for the off-season and make them when system uptime isn't as important.
That means that I will continue to post trades manually. I'll program the trade posting system in the off-season and perhaps figure out how to make it better.
(Unless, of course, I change my mind.)
Friday, May 01, 2009
Feedback Needed
I've been working on a way to allow all of you to post FNFT trades without my involvement. I can only devote about 20 hours per day or so to FNFT. If someone wants to post a trade during the 4 hours I'm unavailable, there is no way to do so. As another example, I'm going to be heading down to Indy in a couple of weeks for the race. This new system add-on would allow you to post trades while I'm gone. (What are trades, you ask? Well, back in the day...) I'm hoping to get some feedback as to whether you think this would work.
Here's my idea. Trades would still be hammered out the old fashioned way - in person, over the phone, through email, through the message board, etc. Then, once a trade is agreed upon, you can post it to the system. Somewhere on the main roster page there would be a button or link or something that says "Trade Players". If you click it you will get the following screen (with YOUR roster):
(Click on image for a larger view.)
The pull down boxes would show all of the FNFT owners (as shown). There would then be a "Submit" bottom at the bottom to complete the move.
What you are doing here is moving a player or players from your team to some other team - the team you are trading with. The person you are trading with would have to do the same thing as you - log on and transfer the players he is trading to you. Once both players have done this, the trade is complete. Follow that? Both owners would have to do the same thing for the trade to go down.
Is this workable?
There are some obvious drawbacks. The players would move immediately so you might be waiting a bit to get your players if the other guy is slow. The other issue is that like the rest of the system, this will allow you to do things that your not supposed to (like send players to the wrong team) and cause me a lot of headaches to fix. But I think were all good on that. So far I haven't had to fix anything in the database brought on by clumsiness or skulduggery.
I still need to do some programming to do all of the behind the scenes stuff like posting the trades to the transactions table and what not, but I could probably have this up and running sometime next week.
Let me know what you think.
Here's my idea. Trades would still be hammered out the old fashioned way - in person, over the phone, through email, through the message board, etc. Then, once a trade is agreed upon, you can post it to the system. Somewhere on the main roster page there would be a button or link or something that says "Trade Players". If you click it you will get the following screen (with YOUR roster):
(Click on image for a larger view.)
The pull down boxes would show all of the FNFT owners (as shown). There would then be a "Submit" bottom at the bottom to complete the move.What you are doing here is moving a player or players from your team to some other team - the team you are trading with. The person you are trading with would have to do the same thing as you - log on and transfer the players he is trading to you. Once both players have done this, the trade is complete. Follow that? Both owners would have to do the same thing for the trade to go down.
Is this workable?
There are some obvious drawbacks. The players would move immediately so you might be waiting a bit to get your players if the other guy is slow. The other issue is that like the rest of the system, this will allow you to do things that your not supposed to (like send players to the wrong team) and cause me a lot of headaches to fix. But I think were all good on that. So far I haven't had to fix anything in the database brought on by clumsiness or skulduggery.
I still need to do some programming to do all of the behind the scenes stuff like posting the trades to the transactions table and what not, but I could probably have this up and running sometime next week.
Let me know what you think.
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