THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Question for your Fantasyers

How many hitters and pitchers are drafted in a typical league (AL, NL, and/or mixed)?

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Judges for Fantasy Sports

How interesting.  I used to run my leagues in hockey and baseball when I was a kid.  The idea that I would cede authority to someone else never entered my mind.  I was one of those guys that everyone involved would automatically trust, even with a conflict of interest.  That’s the whole idea of having a commissioner you can trust.  If you have to go to another body to make a decision, it seems to me that this league is not worth being in. 

I was in a football league (once) when I was a kid where I was not the commish.  And, wouldn’t you know it, it came down to the last week, and I ended up in 2nd place by 1 point, under highly dubious claims.  (The winner was a friend of the commish, and changed his picks after his picks were transmitted to me.) I never went back into that league, as the commish was simply untrustworthy.  Everyone that I was friends with did not resignup the year after.

My rules for trading was pretty basic: if I didn’t approve a trade, all you needed to do was get a third party to approve a trade (that third party was not allowed to have made a trade with you within the previous month and not allowed to trade with you for one month).  I approved 99% of all trades, and only once I didn’t go for it.  But, that guy got someone else to signoff on it.  So, we were all happy with the process.

When it stops being fun, that’s when you get out…

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Baseball Simulation Games

Someone asked me, and I don’t know.  I haven’t played those games since I was a teenager.  I know I used to like Strat-O-Matic, Replay Baseball was ok, Extra Innings was great for its simplicity, and APBA I wasn’t too keen on.  I also played Sports Action CFL, which was probably the best sports board game I ever played.  There was also the simple Lombardi board game that was very simple and complex at the same time (no real players, IIRC).  The hockey board games (Sports Action, and Strat-O-Matic, were not good).

Anyway, you Gamers can use this thread to post your reviews, advertise your game, or whatever.  If you want to make a good review, tell us what kind of fan WOULD like the game, rather than you telling us whether it’s a good game or not.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The injury experts

Here they are.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Fantasy Dollars, 2008

A little late, but here they are anyway.  (Gimme a sec, and I’ll put them in the first post.)

Monday, February 25, 2008

Yahoo Fantasy Linear Weights League

Somebody asked me what weights to use.  Let me give this a first go.  I spent about 20 minutes on this, so we can discuss this, and we can further tweak it:

Read More

Thursday, May 03, 2007

OOTP Computer Baseball Game

The developer of this game, Marc Duffy, implemented some of my research in his game.  He also offered me the game for free, if I could offer a review.I’m not a gamer, and once I installed it, I was immediately overwhelmed, and I knew I had a choice: game or my kid.  However, I asked if one of you guys can put the game through its paces, and you would prepare a review on my blog, completely at your discretion.

So, if you’re really interested and prepared to devote the time, just shoot me an email.  Also let me know which other games you’ve played.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Out of the Park 2007

OOTP 2007 is a baseball computer game.  A few weeks ago, I was offered access to a pre-release version.  At the risk of sounding like a classic Phil Hartman (RIP) character, I’m just a simple guy, and the enormous number of parameters under my control scared and confused me.  But, for serious gamers, the game’s got tons of fans.  But, that’s not why I’m here.  Apparently, something I did made it into the game:
http://www.ootpbaseball.net/clubhouse.php?view=news&gid=26&id=1304

Previous versions of the game, however, had every skill rising and falling in a standard umbrella pattern. OOTPv2007 is different. For the first time, it is modeling each skill as a separate component.  Quite honestly, one of the biggest challenges that I looked at when I began testing player aging was to determine what baseline to use to assess quality. In the end I focused on work published by TangoTiger.

I’ve been meaning to update those charts that he references.  Hopefully I can get to that at some point soon.  Also, if anyone wants to make use of my Win Expectancy (WE) and Leverage Index (LI), as Fangraphs is using them, just ask.  I grant a free licence, as long as you don’t charge your readers/customers (extra) for them.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Fantasy Baseball Dollar Values

Here they are:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/the_worth_of_sb_hr_and_all_other_categories_in_fantasy_baseball/#60

(Comments can be added on that thread.)

Friday, February 09, 2007

The worth of SB, HR, and all other categories, in Fantasy Baseball

This is how I would value my players for a Fantasy team.  I’ll lay out the basic framework, then you can adjust it for your particular rules.

Read More