O'Dea Knights, my fantasy team... a few insights.

As most of you know I do fantasy baseball, and have done so for a long time.  My first team had (among others) Kevin Romine, Dennis Eckersley, Roy Hassey, and Rickey Henderson, which will tell you how long I've been doing this.  I've been in my current league for well over ten years, and the core of it (that is, teams in the league since the beginning) is a bunch of really good people... as are the newer teams.

I did some analysis on my team this week because injuries have put me in a bind:  I don't have enough outfielders to stay competitive.  While I'm not in the league for money or prestige (I do it because it's fun), naturally those two things are still enjoyable.  The things I do for fun are the statistical analysis pieces, such as what my yearly pace is, how I stand among the other teams, and so on.  This is the first time I've put anything about those analyses in a blog entry; it's much better for league harmony than posting it on the league's web site (some owners in the league are very competitive).

Anyway, here's a few tidbits for those people who enjoy baseball statistics.

• We've just finished Week 16 of the 26 weeks of the regular season.  There are 12 teams and we count the "standard 5x5" categories.  In hitting, those are BA, Runs, RBI, Home Runs, and Steals; for pitching, they are Wins, Saves, Strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP.  (Interestingly, this is a case of Major League Baseball taking a cue from the modern groups of baseball fans, such as SABR (Society of American Baseball Research), Total Baseball (Pete Palmer), and Bill James' work, among others).  WHIP is Walks + Hits divided by Innings Pitched and is a measure of the number of runners a pitcher puts on base by himself (errors are not the pitcher's fault).  Ten years ago WHIP was a fantasy baseball-only stat; today pitchers' WHIPs are listed in the newspaper.)
• My team usually has fair to poor first halves and good second halves.  I am hoping this year is no different as I'm in seventh place now.
• This year is the most competitive in recent memory.  The difference between 8th place and first is only 14 points, and the standings change quite a bit from week to week, even day to day.  I like this; people stay happier and are more likely to come back next year.
• Injuries usually play a big part of a team's standings.  This year, last year's winner is essentially eliminated from competition, as is last year's second-place team and another team which is usually strong, all because they had all-stars who ended up out for the season early on.  They will come back strong next year; all three owners know their baseball, this year they were unlucky.

Moving on....

• At this juncture my hitters lead the league in team at-bats but rank next-to-last in team strikeouts.  That shows my team puts the ball in play a lot.
• My team is also next-to-last in number of walks.  Most of my hitters are from countries such as the Dominican Republic, where the saying "You don't walk off the island" is common, so they have high contact rates and don't walk much.  Alberto Callaspo, for example, is hard to strike out (once every 12 AB) but swings at everything (a walk every 21 times up).  The net result is a high number of AB and a good BA but only a middling OBA (on base average).
• So why am I only in sixth place in runs scored?  I answered that partially in the previous bullet (low OBA), but there's more to it than that.  Most of my hitters hit low in their team's batting order, and hitters batting in slots seven through nine do not score as many runs as those hitting lead-off or #2.
• While I don't have top power hitters, almost all of my lineup is capable of hitting 15 or more HR in a season.  In this case my team is "making it up on volume" rather than having a few top HR hitters (the one exception is Paul Konerko), so I'm in the top three in the category (usually).  After the leader there are four teams within a handful of HR of each other, so the standings change almost daily; one hot week vaults a team from fifth to second.
• 60% of my team's SB come from one player, Carl Crawford.  The reason for that is, as I mentioned above, injury.  My other SB threat, Brian Roberts, has missed the entire season.  If Roberts hadn't gotten injured I'd probably be three points higher in the standings in SB.
• Streakiness both helps and hurts.  One team had Ty Wigginton until May 15, during which time he led the AL in HR with 12 and was hitting .312.  I traded for him, knowing full well he would not continue to hit that way, and he hasn't... in twice as many AB he's hit only 4 HR and batted .210.  Some teams in the league take advantage of that, and change their active rosters accordingly.  I usually don't, because 1) the only thing which matters is team totals at year-end, and 2) whether nor not a player will have a hot week is unpredictable; I've sat players who proceeded to hit enough to move me two or three places in the standings, and also sat players who hit oh-for-the-week.
• Our league's talent penetration is so deep we have lineups featuring players who are in the minors or who are just not playing because there just isn't anyone else available.  Even without injuries I'd still have Eric Patterson in my lineup.
• Part of my "pitching problem" is simple:  the rest of the league has caught up with me.  Normally I shoot for a balanced team, and then mid-year make a shift to an all-reliever squad.  The result is leading the league in saves, ERA, and WHIP, and finishing in the middle of the pack in strikeouts and wins.  This year I moved too early, and now have to be careful to meet the league's minimum IP requirement.  Also, there are two teams using the same strategy, and they are as good at it as I am.  When I was the only one using it the strategy had an advantage; now that advantage is gone.  The other two teams using the strategy have better numbers than I do, and so my pitching staff's league ranking is among the worst I've ever had.  Thus I have to discover a new strategy which would again set me apart from the other teams.  It's too late for this year, so I need some luck; next year is another animal.
• Along the same lines, as usual I lead the league in strikeout rate but am last in the league because I am also last in IP.  In other seasons I had enough IP to be in the middle of the pack; this year I traded my starters too early (because my offense was bad) and thus my IP is too low.  I will still make the minimum IP (700 IP), but it will be hard (my prediction with my current staff is 714-1/3, and that assumes a pitcher now in the minors is called up before September).  If I make no changes to my staff I'll finish around 680 IP, and none of my pitching points will count (thus I'll finish out of the money).  BTW, I consider putting myself in this situation as a major mistake running my team; I've never had this problem before, and I know why I have it now.  It was just a stupid mistake I'll have to learn from.

I suppose that's all I really have on this; I enjoy fooling around with numbers and this has been a welcome break from making politically-charged statements.  Until the next time, "Be excellent to each other" - Ted Logan.