The daily grind: mid-season review

The All-Star break offers a nice opportunity to reflect on the first half and make changes. Let’s cover anything and everything worth discussing over the next few days.

I think the general format thus far has been satisfactory, but often leaves much to be desired. I plan to turn my daily hitter recommendations into a more detailed grid. Pitcher recommendations will remain the same since only a few are made per day.

While it would be awesome to add tons of content, I have only 30-40 minutes to write this column each morning. It will be interesting to see if maintaining the hitter grid gives me more or less time to work with. If I were to drop a section, should it be “Reliever Watch” or “Yesterday’s Results?”

One major change I plan to implement is to cut the content from today and tomorrow to only tomorrow. If you are in a same-day transaction league, simply reference the column from the previous day.

Below I have included a sample of the hitting grid with only AL East teams. What do you think? I will probably also add a column for opposing pitcher, but that might be too much to update on a daily basis.

Team Player Ownership Match-up quality Playing Odds Recommend (Y/N)
Orioles          
  Wilson Betemit 6% 0/5   N
  Xavier Avery 0% 0/5   N
  Jim Thome 6% 0/5   N
Red Sox          
  Daniel Nava 8% 0/5   N
  Ryan Sweeney 3% 0/5   N
  Cody Ross 42% 0/5   N
Yankees          
  Raul Ibanez 22% 0/5   N
  Andruw Jones 1% 0/5   N
Rays          
  Luke Scott 13% 0/5   N
  Sean Rodriguez 7% 0/5   N
  Carlos Pena 42% 0/5   N
  Elliot Johnson 9% 0/5   N
  Jeff Keppinger 2% 0/5   N
Blue Jays          
  Yunel Escobar 43% 0/5   N
  Adam Lind 26% 0/5   N
  Rajai Davis 15% 0/5   N

If this change proves too difficult to maintain, I will revert to the previous format.

Good luck down the stretch.


You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
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Isaac
11 years ago

This is a good idea, it makes it a bit more organized and also easier for you. I think it’s a good call.

johnnycuff
11 years ago

since there’s no baseball and all, how about a retrospective on your strategies for selecting players and how they’ve played out over the 1st half?

RaysFan4Real
11 years ago

I like the grid – I would hate to see you drop anything but if forced to choose between reliever watch and yesterday’s results….I would keep reliever watch.  I hope the grid doesn’t eliminate some of your longer term strategy commentary on certain players becuase I think that adds value.

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

A couple ideas I’ve had since this morning…

I’ll definitely go with an Opposing pitcher column and I’ll probably use that to indicate the pitching match-ups I suggest with some commentary under the chart. As part of the commentary, I’ll mention when guys fit certain strategic roles.

A retrospective is unlikely. I plan to use tomorrow morning to do the remaining 25 teams and then I’ll have a column to do Wednesday morning for Thursday.

The playing odds column will be split up as yes, likely, unlikely, no. Where yes = 90%+, likely = 50-90%, unlikely = 10-50%, and no = 10% or less. Roughly speaking.

Jacob
11 years ago

Don’t cut! Add…..get a collaborator even (I’m alweays available! wink )….I know tons of guys that play daily leagues for $$$ (Draft Street, FanDuel, etc) that use this info on a daily basis. You have a good start, you could really have something here in short order…..go big!

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

Oh yea, that was the other thing I completely forgot! I need to incorporate more daily league information.

I’ll get with big man Studes and work on that too.

Max Patkin
11 years ago

I like reliever watch….grid seems looks like it will work.

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

The consensus is that Reliever Watch stays. Thinking about it, it’s obvious that yesterday’s results should be cut or shortened. What I’m going to aim to do is make 2-6 strong recommendations every day (1-2 pitchers and 1-4 hitters) and only note the performance of those.

I think this can all be done in my time allotment…if not it might be time to allot myself an extra 15 minutes.

the Flint Bomber
11 years ago

A few thoughts from a daily-leaguer…

Who are the most vulnerable SPs throwing that day?  You could always work it backward.  When Chris Volstad is facing some team…we want to know that team.

Please pay special attention to lefty hurlers.  There are plenty of right-handed lefty-killers on the wire – flagging us when we can pick up our Delmon Youngs or Todd Fraziers or Jonny Gomeses is really helpful.  Particularly on Mondays and Thursdays.

The last four columns in the table seem like a lot of work.  You could shave some time and space by just letting us assume that if you include a player that day, you recommend him, he has a good matchup and he is likely to play.  Any special cases can be footnoted.

Sticking a R/L/S next to the hitter, and a R/L next to opposing pitchers helps us visualize the matchup quality.

Who are our fastball hitters, slider-killers and change-up mashers?  And how does this match with opposing pitchers on a particular day?  This is stuff that is hard for us to find on our own, but probably equally hard for you.  Still, any gems you unearth would be Pulitzer-worthy to us, and their worth would outlast that day’s matchups.

Love your column, Brad, and thanks for the chance to give constructive feedback.

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

The R/L/S has been added as well as an opposing pitcher column.

My methodology for picking hitters is to usually (not always) pick out the worst pitchers from the day and see who might get to face them. That will be more transparent.

I have dropped the recommend column, will probably drop the playing odds column, and I don’t intend to keep the ownership numbers current. I’ll periodically update those.

Initially, my plan was to have every hitter who I thought was worth a look up on any day up there, but now I think I’ll copy a master table, identify the juiciest match-ups, and delete the rest.

This will definitely be a work in progress. I’m not sure that commentary on fastball/slider/change-up killers will be achievable. I like the idea but I’ll put it down as a long-term goal.

the Flint Bomber
11 years ago

Your master table idea sounds great.  Many of us have the usual suspects in mind, and just want help with the best times to use them.

Cheers!!