A Few Things That Pleased Me This Morning

My niece woke me up at 7am this morning by screaming into my ear. She's visiting us up in Cambridge, Massachusetts from North Carolina. I'd been unable to get any work done on Friday due to entertaining her so I stayed up all night doing the little things I do to make this site a success. You may have noticed I did not post anything but I still worked on the site quite a bit. I encouraged her as nicely as I could to go play somewhere else. An hour later she did it again. So let's just say I did not begin the day in the greatest of moods. I was in the middle of a profile on Marlins prospect Michael Stanton, but I'm putting that off for now. Instead I'm going to share a few stories I found this morning that helped to calm me down and even put a smile on my face.

1. I stumbled across a story written by Black Jack McDowell, one of my favorite players. He notes that Ozzie Guillen has done nothing but complain about the presence of Gordon Beckham and suggests that he get over it and allow Beckham to adjust and get comfortable in the major leagues. This is pretty much exactly what I've been saying as well. Well, except that I usually add the Guillen is a moron who should have lost his job ages ago. I know I shouldn't say such things (someone from a major newspaper might tell him...I'm quaking in my boots).

I've been watching the handling of Gordon Beckham since his recent call-up while shaking my head. First off, it seems manager Ozzie Guillen is not a big fan of Beckham's. Every time the kid's name has been mentioned throughout the year, Ozzie has never uttered a positive word publicly about him.

His only observation seems to be that everyone else in the baseball world had him overrated and if he is called up, the White Sox will be in trouble. Hate to break the news, but the White Sox ARE in trouble.

I'll admit that Gordon Beckham hasn't exactly set the world on fire since being inserted into the lineup, but that's just the way it goes. I understand that Guillen wants production, and he NEEDS production now. But the fact of the matter is that Beckham should be left in the lineup for an extended period of time so that the comfort level can sink in.

2. I knew Luke Hochevar pitched well last night but it wasn't until this morning that I realized just how well. A complete game in just 80 pitches. Something that according to Joe P has happened just a few times in the last 20 years. I've been a supporter of Hochevar even through the rough times last season and this one. I probably encouraged quite a few owners to endure his earlier spell of awfulness. But he now represents a prospect that has gotten past the hype and should be able to just perform. I think he could have a Cy Young type season as soon as the 2010 season. Wouldn't it blow your mind if in 2011 the Royals had two former Cy Young winners in their rotation?

And maybe Luke Hochevar grew up a bit on Friday night. It’s hard to tell, but for the first time in his big league career Hochevar did something really spectacular. He shut down a big league club in 80 pitches. He tied up Cincinnati Reds hitters into pretzels. And in the final inning, the big fireworks-ready crowd of 32,959 shouted “LUUUUUKE!”

3. Hochevar was not the only young starter who was dominate last night. Tim Lincecum has been a bit of a disappointment to me this season. It isn't that he has not been a very good pitcher, because he has. What bothers me is that I expected him to be clearly the best starter in baseball and he has not been. But perhaps he'll impress more in the second half.

Tim Lincecum has been spectacular, he's been dominant, but rarely has he been efficient. He was tonight. A complete game shut-out, eight strikeouts, and 110 pitches against a team that has had its offensive struggles, but the A's are no, uh, Giants. I'd also say Lincecum had his best change-up of the year. Absolutely devastating. Remember Jason Schmidt's heyday with the killer fastball/change-up combination? Lincecum's change might be better.

That's all I've got right now. Hopefully, I'll get some sleep and post more tonight.

Blogging About Your Fantasy Team Can Be Dangerous

Talking about your fantasy league research on your blog can now get you trashed on ESPN. Jerod Morris who writes under the pen name Jrod, wrote a post in which he attempted to explain Raul Ibanez's fantastic start to the season. Ibanez is on pace to hit well over .300 with 50-plus homeruns. Jrod begins his article by declaring his love for Ibanez and his pride in himself for accurately projecting him to earn a bump in his production thanks to switching from the pitcher's park that is Safeco Field to the hitter's haven that is Citizens Bank Park. It was a conclusion that many fantasy analysts had reached.

Then he shares a message he received from a league mate:

sorry, crean, but i must call bullshit on raul ibanez. you’re an objective man so i am sure you’ll love it while it lasts, but do not intend on it lasting forever. of course crazier things have been sustainable.

where have we seen this before? a recent 37th birthday is celebrated with a career year in home runs??? prior to this year ibanez has a career high of 33 home runs in one season and no other season of his 14 played with greater than 24 home runs!!! during his previous career year ibanez hit a HR roughly every 19 at bats and this year his pace is roughly every 11.

i thought they were testing???

As hundreds and even thousands of writers have done before he decides to take us with him as he conducts a little research and prove that Ibanez is simply performing the same under better conditions. He looks at park factors, the pitchers involved, the home/road splits, and even if Ibanez has a history of fast starts. Jrod is not the best or most thorough researcher but his thought process is pretty sound. Though he finds some evidence to support his ideas he feels that the evidence does not completely clear Ibanez of the speculation his friend suggested. Of course there are dozens of other angles that Morris could have used to defend Ibanez. But our blogger is far from the first to speculate about steroid use (and I'm not sure he actually did) it is pretty much a necessity if your in a fantasy league and attempting to project player performance.

Then someone tips off Ibanez that his integrity has been questioned and blames it all on this poor blogger who writes for a site called Midwest Sports Fans. This is a blog up less than a year with a Google Page Rank of 2 in the competitive Midwest sports blog nitch. It seems pretty obvious that someone at a much larger sports media company with access to Ibanez and nothing important to write, decided to have Ibanez deny steroid use and call it news. The so-called reporter in question does not have to provide evidence of steroid use he just has to blame it all on the evil blogger and he is excused.

This all leads to Jerod Morris appearing on ESPN's Outside the Lines. A show that exists to dig deeper into stories than the comedians that read from the teleprompter on Sports Center. When Morris receives an invitation to appear on the show is he supposed to refuse? I think I would have. But then most sports writers/bloggers would give an eye to be on ESPN. Personally, I don't do this to become a big media star, I'll be happy if my blog someday pays the rent. My point is that while he has to know what is coming, getting trashed on ESPN by a retard or two who probably haven't even bothered to read the article might be his idea of fun.

Now more than 200 nitwits from the ESPN message boards are trashing him in the comment section of the original post. Have they read the article? The evidence suggests not, but trash him they continue to do. They defend Ibanez from the steroid speculation with a amusing variety of subjective evidence (he's a great guy, he works really hard, Charlie Manuel is a great hitting coach...) while Raul Ibanez is talking about law suits and libel (he probably still hasn't actually read the post) and the mainstream media is once again assaulting bloggers as a group as irresponsible and inaccurate. Mainstream journalists have superior resources and a far larger audience to please. Yet aren't they even more irresponsible if they take a post written by someone they'll later call foolish and use it to create news?

Rob Neyer sums it up quite nicely:

I'm sorry, players, but you just don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. If we see something that suggests cheating, it's now fair to raise the subject. If only to knock it down. I wouldn't have raised the subject in this case, because I think Occam's Razor would suggest that Ibanez's numbers are the result of a good hitter in a good hitter's park in the weaker league having a couple of lucky months. For me, that's enough.

But I'm often reminded of that George Carlin bit, where everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac. Well, you (and Raul Ibanez) might think that Jerod Morris is a maniac. But it really just depends on how fast you're driving.

The Curious Case of Raul Ibanez: Steroid Speculation Perhaps Unfair, but Great Start in 2009 Raising Eyebrows

The Curious Case of Ken Rosenthal and John Gonzalez: Retard Speculation Perhaps Unfair, but Lecture To Blogger Raising Eyebrows

Ibanez willing to prove he's clean

Mainstream Sports Media Scared Stiff and Not Sure of Next Move

Supporting JRod: Rosenthal and Gonzalez Misguided in Their Criticisms

Is Ben Zobrist For Real?

If you have Ben Zobrist on your fantasy team, chances are you are much happier than the guy who last owned him in your league. Zobrist hit his 12th homer in just 148 at-bats after looking like merely a very good bench player in the first 400 at-bats of his career. But now the patience that he displayed in the minors is present in his major league at-bats. He has turned a good percentage of his groundballs into line drives which has resulted in a better combination of average and slugging percentage that he has ever shown at any level. His HR/FB has shown significant growth the last two years. Maybe we should have seen it coming.

His BABIP is just .311 which is much higher than his MLB average but not even close to the level he showed in the minors. He has reduced his infield flies to almost nothing by making steady progress in that area the last four years. This is an indication (as if the obvious ones were not enough) that he is making outstanding contact with the ball. He simply isn't missing the sweet spot of the bat when he makes contact this year. I haven't done much study in that area but that looks like a skill to me and not luck.

So yes, I am calling Ben Zobrist the real deal. He looks more like Chase Utley than a utility guy. Now, if he could just touch some hot bat against B.J. Upton, just a little...

Check out ESPN's Ben Zobrist Splits...

The Fantasy Baseball Roundtable Surfaces!

If you thought you missed a couple weeks of the Fantasy Baseball Roundtable, you didn't. We were caught in a brief delay that is now over. The Hardball Times are hosting this week. The question of the week is a doozy...

Is there ever a time when you 'Buy High' or 'Sell Low' on a player (interpret the meanings of those two phrases as you wish)? Choose a player who you would currently 'Sell Low' (i.e. David Ortiz, Garrett Atkins) or 'Buy High' (i.e. Michael Young, Raul Ibanez, etc.) and give us your sales pitch for that player. If, for example, you're trying to trade Ortiz, how would you market him to the other owners in your league? Finally, what is the minimum requirement you would accept in a trade for the player you selected (or the maximum you would offer in the case of a 'Buy High' player')?

It is an interesting question and Derek Carty received some great responses. Check out the article and come back here and leave your own opinion in the comments section.

The Cory Schwartz Interview

Cory Schwartz of MLB.com and host of the Fantasy 411 was kind enough to grant me a brief interview. Cory is member of The Tout Wars Expert League and one of the most popular experts in the Fantasy Sports industry. You can download his show via iTunes.

You have had quite the run of jobs that a lot of us sports fans would kill for. You worked for the New York Yankees in their Public Relations Department. You worked for the National Basketball Association as the Coordinator of Interactive Programming. Now you are the director of Statistics for MLBAM. Is this finally your dream job?

[Schwartz, Cory] As a kid I always thought it would be a great job to put together the stats and write the notes on the backs of baseball cards, so I guess I got pretty close. There’s no such thing as a perfect job, but I’m fortunate to have a job doing something enjoy and I like to think it’s a good fit for my skills as well.

I have read that you began playing Fantasy Baseball in the late 1980’s. What was your introduction to Fantasy Sports?

[Schwartz, Cory] My uncle, who is a real estate attorney in Manhattan, introduced me to fantasy baseball in the early 80’s when he asked me to review one of his teams. That put the concept into my mind and I got into my first league through one of my best friends from high school, competing against his friends from college. I did pretty poorly in those leagues in the early years and had a lot to learn, and in some ways I still do!

The Fantasy 411 Show has become extremely popular. How did the show come to be? What do you think makes it a favorite for so many people?

[Schwartz, Cory] Fantasy legends Lenny Melnick and Irwin Zwilling were the original hosts of the Fantasy 411 and I was asked to fill in a few times as a guest host. Eventually I became a regular presence on the show and gradually it evolved into a mix of people including myself, Mike Siano, Pat DePirro and Gregg Klayman, with Mike and me eventually becoming the main guys on the show. We try to make the show informative and entertaining, the type of conversation and content you would have if you were hanging around talking baseball with two of your friends. We don’t give 100% perfect advice every single time but we always explain our reasoning so hopefully people learn more about baseball from each show, regardless of how their teams are doing.

Now that the MLB Network is a reality, do you see serious Fantasy Baseball Oriented shows for the serious fan in our future? I ask because just about every effort I have seen aims at the fantasy novice. I almost died laughing this spring, when Harold Reynolds asked how a team could have two second basemen.

[Schwartz, Cory] When we were planning the season preview show we wanted to prove that the concept would work and that people would tune in for a fantasy baseball show, so that meant targeting it to a more mainstream player – you have to walk before you run! The response from the show was very positive so we hope that in time the network will find time for more fantasy-oriented programming, and I believe they will. But remember that this is their first season and they are producing live games and a live eight-hour show every night, so let’s give them some time. I’m confident more fantasy programming will appear on the network in time.

In an interview, you did last year for the old Fantasy Baseball Generals site you said that you played primarily in straight “pick ‘em” drafts. Is that by choice? What is your preferred type of fantasy league?

[Schwartz, Cory] I’ve played in all sorts of leagues but ultimately I prefer 12-to-15 team mixed league drafts, simply because those leagues best fit my strategy and how I like to build and manage a team. But I’ve done auctions, weekly leagues, keepers vs. single-season only, and enjoy them all… I like to compete regardless of the format.

What is your general approach in fantasy leagues? Do you have a strategy that you stick to in every league?

[Schwartz, Cory] My basic strategy is always to discount starting pitching, emphasize bullpen depth, and position/category scarcity on offense. However, you have to tailor the format to the league to a certain extent… NFBC, for example, is a 15-team weekly league with a 7-man bench, so it’s impossible to compete without a reasonable amount of starting pitching depth.

It turns out that Lenny Melnick (who beat you out as the Internet’s Favorite Fantasy Baseball Expert) has no juice and cannot get me into Tout Wars. Can you? And more importantly, when are you going to win Tout Wars?

[Schwartz, Cory] I finished in third in NL Tout Wars in my first season but I haven’t come close since… I haven’t done a good job following my auction plan so I tend to come out with very imbalanced, flawed teams. However, to be fair to myself, Tout Wars features some of the genuine experts in the industry so I’m not ashamed to get my butt kicked by the likes of Lenny Melnick, Jason Grey, Lawr Michaels, Ron Shandler, Mike Lombardo, Jason Collette… the list goes on. If I keep stinking it up though they might be looking for some new talent and you might get a shot!

Anne Hathaway over Megan Fox? Really?

[Schwartz, Cory] I stand by that. Anne Hathaway made the Princess Diaries watchable. That says it all.

Hamilton Scheduled For Surgery on Ab Tear

Bad news for Josh Hamilton owners, a group of which I am an enthusiastic member.

From the Newberg Report:

The Rangers have just announced that Josh Hamilton will have surgery tomorrow morning to repair his abdominal tear and is expected to miss another four-to-six weeks before a return to the big league squad.

In many leagues Hamilton owners will be just plain screwed. In my AL-only league I am seriously considering trading my nicely priced Hamilton to a re-building team if I can get equal value. But I won't sell Hamilton low. I still believe in his potential. When healthy he should be among the best players in the American League. I've been in contention this long without him I won't panic now.

UPDATE: Now it appears that the Rangers will be without the rapidly improving Brandon McCarthy as well.

Sigh. Per local reports, pitcher Brandon McCarthy has a stress fracture in his right shoulder and won't touch a ball for several weeks. Tomorrow's starter is expected to be Doug Mathis.

Five Fantasy Blogs You Should Be Reading

Last week the Poll Question of the Week was "What is your favorite source of fantasy information" and the overwhelming favorite source was Fantasy Baseball Blogs. Maybe this was to be expected coming from a poll based on a fantasy baseball blog, but I still found it interesting. There are hundreds if not thousands of fantasy baseball blogs of various degrees of quality. There is a long list of them in the blog roll in the sidebar to your right. There are actually lots of interesting things in the sidebar of this blog aside from advertisements. You can find links to all sorts of great information that aren't just fantasy based. I've been slowly building a list of the best MLB team blogs. You can catch up on my twitter comments and check out the RotoWorld.com widget. I also share HUNDREDS of articles every month through my Google Reader that could provide you with valuable information in your fantasy leagues. But I want to personally introduce you to five blogs that I love reading and I'm betting you will too. Please note these are not even close to all the blogs I read on a regular basis but an article that listed them all would have to list hundreds.

Baseball By Paul by Paul Sporer

Paul is a writer for FanBall.com's Owner's Edge and a frequent poster on the RotoJunkie Fantasy Forums in addition to his long running baseball blog. His last two articles helped inspire this article. If you aren't reading Paul on a regular basis read Roy Halladay: The Complete Picture and Patience is a Virtue and you will be hooked. His articles are very well written and occassionally statistically oriented. He is a big believer in examining the evidence and not making subjective decisions.

RotoProfessor by Eric Stashin (the Prof)

Eric is very good at breaking down players to get at what makes them tick (or not). With rare days off you'll get Eric's look at the daily boxscores where you are certain to hear about any pressing news or new situations for your fantasy players. But the best aspect of this site are the player breakdowns. I don't always agree with his conclusions, but that isn't as important to me as getting a studied second opinion on a player. Check out his recent look at the de-powered David Wright. I agree that there is more going on with Wright than just the new ballpark but unlike Eric I also believe that the park is having a significant impact.

The Jason Collette Blog by Jason Collette

Jason is another veteran of the RotoJunkie Forums (in fact he runs them now). He is an associate editor over at FanBall.com and a contributor to the Owner's Edge series. Jason used to write tons about minor league prospects which I loved but he's slowed on that angle in favor of others. Jason's blog tends to get at the questions lots of fantasy owners have about trading, using FAAB, farm systems and the waiver wire to better your team. Check out his top post today about Trade Vetoes.

The RotoExperts.com Staff Blog by RotoExperts.com Staff

The RotoExperts.com staff has a deep collection of great writers. The blog can be a little chaotic at times with several different writers chiming in on it. But the information is top notch and covers a wide gamut of topics. I used to write over there and I still love those guys so maybe I'm biased. But good is good and their blogs are good. They also have equally good staff blogs for Football and Basketball. Check out Jonathan Phillip's Letter to Frank Wren for some quality writing.

Razzball by Grey and Rudy

This may be the blog that I least needed to list, seeing as everybody who reads this blog already seems to read that one. But I'm doing it anyway for those that just don't know. These guys are funny and knowledgable. This is a rare combination in the Fantasy Industry. Everyone thinks that they're funny but they try too hard. Razzball isn't a blog full of jokes. It is like meeting your favorite experts at the bar and talking shop. They tend to list lots of players with lots of opinions. Sometimes they write mean things about Sidney Ponson and Livan Hernandez but that's part of the charm. But what I like most is the loyal community thay have over there. If this blog ever develops as large a loyal audience (and I think it will) I'll be a jolly jolly fat guy.