Halfway Hardballers Draft

I am going to give my draft analysis and critique and would encourage some of you other managers to do the same. We will see how many picks defied logic and what if any logic was applied.

First off let me say this was the most difficult draft I ever did. For openers position #9 puts you behind the 8 ball from the get go. Then add to that I was trying to play middleman for Hitters over the phone as he was not able to get into the draft room from his computer. Thank goodness I had a predraft strategy because there would have been no way to pull this off on the fly.

Going into the draft I had a few things I was pretty definite on. I was not going to pick my 1st pitcher until at least round #7. 3B was a shallow position so need to draft early. Balance, balance, balance was the theme of the day. I wanted to get at least 3 serviceable closers with at least 2 more setup men with good periferals. I wasn't too hung up on any particular players but I did want Sandoval, Hart, Broxton, and felt like I could get Verlander and Bedard on the cheap.

So with no further ado, let's get it on.

Round #1- R Braun. Depending on whose cheat sheets you look at R Braun is usually in the top 5 picks. He is experiencing a little discomfort in his side but still @ #9 I felt like this was a no brainer for me. Power hitter with good AVG, Runs and RBI.

Round #2 - E Longoria. Time to fill that 3B pos. I was a little surprised to see Baseman go with a SP in the 2nd round. I was really thinking he would take Longoria as I am sure he was aware of the postition scarcity as well. More HR, Runs, RBI with a decent AVG. There were better players on the board but with 3B being thin I felt now was the time to act.

Round #3 - J Morneau. I would have like to have been able to see Pedroia in this round. Stars was too sharp for that. WIth all the elite 2B gone I opted for a little more power at the other corner. More power with good HR, Runs, RBI and AVG.

Round #4 - A Rios. With 3 power picks in the bank it was time to start thinking a little speed. Getting a 5 tool player in this round was a bonus.

Round #5 - C Hart. Still looking for some SB I opted for targeted player C Hart. Aside from being a local boy, he can give you a solid 20/20 with decent Runs and RBI.

Round #6 - F. Lopez I know many of you think this was a little early for him (ok maybe a lot early) but I am counting on a little better year this year in Ari. Reports are that he is going to run more, will bat leadoff. Remember how hot he was after leaving Was last season. At any rate I know I am going to start taking pitching beginning next round and I don't want to wait much longer on 2B. At worst I have a decent super-sub at best I have 30 more SB with decent AVG and Runs.

Round #7 - C Billingsey oh wait.... the friggin connection was lost right as I was about to pick. J Bruce was the consolation prize. Oh well it could have been worse.

Round #8 - P Sandoval - Ok if I was going to pick a pitcher in round 7 and didn't get one then surely I am taking one in round #8 right? I was actually a little pissed now. I was trying to do too much at once. Baseman takes C Iannetta which was my cue. As soon as a catcher from that tier went I was going for Sandoval. Timmy had 2 picks before it was my turn again and I was certain he would grab him if I didn't. Friggin Bruce!!

Round #9 - J Broxton. Now I have to start getting some pitching. I have missed out on the top 2 tiers of SP so I went straight to RP and targeted player Broxton .

Round #10 - R Nolasco. Lots of upside to this SP and I know it is now or never to build that pitching staff. (In the back of my mind is how strategy comes in to play on pitching. This is a decent ace for my staff and I will just have to manage around the SP)

Round #11 - J Verlander. Like what I am reading about him. If he returns to form this is the steal of the draft.Otherwise just another serviceable pitcher with nice K's

Round #12 - K Slowey - Having a great spring and could have a real breakout year. With the super late start on pitching I have to look to score on players with good upside. This works for me.

Round #13 = E Bedard - I wanted M Aviles in this round as I still don't have a SS. Timmy took care of that little detail for me so it is back to SP with another question mark that could turn into a steal. At worst I should get some decent K's

Round #14 - C Ray. Broxton is getting lonely. Ray is going to be the man in Balt. He has been lights out this spring and is apparently over his ailments. Closer #2 one more to go.

Round #15 - J Hanrahan. Mission accomplished. 1 good and 2 fair closers. Category covered.

Round #16 - R Theroit. The vacant SS postition has been bugging me. Here's a top of the lineup guy that can help in SB and has a decent AVG. I'll take him.

Round #17 - J Jurrigens. Another good pitcher with lots of upside.

Round #18 - G Balfour. Part of the Hardballer strategy is to have a couple of good setup men that can scalp a S or W every now and then. Balfour has good K/IP ratios, will get plenty of innings and will help keep my ERA down.

Round #19 - H-C Kuo (See above)

Round #!20 - Now I am looking for subs with upside. J Hermida is having a good spring. if he stays healthy he could have that breakout season that was promised 2 season ago..

Round #21 C Gomez. More upside with great SB. Looks like he could bat some leadoff and is showing more plate discipline in spring training.

Considering the circumstances I am fairly pleased with my team. Have not had a chance to stack it up against each other team but for me at least it is a start. Billinsley in the 7th might have gotten me Aviles in the 11th or 12th which would have been nice. I already have an attitude toward Bruce so he better perform early and often. My SP is manageable but that is the key. I can't just "set em and forget em". I am going to have to watch the matchups and how well my opponent is faring each week. Somebody is going to get to tell somebody I told you so on F Lopez but I will be satisfied if he keeps the AVG decent and gets some SB and Runs.

I stand to be the weakest at 2B and SS. But considering you usually only get AVG, Runs and maybe some SB from the average player in these positions I think I am covered elsewhere. I also feel there are better pitching staffs than mine but mine is certainly manageable and with any luck could exceed expectations. Otherwise I may have to stream a SP postition part of the time this season. If that be the case, so be it.

Main thing on my mind right now is it is a long season. Plenty of time to react on the WW if necessary. If my hunch plays out on a few of these players I will once again be in the playoffs and as always that is my only preseason goal.

Draft Position

Baseman and I have had a couple of discussions about the upcoming draft. Mostly this is a "pick your opponents brain" session disguised as insightful fantasy discussion. Oh the lengths we will go to in order to try and gain an edge. LOL

Somewhere in our discussions draft position will come up. Just how important is draft position? What is the best draft position? What is the worst draft position? According to those who responded to a recent poll on this site, picks 3 through 6 seem to be the most desired positions. Just about any fantasy manager will say they don't want the 1st pick. Most complain when they are near the bottom of the order.

But is there REALLY any difference?

Well I decided today to take a look at Hardball Heaven's 6 year history and see if it held any clues. I might point out that we are finally starting to get enough history in our league that one can look back and make many statistical assumptions or identify trends. Thank you Yahoo for keeping that info archived for us!

So what I did was take every season and compare draft position with regular season finish. I did not consider final playoff standings as we all know that is somewhat of a crap shoot. Another "x" factor that I did not factor in was manager ratings. I think it goes without saying that some managers are more apt to overcome a poor draft position than others merely by how they manage their team. That being said, 6 years of history should pretty much average out the anomalies and render some fairly accurate assumptions.

The chart below ranks draft postition (DrftPos) by average finish (AvgFin). It also shows the deviation (Dev) which shows + or - from draft position. The year columns reflect the regular season finish for each draft postition for each year. The last column shows the number of seasons the postition has made it to the playoffs (PO).

So without further ado, here is the chart.

DrftPos	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	AvgFin	Dev	PO
1	4	6	5	2	5	1	3.8	-2.8	6
5	2	5	12	5	1	2	4.5	0.5	5
11	3	2	9	6	2	6	4.7	6.3	5
10	11	3	3	1	7	4	4.8	5.2	4
8	5	1	6	8	3	11	5.7	2.3	4
3	12	9	7	7	4	3	7.0	-4.0	2
6	9	8	1	4	11	9	7.0	-1.0	2
2	6	12	2	10	8	7	7.5	-5.5	2
4	1	10	4	11	12	8	7.7	-3.7	2
12	10	7	11	3	10	5	7.7	4.3	2
9	8	4	10	12	6	12	8.7	0.3	2
7	7	11	8	9	9	10	9.0	-2.0	0

Wow! Put that in your pipe and puff on it awhile. Apparently there is nothing wrong with the #1 pick after all as it has never failed to make the playoffs and in fact shows the highest final ranking of all.

Looks like there is not a problem at draft postitions 8, 10, or 11 either as they show the greatest positive deviation.

Picks 3-6? Better hope it is #5 if you are looking to make the playoffs. Pick #2 suffered from a dead team in 2004 but even so it doesn't have a very good track record at making the cut.

Most predicitive pics? #5 and #9. Looks like if you draft 5th or 9th you will probably wind up 5th or 9th respectively.

The kiss of death? Postition #7. No one who has drafted #7 has ever made it to the playoffs!

One more disclaimer for manager ratings. The above chart does not factor in a manager rating. I am currently working on a way to measure that numerically so I can apply to things that it might effect. For those of you who have been around awhile and remember Eagles you probably realize that a #1 pick wouldn't help him at all. Likewise REDS took pick #11 all the way to the championship in 2007.

I am not prepared to say that your final outcome is predetermined by your draft postition. In fact far from it. The waiver wire in HH is very forgiving and can help a manager overcome a multitude of shortcomings. What I am prepared to say though, your draft postition will go a long way toward determining just how much effort you are going to have to invest if you want to succeed in this tough league!

Compliments, complaints and critisizms welcomed :)

Randy

Who says fantasy sports are senseless?

Just read this article on C|Net and was amused as well as amazed by it. Here is a portion of the article.

Nate Silver.

Known as a statistical wunderkind, his models predicted the final outcome of the 2008 presidential election to within .4 percent of the final popular vote. But more important to many Democrats who had their hopes for electoral victory dashed by George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, FiveThirtyEight.com--which got its name from the total number of electoral votes available--was able to provide daily affirmation that Barack Obama was really winning, even when many were tempted to believe he would be overcome by Sen. John McCain.

What many might not know is that Silver first came to prominence not in the political realm, but in baseball, where he authored Baseball Prospectus, a well-regarded baseball statistics site. Many might see the connection between baseball and politics as far-fetched, but to people like Silver, it's a very direct path.

Q: How are political campaigns and baseball connected?
Silver: There is kind of the same rhythm to political campaigns and baseball seasons. You have to be patient to appreciate it. In political campaigns that last two years, you have certain primaries, like Iowa and New Hampshire, that are very important. And two conventions, three or four debates, and the vice presidents being picked. Collectively, those took up about 20 days, whereas the campaign lasted about 700 days.

So there's not much high-impact stuff, and you have to follow it every single day, and understand how little threads become big threads, and how the picture develops very slowly. That's similar to baseball, which has a long season.

When people start giving you a lot of grief about the senseless act of getting into fantasy sports, especially if you tend to get into the numbers and spreadsheets and the like, just tell them you are honing your skills for bigger and better things to come.

Only problem I have with Nate is this.... Why did he have to be so accurate this time????

Randy

Spotlight on Champions

The Spotlight series will take a look at the career of each active manager in the league.

Champions (Ed Spinelli) is a charter member of Hardball Heaven. He resides in Philadelphia, Pa with his wife Jenny and family and works as a financial analyst/planner.

Champions is another of the more colorful members of our group. He sometimes itches for a little controversy and always has an interesting viewpoint on any discussion. Champions has experienced many life affecting challenges and issues over the last several seasons that has hampered his ability to devote the time he would like to the league. Regardless, he plows on and remains active every year and when things are quiet on the home front he has proven to be quite the competitor.

As one would expect, his favorite team is the Phillies while he is torn between Willie Mays and Mike Schmidt as his favorite all-time player.

Here is a look at his Hardball Heaven career thus far.

Year	Playoff	Reg Sea	Win	Loss	Tie	%	GB	Moves
2003	5	6	109	117	26	0.484	33.5	28
2004	2	6	126	121	17	0.509	27.5	57
2005	9	8	123	127	14	0.492	22	26
2006	7	9	113	134	17	0.460	35.5	27
2007	9	12	85	158	21	0.362	68	72
2008	11	10	110	128	26	0.466	35	29
			666	785	121	0.459

2004 was the definite high point in his career as he made it all the way to the championship game before falling victim to Baseman and his historic season. Champions has the dubious distinction of being the losingest manager in Hardball Heaven history while also recording a league worst 85-158 season in 2007.

In H-2-H he has shown he is up to the challenge by outscoring such teams as Baseman, Hardballers and Perjured. Below is a recap of his H-2-H results.


W-Wins against listed team

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Halfway	5	4	3	66	63
Baseman	5	5	0	63	52
Panties	4	0	0	26	16
Perjured*	4	4	2	71	59
Ageless*	4	6	2	57	75
Hitters*	4	7	1	50	73
Angels	3	2	1	35	31
Plasmatics*	3	4	1	39	49
Eagles*	3	5	0	45	43
Utica*	3	8	1	50	86
fried bread	2	0	0	12	9
REDS	2	5	1	35	54
Stars	2	8	0	48	67
Zonk	1	3	0	17	27
Squirrels	1	8	1	45	67
BYKGiambi	0	2	0	7	14
	46	71	13	666	785

*-Denotes teams that have played under more than one team name

Don't be deceived by Champs record. He is extremely competitive and when he can focus on baseball he can be very difficult to contend with. Hopefully 2009 will bring less challenges "off the field" and he can get more involved "on the field".

But wait.... if that happens then we may be looking at a repeat of 2004 or even better!

Randy

Spotlight on Tenn Hitters

The Spotlight series will take a look at the career of each active manager in the league.

Tenn Hitters (Tommy Coleman) aka M-Town Bats is a charter member and co-founder of Hardball Heaven. Along with Halfway Hardballers, he was determined to create a better kind of fantasy baseball league. Randy helped introduce Tommy to computers, Tommy in turn introduced Randy to fantasy sports and the 2 have played together ever since. Tommy plays all types of fantasy sports but none hold the place in his heart that this league does. He plays to win every week and works his lineups religiously.

Tommy resides in Portland, Tenn with his wife. He has enjoyed a very long career in retail management. He is a fan of the Atlanta Braves and his favorite player is Charlie Hustle himself, Pete Rose.

Tommy suits up every season prepared to take on all comers. Though he has had some disappointing seasons he remains relentless in his pursuit of a league crown. Here is a look at his career thus far.

Year	Playoff	Reg Sea	Wins	Loss	Tie	%	GB	Moves
2003	8	8	105	125	22	0.460	39.5	43
2004	6	5	127	115	22	0.523	24	21
2005	3	3	131	111	22	0.538	10	36
2006	8	11	102	140	22	0.428	44	27
2007	7	10	105	141	18	0.432	49.5	64
2008	12	9	116	130	18	0.473	33	58
			686	762	124	0.474

2005 was certainly the highpoint for Hitters, finishing 3rd in both the regular season and the playoffs. Contrary to his record, Hitters is always a team to be wary off when playing. As his name implies he always seems to come up with a good hitting squad. Sometimes it seems he is also the king of the bad break.

Looking at his H-2-H results it is clear that Tommy has a few nemesis that he is going to have to overcome. But then there are the teams that he seems to dominate as well.

W=Wins against listed team

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Perjured*	9	3	0	70	60
Champions	7	4	1	73	50
Eagles*	6	2	0	54	32
Ageless*	6	6	0	65	69
Utica*	5	5	2	65	66
Panties	4	0	0	32	11
Zonk	4	0	0	30	14
Halfway	4	6	2	55	77
Angels	2	3	1	28	34
Plasmatics*	2	6	0	32	59
REDS	2	6	0	32	59
Stars	2	7	1	49	66
Baseman	2	8	0	40	71
fried bread	1	1	0	12	12
Squirrles	1	8	1	39	70
BYKGiambi	0	2	0	10	12
	57	67	8	686	762

*-Denotes teams that have played under more than one team name.

Tommy will regroup, recharge and relentlessly strive to reverse the trend of the last few seasons. Losing does not sit well with him.

Will this finally be a year for a few breaks to finally go his way? If so we better all watch out!

Randy

The A-Rod Dilema

Talk about a quandry! Now A-Rod is out for 6-9 weeks with this hip surgery thing. That means about end of April up to mid-May. Plus, that doesn't even take into account not being in game condition. Does all that add up to a high first round pick? This reminds me of the dilema with Pujols only two years ago with his elbow supposedly having problems. Pujols went on to have his typical great season and play the whole year. But, I believe this is even a tougher decision than that. A-Rod will even have to have another surgery at the end of the season. What to do, What to do?? If A-Rod isn't worth a first round pick, then where does a team even take him. More than likely he won't be a bust when he comes back. This is A-Rod! Steroids or not, he is too talented not to produce. But, when other top notch talent is going precious pick by precious pick one team must ask himself, "Is now the time?" On the other hand someone could walk away with a big-time bargain and laugh all the way to the regular season title and quite possibly the league title! I know what I am going to do though about this delicate situation. Do any of you? give me your thoughts on the matter as this is a real fantasy SNAFU!

Spotlight on NY Uticans

The Spotlight series will take a look at the career of each active manager in the league.

NY Uticans (Kerm Yerman) aka: Proud Uticans, Utica Jumping Frogs, Utica Cellar Dwellers, and Utica Splinters.

Kerm is a charter member of Harball Heaven and is the elder statesman of the league. One of the most colorful charaters in the league, no doubt it would not be the same without him.

Kerm is a fantasy aficionado of all sports. He is retired and lives with his wife in Utica, New York. He has a son who is in the military and has served our country honorably in Iraq. His favorite team is the St. Louis Cardinals and his favorite all-time player is no less than the great Mickey Mantle.

Noted for his unorthodox managment style, Kerm quickly becomes the undisputed authority on the waiver wire each season. Kerm considers the wire his "bench" and utilizes it with reckless abandon averaging 138 roster changes per season. No one in the league puts more effort into developing a winning strategy thanKerm does.

At #4 on the all-time wins list, Kerm can claim a degree of success in his approach to the game. Below is a recap of his season results to date.

Year	Playoff	Reg Sea	Wins	Loss	Tie	%	GB	Moves
2003	12	10	107	131	14	0.452	41.5	126
2004	7	8	120	131	13	0.479	35.5	183
2005	11	11	117	130	17	0.475	26.5	46
2006	5	4	133	111	20	0.542	14	140
2007	6	6	124	117	23	0.513	28	171
2008	9	8	118	125	21	0.487	29.5	164
		6	719	745	108	0.491

Though yet to break into the top 3 in either the regular season or the playoffs, Kerm will declare that he was just "one or two key moves" from reaching the prize. Interestingly enough, and a testament to his competitive nature, Kerm is one of very few teams to be .500 or better in H-2-H play. No doubt Kerm shows up to "win" each week. Not just play. Below is a recap of his H-2-H results.

W=Wins against listed team

	W	L	T	PF	PA
Champions	8	3	1	86	50
Ageless*	7	5	0	63	72
REDS	6	2	0	52	38
Baseman	6	4	0	59	53
Eagles*	5	2	1	56	34
Stars	5	3	2	55	52
Hitters*	5	5	2	66	65
Perjured*	4	6	2	61	77
Halfway	4	6	2	53	68
Angels	3	3	0	29	38
Squirrels	3	7	0	51	62
Panties	2	2	0	20	27
Plasmatics*	2	5	1	34	49
Zonk	1	3	0	17	30
fried bread	0	1	1	11	13
BYKGiambi	0	2	0	6	17
	61	59	12	719	745

*Denotes teams that have played under more than one name.

Kerm's contributions to the league have been invaluable over the years. He has composed very interesting stats and reports concerning the league. He can always be counted on to offer thought provoking ideas and analysis. As stated before NO ONE does more in-season study on baseball than Kerm.

No doubt Kerm will again be one of the toughest weekly challenges for any team this season. He will once again try to fine tune his strategy in order to reach the ultimate goal.

Can he finally get that "key roster move" in place this season and reach the top? One thing is for sure. It will sure be fun watching him try.

Randy