| 0 |
Subject: PROFL - Chatter, etc.
Posted by: Species
- Sustainer [569221717] Mon, Mar 24, 2003, 18:37
The draft is over. Guru and I feel good about our team and our strategy. Projections show us in a solid 2nd place, with a lot of upside should we be able to pull off the right trade. I've contacted a team that has a good fit if we wanted to trade a pitcher. Projections indicate we could easily vault into "first" should we pull the right deal....but is this team the type of team that likes to trade right from the get-go? We'll see.
In good news for team RotoGuru, the following on Sasaki per ESPN.com Just as I suspected, even when he does return he looks like he'll be on a short leash, and probably won't pitch back-to-back games for quite some time. We drafted Nelson more for his overall ratios than possible saves, but I realize now having Rhodes and Nelson is great because if Sasaki is out both would be in line for saves! Wooo hooo!
Seattle Mariners: Closer Kazuhiro Sasaki has a sore right shoulder and may not be available for the team's opener at Oakland on April 1.
Sasaki, a two-time All-Star, hasn't pitched in a game since March 15 and has pitched only three innings in the exhibition season. The 35-year-old right-hander, who threw 41 pitches in a bullpen session Sunday, is scheduled to pitch in Cactus League games Thursday and Sunday.
If Sasaki isn't available for the start of the season, right-hander Jeff Nelson and left-hander Arthur Rhodes would close for Seattle.
"I try not to think a whole lot about that, but you have to," Mariners manager Bob Melvin said Monday.
Sasaki, who had 37 saves in 61 games last season, had surgery Oct. 28 in Japan to remove bone chips from his right elbow. When he returns, he probably won't pitch on consecutive days.
"And we're probably not looking at two-inning saves to start, that's for sure," Melvin said.
|
| 1 | Species
Sustainer
ID: 569221717
Tue, Mar 25, 2003, 13:07
|
The sponsors of the league, FantasyRef/FantasyAsylum.com will have PROFL updates and whatnot throughout the year:
FantasyRef.com
There's a message board and a poll on who had the best draft. Should be interesting to see what kind of smack is talked!!!
|
| 2 | Ender
ID: 13443221
Tue, Mar 25, 2003, 13:25
|
PROFL Draft Discussion Board
The Fantasy Ref team is taking a beating in early posts.
|
| 3 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Tue, Mar 25, 2003, 13:52
|
It seems like many of the criticisms (but not all) are somewhat off base because of idiosyncrasies of this scoring system. In particular, there are 3 ratio categories for pitchers (which elevates the value of relievers vs. traditional formats), and there is no bench. Everyone drafted is active, unless they are demoted or put on the DL.
|
| 4 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Tue, Mar 25, 2003, 14:03
|
I just looked at our assessment of the FantasyRef team. Based on our statistical projections, it is smack dab in the middle of the pack.
They have a similar pitching profile to ours. They rank high in all categories but wins, where they are dead last. Their IP projects to be right about at 1000, the minimum requirement.
Their hitting is very skewed. I have them dead last in R, HR, and RBI, but tops in steals, and near the middle in average. Some of that undoubtedly reflects a different assessment of some of their players - potentially Teixeira, Brandon Larson, Sean Casey, Austin Kearns. Sounds like Cincinnati bullishness. Or perhaps just Cincinnati bull.
Some trading could probably do them a world of good. We had picked them out as a potential trading partner a few days ago, but given their profile, it's not clear that they can afford to give up what we'd like to get.
|
| 5 | Species
Sustainer
ID: 569221717
Wed, Mar 26, 2003, 11:08
|
I'd like this to be the ongoing PROFL thread as we enter the season. Mr. Nice Guy posted the following in the Draft Thread, some good comments from which to continue discussion:
Best picks
Troy Percival 6.11 (He usually goes in the 4th round, and is at least top 4 closer material, I really want to see if Gagne is for real by checking him out this season).
Barry Zito 2.11 (He should have gone in the first round+we have the #1 and #4 pitchers)
Mark Ellis 18.11 (Another solid pick, esp. this late)
Joe Crede 13.02 I like this pick, Crede is looking at a breakout season. I think it was TRS that said he'll be picked up there with the Hinskes and Boones next year. I don't think he was that far off.
Worst picks
CJ 10.11 (He's pretty old, and a big injury risk) That said, we needed a catcher, and he plays in Coors. I think picking AJ here would have sealed the draft. Look for a huge season from him. I know he's had arm problems but he is still a total stud. I just don't see the catching position as very important unless we get one of the big 3.
Juan-Gone 11.2 If he comes back, great. If not, not great! We coulda had Kearns! Just my opinion, but I think Gonz is over the hill.
Thoughts
If Looper keeps his job, we look really good in saves. That said, it's just me, but I'm pretty high on Jorge Julio this year (he added a changeup to his repoitoir), maybe we should have picked him over Spivey (we've got a capable backup in Ellis). All in all, looks like we got ourselves a solid team and should be in competition for the pennant.
|
| 6 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 49132614
Wed, Mar 26, 2003, 11:27
|
Good comments, though I am not sure he is aware that K/9 is a category with his Zito comment, though maybe he does.
AJ is not, and never will be, a stud by any definition I know of. He was my starting catcher last season, however. CJ was a good risk, imho.
|
| 7 | Species
Sustainer
ID: 569221717
Wed, Mar 26, 2003, 11:34
|
Good thoughts, MNG. Some comments:
We're really high on Crede. Monster 2nd half upon getting the 3b job full time. .290-30-90 is a real possibility.
Ellis I am high on. Being near Oakland I know the A's like him and I believe he will lead off. Someone mentioned he's a Eckstein-type guy, and that probably describes him well. He doesn't overwhelm you with physical tools, but he gets the job done. With Chris Singleton hurt at least Ellis gets the first crack at leading off, and my guess is that he grabs the bull by the horns and never lets go. At that point in the draft, he was an attractive MI option.
Charles Johnson is certainly a risk, but as a flyball hitter in Coors, his chances of 20-25 HR are pretty good. Perhaps he will get his share of bloop hits to keep his average above .260, and I hold out hope for a .275+ season from him. IMO it was a risk worth taking.
Juan Gonzalez is one of those "lottery" type picks. Either he plays 135+ games and goes .290-30-100 or he has a broken fingernail and craps out. Fellow Team RotoGuru colleague deepsnapper was bullish on him, and in order to get a word in edgewise in our PROFL Football draft, I thought I'd let him have at least one pick! ;-)
I hear you on Julio, but with Percival and Benitez already on board, we couldn't risk Spivey being taken. He's likely to his .300 or better and he's hitting 3rd for the D'Backs. The more I review things, the happier I am with that pick when 2b were dropping off the board like flies.
Overall, very good, fair comments, MNG.
|
| 8 | Species
Sustainer
ID: 569221717
Wed, Mar 26, 2003, 11:35
|
biliruben - I took his AJ comment to mean AJ Burnett.
|
| 9 | biliruben
Sustainer
ID: 49132614
Wed, Mar 26, 2003, 11:38
|
Ah... makes more sense. I assumed he meant the catcher.
|
| 10 | The Left Wings
ID: 6142019
Sun, Mar 30, 2003, 10:46
|
BUTT
Any news or transactions the last few days?
|
| 11 | deepsnapper
Sustainer
ID: 17103420
Sun, Mar 30, 2003, 19:22
|
#7 Hahaha, I thought Guru made that pick. You'll get your shot(s) Greg. ;-)
Things have been quiet as everyone's preparing for the season. Other than a few FA pickups such as Sabathia, Kennedy, & Armas, not a lot of movement. Having the ability to place an unlimited number of players on your team DL can make for quite a few FA pickups during the season if the injury bug bites .
March Madness is keeping a few busy I'm sure.
|
| 12 | Species
Sustainer
ID: 569221717
Wed, Apr 02, 2003, 16:36
|
Cool - Hank Blalock plays 2nd base today. 4 more games there and he qualifies. Would make a great bargaining chip at 2b.
|
| 13 | The Left Wings
ID: 6142019
Wed, Apr 02, 2003, 17:40
|
Sell him when his stock is high. Platoon players (2B with Young, 3B with Teixeira, and the Rangers have plenty of DHs) shouldn't be kept that long.
|
| 14 | Chestergreat
Sustainer
ID: 362342215
Wed, Apr 02, 2003, 20:05
|
I don't think MacDougall was taken in the draft. After 2 saves in 2 games, has he been snapped up by a team already.
|
| 15 | ChicagoTRS
Sustainer
ID: 256101115
Thu, Apr 03, 2003, 09:30
|
How are things going so far? I was going to suggest MacDougal too...would have been nice to grab 2 saves...would have made a nice last pick ;) He should be a high K guy too with that 100mph fastball. He does look like he could have a tendency to get wild though.
|
| 16 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Thu, Apr 03, 2003, 10:16
|
Another team picked up MacDougal on March 31. Steve Kline was also picked up that day. Juan Acevedo was picked up on 3/26.
Species has not made any moves yet.
After 4 days, the team is in 3rd overall, but obviously, this is very early.
Randy's first start was not up to standards, but our ERA, WHIP, and K ratio are still OK:
WHIP: 1.22 (ranked 6th)
ERA: 1.83 (2nd)
K/9: 7.32 (4th)
We've got one win and one save.
On the hitting side, the average is .314, which is 2nd overall. Runs, HR, and RBI are all in the middle of the pack. No steals yet, although we knew that without any trades, we were in deep doodoo for steals.
|
| 17 | Species
Sustainer
ID: 569221717
Thu, Apr 03, 2003, 19:41
|
With Jordan's 3rd HR today, I dumped Danny Bautista (who I liked, but we can't handle a platoon or partial platoon) for him.
Otherwise, a nice day for team RotoGuru. We hit .454 with 9 runs, 6 RBI and 2 HR. Pitching was a little bit of a letdown with 5 IP, 3.60 ERA, 1.20 WHIP and 7.20 K/9, but we did get a win out of Nelson (who blew the save in extra innings). The cool thing was that Mark Ellis got a hit and scored an unearned run off of Nelson in the bottom of the 11th.
I agree with Guru, with RJ's flop it's nice to know that our reliever strategy is working. Imagine when RJ gets those 10+ k games going.
|
| 18 | Species
Sustainer
ID: 569221717
Thu, Apr 10, 2003, 15:03
|
An update.....
Rank Team Batting Pitching Total Dif Behind
1 Regular Guys 49.5 35.5 85.0 -2.5 0.0
2 PROFL Founder 32.0 44.0 76.0 -5.5 9.0
3 RotoGuru.com 32.0 43.0 75.0 -4.5 10.0
4 WildCardSports.com 26.5 47.5 74.0 5.0 11.0
5 Rotowire.com 33.5 31.0 64.5 4.0 20.5
6 CreativeSports.com 41.0 21.5 62.5 16.0 22.5
7 AskTheCommish.com 34.0 27.5 61.5 12.0 23.5
8 FantasyAsylum.com 40.5 19.0 59.5 -12.0 25.5
9 FantasyRef.com 8.5 50.5 59.0 -11.0 26.0
10 Sportingnews.com 34.0 24.0 58.0 -13.5 27.0
10 Jackpotsports.com 33.5 24.5 58.0 10.0 27.0
12 CBS Sportsline.com 25.0 22.0 47.0 2.0 38.0
We have strong pitching, as expected, even with Randy Johnson's relative (for him) mediocrity. We are 2nd in all 3 composite categories (ERA, WHIP, K/9) and for the most part our relievers have pitched wonderfully. We are lacking saves because neither Percival or Looper have had a save opportunity yet, and of course Benitez pulled a post-season move and gave up a lead in one of his save opps.
Our hitting will need some boosting, and I'm diligently trying to find combinations that could work in trade. Also keeping my fingers on the pulse of the waiver wire. Interesting, we are 3rd in BA, 3rd in HR and 4th in runs.....but 2nd to last in RBI and dead last in steals. A 6 RBI gain would result in 6 points in the category, so it's very very close.
Chavez, Torii Hunter, Charles Johnson and Junior Spivey have not helped the cause. This has been basically offset by nice starts from Blalock, Jose Valentin, Bagwell, Varitek and Juan Gonzalez.
Guru and I have a plan for wins (we have 3.5 pts there), which is another sore spot (and an expected one of course). It's just a matter of when we implement that plan.
More to come. Oh....our roster:
RotoGuru.com Batters Year to Date Fantasy standard Stats
Player AB R H HR RBI BB SB BA OBP SLG
Bagwell, Jeff 1B HOU 29 4 10 2 5 3 0 0.3448 0.4062 0.5517
Bautista, Danny RF ARI 8 0 1 0 1 0 0 0.1250 0.1250 0.1250
Blalock, Hank 3B TEX 28 6 13 3 6 3 0 0.4643 0.5161 0.8214
Chavez, Eric 3B OAK 30 6 7 1 3 7 1 0.2333 0.3784 0.4000
Crede, Joe 3B CHW 31 6 10 1 2 1 0 0.3226 0.3438 0.5161
Ellis, Mark 2B OAK 33 7 12 1 5 3 0 0.3636 0.4054 0.6061
Everett, Carl LF TEX 18 2 4 0 0 2 0 0.2222 0.3000 0.2778
Gonzalez, Juan A. RF TEX 30 5 9 4 8 3 0 0.3000 0.3636 0.7333
Hunter, Torii CF MIN 27 0 4 0 5 2 0 0.1481 0.2000 0.2593
Johnson, Charles C COL 21 2 3 1 2 2 0 0.1429 0.2174 0.2857
Jordan, Brian LF LA 21 2 6 0 2 1 0 0.2857 0.3750 0.3810
Spivey, Junior 2B ARI 29 3 5 0 2 2 0 0.1724 0.2500 0.2069
Stewart, Shannon LF TOR 33 9 10 0 3 6 0 0.3030 0.3902 0.3636
Valentin, Jose SS CHW 25 6 9 3 7 3 0 0.3600 0.4286 0.9200
Varitek, Jason C BOS 24 7 8 2 5 5 0 0.3333 0.4483 0.7500
TOTALS 387 65 111 18 56 43 1 0.2868 0.3593 0.5039
RotoGuru.com Pitchers Year to Date Fantasy Standard Stats
Player INN GS W L S K BBI HA ERA WHIP
Benitez, Armando RP NYM 5.0 0 0 1 3 7 2 8 5.400 2.000
Donnelly, Brendan RP ANA 5.7 0 0 0 0 3 2 1 0.000 0.529
Johnson, Randy SP ARI 12.7 2 0 1 0 15 3 11 4.263 1.105
Looper, Braden RP FLA 6.0 0 1 0 0 5 0 5 1.500 0.833
Nelson, Jeff RP SEA 3.3 0 1 0 0 5 1 2 2.700 0.900
Percival, Troy RP ANA 2.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0.000 0.500
Remlinger, Mike RP CHC 3.3 0 0 0 0 4 3 3 5.400 1.800
Rhodes, Arthur RP SEA 4.3 0 0 0 0 2 2 2 0.000 0.923
Zito, Barry SP OAK 13.0 2 2 0 0 10 6 7 1.385 1.000
TOTALS 55.3 4 4 2 3 52 19 40 2.440 1.066
|
| 19 | GoatLocker
Sustainer
ID: 60151121
Thu, Apr 10, 2003, 20:40
|
Thanks for the update Species.
Think we'll be just fine.
Cliff
|
| 20 | Bandos
ID: 39112921
Thu, Apr 10, 2003, 22:17
|
Just wanted to thank you for the draft thread and the strategy tips. I am in first and third in two leagues that use the ratio categories and I seem to be the only one who knows how to play them. I have 7/9 relievers on one and 7/10 on the other. Biddle helps and I am trying to get Baez becasue they qualify at SP and RP and they are relievers. My strength is that I was able to draft a really good hitting team and piuck up Rhode and Hawkins LATE. I have a few starers that I rotate in and out with the daily change option.
Once, again, thanks for the strategy. Other teams have 7 starters and a 1250 limit. I think I have the advantage.
|
| 21 | Species
Sustainer
ID: 569221717
Fri, Apr 18, 2003, 12:22
|
Oh how the once mighty have fallen:
Rank Team Batting Pitching Total Dif Behind
1 PROFL Founder 51.0 45.5 96.5 20.0 0.0
2 WildCardSports.com 48.0 39.0 87.0 -3.5 9.5
3 Regular Guys 39.0 39.5 78.5 -1.5 18.0
4 FantasyAsylum.com 45.0 25.0 70.0 0.0 26.5
5 CreativeSports.com 38.0 29.5 67.5 8.5 29.0
6 FantasyRef.com 14.0 48.5 62.5 -8.5 34.0
7 Sportingnews.com 33.0 28.0 61.0 -4.5 35.5
8 AskTheCommish.com 23.0 37.5 60.5 1.0 36.0
9 RotoGuru.com 31.5 24.5 56.0 -0.5 40.5
10 Jackpotsports.com 29.0 22.0 51.0 -5.5 45.5
11 CBS Sportsline.com 23.0 23.0 46.0 6.5 50.5
12 Rotowire.com 15.5 28.0 43.5 -12.0 53.0
Category by category (us only):
Hitting breakdown
Team BA Pts
RotoGuru.com 0.2747 8
Team HR Pts
RotoGuru.com 35 11.5
Team R Pts
RotoGuru.com 116 7
Team RBI Pts
RotoGuru.com 102 3
Team SB Pts
RotoGuru.com 4 2
We are tied for the league lead in HR's, yet are 3rd from the bottom in RBI's! That's a lot of solo shots. Guys like Bagwell (6 HR, 10 RBI), Everett (5, 8), Chavez (4, 9) and Blalock (5, 9) are banging the ball out of the yard but not doing enough outside of the homers. Amazingly, we are 5th in batting average despite having Spivey, Hunter and Charles Johnson on our roster. CJ is the closest to getting whacked, but we have to give him a bit more time.
I think we have to let things shake out, hitting wise. The waiver wire is pretty bare, and it's the mid-round guys who are floundering, while some late rounders (Blalock, Everett) are more than pulling their weight. Everett has 13 runs scored on 16 hits....nice.
Pitching Breakdown
Team ERA Pts
RotoGuru.com 4.362 3
Team Kd9 Pts
RotoGuru.com 8.20 9
Team S Pts
RotoGuru.com 8 7.5
Team W Pts
RotoGuru.com 5 1
Team WHIP Pts
RotoGuru.com 1.373 4
The pitching numbers are shocking. When you run a 2 starter, 7 reliever strategy (somewhat modified when I picked up Foppert...I'm holding until his start next week), you can't have your two big guns (RJ and Zito) have ERA's of 8.308 and 4.50 with WHIPs of 1.50 and 1.389.
Does Armando Benitez think this is the postseason? 3 blown saves and greatly bloated ERA and WHIP numbers haven't helped. Braden Looper has actually performed just fine and should hang onto his role for the foreseeable future. Remlinger has been a huge disappointment and may go the way of our starter rotation strategy. Donnelly and Rhodes have been lights out - 18.66 IP, **0** ER and a WHIP of around .600
I have no doubt our pitching strategy will succeed, it's a matter of our players perfoming as they should. Between ERA and WHIP alone I think there are 10 points there for us. We are last in wins, and with an underperforming reliever we may look to boost our win totals.
Don't despair.....we feel things will turn around.
|
| Rate this thread: | If you wish, you may rate this thread on scale of 1-5. Ratings should indicate how valuable or interesting you believe this thread would be to other users of this forum. A '5' means that this thread is a 'must read'. A '1' means that this is a complete waste of time. If you have previously rated this thread, rating it again will delete your previous rating. If you do not want to rate this thread, but want to see how others have rated it, then click the button without entering a rating, or else click here. |
|
|
|
Post a reply to this message: (But first, how about checking out this sponsor?)
|
|