Fantasy Baseball Advice

USA Today might no longer appreciate the insights shared by Larry King in his long-running column but we at Razzball were thrilled when he accepted our invitation to share his thoughts on Fantasy Baseball….

Greetings friends, acquaintances and ex-wives!  Wow, another baseball season is in the books!  I’d like to tip my hat to Joe Girardi.  If I had a son, I’d name him Joegirardi King… I haven’t been this excited for a Yankees win since the Civil War… Don’t worry, Philadelphia – at least you still have that delicious cream cheese….  The last game reminded me of the time I had lunch with Wolf Blitzer.  I fell asleep during both…. I wish there were fjords in Kansas…. The only thing new Cardinal hitting instructor Mark McGwire has to apologize for is his killer smile…. I hope Cole Hamels’ mom teaches him a thing or two about spunk… If I threw a party, I’d invite Carlos Ruiz and ask him how he squats behind the plate.  My knees don’t work so good anymore… I was enchanted by Sandra Bullock’s performance in All About Steve.  When she does an accent, Oscar says, “Yes!”… I don’t think Chone Figgins is going to leave the Angels because it’ll take too long to teach everyone at another stadium to say his name correctly… Why can’t I find my pajamas?  I’m cold…. The best restaurant on the Upper East Side is the alleyway behind Le Cirque where the bus boys hang out and smoke… I’m bucknaked as I type this, and I’m not typing with my fingers… Where has Celine Dion been? I’m dying for a music-inspired soundtrack for James Cameron’s latest, Avatar…  Speaking of which, am I the only one that wants to pronounce it Ava Tar?… If Sean Casey is the Mayor, then Mark Grace is the Comptroller… The player I most identify with in the Major Leagues is Manny Ramirez…We both are from a New York borough…We both use erectile dysfunction pills…We both pee at inappropriate times…. Ah, there’s my pajamas, who put them in the microwave?…. The Pirates fans better get their season tickets early, you got Akinori Iwamura now!  I regretted not buying a baseball team until watching Frank McCourt’s ordeal.  Such a shame as Angela’s Ashes is one of my favorite books of all time.  Let’s just hope that Peter and Maya Angelos stay together…

Welcome to the year end Razzball Awards!  Unlike the ESPYs, you won’t have to wear a tux or listen to Derek Jeter try to be funny.  Speaking of Viagra — Vlad’s got one good leg and he’s not wearing a shoe on it. Nope, for these awards, all you need to do is read.  How novel!  Anyway, here’s The 2009 Razzball Year End Awards:

Fantasy AL Most Valuable Player – There’s two hitters from the AL in the top ten on the ESPN Player Rater.  Crawford at 4 and Ellsbury at 6.  The next AL hitter is Derek Jeter.  Can we punt the AL hitters award this year?  Wait, I know!  Let’s give it to a pitcher!  Zack Greinke, you’re the Razzball AL Fantasy MVP, how does it feel?  “If I don’t find out who the mother is on How I Met Your Mother by next spring training, I’m going to lose my shizz.”  Thanks for coming, Zack!  You’re the belle of the Razzballies!

Fantasy NL Most Valuable Player – If a no-brainer is my specialty, this one’s easy.  Albert Pujols.

Fantasy AL Cy Young – If Kansas City were a major market, we’d be getting an ESPN movie of the week this winter about Zack Greinke starring Macaulay Culkin.

Fantasy NL Cy Young – Tim Lincecum, but this is pretty close with Javier Vazquez, Dan Haren, Wainwright and Carpenter.  Crazy that those last four guys could’ve been had in any league.  That would’ve made for a nice team if you had all four.  Well, Lincecum gets the nod because he’s 145 lbs.  Those things matter for the Razzballies.

Fantasy AL Least Valuable Player – Grady Sizemore really wanted this award.  He even sat out September in his bid to suck.  But Josh Hamilton started sucking in April.  That’s a tough act to follow, mostly because of the stench.

Fantasy NL Least Valuable Player – The winner is Jose Reyes.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t make it to the awards ceremony because he’s getting in “game shape.”

Special Lifetime Achievement Award That Is Only A Reflection Of This Season And Not Of A Lifetime – Mark Reynolds, because he needed his own award.  Thank you, Mini Donkey.  You made everyone else look like Mini Jackasses.

Fantasy Hitter You Most Likely Dropped and Picked Up A Dozen Times – And the Razzballie goes to Clint Barmes.  He’s starting, but not hitting, I’m dropping him.  He’s starting and hitting, I’m picking him up.  He’s hitting but not playing, I’m dropping him.  He’s hitting and playing… Do I drop him or pick him up?   Forget it, I’m dropping him.  Wait, he’s not even on my team.  Ugh!

Player You Had Forever and Most Wanted to Drop – Felipe Lopez.  Every time I came close to cutting the Fe-Lopezian tubes, he went 1-for-3 with a Run.  If I see one more 1-for-3 with a Run, I’m going to vomit.

Player On The Top Of Your Waivers That You Just Couldn’t Bring Yourself to Pick Up – Michael Cuddyer.  Cuddyer’s boring!  I’ll stick with the rotating Bowden Fluffer turnstile of Delmon Young, Milledge, Dukes and Cameron Maybin.

Pitcher You Streamed So Much You Ended Up Owning Him – Bronson Arroyo.  Now don’t get any pine tar on your award!   A close runner-up was Joe Blanton.

Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From, But Thankfully It Never Did – Matt Cain.  If regressing to the norm is a 3.50 2nd half ERA, I’ll take it any day of the week and twice on Muesday.

Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and It Ended Up Kicking You in the Groin – Johnny Cueto.  Regressing doesn’t have to mean a flippin’ 8 ERA!

Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and When It Did You Were Okay With It – Ben Zobrist.  Sure, his 2nd half wasn’t as good as his 1st half, but you weren’t actually embarrassed to own Ben Zobrist.  Tell me you saw that coming in February and I have a column for you to write called, “I’m a lying sack of shizz.”

Player You Traded Away That You Most Regretted – Grey seems like a good guy, but there’s no way Mark Reynolds is going to keep this up.

Player You Traded For That You Most Regretted – I just traded a poor-April Verlander and Mark Reynolds for David Wright!  I’m so money and you snitches are so green!

Best Roofie Pitcher – Three way tie with J.A. Happ, Randy Wells and Brett Anderson.

Best Jockular Sphincteritis – Adrian Beltre with his cracked nuts.

Top Cuddle Boy – Ryan Madson.  Our closer is terrible, yet we can’t reliably turn to our set-up man.

Top SAGNOF – Michael Bourn/Andrew Bailey (tie)

Player Who “Pulled A Kotchman“ – Carlos Beltran.  How long can someone nurse an injury that’s “not that serious?”

Remember That Feeling You Had When You Walked In On Your Parents Having Sex, This Pitcher Gave You That Feeling Every Fifth Day – Francisco Liriano

Armed with the knowledge that Our Greyness is not infallible (Grey’s ‘Pertise), I was determined to prove that the computer could, well, out-predict him.  After all, the man makes split-second calls on “please put these in order,” “who is best for the rest of the year?”, “in a twelve-team, keeper, with SLG and OBP in place of AVG and HR, place in order …,” and, simply, “of these pitchers who should I start/sit tomorrow?” Surely, given all of the data available and the crunching ability of The Whopper, the machine could out-perform him on, say, at least the “who should start/sit tomorrow issue.” Without a doubt. It would just take time and patience. That I had.

Step one: Go to The Master himself.  “Grey, what factors do you consider in deciding who to start/sit?”
Answer: “Last few starts, match up history, ballpark… Opposing pitcher doesn’t matter usually.”

Sounds good. Now I know he has a pretty good memory for all of that stuff, but he can’t possibly be as good as having every bit of detail categorized and calculated. I embarked on, what would turn out to be, roughly 40 hours of data gathering and model building.

The goal was to predict where a pitcher’s performance from his next start would place him in a 12X12 RCL league. This would give us a relative number to use in deciding who to start/sit.

Key factors were:
1. The last two starts (home or away, depending on the upcoming  start).
2. Overall Home, or Overall Away, for the 2009 season.
3. Heads up (regardless of home or away) for 2009.
4. Historical match ups: specifically home, or away, for 08/07.
5. Ballpark: per team (not park) from 2009 data. I.e. If a pitcher’s last two starts were against light-hitting teams SF and SD, the computer would adjust the K/9, ERA, and WHIP from those games to account for the next start, say, a heavy-hitting Texas. It would project a comparatively less expected pitcher-performance.

The test set of data for model-building was from all RCL pitchers for the week of July 16-20, immediately following the All-Star break.

Finally, the model was adjusted to “weight” factors according to their value in predicting the results. In this, the computer got to “cheat.” It actually knew the outcomes and was solving to meet those. Grey went in blind.

When the model completed its work, it had projected K/9, ERA, and WHIP, 12X12 rankings for each, as well as an overall projected RCL rank for the projected performance.

All that was left was to prove that Grey’s split-second calls couldn’t come close to matching the 40 hours of work and number-crunching ability of the computer. Trust me, the computer and I are darn good at number crunching.

This was going to be the equivalent of: “With a dramatic victory in Game 6, Deep Blue won its six-game rematch with (chess) Champion Garry Kasparov.”

“Grey hits the Disgraceful List when the Fumethrower falls to Deep Fred.”

I culled twenty (repeats were not counted) start/sit questions that were put to Grey for the test week. Here are the results: (If one side came out ahead, it got the count.)

Grey: 7*
The Model: 4
Matching: 9

(*This includes 3 for newer pitchers where the model did not have enough info to project; advantage Grey)

The model is good. When/if Grey isn’t available, I will use it.

Now, some of you may be making similar calculations, but I would wager none as much as the computer crunched. Still, Grey was clearly superior. Obviously, there are other factors that Grey weighs subjectively when he makes a call. It might be possible to compile an even more sophisticated model, but there would be no guarantee, the work would be overwhelming considering the benefit, and, who needs it—we can just post the question, and count on the answer. I know he won’t nail every one, but I am also confident that there is no living human being on the face of the planet that can match him.

I would love to see a competition amongst leading pundits, all given the same set of questions, and then measured against results.

Folks, all of this energy and calculating was for just the simple, “who to start/sit.” It doesn’t even begin to tackle the larger issues that Grey deals with.

“Grey Topples Deep Fred”

The only thing Rickey Henderson lacked in his twenty-four year career was humility. With Rickey Henderson headed into The National Baseball Hall of Fame, we here at Razzball would like to tip our caps and our mugs.

On occasion we are treated to, “Grey, you told me to…. You really hosed my team.”  It’s usually from someone with 3 replies.  I probably submitted one like it my first week at Razzball.  Regardless, it prompted me to take an accounting of Grey’s actual prognostications.  On a given day, what were the questions posed to the Wizard?  What were his recommendations? And, how did they work out?

So, I randomly chose a seemingly fitting day, the First Day of Summer, June 21.  As it happens this fell on a Sunday.  Razzball readers understand that Friday’s post is the hub for all questions related to lineup and roster changes for the weekend and the the next week (since generally there are no new posts on the weekend).  Therefore, the questions for the survey came from the two postings of Friday, June 19.

The attached excel spreadsheet (to download it) contains each of the questions, each of the responses, and spaces for evaluation: ‘+’ for Grey nailed it, ‘-’ for he might have missed it, and ‘E’ for an Even call.  You can enter your own ratings and the totals at the top will change to reflect your evaluation.

This isn’t scientific and is somewhat unfair to the Master.  We don’t have access to the team rosters of those posting questions.  The amount of data to evaluate is minuscule since it has been less than two full weeks since the posting.  In truth much of what the Wizard projects is based upon post-All-Star proclivities and a truly fair evaluation couldn’t take place until end of season.  Nevertheless, many readers evaluate the worth of Grey’s input based on immediate results.  Some of it is fair, since many transactions happen on a daily basis: players get dropped, injuries occur, etc.  So, I made my ratings on the data since June 21.  I only added a couple of lines of my own description so that you are free to make your own evaluation and ratings.

Overall, my totals came out to 41 +’s, 29 -’s, and 24 E’s.  When one thinks about it, giving thorough review and honest evaluation of 94 questions that encompass the morass of baseball statistics is staggering to me.  Indeed, a wizard sleeps with one eye open.

Thank you, Your Greyness!