Playoff predictions 08

I’m working on a formula for this but I don’t have one yet so I’m just going to look at the numbers and take a guess. Lets start with tonight’s Twins vs. White Sox game.

Playoff Game

Twins vs. White Sox This is one game so it is even more of a crapshoot than usual but the White Sox are the better team so I am going to stick with them. Plus Nick Blackburn kind of sucks. 

ALDS

White Sox @ Rays I’m going to have to go with the Rays here. They are clearly the better team (Baseball Prospectus has them at 10 more adjusted wins) and they are the more rested team. If the White Sox get into this game they will have won 3 straight games against 3 different teams, they will be tired and might let up a bit. If they were a lot better than the Rays I might consider giving them the nod but it’s the other way around. I think the Rays have a shot to sweep, but the Sox might be able to drag it out a few games so I’ll take them in 4.

Red Sox @ Angels This might look like a hard game to pick but it really isn’t. The Angels might be on fire, but they really aren’t nearly as good as everyone thinks. They are inpatient, they run way to much, they have no concept of sabermetrics, and they just get way to lucky sometimes. Baseball Prospectus has them adjusted to 84 wins, with the Red Sox all the way up at 102. The Red Sox have a much better team with sabermetrics gods like Kevin Youkillis and Dustin Pedroia. I’m picking them in 3 games. This will not be close. 

NLDS

Brewers @ Phillies This is really difficult to pick. Both teams are very close in expected records, they have virtually identical wOBA’s, and the while the Brewers have a much better rotation the Phillies have a much better bullpen. In the end all these factors even out, and even though the Phillies are the hottest team in baseball, I can’t see anyone getting to Sheets or Sabathia. I’m going Brewers in 5. 

Dodgers @ Cubs The Cubs are the best team in the NL and even though the Dodgers are good, they just can’t mach Chicago’s rotation or offense. Chicago in 3 or 4. 

CS 

Red Sox @ Rays This is another really, really difficult game to pick. I will be rooting for the Rays, and I do think they have a shot, but in the end, realistically, the Red Sox are better the better team. Sox in 6. 

Phillies @ Cubs This is almost a no-brainer. The Cubs are much better and their home field advantage will really help. The Cubs are going to get to there first world series since the 40’s, I’m going Cubs in 5. 

World Series 

Cubs @ Red Sox I don’t know what to say about this series. We though we would se this in 2003, we didn’t. The Cubs haven’t won in 100 years, while the Red Sox have won twice in the last 4. Although the Red Sox have 8 more adjusted wins, looking at some other stats makes this really close. The Cubs have a substantial tRA advantage in their rotation, although some of that is because they are in the NFC. The bullpen’s are about the same and the Red Sox have a better offense. This could be a great series, but I think I’m going with the Cubs in 7. This could change by the world series though.   

My Award Winners of 2008

AL

MVP: Kevin Youkilis- He is having a great year. He has a very good batting average and his 7th in the league in Woba. He has put up very good numbers all across the board and has been the best player for the Red Sox this year. His OBP is nearing 400 and he has put up a good SLG percentage. He also has the a great OPS which I value very much.

Cy Young: Cliff Lee- Frankly he has been dominant this year. He has the best record in the league and the best ERA. He had great control throughout the whole year. The guy went from competing for the 5th spot in the rotation to the best pitcher in the AL this year.

Rookie of the Year: Evan Longoria- He has had a great year. He led all rookies in home runs. While he may not have a great OBP he has a very good OPS and SLG percentage. There really was no other choice for ROTY.

NL

MVP: Albert Pujols- Really don’t need an explanation. Most feared hitter in baseball and dominated opposing pitching.

Cy Young: Tim Lincecum- He was stellar this year. He had by far the most strikeouts in the NL and had the best win-loss record in the NL. Tim and Webb were very close in my opinion and Webb kind of sucked the last month while Tim kept it up earning the award.

Rookie of the Year: Geovany Soto- Soto put up very good power numbers this year. He had a decent OBP and decent SLG. He had a pretty good OPS. He also handled that great pitching staff of the cubs pretty well so he gets my award.

End of season awards….

I have to do this, and I have to beat ESPN, so here goes….

AL

MVP - Alex Rodriguez - Alex Rodriguez was the best hitter in the American League this year. It’s just that simple. Rodriguez lead the league in OPS among batters with at least 500 plate appearances, and one of the top wOBA in the league. You could definitely throw Joe Mauer and Carlos Quentin in here, especially if you want to give it to a playoff team, but in the end I’ll give it to Arod. 

Cy Young - Cliff Lee - I’m not looking at wins or era so how does this guy win? Easy. He has great control, can get the strikeouts, and keeps the ball in the park. Add that all together and he leads Major League Baseball in tRA.

ROTY - Evan Longoria - He may be a little overrated, actually he is, but he lead AL rookies in HR, OBP, and OPS so he’s an easy pick for this award.

Reliever of the year - Mariano Rivera - Saves are a stupid category, the bottom line is that Rivera dominated like few pitchers have and is the best reliever in the league. Krod is very overrated. 

NL 

MVP - Albert Pujols - I don’t have to qualify this. Pujols. Is. God. 

Cy Young - Tim Lincecum - This might be surprising, as I had Brandon Webb winning this a month ago. However over the last month, Lincecum has dominated while Webb has fallen apart. This lead to Lincecum’s tRA ending up better than Webb and his strikeout lead getting even more insane. 

ROTY - Jay Bruce - Like Longoria, Bruce is an easy pick here and the guy we expected to win at the start of the year. Lead NL rookies in HR and finished second in SLG and OPS. 

Reliever of the year - Brad Lidge - Like Rivera, he didn’t lead his league in saves but he was just the best pitcher to close out games this season. He is the NL reliever of the year.

Congrats to Mike Mussina!

Let me first start out with this: I do not put any stock in wins. No one who uses sabermetrics does. They just don’t mean anything. But guess what, the hall of fame voters do.

Mike Mussina is obviously a hall of fame caliber pitcher. With a better K/BB rate than Greg Maddux and the most underrated prime of any pitcher in recent memory, it is easy to see he dominated for a very, very long time. In fact, he is still a serviceable major league starter (although regardless of the wins, this is far from his best season).

The problem has always been that the voters like pitchers who win games. Mussina played on a few crappy teams in Baltimore, and just got a little unlucky, so he hasn’t won as many games as the other great pitchers of the 90’s. Mussina also never won 20 games, the arbitrary number the voters love so much. The 300 win argument is still there, although hopefully people get over it. The 20 win argument however is gone, and even better he has done it in his late 30’s. Lets hope the voters finally come to their senses, Mike Mussina needs to be in.

Rivera considering shoulder surgery, should be ok for 09

Yankees closer Mariano Rivera is considering shoulder surgery on what is describe as a “minor injury” by Yankees manager Joe Girardi. Although this may seem like a problem for Rivera owners who are looking to keep him (like me) it really isn’t. Rivera is old, but he also has an extremely consistant track record of staying healthy and making a late season DL stint. If you have him on your team and you need a few saves the last week you might be in trouble, but if you are in a race this late its a crap shoot anyway. A final decision should come on Monday.

Why I hate giving out end of season awards, and how they can be helpful.

Sports broadcaster, journalists, and fans like to give out end of season awards. They like to figure out who was the best at every little thing. Sometimes these awards can be good. For example a major league GM sitting to create a big board of free agents could make his job a lot easier. However, at least when it comes to fantasy baseball it is amazingly frustrating. 

Fantasy baseball measures players using very subjective, and often times moronic metrics like “RBI” and “WINS.” Everyone with an IQ over 40 (I’m just sort of estimating where Joe Morgan is) knows that Josh Hamilton is not a top 5 or 10 hitter and not one of the top 3 outfielders in baseball. But because he was lucky enough to collect a ton of RBI’s in a stacked lineup he produced a lot of fantasy value. Any measurement of how valuable a player has been in 2008 must include Hamilton high on their list, even if it is almost certain that he will regress significantly in 2009. This is not informative, it just confuses people. 

There are two kinds of rankings you can produce for fantasy baseball at the end of a season: 

1. Rankings based on how much a player helped a fantasy team at the end of the season. These really don’t tell you anything because of the unpredictable nature of baseball. If someone has a very fluky season, he might produce like a top 10 player even though his base statistics show he wasn’t any better than before. I don’t put any value into these.

2. Rankings based on how much value a player would have produced at the end of the season if he played in a perfect world where there was no such thing as luck and only skill mattered. Because this shows you how skilled a player was in a given year, these are the kind of measures I like to look at towards the end of the season. I will probably hand out awards, and I will do them in this format. So don’t expect to see Josh Hamilton or Francisco Rodriguez on this list.

Some lists that I don’t like because they are based on team and luck dependent stats. They do however capture how much raw value these guys had this year. 

http://mvn.com/outsider/2008/09/18/fantasy-baseball-standouts-the-players-you-wish-youd-drafted/

http://www.bradenton.com/sports/story/898723.html

Yankee Stadium’s final game

This isn’t fantasy baseball related, however it is definitly a huge topic right now in baseball. Last night the New York Yankees played their final home game of the 2008 regular season (ok, fine, 2008 season) in the final season at the house that Ruth built, and the last (Major League Baseball) game ever to be played at Yankee Stadium. As a Yankees fan I am sad to see the old stadium go, however I look foward to the new stadium openning next season and hopefully the Yankees winning a few more games with it.

Complaining about someone elses rankings

Bedard opts for surgery, what is his value in 2009?

Fantasy Bullpen mailbag!

Mail time!

Although we have always encouraged questions and comments to be emailed to us we have been writing about what we want to write about. That doesn’t help our readers as much as it could. So starting this week we will be running weekly mailbags, answering questions and covering topics Fantasy Bullpen reader’s want covered. To submit questions, you can email mailbag@fantasybullpen.com. We will also be looking through industry forums trying to answer people questions and improve our readership.

(Above image: Warm ‘N Fuzzy, Flickr)

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