NLD 32 - Let's Play Two

Good luck Joe!

Should be another great game!

Geoff

I would be happy to have the same pitching staff in any other 80m league. Good value for money all around, and I think I got maximum value in the end from Chapman.

The trouble I had was I drafted a Progressive team, and waited too long to select the park. Big mistake.

I'm pretty sure my team would have won between 85 - 95 games at Progressive.

Good luck playoff teams, and a special congrats to Joe, who was long overdue!

Thanks Big M! It sure felt like it was overdue to me! As for your team, yeah, your park wasn’t ideal, but it was your road record that killed you. 23 games under! Why didn’t you take Yankee or at least a park like Busch?

Joe, I think you may have covered this in one of your analyses recently, but I did a quick review of the Sim Fielding pages for each team. I thought that there was an amazingly strong correlation between the overall W-L record with the % of outs achieved on X chart readings. The only team that didn't seem to fit the correlation - to my quick visual review - was BigMahon. …It still intrigues me about the game of baseball, that we are all naturally drawn to the statistical performances of hitting and pitching, but the fielding can have such a surprisingly strong influence on the W-L columns!

I’m not so sure GB. We finished next to last in X% and you were next-to-last. At least the last time I took the stats. I don’t think there’s a “magic bullet” I think you can win with any type of team, but neglect some facet of the game too much at your own peril. The hard thing is what is “too much”?

And then there is the luck! After I posted that, I went back to my own fielding stats page, and noticed that Rajai Davis successfully got outs 15 out of 18 times!!!


Aybar might also have over-performed for me defensively, at SS.

Cano is lights out, of course, having allowed only 9 runners to reach base - 5 errors and presumably 4 X Chart ## readings or shifts from holding runners that resulted in singles.

It was definitely fun having both Cano and Posey in the same lineup. Their doubles were amazing, especially Posey. Posey was great at keeping runners right where they were, allowing only 29 SB vs 19 CS. In another bizarre twist of luck, Gimenez, the back-up, allowed only 1 SB but had 5 CS! How did that happen?

Yeah, that’s some luck, but it’s also a SSS. As for Aybar, yeah, probably should have had 3 more errors, but had exactly the right number of hits. Although, I suppose being “in” should have made for maybe one or two more hits.

As for Gimenez, well, he was helped by your staff which is almost all minus holds, but I’d have to say you got pretty lucky in a SSS.

Playoffs start tonight. Hoping to do well at home!

Just for some interesting discussion, I made up this chart to explain what I was trying to say before about the idea of a correlation between fielding success and overall success. Here is a badly formatted chart:

Name chances outs Percent field rank standings corr
bigmahon 840 717 85.4% 1 11 -10
Nythawk 825 687 83.3% 2 4 -2
BigAlric 854 699 81.9% 3 2 1
gbrookes 820 653 79.6% 4 3 1
Stoney18 852 666 78.2% 5 12 -7
Corky 822 642 78.1% 6 7 -1
Jeepdriver 822 641 78.0% 7 7 0
Keyzick 806 622 77.2% 8 5 3
ArrylT 835 637 76.3% 9 7 2
Semper Gumby 866 641 74.0% 10 10 0
joethejet 816 599 73.4% 11 1 10
durantjerry 809 569 70.3% 12 9 3

The last data field is a crude correlation between standings and fielding ranking (based only on X chart results). Low numbers in this field indicate a good correlation, while high numbers (positive or negative, either way) indicate a low correlation.

The outliers, with a poor correlation, are bigmahon (minus 10), Stoney18 (minus 7), and yourself Joe (plus 10).

The other 9 teams show a good correlation between a high degree of success on X chart results and overall standings (all others are between 3 and minus 3). In fact, for 6 of the 12 teams, the difference between Xchart standings and overall standings was 2 or less (whether positive or negative).

In other words, half of the teams finished in the standings within 2 places of their X chart results standings. 75% of the teams finished within 3 places of their X chart results standings.

I thought this was really interesting. Makes me wonder if fielding is perhaps undervalued in pricing players.

Good luck Joe!

Should be another great game!

Geoff

Thanks GB, we're going to need it!

As for fielding, how you *actually* field may or may not have a correlation to what you *should* field. This may be more an indication of luck than skill.

As you said, the correlations are rough. For example, #5-9 on your chart are only 1% apart, something that could change very quickly. In addition, three teams had identical records and can you really say a team with one more win is *that* much better than the next one?

Interesting, but I think it would take more analysis to really see if there's a correlation or not.

Good luck Joe!

Should be another great game!

Geoff

Thanks GB, we're going to need it!

As for fielding, how you *actually* field may or may not have a correlation to what you *should* field. This may be more an indication of luck than skill.

As you said, the correlations are rough. For example, #5-9 on your chart are only 1% apart, something that could change very quickly. In addition, three teams had identical records and can you really say a team with one more win is *that* much better than the next one?

Interesting, but I think it would take more analysis to really see if there's a correlation or not.

Re the correlation, I agree that more review and data is needed.

Looking forward to "watching" the game tonight! See you at the park!

Good luck Joe!

Should be another great game!

Geoff

Thanks GB, we're going to need it!

As for fielding, how you *actually* field may or may not have a correlation to what you *should* field. This may be more an indication of luck than skill.

As you said, the correlations are rough. For example, #5-9 on your chart are only 1% apart, something that could change very quickly. In addition, three teams had identical records and can you really say a team with one more win is *that* much better than the next one?

Interesting, but I think it would take more analysis to really see if there's a correlation or not.

Re the correlation, I agree that more review and data is needed.

Looking forward to "watching" the game tonight! See you at the park!

I have a feeling you're a bit more excited than I am. *You* have a margin for error, we have none!

Come on Boys!

Congrats GB, you've done something never done before. Winning your first two NLDs. We fell a run short of forcing a game 7 (well, at least extra innings)

GB's other wins didn't turn much on splits, but this one surely did.

Posey 1-11 HR.
Cano 1-10 HR
Greinke 1-8 WP that cost us a run.
Mauer thrown out the plate 1-13 that would have tied the game.
We had 11 LOB (to be fair, he had 10)

Now, not that those were total major breaks by themselves, but in combination tough to overcome. Such is SOM.

Just couldn't hold his offense down enough during the series. He got hot at the plate at the right time. In the regular season he hit 169 HRs, he was on pace for 265; he scored 5.1 runs/game instead of 4.4 and it's not like he faced poor pitching staffs.

Such is the stuff playoffs are made. Had we won, it would have likely been a similar story.

Again, congrats to GB. Who's ready for NLD33????

Congrats GB, you've done something never done before. Winning your first two NLDs. We fell a run short of forcing a game 7 (well, at least extra innings)

GB's other wins didn't turn much on splits, but this one surely did.

Posey 1-11 HR.
Cano 1-10 HR
Greinke 1-8 WP that cost us a run.
Mauer thrown out the plate 1-13 that would have tied the game.
We had 11 LOB (to be fair, he had 10)

Now, not that those were total major breaks by themselves, but in combination tough to overcome. Such is SOM.

Just couldn't hold his offense down enough during the series. He got hot at the plate at the right time. In the regular season he hit 169 HRs, he was on pace for 265; he scored 5.1 runs/game instead of 4.4 and it's not like he faced poor pitching staffs.

Such is the stuff playoffs are made. Had we won, it would have likely been a similar story.

Again, congrats to GB. Who's ready for NLD33????

Thanks Joe! Congrats to the great seasons for Joe, BigAlric and nythawk!

My longtime Strat playing partner, my brother, was in town on the weekend. He could tell you about my luck! Cano was incredibly hot in the playoffs, and in the final game. Great season by Cano!

I feel like the guy who's won a few hands of poker. I'll keep playing!

Congrats Geoff! Very impressive!

Let's get the next one started then. I am heading to Malaysia later this week, so will be 12 hours ahead of EST starting on Saturday. Just so you're all aware.

I'm going to re-post Joe's expression of interest post, and ask that you each also vote for either 60m or 100m for the cap.

Cheers,
big

Hey guys, please check in for NLD33, indicating your preference for 60m or 100m.

Stoney - IN
Big M - IN - 100m
Semper
DJ
Jeep
Corky
AT
Keyzick
Hawk,
GB - IN
Big A - IN
JTJ - IN

I'll defer the $60M vs $100M question to the vets in this league. Abstain unless my vote is required for a tie-breaker.