The Fantasy baseball Generals A blog dedicated to illuminating the core theories and strategies of fantasy baseball. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 4 2708

Articles from The Fantasy baseball Generals

Did Thomas Bayes prove that Bonds' Performance was Actually Enhanced by Steroids?? 2007-08-24 01:45:00 Some thoughts on Barry Bonds' and the alleged lack of proof of PED use. When I was playing serious poker, my required reading list included the works of David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. Sklansky first opened my eyes to the use of my math background and MIT education to gambling. Sklansky's writing inspired this article. But it isn't about poker. Sklansky came up with an idea for the use of ...

The Trade Pipeline Between Collusive Traders--More Evidence of Cheating? 2007-08-22 08:50:00 It comes as no surprise that the collusive traders discussed in my prior article had a trade pipeline. This collusive trade was just the beginning. One item that became apparent in the aftermath of the collusive trade addressed previously was the continuation of a two year trade pipeline between two good friends. The problems this year were a continuation of last year. Last year they weren't as ...

Some Guest Commentary on the Marcum/Wilkerson Trade 2007-08-22 07:53:00 The owner who swindled me in the Marcum/Wilkerson trade asked me to post his thoughts. So here they are, with a few editorial notes. Being the erstwhile owner of the 'Bad' Wilkerson party, I thought it be would interesting to provide some color on the aforementioned trade. At the time of the proposal, I was in dire need of pitching as I only had Bedard, Burnett, Schilling and Loewen as my ...

A Baseball Smackdown--Ensberg vs. Kouzmanoff 2007-08-22 06:04:00 A baseball smackdown in real life, as the Padres pit Ensberg against Kouzmanoff. I thought this was an interesting trade, and was a big supporter. So were the guys at Ducksnorts, an excellent Padres blog. I don't have time to read tons of team specific blogs, so I have to pick and choose. I think it is the best of the Padres blogs, so if you are a Padres fan check it out. Here we have two ... Baseball

Jeremy Guthrie and Shaun Marcum--Which do You Trade? 2007-08-21 08:30:00 I had both players at one point, and traded one for Brad Wilkerson. Here is a look at these two surprising pitchers. Talk about trading lemons and cherries. Earlier this year due to two free agent acquisitions I found myself with both Jeremy Guthrie and Shaun Marcum. Certainly this was a happy problem. I felt that my AL offense still needed beefing up, but didn't have any real desire for a big ...

Link to Latest Hardball Times Column 2007-08-21 08:25:00 Here it is. ...

Is it Cheating? Some Very Shady Dealings in the High Stakes League. 2007-08-20 05:15:00 Continuing my series on some of the trading principles and issues from my high stakes league, the next trade by two teams literally set off an avalanche that threatens the league's future. There will be a few posts on the various shady deals So, after my last deal, the comings and going on my roster looked like this: Gone: Stephen Drew, Tim Lincecum, Brian McCann, BJ Upton, Zack Greinke, ...

John Maine and Jeremy Bonderman 2007-08-16 08:46:00 Both have had some recent ups and downs, to put it mildly. Here is what is going on. John Maine In the last month Maine has an ERA over 6 and a 1.32 WHIP. What is going on? First let's look at his overall season totals: 13-7 3.59 ERA 1.20 WHIP 26% hit rate 75% strand rate 7.8 K/9IP 3.4 BB/9IP This is a very good season, however one that is certainly the result of good fortune. Maine, in 153 IP ...

How Good Would Phil Rizzuto Have Been in Fantasy Baseball? 2007-08-16 08:04:00 Phil was an MVP but how good would he have been for fantasy players? On the MLB.com Fantasy 411 podcast, Cory Schwartz and Joe Sheehan were discussing Rizzuto and how good he would have been. They thought that he would have been similar to David Eckstein. There is an easy way to at least get an estimate of his fantasy value; all that needs to be done is to apply a head to head league point ... Baseball

Using the Doomsday Argument to Predict The Future Lifespan of the Major Leagues 2007-08-15 13:06:00 There is a famous conjecture called the Doomsday Argument, which will be discussed below. It can be used to predict the future remaining existence of the Major Leagues. Here's how. Before reading, come up with an off the cuff estimate for how long you think Major League Baseball will last. Think of it in terms of if you were betting, and you wanted to know how many years it had left, so that ...

The Strange Case of Scott Kazmir--Solved by Tampa's Terrible Defense?? 2007-08-15 08:58:00 There are some interesting anomalies in the case of Scott Kazmir. How can these be interpreted? A friend and reader of the blog asked me about his keeper list, and one name he brought up was Scott Kazmir. I took a look at Kazmir's overall record and found something quite surprising. Regular readers know that for the garden variety starting pitcher their hit rates and strand rates will generally ...

Following up on Matt Cain 2007-08-14 13:19:00 Previously Matt wrote about Matt Cain, and what has gone wrong. Since then have things gotten better or worse?? In a prior post, Matt wrote about Matt Cain's slide this year. Yesterday, his name came up on MLB.com's Fantasy 411 podcast, and then last night he had the misfortune to pitch against Paul Maholm, who I thankfully had active in a head-to-head league. At the time Matt wrote his post ...

Link to My Latest Hardball Times Column 2007-08-14 09:32:00 Here is the link. ...

Managing Risk in Trading--Trade Three In The High Stakes League 2007-08-13 00:16:00 Continuing the series on the various trades from my high stakes league. After the first two trades, the next critical juncture for me was the loss of Salomon Torres. At the time the saves race was very close in the NL portion of the league. It still is. In a prior post I touched on the trade I made in response to the loss of Torres, so I won't repeat it here, but feel free to click on the link. ...

Jeremy's Tackles Baseball's Biggest Developments. Not Barry or Alex, but Joba... 2007-08-10 06:32:00 Jeremy takes on baseball's current events, and the Yankees call-up of Joba Chamberlain. So I had a whole different plan for today’s column, but recent historic baseball events have prompted me to scrap that idea and address the importance of this occurrence. I speak of course of Joba the Hutt joining the Yankee bullpen. Of course not, although I will address that later on. And yes, he will ... Baseball