Showing posts with label By Grashow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label By Grashow. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Keeper Numberology

All of these preview posts (and the impending draft) got me thinking about keepers, so I went back to 2007 and calculated the point totals for last season's keepers:




For those of you who aren't into statistics, the +- entries are the standard deviations. A large standard deviation indicates a lot of variability in the scores. For instance, in the case of BDJ, the score of Chris Carpenter (5) is very different from the average score (506), resulting in the large standard deviation (281). Small standard deviations, like that for MHI (27) indicate that all of the players scores are pretty close to the team average.

The first thing that jumped out at me was that the keepers taken in the first round averaged a score of only 491, by far the lowest of any keeper round. I attributed this to savvy KFS players trying to sabotage the Yahoo! Average Draft Position (ADP) rankings in combination with Chris Carpenters elbow. The overall average score for all keepers was 546 points, which was significantly lower than I would have guessed. Of course, after the scores of 2007 Worst Keeper candidates Chris Carpenter and BJ Ryan were removed, the average scores increased to a more respectable 574. These two ultimate keeper busts were both pitchers, but out of the other pitchers kept (Johan Santana(625), Jake Peavy(717), Brandon Webb(627), and Joe Nathan(548)) only Nathan didn't significantly outpace the average keeper score of 546 (or even the average with outliers removed, 574). I took this to indicate that keeping pitchers tends to be a high risk/high reward proposition.

As we should have expected, the highest team average keeper score went to Woosta (655), but Speedway wasn't too far behind 628). Interestingly, 2007 champions, CTA, were in the lower half of the list (5th place, 558 average), suggesting that the draft, a lucky schedule, and a hot streak around playoff time can more than make up for poor keeper performance. The relatively poor average keeper scores for the other 3 basement dwellers (BDJ, MST, and NHT) can be linked to injuries and/or lack of power hitters. I guess the old saying: "Chicks and KFS dig the longball," seems to hold true.









Tuesday, March 18, 2008

2008 Draft Preview: Speedway Starwipes

The following entry was submitted by Grashow.



Announced Keepers

Chase Utley, Miguel Cabrera, Troy Tulowitzki, Ryan Braun, Matt Holiday

Off-Season

If the list of keepers for the fast-roading celestial towelettes that call themselves the Speedway Starwipes does not send a shiver up your spine, then you need stop reading this right now and go take a look at just about any list of top fantasy baseball players available on the Internet or in any magazine. The only thing that could make this lineup any more fearsome would be to replace only semi-awesome shortstop Troy Tulowhatshisname with one of MLB’s top sluggers. Of course this “top slugger” would have to be someone who consistently finishes at the top of the league in points and is in the prime of his career. Possibly someone who plays at a position that allows him to focus on offense (like first base), possibly playing for a team that he rooted for growing up, possibly in a contract year, possibly with a name that throws opposing pitchers off with complicated sequences of vowels every time they look at his uniform… but where would you find a player like that?

Well, anyway, as if their fearsome five-some wasn’t enough to set them up for the season to come, Speedway also wriggled through the rule book to make a trade that landed them an extra 13th round pick in exchange for their funny name pick (karma be damned!). This team is looking so good that one can’t help but wonder when GM Friedman will feel the need to step in and trade away some of this top talent for some “high upside” replacements.

Draft Outlook

With a rock solid offense virtually assured by their keeper picks, the Starwipes may be in the market for some pitching by the time the 6th round rolls along. Will they be able to avoid the longing looks coming from the puppy-dog eyes of recently discarded All-Star pitcher Jake Peavy long enough to pull the trigger on someone else? My guess is no.
SIXTH ROUND PICK (6): Jake “the K-Snake” Peavy