Playoffs Day 2

Baring a miracle pitching performance by the Dodger's Charlie Heager, Jake will win Game 2 of the FNFT Wild Card Playoff and advance to his 4th World Series in 5 years. Jake leads 78-47. Tom can only get points from Haeger who pitches this afternoon in Cincinnati, and a relief pitcher - either Joakim Soria or Rafael Soriano. Jake still has two hitters not yet on the board - Ben Zobrist and Mike Lowell. Tom needs Haeger and his reliever to outscore Zobrist and Lowell by 31 points. Kendry Morales had an impressive 29 point (5 2 5 6 22HH) game for Tom.

In Divisional Playoff, Avery will go up 1-0 with a 66-39 victory over Joe. King Felix scored 19 for the victors, pacing a balanced attack. Game 2 of the series will be Tuesday, Sep 1.

Because of the 1-game playoff necessary to decide the Lachmann Division, the Divisional Playoff between Avery and Joe will have a double-header game next weekend. I'll write a separate post on how the rules work for that and how the lineup system should be used.

Josh Johnson Update

6:40pm
Tom trails Jake by 19 points going into tonight's action and needs 1 more than that from Josh Johnson (baring relief pitchers) to win the first game of the Wild Card Playoff. It's not a good start. Johnson has given up 2 runs on 4 hits through 2 innings (-2 points).

6:50pm
Kansas City's game is over and Joakim Soria did not pitch. That means Tom gets 6 points from his RP2 Raphael Soriano. Jake Would get Mariano Rivera if he pitches - otherwise 6 from Jason Frasor. Tom would need Rivera to pitch and pitch poorly to help his cause. Both team's hitters all played last night so Rivera and Johnson are the only two players in play.

6:55pm
Adam Jones is out of the lineup again tonight with back spasms so Joe will not pad his 80 points. Jones is expected back in the lineup this weekend. (Just doing some housecleaning here.)

7:00pm
0 R, 1 H, 1 K in the 3rd for Johnson. 0 points through 3 innings. If he struck out the side in each of the next three innings, he would only be at 18 points. Things are not looking good for Tom.

7:25pm
0 R, 2 H, 2 K in the 4th for Johnson. He's at 3 points for the game and could get 4 more for getting a win (the game is tied 2-2.) He's only at 58 pitches through 4, but he needs to pick it up if Tom is to have a chance.

7:40pm
A scoreless, two K frame for Johnson in the 5th. He's now at 9 points for the game. A couple more solid innings and a few Marlin runs could make this interesting.

7:45pm
Ronnie Paulino has hit a 2 run HR for the Marlins putting them up 2 and putting Johnson in line for the win.

7:50pm
Yankees are up 4-1 in the 6th. If that score holds, it's likely Mariano Rivera would pitch. Once he enters the game it take 6 points off the board for Jake.

Johnson has given up a leadoff double to David Murphy and then threw a wild pitch allowing him to go to third. Watching the pitch-tracker, he looks wild.

Sac fly - Murphy scores.

8:00pm
1 R, 2 H, 2 K for Johnson in the 6th. He's at 10 points for the game and could still pick up 4 more iwht a win. He's not due up to bat in the next couple of innings and at 93 pitches, he'll probably be back out for the 7th.

8:25pm
(Fantasy football auction list that everyone has been bitching about is finally sent.) Johnson is out after 6 innings. 10 points and still in line for the win which would bring him to 14. If Mariano Rivera pitches, Jake loses 6 which would tie him with Tom. Jake wins the tiebreaker, so the only hope for Tom is for Rivera to have a negative points game.

Right now, the Yankees are up 9-2 in the 8th. I'm thinking Rivera will sit this one out.

8:55pm
No Rivera - no win for Tom. Jake is one win away from his 4th FNFT World Series in 5 years.

Zack Attack

Behind a 15 strikoout performance by Zach Grienke, Joe's Zambi's Bombers have won the one game playoff over John's The Moors 80-50 and will advance to play Avery in the FNFT Division Playoff.

Game 1 of the Wild Card playoff is comes down to Josh Johnson pitching tonight for Florida. Jake leads Tom 58-39. Each team could still get points from their #1 reliever - Mariano Rivera for Jake and Joakim Soria for Tom. Both teams have a 6 point outting by their #2 relievers to fall back on. Johnson (12-3, 2.99) pitches at home tonight against the Mets.

TIE!

It's official. We have the first ever tie for an FNFT playoff position. By a C-hair, Joe was able to hang on to a 1-5 record for the week and force a 1-game playoff with John.

Chris Carpenter's 25 point game vaulted Tom ahead of Joe and knocked him back to a tie with Tief at 29 points. Both of their top hitters had 12, so it went to the second tiebreaker where Javier Vazquez' 5 topped A.J. Burnett's -11.

The 1-game playoff will be this Tuesday, August 25. The other playoff series between Jake and Tom will also start that day. Avery must await the winner of Tuesday's game. The Division Playoff Series will now start Friday, August 28 and will need to use a double-header game on Saturday, September 6 to accommodate the full playoff schedule. More details on that to follow.

For now, John, Joe, Jake and Tom - set your lineups for this Tuesday.

Just a quick clarification on the pick-up rule during the post-season - you are allowed one pickup per game that you play. John and Joe can make a pickup before Tuesday's game. The winner can make another pickup before Friday's game. Avery can only make one pickup before Friday. You must start the player you pick up - same as before.

Probable pitching matchups for Tuesday are:

Joe - Zach Grienke (KC) at home vs. CLE (Masterson) - Tue
John - Dane Haren (ARI) at SF (Cain) - Tue

Jake - John Lester at home vs. CHW (Contreras) - Tue
Tom - Josh Johnson (FLA) at home vs. NYM (Pelfrey) - Wed

Tief's FNFT World Series Champion Odds:

Jake - 2:1
Avery - 3:1
Tom - 4:1
Joe - 12:1
John - 14:1

Pennant Race - Saturday

The Lachmann Division is still too close to call and there is a distinct possibility of a tie.

Joe has 30 points and can only add to that total with either Papelbon (RP) or Qualis (RP), both relief pitchers. If neither pitches, he will get -1 from C.J. Wilson. Pending other players today, Joe is most likely at a 1-5 record for the week. If he is going to move off of that record, going down seems more likely than up.

John sits at 42 points and has Aaron Laffey (CLE) pitching tonight. A 4 point game out of Laffey would virtually guarantee that John will finish ahead of 5 other teams and secure a 3-3 record - good enough for a tie with Joe. Something in the 10-15 range would probably get him to 4-2 which would probably be enough to win the division outright.

In today's games, John needs to root for and Joe needs to root against (about in order):
Aaron Laffey - SP/CLE
Chris Carpenter - SP/STL
Ryan Franklin - RP/STL
Bobby Jenks - RP/CHW

Joe needs to root for and John needs to root against:
A.J. Burnett - SP/NYY
Matt Garza - SP/TB
David Aardsma - RP/SEA
Troy Tulowitski - SS/COL
Justin Upton - OF/ARI

I'll make updates to this post tonight if I am able.

UPDATE 9:50pm

Laffey gets 7 points - hand counted a few other key players. The Lachmann division is almost certain to finish in a tie. This would be the first ever one-game playoff in the history of the league.

Pennant Race

There is a new leader in the Lachmann Division as Joe has vaulted ahead of John by 2 games heading into the final Friday of the regular season. The winner will take on Avery in the best-of-five Division Playoff Series. If Joe and John finish the regular season tied, they would play a one game head-to-head playoff next Tuesday, August 25. If either of the two wins the division outright, the playoff series with Avery will start on Tuesday.

Jake has clinched the Lopes division and if he can top it off with a 6-0 on Friday he will finish with the best FNFT regular season record ever. Tom has won the wild card with a 102+ win season. The Wild Card Playoff series will start on Tuesday, August 25 (even if the other division winner is not determined yet.) This will be a 4-game series with Jake needing to win two games and Tom neding to win three. Or you can think of it as a traditional best-of-five with Jake having already won game 1 by virtue of having the best record.

The rest of us are mostly just mailing it in from what I can tell. Max has clinched a spot above the Smith line. Tief needs only one win on Friday to do so as well.

I've got a very busy weekend, but I'll try to post as many playoff updates as I can. I'll also get a playoff schedule posted to the home page at some point.

Chasing the Smith Line, Beating the Mark

Almost lost in the self-loathing and public browbeating I've taken over how horrible my FNFT team has been this year is the fact that someone else is even worse. Both Max and I may go down in the record books as having the two worst FNFT records ever.


In order to finish ahead of Mark's worst ever 53-109 season, I must finish the season 2-14 and Max must finish 4-12. In order to finish ahead of the Smith Line, I need to go 5-11 and Max must go 7-9.

Jake, on the other hand, can set a record for best FNFT regular season ever by finishing the season 12-4.

Playoffs, and Other Related Odds and Ends

So much for playoff races. The FNFT Wild Card is now 1-1 in executing it's intended purpose of keeping more teams alive later in the year. By virtue of the fact that Jake and Tom happened to be in the same division, the FNFT wild card race had all of the drama of a Venezuelan election. So it goes - maybe next year.

As we head into the final siesta week of the season (a siesta week is one with no Tuesday game - Tief can just mail it in for a few days) the playoff picture is all but set.

Jake and Tom have clinched playoff spots. One will be the division winner and one will be the wild card. It is guaranteed that they will face each other in the first round of the playoffs in the first-ever 4-game FNFT Wild Card Playoff. The division winner must win 2 of the 4 games to win that series. The wild card team must win 3 of the 4. Given theoretical mathematical probabilities, the division winner has an 11 in 16 chance (69%) of winning the series, so this division race is very important to the playoff picture. Jake's magic number to beat Tom is 10, with 16 games remaining. If Jake and Tom were to tie for the division lead, the one-game playoff to determine the division champ would, in essence, be the first game of a traditional best of five series.

Avery leads Brett by 15 games and his magic number to win the division is two. It is a virtual certainty that Avery will return to the FNFT postseason after a 7 year absence. He has never lost an FNFT postseason series.

John leads Joe in the Lachmann Division by only three games. His magic number is 14, Joe's magic number to beat John is 20. If John holds on for the division title it would set up a Moops vs. Moors best of five Divisional Playoff Series.

* * *

For the first time, we will be using flex-scheduling in the playoffs and World Series, meaning that each playoff series will start as soon as it can on the next Tuesday or Friday. The schedule of days is:

Tuesday, Aug 25 - Divisional Playoff Game 1, Wild Card Playoff Game 1
Friday, Aug 28 - Divisional Playoff Game 2, Wild Card Playoff Game 2
Tuesday, Sep 1 - Divisional Playoff Game 3, Wild Card Playoff Game 3*
Friday, Sep 4 - Divisional Playoff Game 4* or W.C. Playoff Game 4* or W.S. Game 1
Tuesday, Sep 8 - Divisional Playoff Game 5* or W.S. Game 1 or 2
Friday, Sep 11 - World Series Game 1 or 2 or 3
Tuesday, Sep 15 - World Series Game 2 or 3 or 4
Friday, Sep 18 - World Series Game 3 or 4 or 5*
Tuesday, Sep 22 - World Series Game 4 or 5* or 6*
Friday, Sep 25 - World Series Game 5* or 6* or 7*
Tuesday, Sep 29 - World Series Game 6* or 7*
Friday, Oct 2 - World Series Game 7*
* if necessary

If we need a 1-game playoff on Tuesday, Aug 25 to determine division winners in either the Yost or Lachmann Divisions, the Divisional Playoff Series will be moved back one slot and will include a double header game on Saturday, Sep 5.

* * *
What happens to the online roster system during the playoffs? Nothing. Everyone will still have access to it. I am trusting that the teams not in the playoffs will not make any pickups (because you're not allowed to.) Otherwise it will continue to function as it has all season.

* * *
I'll be doing a lot of blog updates from here on out surrounding the playoffs and pennant races. Check back often.

The Scoop

A story after my own heart. (I could still play, by the way.)

How many scoops?

August 3, 2009

The most recent edition of ESPN's Wednesday Night Baseball pitted the New York Yankees against the Tampa Bay Rays. Rick Sutcliffe, former major leaguer and current ESPN color commentator, was talking about the Yankee defense in 2009 and made note of the change at first base this year, from Jason Giambi to Mark Teixeira. Sutcliffe then dreamed out loud and wished there was a statistic to count the times a first baseman handles a bad throw by an infielder and scoops the ball in the dirt. He would use such data to evaluate the difference between Giambi and Teixeira.

Luckily for Sutcliffe, we can make his dream come true today. In The Fielding Bible—Volume II, we introduced Defensive Misplays and Good Fielding Plays as an additional way to evaluate fielders in certain plays. One of those Good Fielding Plays counts the times a first baseman scoops the ball, saving his infielder a throwing error. Let's see if we can help Sutcliffe evaluate the Yankee defense at first base (GS="Games Started").

2009				2008
Player	GS	Scoops		Player	GS	Scoops
Albert Pujols	101	32		Justin Morneau	155	44
Paul Konerko	91	30		Todd Helton	91	42
Todd Helton	93	26		Carlos Pena	131	37
James Loney	96	26		Kevin Millar	128	37
Lance Berkman	85	24		Mark Teixeira	153	36
Derrek Lee	85	24		Carlos Delgado	154	35
Chris Davis	70	24		Casey Kotchman	135	33
Ryan Howard	94	23		Ryan Howard	156	33
Mark Teixeira	95	22		Ross Gload	95	31
Kendry Morales	87	22		Daric Barton	124	30
Joey Votto	68	20		Lance Berkman	151	30
Justin Morneau	91	19		Jason Giambi	112	29

In 2008, Jason Giambi recorded 29 scoops for the Yankees in 112 games started, and Mark Teixeira recorded 36 for the Braves and Angels in 153 games started. In 2009, Teixeira has scooped 22 balls in the dirt through 95 starts and Giambi has scooped 14 in 58 games at first. While this looks like a victory for Teixeira, fans of Giambi will note that he plays a large number of games serving as his team's Designated Hitter and doesn't play as many games as Teixeira at first base. In fact, in 2008, Giambi's 29 scoops for the Yankees were good for 0.26 scoops per game started, while Teixeira's 2009 scoops for the Yankees are only 0.23 per game. This isn't a significant difference, but there is nothing here to suggest that Teixeira is better at scooping errant throws than Giambi.

The true difference between Gold Glover Mark Teixeira and Jason Giambi is in handling grounders. In the last two years Teixeira has saved his teams 18 runs fielding grounders, while Giambi has cost his team 18, a 36-run difference in Defensive Runs Saved. (Defensive Runs Saved is a statistic developed in The Fielding Bible—Volume II.)

Baseball's best "scooper" in the last two years is Colorado's Todd Helton. He was limited to 81 games started at first base in 2008 due to injury, and in those 81 games, he was able to scoop an astonishing .52 balls per game. This year, while his scoops per game don't approach his rate in 2008, Helton is still among the scoop leaders.

Used with permission from John Dewan's Stat of the Week™, www.statoftheweek.com.

The Juice List

Some guy in a CBS Sportlines message board posted this. He said, "This is unconfirmed, but I've got my sources." Take it for what it's worth.

1. Nomar Garciaparra
2. Manny Ramirez
3. Johnny Damon
4. Trot Nixon
5. David Ortiz
6. Shea Hillenbrand
7. Derek Lowe
8. Pedro Martinez
9. Brian Roberts
10. Jay Gibbons
11. Melvin Mora
12. Jerry Hairston
13. Jason Giambi
14. Alfonso Soriano
15. Raul Mondesi
16. Aaron Boone
17. Andy Pettitte
18. Jose Contreras
19. Roger Clemens
20. Carlos Delgado
21. Vernon Wells
22. Frank Catalanotto
23. Kenny Rogers
24. Magglio Ordonez
25. Sandy Alomar
26. Bartolo Colon
27. Brent Abernathy
28. Jose Lima
29. Milton Bradley
30. Casey Blake
31. Danys Baez
32. Craig Monroe
33. Dmitri Young
34. Alex Sanchez
35. Eric Chavez
36. Miguel Tejada
37. Eric Byrnes
38. Jose Guillen
39. Keith Foulke
40. Ricardo Rincon
41. Bret Boone
42. Mike Cameron
43. Randy Winn
44. Ryan Franklin
45. Freddy Garcia
46. Rafael Soriano
47. Scott Spiezio
48. Troy Glaus
49. Francisco Rodriguez
50. Ben Weber
51. Alex Rodriguez
52. Juan Gonzalez
53. Rafael Palmeiro
54. Carl Everett
55. Javy Lopez
56. Gary Sheffield
57. Mike Hampton
58. Ivan Rodriguez
59. Derrek Lee
60. Bobby Abreu
61. Terry Adams
62. Fernando Tatis
63. Livan Hernandez
64. Hector Almonte
65. Tony Armas
66. Dan Smith
67. Roberto Alomar
68. Cliff Floyd
69. Roger Cedeno
70. Jeromy Burnitz
71. Moises Alou
72. Sammy Sosa
73. Corey Patterson
74. Carlos Zambrano
75. Mark Prior
76. Kerry Wood
77. Matt Clement
78. Antonio Alfonseca
79. Juan Cruz
80. Aramis Ramirez
81. Craig Wilson
82. Kris Benson
83. Richie Sexson
84. Geoff Jenkins
85. Valerio de los Santos
86. Benito Santiago
87. Rich Aurilia
88. Barry Bonds
89. Andres Galarraga
90. Jason Schmidt
91. Felix Rodriguez
92. Jason Christiansen
93. Matt Herges
94. Paul Lo Duca
95. Shawn Green
96. Oliver Perez
97. Adrian Beltre
98. Eric Gagne
99. Guillermo Mota
100. Luis Gonzalez
101. Todd Helton
102. Ryan Klesko
103. Gary Matthews

For my money, this list doesn't look much different than one any of us could have made up given a few hours looking through stats. Sprinkle in a Hector Almonte and Dan Smith here and there to make it look legit, and there you go.

In a Bit of a Pickle

If you haven't checked it out lately, Sports Pickle has a new, redesigned website with daily updates.

"Prince Fielder Achieves Goal of Being Too Fat to Pitch Around"

"Chinese Scientists Hurrying Development of Yao Ming 2.0"

"PGA golfers honor Michael Jackson by wearing one white glove"

That's good stuff.

Who's in the Box?

"When I lived by Jake in 'tosa, he told me he was in a death league. Was anyone else in the league? If so, someone could be kicking ass right now." - Joe Z

There are few things you do in your life that wind up being truly legendary. Things that you continue to talk about and be reminded of for years after they happen. Memories that are etched so deeply that they will be the final remains of your consciousness when you yourself are but a blathering sack of flesh ready slip the surly bonds of Earth. And every time you say, "remember when?" the story is as fresh and intriguing as when it first happened. Perhaps more so, because the passage of time allows you to stand back and witness the true grandeur of that thing - the enormity of which was not apparent to you when it was happening in real time. For those of us who played in it, the Celebrity Death League certainly fits into that category of things. Every time there is a run of celebrity deaths, someone, somewhere, without fail, will remember that league.

I would imagine that in some computer archive somewhere I've got the spreadsheets with everyone's 'rosters'. I can't even remember how long ago we played. I do remember that for the duration of the league, there was "still Hope." Bob Hope died in 2003 at the age of 100, so it was at least that long ago.

For the past number of years I've actually been kicking around an idea in my head for a new kind of Celebrity Death League. This is odd to say now, but the major flaw in the old league was that is was so boring. We got together and drafted a bunch of famous old people and then just sat back and waited for them to die. When one of them actually did, it was a big deal, especially for the 'owner' of that celeb, but otherwise there really wasn't any active participation - no trades, no weekly lineups. It just sort of sat there.

My idea for the new league is that it would run more like the stock market than like a draft-and-hold league. You would start off with some number of 'points' - say 100. You would use those points to buy contracts on living celebrities. When a celebrity dies, the contracts would pay out at a rate of 100 minus the celebrity's age. The younger the celebrity, the more valuable the payout. Then, when one of your celebrities dies, you can use the payout to buy contracts on other celebrities or keep the points in your 'cash reserve.' In the mean time, you can buy and sell contracts with other players in the league. For each contract you own, you would be required to post an 'asking price'. Any other owner could then buy that contact from you for your asking price - first come first served. If you need to free up some points and you can't find someone to buy your contracts, you can dump them for half of what you paid. The winner would be the owner who through either celebrity deaths or shrewd trading, accumulates the most points by the end of the year defined by the value of his cash reserve plus the value of the contracts he owns.

You could still have a draft, but instead of taking turns selecting celebrities, you would nominate them in a series of IPOs. There would be a bidding process for the contract on each celebrity. Over the course of the year, new celebrities could be nominated through a similar IPO process. One owner might say, "I offer to buy Woody Allen for 3 points." There would be a 1-week period in which any other owner could then up that bid. At the end of one week whoever has the highest bid now owns the contract on Woody Allen. Let's say he sells for 5. You would then post him on your roster and post an asking price for his contract - maybe 8. If someone comes along and buys his contract from you, you profit 3 points. If Woody Allen dies, the owner of the contract gets 27 points (100 minus his age of 73). One of the reasons for keeping the bidding process open for one week is that you couldn't quick buy up a contract of someone who was in a car accident this morning, hoping for a quick profit. If you do, and that celebrity dies before the bidding period is over, whoever has high bid will wind up buying a contact with no payout.

There would obviously be a lot of details to flush out and cans of worms to close, but the rules could evolve as they do in any league. With the Internet, this could obviously all be done online. Wha-da-ya say? You in the box?

Tief, Phone Home

Just as an FYI to everyone, we have gotten rid of our home phone (262) 628-1102 and have gone cell phone only. My cell phone number is (414) 587-8391 in the event you ever need it. You are also welcome to call the office at (262) 502-7003.

Please make a note of it.

Turning 1000

Just after 12:00 noon on Friday the FNFT roster system registered it's 1,000th login since the system went live on the night of the draft. Joel hit the milestone at 12:12 p.m. Granted, almost a third of the logins are me either doing my daily check that the system is working or trying to fix my pathetic team, but still...

From my perspective, the system is working better that my wildest dreams would have imagined for a first-year effort. I hope you all feel the same.

The Jake and Joe Rule

I'm going to create a new rule next season that says you (Jake and Joe) can not start making pickups for the next FNFT game until the day after the previous game starts. In FNFT-speak, that means you (Jake and Joe) must wait until Saturday after a Friday game or Wednesday after a Tuesday game to make your next pickup. It can be one minute after midnight the next day, but it must be the next day.

Right now I when I pull down the lineups I manually reset the "Next Game" number. Next year I'm going to automate all of that and it will be much easier to deal with only dates (i.e. pickups made on June 12 count for Game 14 - pickups made on June 13 count for Game 15) rather than dates and times.

It's not that it ever bothered me that people people (Jake and Joe) started making pickups on Friday afternoon for the next game and I had to make mental note of it so that I didn't include those pickups in the game that I was currently working on and then half of the time that I would forget to post the pickup in the next game. Wasn't any of that. Because now with the new system it's easier to keep track of those things. It's that right now, I sort of dictate (to everyone except Jake and Joe) when you can start making pickups for the next game by when I update the site. This gives me an advantage in that I get first dibs on pickups (even though some people [Jake and Joe] will just make their next pickup anyway even though I haven't update the site yet.) With an automated system based on real time rather than when I get around to it, it puts us all on the same level playing field and make my job of running the league that little bit easier.

If you want to start practicing the new policy this year, that would be great. But know that Jake or Joe will probably get the guy you wanted if you wait.

DL

Does anyone besides me think we should have a DL? I have 4 players on the DL right now and 3 of them are too good to cut.

I think I'll propose that for next year - maybe a 2 player DL. You can only put players on who are on the MLB DL. Would you get an extra pickup then if you put a player on the DL? Or just get your regular weekly pickup but not have to cut anyone?

We had a DL back in the day and it was kind of a pain. It allowed teams to basically hoard players by putting them on the DL and then never take them off. Let's say I put my shortstop Cabrera on the DL. If my other SS is playing better, I could just leave Cabrera on the DL until I need him and when I do I essentially get a free pickup. I think we had a rule saying that once a player is off of the MLB DL you had to take him off of the FNFT DL, but that was very difficult to police.

Then if we had a DL I would have to figure out how to program it into the roster system - I don't know - maybe I just talked myself out of it.

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.

Back Home Again

Back Home Again in Indiana

As 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.

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...)

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.)