| The Declarer (Floyd McWilliams' Blog) |
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Mostly political; some random geekery.
Floyd McWilliams' home page
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Ace of Spades
Baseball Blogs:
Baseball Musings
6-4-2
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Usenet: James Donald's recent Usenet posts.
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Friday, April 02, 2004
An interesting puzzle from the Athletics Nation blog:
Read the post to see how this is possible.
Oh yeah? Well wait till you do retire, buddy. Think there will be lots of encomiums coming your way? Guess again! You'll be lucky if I call you the web's master clean-shaven satirist!
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Caroline Club system notes are on my home page!
"Caroline Club is based on 4 card majors, 10-12 NT, a strong club, and two-suited 2-level openings." This is my favorite part of the whole system: Responses to One Heart
What if someone overcalls? No problem, you make an insinuating double, which shows three spades! Wednesday, March 31, 2004
The San Jose Mercury News wastes few barrels of newsprint and several million electrons:
Like the average person is really going to say no when some stranger calls them up and asks if they're concerned about childhood obesity. "No, I'm not concerned. Put me down in the 'troglodyte' column." I won't be surprised to see this headline in the near future:
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
So tonight I spent more than an hour finding out who is closing for each major league team. Sometimes this was easy -- I knew that John Smoltz closes for Seattle, for instance -- but I had no idea who was closing for other teams. So I looked through the list of pitchers on ESPN team roster pages. Which leads to this warning: Looking over the bullpen for the Pittsburg Pirates or the Cincinnati Reds is a horrifying, soul-draining experience.
Some of the pitchers are so young and raw that ESPN has no photo for them:  Did ESPN really have to use a black silhouette? It just screams "witness protection program." Or, "please avert your eyes!" Monday, March 29, 2004
So on Saturday at 11:30 I gathered up my player printouts and drove to Mountain View. The draft was to be held at 1 p.m. at the home of Darren, one of the league members. I introduced myself to the other members -- I had not met anyone besides Brian and Eric -- and we chatted while waiting for stragglers. One topic of conversation was a spring training game between the A's and the Colorado Rockies; someone had heard that Rockies first baseman Todd Helton, a stud hitter who was ranked seventh in the tips that we downloaded from Yahoo, had not played all spring!
Eric and Brian arrived late, toting two whiteboards and a lot of little paper rectangles attached to magnets and containing the names of the better players. The left whiteboard was filled with names of major leaguers, separated by position. The right whiteboard was a grid, with our teams as columns and positions as rows. When players were drafted they were moved from the left rightboard to the right. This was a handy arrangement, as it allowed us to see what players were available, and which teams' positions had been filled. We had a set draft order, but in even-numbered rounds we drafted in reverse order. So the ninth player would get the tenth overall pick (first in the second round), and the first player would not draft again until the 18th pick. The first and last players would therefore always draft two players at once (except of course at the very beginning and end). I had the fifth slot, so I was always in the middle of a round and my drafts would always be nine picks apart. Glenn started us off with the obvious first pick, Alex Rodriguez. Next up was Mel, whom Brian had described to me as a Giants fan who liked to take home town players. So we were all expecting him to pick Barry Bonds, but he chose Albert Pujols instead. Tom did something more unexpected: He drafted Vladimir Guerrero, the ex-Montreal player who was picked up as a free agent by Anaheim. Then it was Jeff's turn. However Jeff was not with us; he was at home with his baby, and had submitted a list of players that he preferred to draft. Dodgers reliever Eric Gagne was at the top of his list, so we assigned Gagne to Jeff's team. And then it was my turn. I had achieved my ambition of drafting Alfonso Soriano. But ... what about that other undrafted player, the one with the single-season home run record? Should I have considered him? No, Soriano was a better pick, for these reasons:
Next up was our host, Darren, who took Bonds. Then Eric selected Pedro Martinez, the first starting pitcher to be taken. Mike, our commissioner, also took a pitcher, Cubs star Mark Prior. Then it was time for Brian and his two picks; he took first baseman Jim Thome and the aforementioned Bret Boone. Mike took another pitcher on the way back, Blue Jay Roy Halladay. Then Eric took another Toronto bird, first baseman Carlos Delgado. A lot of good players were still avaiable. Gary Sheffield (whose 2003 stats gave him a monstrous 162 rating) had suffered a thumb injury, and Giants pitcher Jason Schmidt had had elbow problems. No one knew if Todd Helton had been abducted by aliens or what. And then there was my backup first round pick, Carlos Beltran ... Who was immediately selected by Darren. I shook myself free of the fantasy of landing Beltran and got to work. We were allotted 90 seconds for each pick and it looked like I would need all of them. I scanned my sheets, but there was no clearly superior player who stood out. Finally as time ran out I decided to lock up the shortstop I had had my eye on, Edgar Renteria of St. Louis. Like Soriano, Renteria stood out in a field of mediocrity. He was ranked 30th in the Yahoo material, so I had originally planned to draft him third. But the idiosynratic picks that I had already seen convinced me that the other players probably put as little faith in the Yahoo standings as I did. So I chose Renteria. The absent Jeff was assigned the absent Todd Helton. (By the way, now that my chance to crack jokes about Helton is over, let me state for the record that neither I nor Brian nor Eric were able to find any evidence that Helton had ever been absent from training camp.) Tom selected the other premier shortstop, Nomar Garciaparra. Mel took catcher Javy Lopez. And Glenn closed out the second round by drafting Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood. While this was going on I was annotating my printouts. I had copied my ratings into several files of the top players grouped by position. Now as I mentioned yesterday, the ratings are skewed for players with large numbers of steals. I knew that if I slavishly followed the ratings, I would load up on all the players with lots of stolen bases. The league is scored by matchpointing, which does not reward huge victories -- if the second place player had 200 steals for the season, I would get the maximum matchpoints whether I had 201 steals or 400. So I also listed position players' steals, and a separate rating which excluded steals. I planned to keep track of everyones' steal totals as they made their picks. I did something similar for pitchers. I listed their saves and holds, and for starters created a separate rating that excluded saves and holds. After the first four picks of the third round -- Piazza, Loaiza, Vernon Wells, and Manny Ramirez -- I was back in the spotlight. Now I really had no idea whom I should pick, so I filtered through the sheets to find the best player remaining. (Note that whenever I say "best", that is shorthand for "best player compared to others at his position.") That seemed to be right fielder Abreu. I had no idea what his first name was or even where he played. (His name is Bobby and he plays for Philadelphia.) Darren took Tim Hudson, and Eric selected reliever Billy Wagner. Mike took "The Moose," Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina. Now everyone started to notice that Mike had three arms -- the ones belonging to three very talented pitchers. Brian closed out the third round with a Yankees pitcher, Javier Vazquez. I won't bore you with a complete recitation of the draft -- though I will mention that Mike stayed with pitchers, selecting Mark Mulder on his fourth pick. At this point I had 91 steals, which was twice as many as anyone else. So I laid off the full ratings and concentrated on steal-independent statistics. My fourth pick was pitcher Jamie Moyer. By now all the superior position players had been selected, and I decided to get some pitching before it vanished. In the fifth round I took center fielder Andruw Jones. I continued to stock up on what was left of the good pitchers, as there were still many reasonable position players remaining. My next five picks: 6. Johann Santana (pitcher, Minnesota) 7. Joe Nathan (closer, Minnesota) 8. Frank Thomas (first base, Chicago White Sox) 9. Roger Clemens (pitcher, Houston) 10. Ivan Rodriguez (catcher, Detroit) Moyer and Clemens are fine pitchers, but they are both over forty. I-Rod was the last of the quality catchers. I hadn't planned to worry about catchers; at this point I was following my ratings and they were leading me into unexpected territory. By now I had abandoned my running total of steals, saves, and holds. The picks were coming faster and it was all I could do to make a good selection when it was my turn. 11. Hawkins What is a Hawkins? Well, at this point I was drafting relievers that I had never heard of. Now when you draft a position player you don't know, you can take it on faith that he will play the same position, and hope that his stats will have some resemblance to what he did a year ago. But relievers can change roles; a closer one year can be a setup man the next. So I was just drafting players off my sheet and hoping they would have a useful role somewhere. (By the way, LaTroy Hawkins is a Chicago Cubs reliever.) 12. Randy Winn (left and center fielder, Seattle) 13. Mark Redman (pitcher, Oakland) This was a steal. Redman is a fine pitcher and moved to a good team playing in a pitcher's park. 14. Jason Varitek (catcher, Red Sox) This kind of popped out. I looked up at the board and Varitek, who is not great but was far superior to any other catcher remaining, was still there. "What is Varitek doing there? Send him over." 15. Placido Polanco (third base, Phillies) I finally got a third baseman. Actually Polanco was the third-ranked third baseman in my ratings, but was not highly ramked by Yahoo. At this point there were still some quality players, but the pickings were getting thin. 16. Brad Wilkerson (Montreal) I knew nothing of Wilkerson, but he had reasonable stats and played first base and all outfield spots, which I thought might give me reasonable flexibility in case of injury. 17. Armando Benitez, Florida's new closer. 18. Juan Encarnacion (right field, Dodgers) 19. Miguel Batista (pitcher, Toronto) 20. Rocco Baldelli (center field, Tampa Bay) By now it was garbage time. Many of the league members were indulging themselves by picking this rookie or that longshot player. I was not prepared to do this, and anyway the last five roster spots have the same weighting as the first five. 21. Rafael Soriano (reliever, Seattle). I now had both players named Soriano. (Brian drafted both players named Lee.) 22. M. Morris. Whatever that is. I was told he was the best pitcher that the Redbirds have. 23. L. Ayala. Okay, now I was reaching. I still have no idea what an Ayala is, even after I found out that he was a relief pitcher for Montreal. 24. Milton Bradley. I'll pay him by spinning that wheel on the game of Life. This was kind of my sleeper pick; Bradley had a good season in 2003 and is Cleveland's best young player. And when I was looking for some sort of pitcher I noticed that the board still contained 25. Theodore Roosevelt Lilly III. I hope he pitches like he did at the end of 2003 rather than at the beginning. Sunday, March 28, 2004
Floyd Rage
Posts to this blog have been scarce of late, as my time has been consumed with two activities: A crunch at work, including a two-day trip to Bellevue, Washington; and my fantasy baseball league draft. Last May I read Moneyball, Michael Lewis' account of how the Oakland Athletics have put together winning teams over the past few years despite a miniscule payroll (just one-third what the Yankees pay their players). I became an A's fan and followed baseball for the first time since I was a kid. I decided that I wanted to play fantasy baseball, and joined a league in which my friends Eric and Brian play. I chose the name "Floyd Rage" as a pun on "Roid Rage" (the violent behavior that allegedly afflicts heavy users of steroids). The rules for our league are as follows: There are nine teams of 25 players. Throughout the season, hitting, fielding, and pitching statistics are collected for each team's players. For any given statistic, like "home runs," all players' statistics are added together, and then the teams' cumulative statistics are compared to other teams. At the end of the season, when all statistics have been collected, the teams are then "matchpointed" (as in a bridge competition). First place gets 9 points, second gets 8, all the way down to ninth who gets 1. For instance, if my hitters performed exactly as they did last year, they would hit 264 home runs. If three teams had more homers, and five others had fewer, then I would be fourth in that statistic and would get 6 points. All of this is scored by friendly computers at Yahoo. Leagues can choose what statistics are used for scoring, and ours uses the following: Position Players (which just means "not pitchers"):
Pitchers:
I mentioned that our teams had 25 players. We are required to field players at each position: Catcher, first base, second base, shortstop, third base, and left, right, and center field. Also there are positions for any infielder, any two outfielders, a "utility" player who could be anyone, and a second catcher. We also platoon twelve pitchers, at least five of whom must be starters; a typical mix is six starters and six relievers. Finally there is a "bench" spot for a 26th player who does not play, but can be substituted for another player who will then take the bench. So which players should I pick? Now if I were lazy, or smart, I would just buy some fantasy baseball magazines (paper or online). But I thought it would be fun and educational to do my own research. The league commissioner had emailed us a spreadsheet he obtained from Yahoo that ranked the major league players and listed their 2003 statistics. Two weeks ago I opened the spreadsheet and went to work. Four Stars in Floyd's Little Black Book My first goal was to combine the various statistics into a single number that would express a player's value. To do this I had to adjust, or "normalize," the various stats. I couldn't just add them together because of the different scales of the numbers. Would you rather have a player with 30 home runs and a 0.250 batting average, or a player who bats 0.300 and hits 29 homers? Obviously the latter, but adding the numbers together gives you 30.25 versus 29.30, and the former number is larger. My initial thought was to adjust each stat by dividing it by the average for all players for that statistic. But average data was hard to come by, and somewhat misleading as it might include many players who didn't play much. Instead I looked up the 100th best "qualified" player for each statistic, and then divided by these numbers to get a "normalized value." For the curious, a hypothetical 100th best position player has these batting stats:
(A "qualified" position player has 400 at bats. Curiously, there were just 165 qualified players in 2003, which is only 5.5 players per team.) For each stat column in my spreadsheet, such as H (hits), I created another column for the normalized value. I would divide by the 100th best statistic. I then multiplied the result by 100 so that I could deal with whole numbers and view statistics as a percentage value. So my Excel formulae looked like this: =value/(77/100)I decided that I liked using the 100th best player as a baseline, because I could view the 100th best player as a "replacement player" -- with 11 major leagers per fantasy player better than him, such a player must be easy to pick up late in the draft. Thus each normalized statistic represented a major leaguer's percentage of a replacement player's contribution. Accentuating the Negative I haven't mentioned errors although they are a position player statistics. Errors are difficult because they are a "negative" statistic; you win the errors category by having fewer errors than other players. At first I adjusted errors by dividing 100 by the normalized error stat. Since 8 is the 100th best error number, the formula was: =100/(value/8).There were two problems with this approach. First, a player with no errors would cause a division by zero error in the spreadsheet. Second, the formula vastly inflated the importance of having a small number of errors. A player with two errors would have a normalized error value of 400. If he committed one fewer error, that value would rise to 800! This is a scoring difference equivalent to hitting 72 additional home runs, yet obviously the difference between one and two errors is miniscule. So I switched to an addition-based approach. I decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that 12 errors would be worth 100 points, yielding a formula of: 100-((value-8)*(100/12)). If a player commits more than 20 errors, his score will be negative.Run Rabbit Run Here are the normalized statistics for the top ten position players (as ranked by Yahoo in the aforementioned commissioner's mailing):
I was surprised to see Beltran rated so highly. I knew he was KC's top player, but was he really a better player than A-Rod or Bonds? Beltran's high score came from his 41 steals. Many stats, like batting average and hits, do not vary much -- in the top ten hitters, Pujols' 212 hits were 60% more than Bonds', and Pujols' 0.359 average was 35% better than Thome's 0.266. But steals are much more varied. Beltran had 41 and Soriano 35; A-Rod and Sheffield had half as many (17 and 18), and Helton, Delgado, and Thome had no steals at all. Chaff from Wheat I separated players by position, and then sorted them by normalized score. I was looking to see if there were positions which had limited numbers of good players. I found one right away when I generated the numbers for second basemen:
(I maintained the Yahoo rankings, which is why the players are not sorted by normalized score.) Alfonso Soriano and Bret Boone stand head and shoulders above the other second basemen. I suspected that Boone's numbers were an aberration (a "career year") and he would revert to the mean, so Soriano was the only outstanding second baseman. Now I was fifth in the draft order, and Soriano was ranked fifth in the Yahoo material. I decided that I would draft Soriano if he was avaiable. Also I had a backup plan; if I couldn't get Soriano, I would draft a second baseman late. The story was similar at shortstop:
This time, three good shortstops. I did a little research on Renteria, who plays for the Cardinals, and found that he has produced at a high level his whole career. I decided I would draft Renteria as well. What about third base?
No real studs here, though perhaps some players to avoid. I decided that I would draft a third baseman late, probably Polanco or Blalock. The Other End of the At-Bat What about pitchers? Well, by the time I got around to the men on the mound it was the day before the draft and I was hacking spreadsheets like mad on the plane ride home. Comparing pitchers is difficult, because there are three positions to consider:
All pitchers generate ERA, WHIP, and strikeouts. ERA and WHIP are pro-rated for the number of innings pitched, so starters influence these stats much more than relievers. However I did not know this until 90 minutes before draft time, when I was chatting with Brian. I immediately scrambled to adjust my statistics. I had to scribble a modified value on my printouts, but at least I was spared the ignominy of drafting relievers earlier than their value would warrant. Here is my crude attempt to calculate normalized value for starting pitchers:
There were some pitchers with very high scores, but ... Halladay and Loaiza had great years, not great careers. Martinez is notoriously fragile. Schmidt is coming off elbow surgery. So I figured I would wait a few rounds and then draft one or two pitchers with scores in the 120's or 130's. I won't reproduce my reliever stats, which had to be annotated with feverish scribblings an hour before draft time. Anyway, as we will see tomorrow, these stats were missing some very important information. Onward Sabermetric Soldiers I spent the last of my research time Friday night looking at injury reports for all teams. It was my nightmare that I would draft a player, only to have someone sneer: "He'll be a good player for you -- when he returns from Tommy John surgery in 2005." Fortunately there were no injuries to major players that I did not already know about. Saturday morning I printed the stat sheets, summarized by position. I came up with a plan for the first few rounds: Draft Soriano, or Beltran if Soriano were not available. Then the best player available, then Renteria, then Ichiro Suzuki, then a good position player, then a pitcher. But I did not have a set plan beyond Soriano and Renteria. I would use my data to find players who were big improvements over other players at their respective positions. Tomorrow: Draft Day. Will Floyd Throw a Chair through a Wall?
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