Lessons Learned?

Well, the big ol' 2-1 split this week (2-1 ATS for the season), but we learned something from every game, didn't we kids?

-Utah/USU: A lot of points is a lot of points, especially in a grudge match game. Note to self: if you don't have a strong analytical edge, stay away from big numbers. This is kind of like falling down the bar-whore ladder at closing time - in the absence of something compelling, just get the fuck out.

-USC/NCSU: This one was pegged pretty well by the major tout guys, actually, and everything that needed to happen (low-scoring game; correlative factors) did. I'm not sure we had much edge here, but following well-reasoned advice in a game without much in the way of contradicting factors is always a smart policy.

-Oregon/Boise State: I think I nailed this game basically exactly, at least as far as what I needed to do to get to the highest-percentage place for a pool. Oregon's rushing attack indeed could not take advantage of Boise's several mistakes, and a sloppy game indeed went to the superlative home field advantage. Sometimes, Occam's Razor is the way to play, especially as evidence mounts to support it (and sample sizes get larger). This could also be construed as "when it's obvious, don't do anything stupid" and/or "don't buy into major-conference preseason hype when contradicting factors emerge, you believe-everything-you-read ninny." Point taken.

Next up: weighing factor-based computer rankings while teams get connected through early play, plus the Week 1 NFL lines. Holy shit, what a week.

It's that time again . . .

Football season begins, which means drinking myself into oblivion with 80,000 of my closest friends every weekend. The season is a total grind - you're worn out by the time November gets around, or at least you are if you're like me (NOTE: don't be like me). This year, I'm in a bunch of confidence-type pools, so I figured I'd outline my process here, for posterity if nothing else (and so I can figure out what the fuck went wrong when I get plowed under). I generally cash in these, although I win pretty infrequently - that makes me think three things:

1 - FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

2 - It seems pretty likely I get a good handle on the "easy" games every week, but miss (at least in the sense that I don't break away from the pack) on the go-either-way types.

3 - I'm a fucking retard who talks himself into long shots for ridiculous reasons at least once a week.

I'll start with the Thursday college games, just to get warmed up (there's no action this week in any of my pools, because the NFL hasn't started and/or the dudes running it are lazy, lazy men).

Utah St @ Utah (-21)

According to Sagarin, Utah should be a 30+ point favorite on a neutral site. USU is just awful, and Utah doesn't have any sort of reputation for starting slowly. Unless Utah slams on the breaks (or inclement weather, but it's 90 and 10% chance of rain), I'm OK with going there, even acknowledging that USU was better than their record last year, and Utah will be markedly worse. Utah

South Carolina @ NC State (-5)

Bizarre game here, and tough to get a handle on because of USC's carousel of QBs last season and NC State being, well, average. I think USC is exploitable on offense (TAKE THAT, SPURRIOR HAIR CUT!) but I can't see NCSU really dominating on the offensive side of the ball either. Both Dr. Bob and Sagarin aren't big on the -5, so I'll sit on USC and hope Stephen Garcia can complete better than 53% of his frigging passes.

Note that in a "pick-the-winner (no line)" pool, I'd likely ride NCSU here - the five points are that important. I'm in both types, so I'll probably list the results independently.

Oregon @ Boise St. (-3.5)

This game is unreal, really - it looks like the line is basically perfect. Vegas, you win again (note that it opened at 5.5 - Vegas, you're full of fucking tards, but at least the market can bail you out). Oregon has only a handful of starters returning, while Boise lost its front 7 and skill-position guys. BSU's RBs are very solid, though - possibly better than the departing Ian Johnson on a per-carry/success basis. None have proposed after a Statue of Liberty, though, so I don't know any of their names off-hand - they're numbers in a douchey spreadsheet, and will stay that way until and if they rape/rob/fail their way out of school (clearly I'm an Iowa fan).

Here's the thing - BSU is probably a .5-point favorite on neutral turf. Add 3 and get the line, right? Wrong, fuck face - Boise's something like a 5.5-point favorite at home, according to Massey (not Mark - although that would be AWESOME) and just never loses there. Oregon's not a fantastic road team, although they're very good early. I wouldn't bet this game if you gave me the money (NOTE: that's a lie), but if a pool forced me to, I'd take Boise and pray the entirely-new Oregon line can't take advantage of the mostly-new Boise front 7, because Oregon's advantage should come on the ground, at least in theory. I hate this fucking game.

Oh. My. Science.

So there's been a lot going on, and a lot of catching up to do . . .

Manny. Fuck.

Just in case you're the last apologist on the planet, now it's pretty safe to assume that anybody on Earth who had a.) money and b.) any common sense is, has or tried to beat the MLB drug testing policy. That's just how it was - it happened. To be honest, I would have done it too - both for the drive to become the best, and because HOLY SHIT TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS. That doesn't mean it's right, and there is absolutely no way to endorse its effects on children (which is really the true downside to athletes using), but there it is.

There are SO MANY great things about the Manny story, though. First, his excuse is, essentially, a "piss-the-bed" excuse - it requires about the same level of self-delusion as the time you woke up after a night of drinking and thought, "hey, I really sweated a lot last night - it is kind of hot out here, after all, and I'm nearly certain the sweat isn't localized in the crotch region either *whistles*" . . . and I assume everyone's been there. Oh, you haven't? Awkward. Manny's supposed infertility is awesome - dude's not even 40, and already has a kid. Good work, Boras - apparently your deal with Satan does not include believable lies.

Luckily, it appears that NO ONE CARES! Seriously - it was a two-day story and now . . . gone. Does this mean we're finally getting over the media-fueled hysteria and can start to focus on real issues (like, oh, teaching kids the dangers of steroids, or teaching players how to do them more safely so they don't die at age 44)? Probably not - it's likely apathy. What a world.

The most interesting part though? If reports that the MLB investigation was triggered by elevated synthetic testosterone levels are accurate, then holy shit . . . that means whatever steroid Manny is using is NOT CURRENTLY DETECTABLE BY MLB. All he had to do was keep that 4:1 ratio, and no one would have ever found out. We always suspected that, much like the Acme Anvil Company versus the Road Runner, rogue chemists were multiple steps ahead of testing. This is literal proof - this is the puff of smoke the Road Runner left behind, or the sour taste in your mouth left after a continuation of that hack analogy. Apparently, still - no one cares.

A-Rod. Fuck You.


Selena Roberts still, well, sucks - seriously, her righteous indignation over the "culture of masculine impropriety-slash-rich people are awesome-tude" during the Duke Lacrosse Shitshow makes Louis Farrakhan look like MLK (note: that comparison brought to you by the Rooney Rule). However, the A-Rod book (awesomely titled "A-Rod" - no shit!) is simply brilliant. If we ignore, well, any semblance of journalistic integrity, and simply take all this shit at face value, we learn:

-A-Rod had a clubhouse attendant put toothpaste on his toothbrush after every game. This is not only epic douchebaggery (not even the richest, most entitled fuck on Wall Street really thinks he's above toothpasting), it's also just amazing. Like, the first thing you're thinking after a game, at 11pm or whatever, is "boy, I really want to brush my teeth, but I'd like that to be facilitated for me so it is just a little bit less demanding of me and my time"? Shouldn't a wealthy pro athlete think "boy, I should send that clubbie out for hobags" instead?

-His pickup line was something along the lines of "who's hotter, me or Jeter?" Durrr, he fucked Mariah Carey and Jessica Biel while you traipsed around with manly Canadian strippers, you dense fuck. Boy, I wonder - who could it possibly be?

-Seriously, it just keeps going from there . . . Bitch Tits? Awesome.

Coming attractions . . .

My life has been hysterical lately, so I have great posts on the way (look for the Manny analysis tomorrow) . . . however, to start: CBS's "The Unit" is a startlingly good TV series. It's actually better than 24 at this point, with the same need to set reality aside but with a much more appropriate use of tension, character development and audience interaction. Considering where it started (and how much I hate network TV), it felt like a good "props" section. I mean, whatever.

RIP Mark Fidrych

The Red Sox AA affiliate played in my hometown (Bristol, CT) for a few years in the early 80s before moving to New Britain, and a bunch of prominent future Red Sox (Wade Boggs, Oil Can Boyd, Marty Barrett, Bob Stanley, etc.) played for the team for at least a short time. When I was a kid, they used to put on a charity softball game in town where former major leaguers would play personalities from ESPN (since it was in town) and other media outlets. The field where the game was held, and where I would later play high school ball, was this neat old field built near the beginning of the century. As a result, you were fairly close to the field and got to talk to all the players.

One year, when I was about 10 or 11, a family friend was asked to be the honorary third base coach. Knowing that I was a big baseball fan, he worked it out so that we could walk on the field before the game, watch the guys getting ready, and meet a bunch of the players. It was great; some of the players (Luis Tiant, Ozzie Virgil and Bob Stanley) were incredibly nice, and some others (Jim Rice and Bill Buckner) were rude or dismissive.

One person who stuck out especially though was Mark Fidrych. He stopped warming up and talked to my mom and I for about 10 minutes. He was impressed that I knew so much about his career (I was a bit of a baseball nerd even at that age), and he talked about being in the majors, making the All-Star team, and how lucky he was to be a major leaguer for even a short time. For a kid like me, getting to talk with a former big leaguer was a dream, and I was walking on air the rest of the day.

In talking to sportswriters and other people inside baseball in the years following that encounter, I found out that it really wasn't out of the ordinary. Fidrych was an incredibly kind person, and someone who realized how lucky he was to play in the majors.

So it was that I was sad to hear that Mark passed away yesterday after an apparent accident at his farm. It's a tragic loss, as he leaves behind a wife and a daughter. It's also tragic because the world lost a kind person far too soon.

Anatomy of a Drinking Draft

So on Saturday, we had our 10-man live draft with my good buddies from home. It's a 5-player keeper league, where each keeper replaces a pick in rounds 1 through 5 - it's normal 5x5 but with OBP instead of BA (because we're progressive like that). Last season, I went into freefall late in the year as my pitching staff became decimated and injuries to key players (hi Ian Kinsler!) took their toll on my non-core stats.

An interesting thing happened - Lance Berkman didn't play a single game in the OF last season, forcing me into a situation where I had Berkman, Fielder and Howard all competing for 2 spots (1B and UTIL). Normally I would be apoplectic about being locked into my UTIL slot so early, but I genuinely feel all three are top-20 talents. In an effort to get younger, I made a trade, sending Howard (less valuable than usual in this league because it ends earlier and usually Howard's end-of-season tear coincides with his team sitting at home watching the playoffs) for BJ Upton (giving me much-needed youth and athleticism, insanely important in a keeper league). This made my five keepers David Wright, Lance Berkman, Ian Kinsler, Prince Fielder and BJ Upton - a very good collection of talent (all rated inside the top 35, with four potential top-20 guys) but not even close to the best in the league at this point, so I'd have to make up some ground in the draft:

Rim Job Larry
Berkman Lance 1B K
Fielder Prince 1B K
Wright David 3B K
Kinsler Ian 2B K
Upton B.J. OF K
McCann Brian C 6
Young Chris OF 7
Dunn Adam OF 8
Vazquez Javier P 9
Lowe Derek P 10
Myers Brett P 11
Tulowitzki Troy SS 12
Santana Ervin P 13
Fuentes Brian P 14
Danks John P 15
Street Huston P 16
Carpent Chris P 17
Drew J.D. OF 18
Duchscherer Justin P 19
Johnson Kelly 2B 20
Dukes Elijah OF 21

I selected 4th, and Dan Haren and Jake Peavy were off the board before it got to me. At this point, I made a snap decision - with basically every top-tier starter off the board, I would try to use a modified version of the old auction-draft move of piling 80% of your resources into position players, then filling your staff with high-K/low-WHIP guys, often using multiple relievers, even middle relievers. With our league having 3 SP slots and no mid-week changes, I wouldn't necessarily be able to run it to its fullest effect - I'd still need something for wins, and with a 10-team league, Ks from starters are still huge since the pool is deep.

Either way, I took the plunge, picking for value at 54 with the best catcher available (since I figured ESPN's hype would make Weiters/Ianetta/etc. overhyped; I was wrong) and possibly the best player available. I then capitalized on undervalued resources to fill my OF slots (OF is startlingly shallow this year, even in 10-team leagues) with Young and Dunn, who I likely should have selected in the reverse order, but since it was on the wheel no one cares.

Now that I had my position players solidly filled (and with what might be the best position-player lineup I've ever had in fantasy baseball), I started on the pitching. Vasquez is an obvious choice, in hopes that moving to the easier league and out of US Cellular knocks down the gopher balls while increasing K:BB ratio slightly, although he's still been valuable for years, while Myers fits exactly the role we're looking for while giving a good shot at Ws on a solid second-place team. Lowe goes exactly against the grain of the high-K lineup, but the value was way too solid at that position, and his WHIP plus ERA should still help. Tulo was the only non-garbage SS left (and was likely a steal), Drew shouldn't go that low even with his injury history, while Carpenter would have never made it back to me and thus forced my hand. I grabbed Dukes on a flier, knowing that I could DL Upton and add Jason Motte to get another reliever into the starting lineup.

Overall, I'm pretty damn happy with the draft - it's yet another all-offense/questionable-pitching RC team, but that's been my MO for years, and I'll just have to run waiver-wire games to keep the staff solid (or ditch SP for the Royce Rings of 2009; which I'm fine with).