Today at THT

by
April 7, 2009

Things to watch while you wait for Jamie Moyer’s “fastball” to cross home plate in tonight’s game.

  • Steve Treder has part four of his series on the Pirates under Branch Rickey. I find it interesting that Rickey had some of his personnel problems (like Tony Bartirome at first base) solved by the U.S. Army. I’m against reinstating the draft myself, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t want Uncle Sam to snap up some of your favorite team’s problems sometime this summer.
  • Victor Wang wants to know whether we can accurately predict the amount of playing time a guy is going to get. The answer: playing time is inversely related to how badly your fantasy team needs him.
  • Harry Pavlidis runs down the new features on MLBAM’s Gameday application. Starting with tonight’s games, Gameday will bring you a beer.
  • Eriq Gardner has a list of 20 players who currently aren’t helping your fantasy team but whom you should nonetheless hold onto. Scott Baker is included. I find that strange considering that, once he’s healthy, he will have been Wally Pipped by the Diabolical R.A. Dickey.
  • Finally, now that our drafts are over, Paul Singman tells us how to get an honest read of how our fantasy teams are going to do. The short version:

    Get all of the projections for the players on your fantasy squad from a projection system (THT’s projections, CHONE, Marcel—your choice) in a spreadsheet, calculate the projected totals for your team in each stat category, and then compare your team’s results to the other team’s results in your league.

    Um, Paul? That would entail about 400% of the work that went into me drafting these bozos to begin with. Can’t I just stand pat with “I’m happy with my draft” until the wheels fall off, followed by four months of complaining about guys on my team as I watch Sportscenter? Such a strategy has always worked in the past.

    And speaking of Moyer, he gave up three runs over six innings to get the no-decision in an 18-inning game against the Astros two days before Jordan Schafer was born. Maybe they’ll discuss that prior to facing each other today.


    • 6 Comments
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    Levi Stahl
    15 years ago

    After my serious sabermetric analysis of your roster, I think it’s more appropriate to call your players clowns than bozos. Does that help?

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    Craig Calcaterra
    15 years ago

    At least clowns bring something to the table.  I have DeWayne Wise on my Scoresheet team for some reason.

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    themarksmith
    15 years ago

    Are you watching the Braves game tonight, Craig? It’ll probably take longer than the 2:22 it took the other night due to Moyer’s weird leg kick and endless changeups.

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    Craig Calcaterra
    15 years ago

    Not unless it’s on national TV someplace. I hardly get any Braves’ games anymore now that they’re not on TBS.  I suppose I’ll buy extra innings if and when I ever do this full time, but for now they’re kind of an Internet phenomenon for me.

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    Chipmaker
    15 years ago

    And that was also Greg Maddux’ major league debut.

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    Ron
    15 years ago

    If you team is a bunch of clowns, will you play “Send In The Clowns” before you make each trade?

    That might be the only time that song was ever appropriate for airplay.

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