Rudy is the co-founder of Razzball and the wizard behind the Player Rater, Stream-o-nator, and most other statty things on the site.
We love fantasy baseball here at Razzball. We’re also sick bastards. Coincidence? Not sure.
What I do know is that we’re going to be running our second annual Fantasy Razzball league in 2009. What is Fantasy Razzball you ask? Fantasy Razzball is a fantasy baseball variation where you aim to manage the worst team possible.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Razzball is hosting the Roundtable this week. I figured that we’re known as the class clowns so I’d surprise them all with a statty question. Here it goes…
What sabermetric or alternative statistic (e.g., Ground Ball ratio, Contact Rate, etc.) do you find to be highly over or undervalued for fantasy baseball player valuation purposes?
Please, blog, may I have some more?We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2009 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway).
Please, blog, may I have some more?Our friends over at FantasyPros911.com – who had the temerity to relegate us to their ‘Blogger’ league vs. ‘Expert’ league – have included us in the mighty Fantasy Roundtable. I asked that Grey and I be referred to as Sir Rants-a-lot and Sir Gamblahad but no dice.
Please, blog, may I have some more?We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2009 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway).
Please, blog, may I have some more?This post picks out 20 starting pitchers who look like risky propositions in 2009. It leverages findings from our analysis of previous year pitch counts and how this information can help predict a pitcher’s chance of breaking down (defined as less than 2000 pitches which is ~ 120 IP) or performance drops (0.50+ increase in FIP) in the following season.
Please, blog, may I have some more?One of the keys to a successful fantasy season is not drafting a pitcher who misses an extensive amount of time or performs much worse than the previous year. Anyone who drafted Chris Carpenter or Dontrelle Willis in 2007 or Rich Hill or Aaron Harang in 2008 can attest to this.
Please, blog, may I have some more?We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2009 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway).
Please, blog, may I have some more?While many players have been able to resurrect their careers, no player (outside of perhaps Ivan DeJesus) has been able to resurrect themselves.
Thanks to our favorite stat resource (FanGraphs) and one of our favorite projection systems (Marcel) we have the next best thing.
Please, blog, may I have some more?While ESPN gets 11 Hall of Fame ballots, Razzball doesn’t even get one. Perhaps our invitation was forgotten by the same voter who forgot to add Rickey Henderson to the ballot (but remembered Matt Williams)?
Anyway, here is my ballot. Click on the player names for my analysis:
Yes: Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, Mark McGwire, Bert Blyleven, Tommy John
Yes if they were actually on the ballot: Dick Allen, Reggie Smith
No: Obviously anyone not mentioned above. But here are links to players that I reviewed in some depth…Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Harold Baines, Jack Morris
Apologies to Alan Trammell and Lee Smith as I didn’t get around to doing middle infielder and reliever posts. My guess is that I’d have ended up voting ‘No’ on both.
Please, blog, may I have some more?