Rob

I'm working on some stuff right now... I think I can remake my team from this... ARod Pujols Rollins Vlad #12 pick #13 pick to this... ARod Santana Braun DLee #1 pick #7 pick #12 pick And I should be able to pick up VMart, Upton, and Hart with those three picks.

It is better than guessing, which is what all the math in the black box is for, but it's statistically impossible for it to nail player seasons across the board. If god told you in OPS terms exactly how good Matt Murton is, that doesn't mean he'll hit at exactly that level next year; there's expected variance in a given season. Sample size works both ways. I don't think anyone who halfway knows how projections work expects something like PECOTA to be exactly accurate. I think it would be much better to give ranges and confidence intervals. Something like, We predict Matt Murton's OPS will be between .800 and .850 with 95% confidence. We predict it will be between .825 and .850 with 70% confidence. We predict it will be between .700 and 1.000 with 100%. Nonetheless, if God told me what Murton's OPS was going to be, the first thing I'd do is seek medical help. If God was then wrong, the second thing I'd do is question his deity credentials. This is the problem I have with some sabermentricly informed opinions. If the model is wrong it it is the model that is at fault. If the model says such and such a player will perform at X level and the player underperforms or overperforms, it is the model at fault and not the player, unless there are special circumstances. A players "true" performance is what how he actually performs, not what PECOTA says he will do. The value of PECTOA lies in its ability to approximate a player's "true" performance. All you've probably ever seen from PECOTA is the weighted mean projection. In reality, they break it down much further than that. Look at Murton for example. http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/176/murtonjo8.png And that's merely a fraction of his PECOTA card.

That last quote makes me feel good. Darn tooting. At this point, I'm not sure he's worth Gallagher alone.

Taking a page out of Smoltz's book. I fully endorse this.

I like him, he's done well with guys like Theriot, Murton and Pie. But then again, he's at AA and AAA only...gotta get that high up first (looking at you, Harvey). Von Joshua is damn good, but I think the only person who can save Harvey at this point is Larry Rothschild. Harvey seems to completely lack the ability to recognize pitches, and to make consistently make contact. That's not exactly the profile of the guys Von Joshua has been successful with (Cedeno, Murton, Soto, Theriot, Fontenot, Hoffpauir, etc... all have pretty good contact skills, and most are fairly patient.)

It seems IMB has been resurrected, and we no longer have to worry as to the league's viability... until the next time he pisses somebody off.

That's a very sexist implication on his part.

Makes sense, I suppose. I imagine it would help if we posted our leagues up once we have them, to get a more standard distribution?

He's just not a very good fantasy player. In real life, you take him out of PetCo, and you have something. In fantasy, with 5x5 stats and the fact that he's in PetCo for half his games, he pretty much sucks. I shouldn't talk. I took Geovany Soto in the 6th round last night. My lunch beers resulted in a 3rd round Adam Dunn pick.

The playoffs are a crapshoot, for the most part. Having a "leadoff" hitter wont change that. Having another very good SP might, but that's about the only thing. As presently constructed though, the Cubs are a slight favorite to make the playoffs, and then we have about a 12.5% chance once we get in, just like everybody else.

61. Garrett Atkins 62. Felix Hernandez 63. Aaron Rowand 64. Geovany Soto 65.Chris Young (the weirdly proportioned pitcher) 66. Roy Oswalt

Wow, I never noticed that. You've already done a few favors for me. Although the FFIX problem ended up being my disc. I'm probably just gonna drop the 20 USD for it off of Amazon new. Hey now, I said I should be paying, not that I could afford to. There are a lot of bar owners and strippers that are counting on paying rent with that money.:lol: Looks like you changed the baselines for replacement level and average around a bit. Is this just a function of adding more leagues to your evaluation, or due to the new playing time projections?

On the Draft-O page, your format is slightly buggered in the pitching projections totals. The ZiPS box starts in front of what should be the James "W+H" cell. nitpick ever> Seriously man, fantastic job. The more I've been messing around with this beast, the more I keep learning. And it's already saved me from making a bad trade. Despite the formatting error that took me a whopping total of 12 seconds to fix, you've really outdone yourself. I really feel like I should probably be paying good money for this...

Neither option is particularly good, but Pie is the better overall hitter. I'd rather he get more PA than the abysmal Ryan Theriot.

No, in all honesty... Theriot and Fuld are servicable backups, but neither is even particularly good at that. The fewer PA those two see this season, the better off our team is.

Fuld could probably learn to throw right handed in ST, and still have a better arm than Theriot's noodle.

How long would it take to add the Shandler projections? Seems to me that the easiest way to do things would just be to finish the build as originally planned (PECOTA, James, ZiPS), hand that bad boy out to everybody... then take your time adding Shandler. But that's up to you.

49. Scott Kazmir 50. Francisco Liriano 51. John Smoltz 52. John Lackey 53. Chris Young (the outfielder) 54. Curtis Granderson (IMB!'s pick) 55. Brian McCann

I hope to get through on those as well. I'd like to get a pair of those for one of the games I already plan to attend. Absolutely make sure that you do. Words don't even begin to describe it.

I am officially done... for now. Once those auctions start up for the seats directly behind home plate though, I'll be buying a couple of those. Those were the best seats I ever had... it really was a religious experience.

Anyone? I'd take you up on the offer if I weren't positive that others around here are more in need of your services. Speak of the devil, I just got in for the fifth time...

Anyone? I'd take you up on the offer if I weren't positive that others around here are more in need of your services.

I need more tickets.

2 Terrace Reserved, 9/21 2 Bleachers, 8/30 2 Bleachers, 7/12 4 Club Box (RF), 4/5 Total bill so far: $559.40

Don't X out, just keep pounding on that submit button until it works.